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 A LIFE'S MOENING 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 A LIFE'S MOENING 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE GISSING 
 
 AUTHOE OF 'DEMOS" 'THYEZA* ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, c^ CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1888 
 
 lAll riyhti reserved}
 
 91^ 
 
 /V.I 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME, 
 
 a 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 I. 
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 
 
 1 
 
 
 II. 
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 
 
 . . 51 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 •n 
 
 d 
 
 III. 
 
 LYRICAL 
 
 92 
 
 ^ 
 
 IV. 
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 
 
 . . 141 
 
 i 
 
 y. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 
 
 . 171 
 
 ^' 
 
 VI. 
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS . 
 
 . . 231 
 
 ^ 
 
 VII. 
 
 ON THE LEVELS 
 
 269 
 
 '^ 
 
 

 
 A LIFE'S MOENING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AX UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE. 
 
 Wilfrid Athel went down invalided a few 
 days after the beginning of Trinity term. 
 The event was not unanticipated. At 
 Christmas it had been clear enough that he 
 was overtaxing himself ; his father remarked 
 on the fact with anxiety, and urged mode- 
 ration, his own peculiar virtue. Wilfrid, 
 whose battle with circumstances was all 
 before him, declined to believe that the body 
 was anything but the very humble servant 
 of the will. So the body took its revenge. 
 vol. I. B
 
 2 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 He had been delicate in childhood, and 
 the stage of hardy naturalism which inter- 
 poses itself between tender juvenility and 
 the birth of self- consciousness did not in his 
 case last long enough to establish his frame 
 in the vigour to which it was tending. 
 There was nothing sickly about him ; it was 
 only an excess of nervous vitality that would 
 not allow body to keep pace with mind. He 
 was a boy to be, intellectually, held in leash, 
 said the doctors. But that was easier said 
 than done. What system of sedatives could 
 one apply to a youngster whose imagination 
 wrought him to a fever during a simple walk 
 by the seashore, who if books were forcibly 
 withheld consoled himself with the com- 
 position of five-act tragedies, interspersed 
 with lyrics to which he supplied original 
 strains ? Mr. Athel conceived a theory that 
 such exuberance of emotionality might be 
 counterbalanced by studies of a strictly
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 3 
 
 positive nature ; a tutor was engaged to 
 ground young Wilfrid in mathematics and 
 the physical sciences. The result was that 
 the tutor's enthusiasm for these pursuits 
 communicate 1 itself after a brief repugnance 
 to the versatile pupil ; instincts of mastery 
 became as vivid in the study of Euclid and 
 the chemical elements as formerly in the 
 huinaner paths of learning ; the plan had 
 failed. In the upsliot Wilfrid was sent to 
 school ; if that did not develop the animal in 
 him, nothing would. 
 
 He was not quite three-and-twenty when 
 the break-down removed him from <Jxford. 
 Going to Balliol with a scholarship, he had 
 from the first been marked for great things, 
 at all events by the measure of the schools. 
 Iiemoval from the system of home education 
 had in truth seemed to answer in some 
 degree the ends aimed at ; the had took his 
 fair share of cricket and football, and ke[it 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A LIFE-'S MORNING 
 
 clear of nervous crises. At the same time he 
 made extraordinary progress with his books. 
 He acquired with extreme facility, and his 
 ambition never allowed him to find content 
 in a second place ; conquest became his 
 habit ; he grew to deem it the order of 
 nature that Wilfrid Athel's name should come 
 first in the list. Hence a reputation to support. 
 During his early terms at Balliol he fagged 
 as hard as the mere dullard whose dear life 
 depended upon a first class and a subsequent 
 tutorship. What he would make of himself 
 in the end was uncertain ; university dis- 
 tinctions w^ould probably be of small moment 
 to him as soon as they were achieved, for 
 already he spent the greater portion of his 
 strength in lines of study quite apart from 
 the curriculum, and fate had blessed him 
 with exemption from sordid cares. He led 
 in a set devoted to what were called ad- 
 vanced ideas ; without flattering himself that
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 5 
 
 he was on the way to solve the joroblem of 
 the universe, he had satisfaction in reviewing- 
 the milestones which removed him from the 
 unconscious man. and already clutched at a 
 measure of positive wisdom in the suspicion 
 that he might shortly have to lay aside his 
 school-books and recommence his education 
 under other teachers. As yet he was whole- 
 hearted in the pursuit of learning. The 
 intellectual audacity which was wont to be 
 the key-note of his conversation did not, as 
 his detractors held, indicate mere bumptious- 
 ness and defect of self-measurement ; it was 
 gimply the florid redundancy of a young 
 mind which glories in its strength, and plays 
 at \Tictory in anticipation. It was true that 
 he could not brook the semblance of in- 
 feriority ; if it were only five minutes' chat 
 in the Quad, he must come off with a 
 phrase or an epigram ; so those duller heads 
 who called Athel affected were not wholly
 
 6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 without their justification. Those who 
 shruc:o;ed their shoulders with the remark 
 that he was overdoing it, and would not last 
 out to the end of the race, enjoyed a more 
 indisputable triumph. One evening, when 
 Athel was taking the brilliant lead in an 
 argument on ' Fate, free-will, foreknowledge 
 absolute,' his bram began to whirl, tobacco- 
 smoke seemed to have dulled all the lights 
 before his eyes, and he fell from his chair in 
 a fainting-fit. 
 
 He needed nothing but rest ; that, how- 
 ever, was imperative. Mr. Athel brought him 
 to London, and the family went down at once 
 to their house in Surrey. Wilfrid was an 
 only son and an only child. His father had 
 been a widower for nearly ten years ; for the 
 last three his house had been directed by a 
 widowed sister, Mrs. Kossall, who had twin 
 girls. Mr. Athel found it no particular hard- 
 ship to get away from town and pursue his
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 7 
 
 work at The Firs, a delightful house in the 
 midst of Surrey's fairest scenery, nor would 
 Mrs. Ptossall allow that the surrender of high 
 season cost her any effort. This lady had 
 just conjpleted her thirty-second year ; her 
 girls were in their tenth. She was comely 
 and knew it, but a constitutional indolence 
 had preserved her from becoming a woman 
 of fashion, and had nurtured in her a re- 
 flective mood, which, if it led to no marked 
 originality of thought, at all events con- 
 tributed to an appearance of culture. At 
 the time of her husband's death she was at 
 the point where graceful inactivity so often 
 degenerates into slovenliness. Mrs. Rossall's 
 homekeeping tendencies and the growing 
 childhood of her twins tended to persuade 
 her that her youth was gone ; even the new 
 spring fashions stirred her to but languid 
 interest, and her music, in which she had 
 some attainments, was all but laid aside.
 
 8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 With widowhood began a new phase of her 
 life. Her mourning was unaffected ; it led 
 her to pietism ; she spent her days in 
 religious observance, and her nights in the 
 study of the gravest literature. She would 
 have entered the Roman Church but for her 
 brother's interposition. The end of this 
 third year of discipline was bringing about 
 another change, jDcrhaps less obvious to her- 
 self than to those who marked her course 
 with interest as several people did. Her 
 reading became less ascetic, she passed to 
 George Herbert and the ' Christian Year,' and 
 by way of the decoration of altars proceeded 
 to thought for her personal adornment. A 
 certain journal of society which she had 
 long ago abandoned began to show itself 
 occasionally in her rooms, though only as 
 yet by oversight left to view. She spoke 
 with her brother on the subject of certain 
 invitations, long neglected, and did not seem
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 9 
 
 displeased when he went beyond her own 
 motion to propose the issuing of cards for 
 a definite eveninor. Then came AVilfrid's 
 break-down. There was really no need, said 
 Mr. Athel. that she should transfer herself 
 immediately to the country, jast when every- 
 body was well settled in town. But Mrs. 
 Rossall preferred to go ; she was not sure 
 that the juncture had not some connection 
 with her own spiritual life. And she main- 
 tained, on the whole, a seemly cheerfulness. 
 
 Mr. Athel was an Egyptologist of some 
 distinction. Though not in person or 
 manner suggestive of romantic antecedents, 
 he had yet come by this taste in a way 
 which bordered on romance. Travellinsf in 
 Southern Europe at about the age which 
 Wilfrid had now reached, he had the good 
 fortune to rescue from drowning an Italian 
 gentleman then on a tour in Greece. The 
 Italian had a fair daughter, who was travel-
 
 lo A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ling with liim, and her, after an acquaintance 
 of a few weeks, Athel demanded by way of 
 recompense. Her father was an enthusi- 
 astic student c f Egyptian antiquities ; the 
 Englishman plied at one and the same time 
 his wooing and the study of hieroglyphics, 
 with marked success in both directions. The 
 Mr. Athel who at that time represented 
 parental authority, or at all events claimed 
 filial deference, was anything but pleased 
 with the step his son had taken ; he was a 
 highly respectable dealer in grain, and, after 
 the manner of highly respectable men of com- 
 merce, would have had his eldest son espouse 
 some country w^om an yet more respectable. 
 It was his opinion that the lad had been 
 entrapped by an adventurous foreigner. 
 Philip Athel, who had a will of his own, 
 wedded his Italian maiden, brought her to 
 England, and fought down prejudices. A 
 year or two later he was at work in Egypt,
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE ii 
 
 where he remained for some twelve months ; 
 his studies progressed. Subsequently he pub- 
 lished certain papers which were recognised 
 as valuable. Wilfrid found the amusement 
 of his childhood in his father's pursuit ; he 
 began to decipher hieratic not much later 
 than he learned to read Enoflish. Scarabs 
 were his sacred playthings, and by the time 
 of his o^oino^ to school he was able to write 
 letters home in a demotic which would not 
 perhaps have satisfied Champollionor Brugsch, 
 but yet was sufficiently marvellous to 
 his schoolfellows and gratifying to his 
 father. 
 
 For the rest Philip Athel was a typical 
 English gentleman. He enjoyed out-of-door 
 sports as keenly as he did the pursuit of his 
 study ; he had scarcely known a day's ill- 
 ness in his life, owing, he maintained, to 
 the wisdom with which he arranged his day. 
 Three hours of study was, he held, as much
 
 12 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 as any prudent man would allow himself. 
 He w\as always in excellent spirits, ever ready- 
 to be of service to a friend, lived with much 
 moderation on victuals of the best quality 
 procurable, took his autumnal holiday abroad 
 in a gentlemanly manner. With something 
 of theoretic radicalism in his political views, 
 he combined a stout respect for British social 
 institutions ; affecting to be above vulgar pre- 
 judices, he was in reality much prepossessed 
 in favour of hereditary position, and as time 
 went on did occasionally half wdsh that the 
 love he had bestowed on his Italian wife had 
 been given to some English lady of ' good ' 
 family. He was liberal, frank, amiably auto- 
 cratic in his home, apt to be peppery with in- 
 feriors who missed the line of perfect respect, 
 candid and reasonable with equals or superiors. 
 For his boy he reserved a store of manly 
 affection, seldom expressing itself save in bluif 
 fashion ; his sister he patronised with much
 
 AN UXDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 13 
 
 kindness, though he despised her judgment. 
 One had now and then a feeling that his 
 material circumstances aided greatly in making 
 him the genial man he was. tliat with beef 
 and claret of inferior quality he might not 
 have been altogether so easy to get along with. 
 But that again was an illustration of the 
 English character. 
 
 We find the family assembling for break- 
 fast at The Firs one delio^htful mornino; at the 
 end of July. The windows of the room were 
 thrown open, and there streamed in with the 
 sunlight fresh and delicious odours, tonics 
 alike of mind and body. From the Scotch 
 firs whence the dwelling took its name came 
 a scent which mingled with wafted breath from 
 the remoter heather, and the creepers about 
 the house-front, the lovely bloom and leafage 
 skirting the lawn, contributed to the atmo- 
 sphere of health and joy. It was nine o'clock. 
 The urn was on the gleaming table, the bell
 
 14 A LIFE'S MORXJNG 
 
 was sounding. Mr. Athel stepped in straight 
 from the lawn, fresh after his ten minutes' 
 walk about the garden. Wilfrid Athel ap- 
 peared at the same moment ; he was dark- 
 complexioned and had black, glossy hair ; his 
 cheeks were hollower than they should have 
 been, but he had not the aspect of an invalid. 
 Mrs. R OS sail glided into the room behind him, 
 fresh, fair, undemonstrative. Then came the 
 twins, by name Patty and Minnie, delicate, 
 with promise of their mother's English style 
 of beauty ; it was very hard to distinguish 
 them, their uncle had honestly given up the 
 pretence long ago, and occasionally remon- 
 strated with his sister on the absurdity of 
 dressing them exactly alike. The last to 
 enter the room was the governess, Miss 
 Emily Hood. 
 
 Mr. Athel, havmg pronounced a grace, 
 mentioned that he thought of running up 
 to town ; did anybody wish to give him a
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 15 
 
 commission ? ]\Irs. Rossall looked thought- 
 ful, and said she would make a note of two or 
 three things. 
 
 ' I haven't much faith in that porridge 
 regimen, AVilf,' remarked the master of the 
 house, as he helped himself to chicken and 
 tono^ue. ^ We are not Hio'hlanders. It's 
 dangerous to make diet too much a matter 
 of theory. Your example is infectious ; first 
 the twins ; now Miss Hood. Edith, do you 
 propose to become a pervert to porridge ? ' 
 
 ' I have no taste for it,' replied his sister, 
 who had become absent-minded. 
 
 ' There's a certain dishonesty about it, 
 moreover,' Mr. Athel pursued. * Porridge 
 should be eaten with salt. Milk and sugar 
 — didn't I hear a suggestion of golden syrup, 
 more honestly called treacle, yesterday ? 
 These things constitute evasion, self-deception 
 at the least. In your case, Miss Hood, the 
 regimen is clearly fruitfid of ill results.'
 
 1 6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ^ Of what kind, Mr. Athel?' 
 
 * Obviously it leads to diminution of 
 appetite. You were in the habit of eating a 
 satisfactory breakfast; at present some two 
 ounces of that farinaceous mess ' 
 
 * My dear Philip ! ' interposed Mrs. Rossall, 
 still absently. 
 
 ^ I hold that I am within my rights,' 
 asserted her brother. ' If Miss Hood goes 
 down into Yorkshire in a state of emacia- 
 tion ' 
 
 Wilfrid and the twins showed amusement. 
 
 ^ To begin with,' pursued Mr. Athel, ^ I 
 hold that sweet food the first thino; in the 
 morning is a mistake : the appetite is checked 
 in an artificial way, and impau^ed. Even 
 coff*ee ' 
 
 ^ You would recommend a return . to 
 flagons of ale ? ' suggested Wilfrid. 
 
 ' I am not sure that it wasn't better, 
 dietetically.'
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 17 
 
 Mrs. Rossallliad taken an ^gg^ but, after 
 fruitlessly chipping at the shell throughout 
 this conversation, put down her spoon and 
 appeared to abandon the effort to commence 
 her meal. Presently she broke silence, speak- 
 ing with some diffidence. 
 
 ' I really think I will go to town with you, 
 Philip,' she said. ' I want some things you 
 can't very well get me, and then I ought 
 to go and see the Redwings. I might per- 
 suade Beatrice to come to us for a day or 
 two.' 
 
 ^ Do so by all means. You're quite sure,' 
 he added with a smile, ' that I couldn't save 
 you the trouble of the journey ? I have no 
 objection to visiting the Redwings.' 
 
 ' I think it will be better if I go myself,' 
 replied Mrs. Rossall, with a far-off look. ' I 
 might call on one or two otlier people.' 
 
 Having decided this point, she found 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
 aS
 
 1 8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 herself able to crack the ^gg. The anticipation 
 of her day m London made her quite gay 
 throughout the meaL 
 
 The carriage was at the door by ten 
 o'clock, to drive to Dealing, the nearest 
 station, some four miles away. The twins 
 had gone upstairs with Miss Hood to their 
 lessons, and Wilfrid was sauntering about the 
 hall. His father paused by him on the way 
 to the carriage. 
 
 ' What do you propose to do with yourself, 
 Wilf ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Ride, I think.' 
 
 ^ Do. Go over to Hilstead and lunch 
 there. Capital lunch they give you at the 
 inn ; the last time I was there they cooked 
 me one of the best chops I ever ate. Oberon 
 wants exercise ; make a day of it.' 
 
 'Very well.' 
 
 ' You're not looking quite so well, I'm 
 afraid,' remarked his father, with genuine
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 19 
 
 solicitude in his tone. ' Haven't been reading, 
 have you ? ^ 
 
 'No.' 
 
 * No imprudences, mind. I must stop 
 that porridge regimen ; it doesn't suit you. 
 Ready, Edith ? ' he shouted heartily at the 
 foot of the stairs. 
 
 Mrs. Rossall came down, buttoning her 
 
 gloves. 
 
 'If I were you, Wilf,' she said, 'I'd go 
 off somewhere for the day. The twins will 
 only worry you.' 
 
 Wilfrid laughed. 
 
 ' I am going to eat unexampled chops at 
 the "Waggoner" in Hilstead,' he replied. 
 
 ' That's right. Good-bye, my dear boy. 
 I wish you'd get fatter.' 
 
 'Pooh, I'm all right.' 
 
 The landau rolled away. Wilfrid still 
 loitered in the hall, a singular look of doubt 
 on his face. In a room above one of the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 twins was having a music lesson ; a certain 
 iinger-exercise was being drummed with per- 
 sistent endeavour at accuracy. 
 
 ' How can she bear that morning after 
 morning ? ' the young man murmured to 
 himself. 
 
 He took his straw hat and went round 
 to the stables. Oberon was being groomed. 
 AVilfrid patted the horse's sleek neck, and 
 talked a little with the man. At length he 
 made up his mind to go and prepare for 
 riding ; Oberon would be ready for him in a 
 few minutes. 
 
 In the porch Patty ran to meet him. 
 
 ' Truant ! ' Wilfrid exclaimed. ' Have I 
 caught you in tlic act of escape ? ' 
 
 'I war. going to look for you,' said the 
 child, putting her arm through his and 
 swinging upon hhn. ' We want to know if 
 vou'll be back for lunch.' 
 
 ' Who wants to know ? '
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 
 
 ' I and Minnie and Miss Hood.' 
 
 ' 0, you are Patty, then, are you ?' 
 
 This was an old form of joke. The child 
 shook her dark curls with a half- annoyed 
 gesture, but still swung on her cousin as he 
 moved mto the house. AVilfrid passed his 
 arm about her playfully. 
 
 ' Can't you make up your mind, Wilf ? ' 
 she asked. 
 
 ' yes, my mind is quite made up,' he 
 replied, with a laugh. 
 
 ' And won't you tell me ? ' 
 
 ' Tell you ? Ah, about lunch. Xo, I 
 shall not be back.' 
 
 ' You won't ? 0, I am sorry.' 
 
 ' Why are you sorry, indistinguishable 
 little maiden ? ' he asked, drawing out one of 
 her curls between his fino^ers, and lettins" it 
 spring back again into its circling beauty. 
 
 ' We thought it would be so nice, we four 
 at lunch.'
 
 22 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' I am warned to avoid you. The tone of 
 conversation would try my weak head ; I am 
 not capable yet of intellectual effort.' 
 
 The little girl looked at him with puzzled 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Well, it can't be helped/ she said. ' I 
 must go back to my lessons.' 
 
 She ran off. and Wilfrid went up to his 
 dressmo^-room. When he came down, Oberon 
 was pawing the gravel before the door. He 
 mounted and rode away. 
 
 His spirits, which at first seemed to suffer 
 some depression, took vigour once more from 
 the air of the downs. He put Oberon at a 
 leap or two, then let the breeze sing in his 
 ears as he was borne at a gallop over the 
 summer land, golden with sunlight. In spite 
 of his still worn look, health was manifest in 
 the upright vigour of his form, and in his 
 eyes gleamed the untroubled joy of existence. 
 Hope just now was strong within him, a hope
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 23 
 
 defined and pointing to an end attainable ; 
 he knew that henceforth the many bounding 
 and voiceful streams of his life would unite in 
 one strong flow onward to a region of orient 
 glory which shone before him as the bourne 
 hitherto but dimly imagined. On, Oberon, 
 on ! Xo speed that would not lag behind 
 the fore-flight of a heart's desire. Let the 
 stretch of green- shadowing woodland sweep 
 by Hke a dream ; let the fair, sweet meadow - 
 sides smile for a moment and vanish ; let the 
 dark hill-summits rise and sink. It is the 
 time of youth and hope, of boundless faith in 
 the world's promises, of breathless pursuit. 
 
 Hilstead was orained lono; before lunch 
 could be thought of. Wilfred rode on, and 
 circled back towards the hostelry famous for 
 chops about the hour of noon. He put up 
 his horse, and strayed about the village till 
 his meal was ready ; after he had eaten it he 
 smoked a cigar among hollyhocks and sun-
 
 24 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 flowers. Then impatience possessed him. 
 He looked at his watch several times, annoyed 
 to find that so little of the day Avas spent. 
 When he at last set forth again, it was to 
 ride at walking pace in the direction of home. 
 He reached a junction of roads, and waited 
 there for several minutes, unable to decide 
 upon his course. He ended by throwing the 
 reins on Oberon's neck. 
 
 ^ Go Avhich way you will,' he said aloud. 
 
 Oberon paced forward to the homeward 
 route. 
 
 ^ So be it. On, then ! An hour will 
 bring us to The Firs.' 
 
 The house was all but reached, when 
 WilMd caught a glimpse of a straw hat 
 moving into a heath- clad hollow a hundred 
 yards from the road. He pressed on. At 
 the gate stood a gardener. 
 
 * James,' he cried, leaping down, ' take the 
 horse to the stable, will you ? '
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 25 
 
 And, instead of going up to the house, he 
 walked back m the direction he had come till 
 he reached the hollow in which the straw 
 hat had disappeared. Miss Hood sat on the 
 ground, reading. She was about to rise, but 
 Wilfrid beofwd her not to move, and threw 
 himself into a reclining posture. 
 
 ' I saw you as I rode past,' he said, in 
 a friendly way. ' I suppose the twins are 
 straying ? ' 
 
 * They are at Greenhaws,' was the reply. 
 ^ Mrs. Winter called for them immediately 
 after lunch. She will bring them back early 
 in the evening.' 
 
 ^Ah!' 
 
 He plucked sprigs of heather. Miss 
 Hood turned to her book. 
 
 ^ I've had a magnificent ride,' Wilfrid 
 began again. ' Surely there is no country 
 in England so glorious as this. Don't you 
 enjoy it ? '
 
 26 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' Very much.' 
 
 ^ I have never seen the Yorkshire moors. 
 The scenery, of course, is of a much wilder 
 kind?' 
 
 ' I have not seen them myself,' said the 
 o^overness. 
 
 ' I thought you might have taken your 
 holidays sometimes in that direction.' 
 
 ' No. We used to go to a seaside place 
 in Lincolnshire called Cleethorpes. I sup- 
 pose you never heard of it? ' 
 
 ' I think not.' 
 
 Wilfrid continued to pluck heather and 
 let his eyes catch a glimpse of her face now 
 and then. Miss Hood was a year younger 
 than himself, and had well outgrown girlish- 
 ness. She was of very slight build, looked 
 indeed rather frail ; but her face, though 
 lacking colour, had the firmness of health. 
 It was very broad at the forehead, and 
 tapered down into narrowness ; the eyes
 
 AN UXDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 27 
 
 seemed set at an iinnsiial distance from each 
 other, thoiiD'h the nose was thin and of 
 perfect form, its profile making but a shght 
 ancde awav from the line of the brows. Her 
 lips were large, but finely curved ; the chin 
 was prominent, the throat long. She had 
 warm brown hair. 
 
 Few would at first sight have called 
 her face beautiful, but none could deny the 
 beauty of her hands. Ungloved at present, 
 they lay on the open pages of the book, un- 
 surpassable for delicate loveliness. When he 
 did not venture to look higher, "Wilfrid let his 
 eyes feed on the turn of the wrist, the faint 
 blue lines and sinuous muscles, the pencillirg 
 about the finger joints, the delicate white and 
 pink nails. 
 
 Miss Hood was habitually silent when in 
 the company of others than the children. 
 When she replied to a question it was with- 
 out tinndity, but in few well-chosen words.
 
 28 A LIFE S MORNING 
 
 Yet her manner did not lack cheerfulness ; 
 she impressed no one as being unhappy, and 
 alone with the twins she was often gay- 
 enough. She was self-possessed, and had the 
 manners of a lady, though m her position this 
 was rather to be observed m what she re- 
 frained from doing than in what she did. 
 Wilfrid had, on first meeting her, remarked to 
 himself that it must imply a certain force of 
 individuality to vary so distinctly from the 
 commonplace even under the disadvantage of 
 complete self-suppression ; he had now come 
 to understand better the way in which that 
 individuality betrayed itself. 
 
 ' Shall you go to Cleethorpes this year ? ' 
 was his next question. 
 
 ' I think not. I shall most likely pass 
 the holidays at home.' 
 
 * And study electricity ? ' 
 
 In a former conversation she had sur- 
 prised him by some unexpected knowledge of
 
 A.V UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 29 
 
 the principles of electricity, and explained the 
 acquirement by telling him that this subject 
 was her father's favourite study. Wilfrid j^ut 
 the question now with a smile. 
 
 * Yes, very likely,' she replied, smiling 
 also, but faintly. ' It gives my father pleasure 
 when I do so.' 
 
 ' You have not a keen interest in the 
 subject yourself ? ' 
 
 ' I try to have.' 
 
 Her voice was of singular quality ; if she 
 raised it the effect was not agreeable, owing 
 possibly to its lack of strength, but in low 
 tones, such as she employed at present, it fell 
 on the ear with a peculiar sweetness, a natural 
 melody in its modulation. 
 
 ' The way in which you speak of your 
 father interests me,' said AVilfrid, leaning liis 
 chin upon his hand, and gazing at her freely. 
 ' You seem so united with him in sympathy.'
 
 30 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 She did not turn her eyes to him, but her 
 face gathered brightness. 
 
 ' In sympathy, yes,' she replied, speaking 
 now with more readiness. ' Our tastes often 
 differ, but we are always at one in feeling. 
 We have been companions ever since I can 
 remember.' 
 
 ' Is your mother living ? ' 
 ^ Yes.' 
 
 Something in the tone of the brief affirma- 
 tive kept Wilfrid from further questioning. 
 
 'I wonder,' he said, 'what you think of 
 the relations existing between myself and my 
 father. We are excellent friends, don't you 
 think ? Strange — one doesn't think much 
 about such things till some occasion brings 
 them forward. Whether there is deep sym- 
 pathy between us, I couldn't say. Certainly 
 there are many subjects on which I should 
 not dream of speaking to him unless necessity 
 arose ; partly, I suppose, that is male reserve,
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 31 
 
 and partly English reserve. If novels are to 
 be trusted, French parents and children speak 
 too^ether with much more freedom ; on the 
 whole that must be better.' 
 
 She made no remark. 
 
 ^ My father,' he continued, ' is eminently 
 a man of sense ; if I reflect on my boyhood, 
 I see how admirable his treatment of me has 
 always been. I fancy I must have been at 
 one time rather hard to manage ; I know I 
 was very passionate and stubbornly self-willed. 
 Yet he neither let me have my own way nor 
 angered me by his opposition. In fact, he 
 made me respect him. Xow that we stand 
 on equal terms, I dare say he has something 
 of the same feeling towards myself. And so 
 it comes that we are excellent friends.' 
 
 She listened with a scarcely perceptible 
 smile. 
 
 ' Perhaps this seems to you a curiously 
 dispassionate way of treating such a subject,'
 
 32 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Wilfrid added, with a laiigli. * It illustrates 
 what I meant in saying I doubted whether 
 there was deep sympathy between us. Your 
 own feeling for your father is clearly one of 
 devotedness. You would think no sacriiSce 
 of your own wishes too great if he asked it 
 of you.' 
 
 ' I cannot imagine any sacrifice, which my 
 father could ask, that I should refuse.' 
 
 She spoke with some difficulty, as if she 
 wished to escape the subject. 
 
 ' Perhaps that is a virtue that your sex 
 helps to explain,' said Wilfrid, musingly. 
 
 ' You do not know,' he added, when a bee 
 had hummed between them for half a minute, 
 ' how constant my regret is that my mother 
 did not live till I was old enough to make a 
 friend of her. You know that she was an 
 Italian ? There was a sympathy taken out 
 of my life. I believe I have more of the 
 Italian nature than the English, and I know
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 33 
 
 my mother's presence would be priceless to 
 me now that I could talk with lier. What 
 unsatisfactory creatures we are as children, so 
 imperfect, so deficient ! It is worse with 
 boys than with girls. Compare, for instance, 
 the twins with boys of ten. ^Yhat coarse, 
 awkward, unruly lumps of boisterousness 
 youngsters mostly are at that age I 1 dislike 
 boys, and more than ever when I remembe)- 
 myself at that stage. What an insensible, 
 ungrateful, brainless, and heartless brat I 
 was ! ' 
 
 ' You must be wrong in one respect,' slie 
 returned, watching a large butterfly. * You 
 could not have been bramless.' 
 
 ' Oh, the foundation of tolerable wits was 
 there, no doubt; but it is just that unde- 
 veloped state that irritates me. Suppose I 
 were now ten years old, and that glorious 
 butterfly before me ; should 1 not h.-ap at it 
 and stick a pin through it — young savage ? 
 
 VOL. I. 1)
 
 34 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Precisely what a Hottentot boy would do, 
 except that he would be free from the apish 
 folly of pretending a scientific interest, not 
 really existing. I rejoice to have lived out of 
 my boyhood ; I would not go through it 
 again for anything short of a thousand years 
 of subsequent maturity.' 
 
 She just glanced at him, a light of laughter 
 in her eyes. She was abandonmg herself to 
 the pleasure of hearing him speak. 
 
 ' That picture of my mother,' he pursued, 
 dropping his voice again, ' does not do her 
 justice. Even at twelve years old — (she died 
 when I was twelve) — I could not help seeing 
 and knowing how beautiful she was. I have 
 thought of her of late more than I ever did ; 
 sometimes I suffer a ])assion of grief that one 
 so beautiful and lovable has gone and left a 
 mere dumb picture. I suppose even my 
 memory of her will grow fainter and fainter, 
 founded as it is on imperfect understanding.
 
 AJV UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 35 
 
 dim appreciation. She used to read Italian 
 to me — first the Italian, then the Eno^hsh — 
 and I thought it, as often as not, a bore to 
 have to listen to her ! Thank Heaven, I have 
 the book she used, and can now go over the 
 pieces, and try to recall her voice.' 
 
 The butterfly was gone, but tlie bee still 
 hummed about them. The hot afternoon air 
 was unstirred by any breeze. 
 
 * How glad I am/ Wilfrid exclaimed when 
 he had brooded for a few moments, ' that I 
 happened to see you as I rode past ! I 
 should have wandered restlessly about the 
 house in vain, seeking for some one to talk 
 to. And you listen so patiently. It is 
 pleasant to be here and talk so freely of 
 things I have always had to keep in my oavh 
 mind. Look, do look at that bastion of cloud 
 over the sycamore I What glorious gradation 
 of tints I \Miat a snowy crown I ' 
 
 D 2
 
 36 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' That is a pretty spray,' he added, holdmg 
 to her one that he had plucked. 
 
 She looked at it ; then, as he still held it 
 out, took it from him. The exquisite fingers 
 touched his own redder and coarser ones. 
 
 ' Have you friends in Dunfield ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Friends ? ' 
 
 * Any real friend, I mean — any gu'l who 
 gives you real companionship ? ' 
 
 ' Scarcely that.' 
 
 ' How shall you spend your time when 
 you are not deep in electrics ? What do you 
 mean to read these holidays ? ' 
 
 ' Chiefly German, I think. 1 have only 
 just begun to read it.' 
 
 ' And I can't read it at all. Xow and 
 then I make a shot at the meanmg of a note 
 in a German edition of some classical author, 
 every time fretting at my ignorance. But 
 there is so endlessly much to do, and a day is 
 so short.'
 
 AN UAWERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 37 
 
 'Isn't it hateful,' lie broke forth, 'this 
 enforced idleness of mine ? To think that 
 weeks and weeks go by and I remain just 
 where I was, when the loss of an hour used 
 to seem to me an irreparable misfortune. I 
 have such an appetite for knowledge, surely 
 the unhappiest gift a man can be endowed 
 with ; it leads to nothing but frustration. 
 Perhaps the appetite weakens as one grows in 
 years ; perhaps the sphere of one's keener 
 interests contracts ; I h(jpe it may be so. At 
 times I cannot work — I mean, I could not — 
 for a sense of the vastness of the field before 
 me. I should like you to see my rooms at 
 Balliol. Shelves have long since refused to 
 take another volume ; floor, tables, chairs, 
 every spot is heaped. And there they lie ; 
 hosts I have scarcely looked into, many I 
 shall never have time to take up to the end of 
 my days.'
 
 38 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 * You have the satisfaction of being able 
 to give your whole time to study.' 
 
 ' There is precisely the source of dissatis- 
 faction ! ^[y whole time, and that wholly 
 insufficient. I have a friend, a man I envy 
 intensely; he has taken up the subject of 
 Celtic literature; gives himself to it with 
 sintrle-heartedness, cares for nothino^ that does 
 not connect itself therewith ; will pursue it 
 throughout his life; will know more of it 
 than any man living. My despair is the 
 universality of my interests. I can think of 
 no branch of study to which I could not 
 surrender myself with enthusiasm ; of course 
 I shall never master one. My subject is the 
 history of humanity ; I would know every- 
 thinor that man has done or thouo;ht or felt. 
 1 cannot separate lines of study. Philology 
 is a passion with me, but how shall I part the 
 history of speech from the history of thought ? 
 The etymology of any single word will hold
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 39 
 
 me for hours, to follow it up I must traverse 
 centuries of human culture. They tell me 
 I have a faculty for philosophy, in the narrow 
 sense of the word ; alas ! that narrow sense 
 implies an exhaustive knowledge of specula- 
 tion in the past and of every result of science 
 born in our own time. Thmk of the sunny 
 spaces in the world's history, in each of 
 which one could linger for ever. Athens at 
 her fairest, Rome at her grandest, the glorious 
 savagery of Merovingian courts, the kingdom 
 of Frederick II., the Moors in Spain, the 
 magic of Renaissance Italy — to become a 
 citizen of any one age means a lifetime of 
 endeavour. It is easy to fill one's head with 
 names and years, but that only sharpens my 
 hunger. Then there is the world of art ; I 
 would know every subtlest melody of verse 
 in every tongue, enjoy with perfectly in- 
 structed taste every form that man has carved 
 or painted. I fear to enter museums and
 
 40 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 galleries ; I am distracted by the numberless 
 desires that seize upon me, depressed by the 
 hopelessness of satisfying them. I cannot 
 even enjoy music from the mere feeling that 
 I do not enjoy it enough, that I have not 
 had time to study it, that I shall never get at 
 its secret. . . . And when is one to live ? I 
 cannot lose myself in other men's activity and 
 enjoyments. T must have a life of my own, 
 outside the walls of a library. It would be 
 easy to give up all ambition of knowledge, to 
 forget all the joy and sorrow that has been 
 and passed into nothingness ; to know only 
 the eternity of a present hour. ]\light one 
 not learn more in one instant of unreflecting 
 happiness than by toiling on to a mummied 
 age, only to know in the end the despair of 
 never having lived ? ' 
 
 He again raised his eyes to her face. It 
 was fixed in a cold, absent gaze ; her lips 
 hardened into severity, the pose of her head
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 41 
 
 impressive, noble. Atliel regarded her for 
 several moments ; she was revealing to him 
 more of her inner self than lie had yet 
 divined. 
 
 * What are yom- thoughts ? ' he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 She smiled, recovering her wonted pas- 
 siveness. 
 
 ' Have you not often much the same 
 troubles ? ' 
 
 * They are only for the mind which is 
 stronof enouo'h to meet and overcome them,' 
 she replied. 
 
 ' But look, my mind has given way 
 already ! I am imbecile. For ever I shall 
 ])e on the point of a break-down, and each 
 successive one will bring me nearer to some 
 final catastrophe^perhaps the lunatic asylum 
 — who knows ? ' 
 
 * I should think,' she said gravely, ' that 
 you suggested a truth. \ ery likely your
 
 42 A LIFE'S MORXING 
 
 mind will contract its range and cease to aim 
 at the impossible.' 
 
 ' But tell me, have you not yourself 
 already attained that wisdom ? Why should 
 you make pretences of feebleness which 
 does not mark you ? You have a mind 
 as active as my own : I know that per- 
 fectly well. What is your secret of content- 
 ment ? Won't you help me in this miserable 
 plight ? ' 
 
 ' No, Mr. Athel, I have none but very 
 ordinary powers of mind, and perhaps it is 
 my recognition of that which keeps me con- 
 tented. There is indeed one principle of 
 guidance wliich I have worked out for my- 
 self ' 
 
 'Ah! and that?' 
 
 ' It will not enlighten you, for it is only 
 the choice of a natural and easy course, seeing 
 that difficult ones are closed. The literature 
 of learning is out of my reach, so I limit
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 43 
 
 myself to the literature of beauty, and in this 
 I try to keep to the best.' 
 
 ' You are right, you are right ! To know 
 the masterpieces of literature, pure literature, 
 poetry in its widest sense ; that is the wise 
 choice. Think ; we feed ourselves with the 
 second-hand wisdom of paltry philosophisers 
 and critics, and Shakespeare w\aits outside 
 the door with the bread of life. From 
 Homer Alas I you do not read Greek ? ' 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 ' And you work at German ! In heaven's 
 name change your language forthwith ! Why 
 should you not know Greek ? Yoti muxt know 
 Greek ! I will give you books, I will advise 
 you, show^ you the essentials to begin with. 
 There are still a few days before you go into 
 Yorkshire ; you can work during tlie holi- 
 days on lines I shall set you ; you can write 
 and tell me your ' 
 
 He paused, for her face had lost its smile,
 
 44 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 and wore aa'ain that coldly respectful look 
 which she seldom put off save m her privacy 
 with the children. For the last quarter of an 
 hour he had marked in her quite another 
 aspect ; the secret meanings of her face had 
 half uttered themselves in eye and lip. His 
 last words seemed to recall her to the world 
 of fact. She made a slight movement and 
 closed the book on her lap. 
 
 ' Greek is more than I can undertake, 
 Mr. Athel,' she said in a quietly decided 
 tone. ' I must be content with translations.' 
 
 ' Translations ! You would not say that 
 so calmly if you knew^ what you were re- 
 nouncing. Everything, everytliing in litera- 
 ture, I would give up to save my Greek. 
 You will learn it, I know you w^ill ; some 
 day I shall hear you read the hexameters as 
 beautifully as you read English poetry to the 
 girls. AVill you not begin if I beg you to? ' 
 
 The elbow on which he rested moved a
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 45 
 
 few inches nearer to her. He saw the pearly 
 shadows waver upon her throat, and her lips 
 tremble into rigidity. 
 
 ' ^ly time in the holidays will be very 
 limited,' she said. ' I have undertaken to 
 give some help to a friend who is preparing 
 to become a teacher, and ' — she tried to smile 
 — • I don't think I must do more work whilst 
 at home than is really necessary.' 
 
 ' No, that is true,' Wilfrid assented un- 
 willingly. ' Never mind, there is plenty of 
 time. Greek will be overcome, you will see. 
 When we are all back in town and the days 
 are dull, then I shall succeed in persuading 
 you.' 
 
 She looked about her as if with thouii^ht 
 of quitting lier place. Her companion was 
 drawn into himself ; he stroked mechanically 
 with his finger-tips the fronds of bracken near 
 him. 
 
 ' I suppose I shall go up again in
 
 46 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 October,' he began. ' I wish there were no 
 necessity for it.' 
 
 ' But surely it is your one desire ? ' the 
 other rephed in genuine surprise. 
 
 * Not to return to Oxford. A few months 
 ago it would have been, but this crisis in m}^ 
 life has changed me. I don't think I shall 
 adapt myself again to those conditions. I 
 want to w^ork in a freer way. I had a posi- 
 tive zeal even for examinations ; now that 
 seems tame — well, boyish. I believe I have 
 outgrown that stage ; I feel a reluctance to 
 go back to school. I suppose I must take 
 my degree, and so on, but it will all be 
 against the grain.' 
 
 ' Your feelmg will most hkely alter 
 when you have thoroughly recovered ycur 
 health.' 
 
 ' No, I don't tliiiik it will. Practically 
 my health is all right. You don't,' he added 
 with a smile, ' regard me as an irresponsible
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 47 
 
 person, whose feeble remarks are to be re- 
 ceived with kind allowance ? ' 
 
 ' No, I did not mean that.' 
 
 He gazed at her, and his face showed a 
 growing trouble. 
 
 * You do not take too seriously what I 
 said just now about the weakness of my 
 mind ? It would be horrible if you thought 
 I had worked myself into a state of amiable 
 imbecility, and was incapable henceforth of 
 acting, thinking, or speaking with a sound 
 intellect. Tell me, say in plain words that is 
 not your way of interpreting me ! ' 
 
 He had become ver}^ much in earnest. 
 Raismg himself to a position in which he 
 rested on one hand, he looked straight into 
 her face. 
 
 * Why don't you reply ? AVhy don't you 
 speak ? ' 
 
 ' Because, Mr. Athel, it is surely r.eedless 
 to say that I have no such tliougLt '
 
 48 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' Xo, it is not needless ; and even now 
 you speak in a way which troubles me. Do 
 not look away from me. AVhat has my aunt 
 told you about me ? ' 
 
 She turned her face to him. Her self- 
 command AA'as so complete that not a throb of 
 her leaping heart betrayed itself in vem or 
 muscle. She even m^t liis eyes with a placid 
 gaze which he felt as a new aspect of her 
 countenance. 
 
 ' Mrs. ]iossall has never spoken to me of 
 your health,' she said. 
 
 ' But my father's jokes ; he has a way of 
 humorous exactor eration. You of course un- 
 derstand that ; you don't take seriously all he 
 says ? ' 
 
 ' I think I can distinguish between jest 
 and earnest.' 
 
 ' For all that, you speak of the recovery 
 of my health as if I were still far from the 
 wholly rational stand -point. So far from my
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE 49 
 
 being mentally unsound, this rest has l)een a 
 oTOwino;-time with me. Before, I did nothinof 
 but heap my memory with knowledge of 
 books ; now I have had leisure to gather 
 knowledge of a deeper kind. I was a one- 
 sided academical monster ; it needed this new 
 sense to make me human. The old colleo-e 
 life is no longer my ideal ; I doubt if it will 
 be possible. At any rate I shall huny over 
 the rest of my course as speedily as may be, 
 that I may begin really to live. You must 
 credit what I am savins'; I want vou to sfive 
 me distinct assurance that you do so. If I 
 have the least doubt, it will trouble my mind 
 in earnest ' 
 
 ^liss Hood rose to her feet in that urace- 
 ful effortless way of which girls have the 
 secret. 
 
 * You attribute a meaning to my words 
 that 1 never thoua'lit of' slie said, a^'-ain in 
 the distant respectful manner. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Wilfrid also rose. 
 
 ' And you give me credit for understand- 
 ing myself, for being as much master of my 
 mind as I am of my actions ? ' 
 
 ' Surely I do, Mr. Athel.' 
 
 * You are going to the house ? It is 
 nearly five o'clock ; your conscience tells you 
 that a civilised being must drink tea. I 
 think I shall walk over to Greenhaws ; I 
 may as well save Mrs. Winter the trouble of 
 brinmiDT back the children.' 
 
 He hesitated before moving away. 
 
 ' How little that cloud has changed its 
 form ! I should like to stay here and watch 
 it till sunset. In a week I suppose I shall 
 be looking at some such cloud over Mont 
 Blanc. And you, in Dunfield.' 
 
 ' No, there we have only mill- smoke.' 
 
 She smiled, and passed from the hollow 
 to the road.'
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 BEATRICE REDWING. 
 
 Midway in breakfast next morninor at a 
 moment when Mrs. Rossall was describing 
 certain originalities of drawing-room decora- 
 tion observed on the previous day at a house 
 in town, the half-open door admitted a young 
 lady who had time to glance round the 
 assembled family before her presence was 
 observed. In appearance she was very in- 
 teresting. The tints of her fine complexion 
 were warmed by exercise in the morning air, 
 and her dark eyes brightened by pleasurable 
 excitement ; she carried her hat in her hand, 
 and seemed to have been walking bare- 
 headed, for there were signs of wind-phiy in 
 
 E J 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 53 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 her abundant black hair. But neither face 
 
 nor attire suggested rusticity ; the former 
 
 was handsome, spirited, with a hint of 
 
 uncommon things in its changeful radiance ; 
 
 the latter was the result of perfect taste 
 
 choosino: at will amono: the season's cos- 
 es o 
 
 tumes. At her throat were fastened two 
 blossoms of wild rose, with the dew still on 
 them, and the hand which held her lace- 
 trimmed sunshade carried also a spray of 
 meadow-sweet. 
 
 Mr. Athel, looking up from the end of the 
 table, was the first to perceive her. 
 
 ' Guardami hen : ben son^ hen son Bea- 
 trice ! ' he exclaimed, rising and moving from 
 his place. ' But how in the world has she 
 got here ? ' 
 
 ' Beatrice 1 ' cried Mrs. Rossall, following 
 the general direction of eyes. ' Here al- 
 ready ! But you surely liaven't come from 
 town this morning.'
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 5 
 
 ^ But indeei I have,' was the reply, in a 
 joyous voice, wliose full, rich quality took tlie 
 ear captive. ' Will you let me sit down just 
 as I am ? Patty, here's a rose for you, and, 
 Minnie, another for you.' She took them 
 from her dress. ' How do you do, ^Ir. 
 Wilfrid ? ' 
 
 The ofoverness was mentioned to her by 
 name ; Beatrice looked at her steadfastly for 
 a moment. 
 
 • But how have you got here ? ' inquired 
 Mrs. Ross all. ' You must have left London 
 at an unheard-of hour ; and how have you 
 come from Dealinii^ ? ' 
 
 ' Clearly she has walked,' said Mr. Athel. 
 ' Don't you see the spoils of her progress ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, I have walked,' replied the girl. 
 • I suppose I'm in a dreadful state ; towards 
 the end I almost ran. I was so afraid lest 
 I should miss breakfast, and you can't 
 imagine how hungry 1 am. Is that oatmeal
 
 54 ' A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ] porridge you are eating, Mr. Wilfrid ? Oh, 
 do let me have some ; how delicious it 
 wHlbe!' 
 
 ^ Nonsense, Beatrice,' interposed Mrs. 
 Rossall. ' Let Mr. Athel give you some of 
 
 that pate, or will you have ' 
 
 * I've been a vegetarian for a month,' was 
 the reply. 
 
 ' You don't mean it ? ' 
 ^ Most strictly. No — eggs are not per- 
 mitted ; only the feebler school allows them. 
 You can't think how much better I have 
 been in body and mind since I adopted the 
 new diet.' 
 
 'But whatever train did you start by?' 
 pressed Mrs. Eossall. 
 
 ' Half-past six. I never can sleep these 
 short summer nights. I was up about five 
 o'clock, and just as I was going to read, I 
 saw the railway time-table. I looked for the 
 first train and determined to come by it. I
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 55 
 
 wrote a short note to let mother know what 
 had become of me, then in a minute or two I 
 got my things packed, and last of all stole 
 out of the house to find a cab. Luckily, a 
 policeman was just passing the door; he 
 found one for me in no time. Xot a soul 
 was up, so I dragged the trunk out on to the 
 landing, and then made the cabman creep 
 upstairs Hke a burglar to fetch it. Of course 
 he thought I was running away ; he enjoyed 
 the joke wonderfully ; you should have seen 
 his smile when I paid him at the station. 
 Perhaps you'll let them fetch my luggage 
 before lunch.' 
 
 ' But won't your mother be alarmed ? ' 
 asked Mrs. Rossall. 
 
 ' Why should she ? She knows I am very 
 capable of taking care of ixiyself. I wouldn't 
 have missed this walk for anything. I only 
 lost my way once, and then, luckily, a fanner 
 came driving along ; he told me I had half a
 
 =6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 mile more. I trebled his distance, which made 
 it about right.' 
 
 ' It's a good four miles from the station,' 
 remarked Mr. Athel. 
 
 ' Is it ? If I hadn't been so hungry I 
 shouldn't have minded as much again. You're 
 not angry with me, Mrs. Rossall, for coming 
 before I was expected ? ' 
 
 A curious note of irresponsible childish- 
 ness came out now and then in her talk, as in 
 this last question ; it was the more noticeable 
 for the air of maturity and self-possession 
 which on the whole characterised her. She 
 continued to talk with much vivacity, making 
 at the same time a hearty meal. Her place at 
 the table was between Wilfrid and Patty ; on 
 the opposite side sat Miss Hood and Minnie. 
 As often as her eyes fell upon the governess's 
 face, they rested there for a moment, search- 
 ingly, as if with endeavour to recall some 
 memory.
 
 BEATRICE REDWLXG 57 
 
 • Who is responsible for your vegetari- 
 anism ? ' Wilfrid asked. ' Is M Cresset 
 preaching the doctrine ? ' 
 
 • No, Mr. Cresset is not preaching the 
 doctrine,' was the reply, in a tone which 
 evidently contained reference to previous 
 dissensions. 
 
 ' Surely there is nothing offensive in the 
 suggestion V ' remarked the young man 
 mildly. 
 
 ^ Yes, there is something offensive. Your 
 references to Mr. Cresset are always offensive.' 
 
 ' You do me injustice. Aunt, I take you 
 to witness, didn't I praise ungrudgmgly a 
 sermon of his we heard last Christmas ? ' 
 
 • I remember quite well,' said Beatrice ; 
 * you regarded it as extraordinary tliat any- 
 t-jmg good could come from that source. Mr. 
 Athel, I take you to witness, wasn't that his 
 tone?' 
 
 • Patty,' interposed Mrs. Kossall, ' do
 
 5S A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 change your place and sit between those two ; 
 they never can be next to each other without 
 quarrelling.' 
 
 Breakfast drew out to unusual length. 
 Miss Redwing was full of the season's news, 
 and Mrs. Rossall's reviving interest in such 
 vanities scarcely affected concealment. Mr. 
 Athel, too, though he supported a jesting 
 tone, clearly enjoyed listening to the girl's 
 vivacious comments on the world which 
 amuses itself. Wilfrid talked less than 
 usual. 
 
 He and his father strolled together into the 
 garden an hour later, and found Beatrice 
 reclining in a hammock which had recently 
 been suspended in a convenient spot. She 
 had one hand beneath her head, the other held 
 a large fan, with which she warded off stray 
 flakes of sunlight falling between the leaves. 
 
 * Isn't this exquisite ? ' she cried. ' Let 
 no one hint to me of stuTing before
 
 BEATRICE REDWIXG 59 
 
 lunch-time. I ain going to enjoy absolute 
 laziness.' 
 
 * I thought you would have preferred a 
 gallop over the downs,' said Mr. Athel. 
 
 ' Oh, we'll have that this afternoon ; you 
 may talk of it now, and I shall relish it in 
 anticipation. Or, better still, sit down and 
 tell us old stories about Egypt, and let us 
 foro-et the a<^e we live in.' 
 
 * What is amiss with the age ? ' mquired 
 Mr. Athel, who stood smokino^ a cio-ar and 
 was in his wonted state of satisfaction with 
 himself and the universe. 
 
 ' Everything is amiss. If you had been 
 with me yesterday in a street I was visiting, 
 
 not a quarter of a mile from home But 
 
 I'm going to forget all that now. How de- 
 liciously warm it is here in the shade ! 1 nuist 
 have a hammock in our garden at Cowes.' 
 
 ' When do you go back V ^Ir. Atliel 
 asked.
 
 6o A LIFE'S MORXING 
 
 ' Tn about a fortnight. It has done 
 mother no end of good ; don't you think she 
 looks remarkably well, Mrs. Rossall ? I'm 
 afraid she finds it a little dull though.' 
 
 When his father had returned to the 
 liouse, Wilfrid sat on the grass and rested his 
 head as^ainst the arm of the low garden chair 
 in which Mrs. Rossall was reclining. The 
 sound of a o-rass-cutter alone mino-led with 
 the hght rustling of the trees. It was one of 
 those perfect summer mornings when the 
 sun's rays, though streaming from a cloudless 
 sky, are tempered by a gentle liaze in the 
 upper regions of the air, when the zenith has 
 a tino^e of violet and on the horizon broods a 
 reddish mist. From this part of the garden 
 only a glimpse of the house was visible ; an 
 upper window with white curtains, cool, 
 peaceful. All else on every side was verdure 
 and bloom. 
 
 'Is it possible,' Beatrice asked, when there
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 6 1 
 
 had been silence for a few moments. ' that I 
 can have met Miss Hood anywhere before 
 to-day ? Her face is strangely familiar 
 to me.' 
 
 ^ She has never been in London before she 
 came to lis,' said Mrs. Rossall. 
 
 ' But yon have relatives in Dunfield, I 
 think? ' remarked Wilfrid. 
 
 • To be sure,' said his aunt ; ' she comes 
 from Dimfield, in Yorkshire. Do you think 
 you can have met her there ? ' 
 
 ' Ah, that explains it.' Beatrice cried 
 eagerly. ' I knew I had seen her. and I know 
 now where it was. She gave lessons to my 
 uncle's children. I saw her when I was 
 staying there the last time, three — no, four 
 years ago. I can't recall her by her name, 
 but her face, oh, I remember it as clearly as 
 possible.' 
 
 ^ What a memory you have, Beatrice ! ' 
 said Mrs. Rossall.
 
 62 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' I never forget a face that strikes me.' 
 
 * In what way did Miss Hood's face strike 
 you?' Wilfrid asked, as if in idle curiosity, 
 and with some of the banter which always 
 marked his tone to Beatrice. 
 
 ^ You would like some deep, metaphysical 
 reason, but I am not advanced enough for 
 that. I don't suppose I thought much about 
 her at the time, but the face has stayed in my 
 mind. But how old is she ? ' 
 
 * Two-and-twenty,' said Mrs, Rossall, 
 smiling. 
 
 ' A year older than myself; my impres- 
 sion was that she was more than that. I 
 think I only saw her once ; she was with us 
 at lunch one day. We spoke of her shyness, 
 I remember ; she scarcely said a word all the 
 time.' 
 
 ' Yes, she is very shy,' assented Mrs. 
 Rossall. 
 
 * That's a mistake, I think, aunt,' said
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 63 
 
 Wilfrid ; ^ shyness is quite a diiFerent thing 
 from reticence/ 
 
 ' Reticent, then/ conceded the lady, with 
 a smile to Beatrice. ' At all events she is 
 very quiet and agreeable and well-bred. It 
 is such a good thing to have a governess 
 who really seems well-bred ; it does make it 
 so much easier to treat her with considera- 
 tion.' 
 
 ' Do the children Hke her ? ' Beatrice 
 asked. 
 
 ' Very much indeed. And it's wonderful 
 how she controls them ; they are scatter- 
 brained little creatures.' 
 
 ' Will she go abroad with you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, no, I don't think that necessary.' 
 
 Wilfrid presently left the t^'o to tlieir 
 gossip. The conversation naturally turned 
 to him. 
 
 ' How is his health? ' Beatrice asked. 
 
 ' He seems quite recovered. I don't think
 
 64 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 there was ever anything to occasion much 
 alarm, but his father got frightened. 1 ex- 
 pect we shall bring him back from Switzer- 
 land as well as ever he was.' 
 
 * Whatever has he done with himself the 
 last two months? ' mused the girl. 
 
 * Well, it has been rather hard to keep 
 him occupied away from books. He has 
 l)een riding a good deal and smoking a good 
 deal.' 
 
 * And talking a good deal ? ' 
 
 * Well, 3^es, Wilfrid is fond of talking,' 
 admitted Mrs. Rossall, 'but I don't think he's 
 anything like as positive as he was. He does 
 now and then admit that other people may 
 have an opinion which is worth entertaining. 
 Celia Dawlish was with us a fortnight ago ; 
 she declared him vastly improved.* 
 
 ' She told him so?' 
 
 ' No, that was in private to me.' 
 
 ' But I think Celia and he alwa3^s got on
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 65 
 
 well together,' said Beatrice in an idly medi- 
 tative tone, moving the edge of her fan back- 
 wards and forwards a few inches above her 
 fice. 
 
 A few minutes later, after a silence, she 
 said : 
 
 ' Do you know what I am thinking? ' 
 
 ' What? ' asked Mrs. Rossall, with an air 
 of interest. 
 
 ' That if I were to close my eyes and 
 keep quiet I should very soon be fast 
 asleep.' 
 
 The other laughed at the unexpected 
 reply. 
 
 'Then why not do so, dear? It's warm 
 enough ; you couldn't take any harm.' 
 
 ' I suppose the walk has tired me.' 
 
 ' But if you had no sleep last night ? 
 How is it you can't sleep, I wonder? Is 
 it the same when you are at Cowes? ' 
 
 ' No, only in London. Something troubles 
 
 VOL. I. ^
 
 66 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 me ; I feel that I have neglected duties. 1 
 hear voices as distmct as yours now, reprov- 
 ing me for my idle, frivolous life.' 
 
 'Nonsense! I am sure you are neither 
 idle nor frivolous. Do doze off, if you can, 
 dear. I'll go and get something to read.' 
 
 ' You won't be angry with me? ' the girl 
 asked, in the tone of an affectionate weary 
 child. 
 
 • I shall if you use ceremony with me.' 
 
 Beatrice sighed, folded her hands upon 
 the fan, and closed her lids. When Mrs. 
 Rossall returned from the house with a 
 magazine and a light shawl, the occupant of 
 the hammock was already sound asleep. She 
 threw the shawl with womanly skill and 
 gentleness over the shapely body. When 
 she had resumed her seat, she caught a 
 glimpse of Wilfrid at a little distance ; her 
 beckoned summons brought him near. 
 
 ' Look,' she whispered, pointing to the
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 67 
 
 liammock. ' When did you see a prettier 
 picture ? ' 
 
 The young man gazed with a free smile, 
 the expression of critical appreciativeness. 
 The girl's beauty stirred in him no mood 
 but that. She slept with complete calm of 
 feature ; the half-lio^hts that came throuo;li the 
 foHage made an exquisite pallor on her face, 
 contrasting with the dark masses of her hair. 
 Her bosom rose and fell in the softest sio-hmo; • 
 her pure throat was like marble, and her j ust 
 parted lips seemed to need a protector from 
 the bees 
 
 While she sleeps, let us learn a little more 
 of her history. Some five-and-twenty years 
 pre\'iously, Alfred Redwing was a lecturer on 
 Greek and Latin at a small colleu'e in the 
 north of England, making shift to live on a 
 beggarly stipend. Handsome, pleasing, not 
 quite thirty, he was well received in sucli 
 semblance of society as his town offered, and 
 
 r '1
 
 68 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 in spite of his defects as a suitor, lie won 
 for his wife a certain Miss Baxendale, the 
 daughter of a well-to-do manufacturer. She 
 brought him at once a few hundreds a year, 
 and he pursued his college work in improved 
 spirits. His wife had two brothers ; one had 
 early gone to America, the other was thriving 
 as a man of busmess in the town of Dunfield. 
 AVith Laurence Baxendale, who dated his 
 very occasional letters from various parts of 
 the United States, the family might be said to 
 have parted for good ; before leaving England 
 he had got on ill-terms with his father and 
 brother, and it was only a persistent affection 
 f<jr his sister that caused him to give any sign 
 of himself year after year. When this sister 
 had been Mrs. Eedwing for about two years, 
 she one day received an intimation from 
 solicitors that Laurence was dead and had left 
 her the whole of a very considerable fortune, 
 the product, mainly, of dealings in lumber.
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 69 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Redwing in fact found them- 
 selves possessed of nearly fourteen thousand 
 a year, proceeding from most orderly invest- 
 ments. This would naturally involve a 
 chanofe m their mode of life. In the first 
 place they paid a visit to America ; then they 
 settled in London, where, about the same 
 time, their only child, Beatrice, was born. A 
 month after the child's coming into the world, 
 the father withdrew from it, — into a private 
 lunatic asylum. He had not been himself 
 from the day when he heard of the fortune 
 that had come to him ; such an access of 
 blessedness was not provided for in the con- 
 stitution of his mind. Probably few men of 
 his unaginative temperament and hard ante- 
 cedents could have borne the chan<re without 
 some little unsettling of mental balance ; ^\^ 
 are framed to endure any amount of ill, 
 but have to take our chance in the impro- 
 bable event of vast joy befalling us. Poor
 
 70 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Kedwing conceived a suspicion that his wife 
 desired to murder hiin ; one night as she was 
 following him into their bedroom, he sud- 
 denly turned round, caught hold of her mth 
 violence, and flung her to the ground, demand- 
 ing the knife which he protested he had seen 
 gleam in her hand. It was no longer safe to 
 live with him ; he was put under restraint, 
 and never again knew freedom. In less than 
 a year he died, a moping maniac. 
 
 Mrs. Redwmg was an invalid thenceforth ; 
 probably it was only the existence of her 
 child that saved her life. An aff'ection of the 
 heart in course of tune declared itself, but, 
 thouo;h her existence was believed to hanof on 
 a thread, she lived on and on, lived to see 
 Beatrice grow to womanhood. She kept a 
 small house in London, but spent the greater 
 part of the year at home or foreign health- 
 resorts. Her relatives had supposed that she 
 would return to her own country, but Mrs.
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 71 
 
 Redwing had tastes whicli lacked gratification 
 in a provincial manufacturing town. With- 
 out having achieved much positive culture, 
 she had received from her husband an impulse 
 towards the development of certain higher 
 possibihties in her nature, and she liked the 
 society of mentally active people. The state 
 of her health alone withheld her from a second 
 marriage ; she was not a verv^ patient invalid, 
 and suffered keenlv in the sense of missino- 
 the happiness which life had offered her. In 
 the matter of her daughter's education she 
 exercised much care. Doctrinal religion had 
 a strong hold upon her, and it was her solici- 
 tude that Beatrice should walk from the first 
 m the ways of Anglican salvation. She 
 dreaded the ' spirit of the age.' With a better 
 judgment in pure Uterature than falls to tlie 
 lot of most women — or men either — slie 
 yet banished from her abode, wherever it 
 might be, anything that remotely savoured of
 
 72 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 intellectual emancipation ; her aesthetic lean- 
 ings she deemed the great temptation of her 
 life, for she frankly owned to her friends that 
 many things powerfully attracted her, which 
 her conscience bade her shun as dangerous. 
 Her generosity made her a shining light in 
 the world which busies itself in the dispensing 
 or receiving of ecclesiastical charity. The 
 clerical element was very strong in the circle 
 that surrounded her. At the same time her 
 worldly tastes did not go altogether un- 
 gratified. She was very fond of music, and 
 her unlimited powers in the provision of first- 
 rate musical entertainment brought to her 
 house acquaintances of a kind that would not 
 otherwise have been found there. The theatre 
 she tabooed, regarding this severity as an 
 acceptable sacrifice, and not troubhng to 
 reflect what share her ill-health had in render- 
 ing it a fairly easy one. In brief, she was a 
 woman of a genial nature, whose inconsist-
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 73 
 
 encies were largely due to her inability to 
 outgrow early conditions. 
 
 Beatrice inherited her mother's mental re- 
 strictions, but was endowed with a subtlety 
 of nature, which, aided by her circumstances, 
 made her yet more a bemg of inconsistencies 
 and contradictions. In religion it was not 
 enough for her to conform ; zeal drove her 
 into the extremest forms of ritualistic observ- 
 ance. Nor did care for her personal salvation 
 suffice ; the logic of a compassionate nature 
 led her on to various forms of missionary 
 activity ; she haunted vile localities, minis- 
 tering alike to soul and body. At the same 
 time she relished keenly the delights of the 
 masquerading sphere, where her wealth and 
 her beauty made her doubly welcome. From 
 praying by the bedside of a costermonger's 
 wife, she would speed away to shhie among 
 the brightest in phantasmagoric drawing- 
 rooms ; her mother could seldom accompany
 
 74 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 her, but there was always some one ready to 
 chaperon Beatrice Redwing. Once in the 
 world from which thought is banished, she 
 seemed as thoughtless as any. Her spiritual 
 convictions put no veto even upon dancing. 
 Yet her mood at such times was not the entire 
 self-abandonment of the girl who is born but 
 to waltz. In spite of the sanction of custom, 
 she could not wholly suppress her virginal 
 instincts, and, however unconsciously, some- 
 thino; in her nature held itself aloof. She led 
 a life of indecision. Combming in herself 
 such contradictory elements, she was unable 
 to make close friendships. Her inthnacy with 
 Mrs. Eossall, which dated from her late child- 
 hood, was not the perfect accord which may 
 subsist between women of very different cha- 
 racters, yet here slie gave and received more 
 sympathy than elsewhere. It was her fre- 
 quent saying that she came to Mrs. Eossall's 
 house when she wanted to rest. Here she
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 75 
 
 could be herself, could pass Tvitliout interval 
 from pietistic argument to chatter about her 
 neighbours, could indulge in impulses of con- 
 fession as with no one else, could put off the 
 strain of existence which was the result of her 
 conflicting impulses. But it was only during 
 a portion of the year that she could have Mrs. 
 Kossall's society ; at other times, though no 
 one suspected it, she suffered much from 
 loneliness. With her mother she was in 
 accord on the subjects of religion and music, 
 but even natural affection, blendino; with 
 these sympathies, could not bring about com- 
 plete unity; in her home there was the same 
 lack that she experienced in the outer world. 
 For all her versatility, she was not in appear- 
 ance emotional ; no one seemed less likely to 
 be overcome by passion. Her enthusiasms 
 fell short of the last note of sincerity. Per- 
 haps it was on this account that she produced 
 no strong impression, in spite of her beauty.
 
 76 A LIFE S MORNING 
 
 Her personality suffered on acquaintance from 
 defect of charm. Was it a half-consciousness 
 of this that led her now and then into the 
 curious affectation of childishness already 
 remarked ? Did she feel unable to rely for 
 pleasing upon those genuine possessions 
 which for some reason could never advan- 
 tageously display themselves ? . . . . 
 
 For more than an hour she slept. At 
 her waking, she found Minnie standing by 
 her side. 
 
 * Are your lessons over ? ' she asked, 
 passing at once into full consciousness, with- 
 out sign of having slept. 
 
 The child replied that they were. 
 
 * Where is Miss Hood ? ' 
 ' In the summer-house.' 
 
 Beatrice rose, and they walked towards 
 the summer-house together. It was in a 
 corner of the garden, hidden among acacias 
 and laurels, a circular hut in the ordinary
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 77 
 
 rustic Style. Patty and .the governess were 
 seated within. Beatrice entered and took a 
 seat with them. 
 
 ' Is yonr memoiy as good as my own. 
 ^liss Hood ? ' she said pleasantly. ' Do you 
 remember our meeting four years ago ? ' 
 
 The other regarded her with quiet sur- 
 prise, and said she had no recollection of the 
 meeting. 
 
 ' Not at Mr. Baxendale's. my uncle's, one 
 day that you lunched with us when I was 
 staymg there ? ' 
 
 Miss Hood had wholly forgotten the cir- 
 cumstance. It served, however, for the com- 
 mencement of a conversation, wliich went 
 on till ^Irs Rossall. finding the hammock 
 deserted, was guided by the sound of voices 
 to where the two girls and the children sat. 
 
 In the afternoon there was a settinir 
 forth into the country. Mr. Athel drove his 
 sister and the children ; Wilfrid and Beatrice
 
 78 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 accompanied them on horseback. The course 
 to be pursued having been determined, the 
 riders were not at pains to keep tlie carriage 
 always within sight. 
 
 ' Why did Miss Hood decline to come ? ' 
 Mr. Atliel mquired, shortly after they had 
 started. 
 
 ' She gave no reason,' Mrs. Rossall replied. 
 'It was her choice to stay at home.' 
 
 ' Of course, you asked her in a proper 
 way? ' 
 
 ' Why, Philip, of course I did.' 
 
 ' Miss Hood never alters her mind,' re- 
 marked Patty. 
 
 ' Never ! ' exclaimed the other twm with 
 decision. 
 
 ' An admirable characteristic,' commented 
 their micle, ' provided her decision is right to 
 begin with.' 
 
 Beatrice had just led off at a gallop ; 
 Wilfrid necessarily followed her. When the
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 79 
 
 pace slackened they began to talk of in- 
 different tilings. On the crest of a hill, 
 whence the carriage could be seen far away 
 on the white road, the girl remed in, and, 
 turning to her companion, asked abruptly : 
 
 * What is your opinion of Miss Hood? ' 
 ' Why do you ask such a question? ' 
 
 ' Because I should like to know. She 
 interests me, and you must have had oppor- 
 tunities enough lately of studying her cha- 
 racter.' 
 
 ' Why does she interest you ? ' 
 
 * I can't say. I thought you might help 
 me to discover the reason. You have often 
 said that you like women of strongly marked 
 character. 
 
 ^ How do you conclude that she is one ? ' 
 
 * I feel it ; we were talking together before 
 lunch. I don't think I like her ; I don't 
 think she has principles.' 
 
 WHfrid laughed.
 
 So A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' Principles ! The word is vague. You 
 mean, no doubt, that she doesn't seem to 
 have commonplace prejudices.' 
 
 ' That's just what I wanted you to say.' 
 
 She let her horse move on. The young 
 man followed, his eyes gazing absently before 
 him, a smile fixed upon his lips. 
 
 Beatrice looked over her shoulder. 
 
 ' Does she read the same kind of books 
 that you do ? ' 
 
 ' Unfortunately I read no books at all.' 
 
 She paused again to let him get to her 
 side. 
 
 * What a pity it can't continue ! ' 
 ' What ? ' 
 
 ' Your inability to read.' 
 
 * That is the kindest remark I have heard 
 for a long time ! ' exclaimed Wilfrid, with a 
 good-natured laugh. 
 
 ' Very likely it is, though you don't mean 
 it. When you read you only poison your
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 8i 
 
 mind. It is your reading that lias made 
 you wliat you are, without faith, without 
 feeling. You dissect everything, you calculate 
 motives cynically, you have learnt to despise 
 everyone who believes what you refuse to, 
 you make your own intellect the centre of 
 the world. You are dansrerous.' 
 
 ' What a character ! To whom am I 
 dangerous ? ' 
 
 ' To anyone whom it pleases you to tempt, 
 in whom you find the beginnings of disbelief.' 
 
 ' In brief, I have no principles? ' 
 
 ' Of course you have none.' 
 
 ' In other words, I am selfish? ' 
 
 ' Intensely so.' 
 
 It was hard to discover whether she were 
 in earnest. "Wilfrid examined her for a 
 moment, and concluded that she must be. Iler 
 eyes were gleaming with no mock seriousness, 
 and there was even a slight quiver about her 
 lips. In all their exchanges of banter, he 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 had never known her look and speak quite 
 as she did now. As he regarded her, there 
 came a flush to her cheek. She turned her 
 head away and rode on. 
 
 ' And what moves you to visit me with 
 this castigation at present, Miss Redwing ? ' 
 he asked, still maintaining his jesting tone. 
 
 ' I don't know,' she answered carelessly. 
 ' I felt all at once able to say what I thought.' 
 
 '- Then you do really think all this ? ' 
 
 ' Assuredly I do.' 
 
 He kept silence a little. 
 
 'And you can't see,' he began, rather 
 more seriously, 'that you are deplorably 
 lacking in the charity which surely should be 
 among your principles ? ' 
 
 ' There are some things to which charity 
 must not be extended.' 
 
 ' Let us say, then, discretion, insight.' 
 He spoke yet more earnestly. ' You judge 
 me, and, in truth, you know as little of me as
 
 BEATRICE REDWIXG 83 
 
 anyone could. The attitude of your mind 
 prevents you from understanding me in the 
 least; it prevents you from understanding 
 any human being. You are consumed with 
 prejudice, and prejudice of the narrowest, 
 most hopeless kind. Am I too severe ? ' 
 
 ^ Xot more so than you have often been. 
 Many a time you have told me how you 
 despised me.' 
 
 He was silent, then spoke impulsively. 
 
 ' AYell, perhaps the word is not too strong ; 
 though it is not your very self that I despise, 
 but the ignorance and bigotry which possess 
 you. It is a pity ; I believe you might be a 
 woman of quite a different kind.' 
 
 * Of pronounced character ? ' 
 
 ' Precisely. You are neither one thing nor 
 another. You have told me what you think 
 of me ; shall I be equally frank and spciik as 
 if you were a college friend ? For at all 
 events we arc friends.' 
 
 o 2
 
 84 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' I am not sure of that.' 
 
 ' Oh, but I am ; and we shall be friends 
 none the worse for ingenuousness on both 
 sides. Look at the position in which you 
 stand. One moment you are a woman of the 
 world, and next you run frantic with religious 
 zeal, another turn and you are almost an 
 artist, at your piano ; when you are tired of. 
 all these you become, or try to become, a sort 
 of ingenue. In the name of consistency, be 
 one thmg or another. You are quite mis- 
 taken m thinking that I despise religious 
 enthusiasm in itself. Become a veritable 
 Beatrice, and I will venerate you infinitely. 
 Give up everything to work in London slums, 
 and you shall have my warmest admiration. 
 But you are not smcere.' 
 
 ' I am sincere ! ' she broke in, with more 
 passion than he had ever imagined her capable 
 of uttering. 
 
 ' I cannot call it sincerity. It is impos-
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 85 
 
 sible that you should be sincere ; you live in 
 the latter end of the nineteenth century ; the 
 conditions of your birth and education forbid 
 sLacerity of this kind.' 
 
 ' I am sincere,' she repeated, but in a low 
 voice, without looking at him. 
 
 * On the other hand,' he proceeded, ' sur- 
 render yourself entirely to the life of society, 
 and 1 will still respect you. You are a 
 beautiful woman ; you might be inexpressibly 
 charming. Frankly recognise your capabili- 
 ties, and cultivate your charm. Make a study 
 of your loveliness ; make it your end to be a 
 queen in drawing-rooms.' 
 
 ' You insult me.' 
 
 ' I can't see that I do. There is nothing 
 contemptible in such an aim ; nothmg is con- 
 temptible that is thorough. Or you have the 
 third course. Pursue music with seriousness. 
 Become a real artist ; a public singer, let us 
 say. Xo amateur nonsense ; recognise that
 
 86 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 you have a superb voice, and that by dmt of 
 labour you may attain artistic excellence. 
 You talk of getting up concerts in low parts 
 of London, of humanismg ruffians by the in- 
 fluence of music. Pshaw ! humanise humanity 
 at large by devotion to an artistic ideal ; the 
 other aim is paltry, imbecile, charlatan.' 
 
 He tried to see her face ; she rode on, 
 holding it averted. 
 
 ' Follow any one of these courses, and you 
 will make of yourself a true woman. By 
 trying to be a bit of everything you become 
 insignificant. Napoleon the Great was a 
 curse to mankind, but one thinks more of 
 him than of Napoleon the Little, who wasn't 
 quite sure whether to be a curse or a blessing. 
 There is a self in every one of us ; the end of 
 our life is to discern it, bring it out, make it 
 actual. You don't yet know your own self ; 
 you have not the courage to look into your 
 heart and mind ; you keep over your eyes the
 
 BEATRICE REDWING Sy 
 
 bandage of dogmas in wliicli you only half 
 believe. Your insincerity bliglits the natural 
 qualities of yoiu' intellect. You have so lonir 
 tried to persuade yourself of the evil of every 
 way of thinking save ecclesiastical dogmatism, 
 that you cannot judge fairly even those to 
 whom you are most friendly. Cannot you 
 see that the world has otitgrown the possi- 
 bility of one miiversal religion ? For good 
 or for e\il, each of us must find a religion in 
 himself, and yoti have no right whatever to 
 condemn before you have understood.' 
 
 ' You cannot say that you have any re- 
 ligion,' she said, facing him. He saw to his 
 astonishment that there had been tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 ' You cannot say that I have none. The 
 radical fault of your uninstructed way of 
 looking at things is that you imagLue man- 
 kind and the world to be matters of such 
 simple explanation. You learn by heart a
 
 88 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 few maxims, half a dozen plirases, and there 
 is your key to every mystery. That is the 
 child's state of mind. You have never 
 studied, you have never thought. Your self- 
 confidence is ludicrous ; you and such as you 
 do not hesitate to judge offhand men who 
 have spent a long life in the passionate 
 pursuit of wisdom. You have no reverence. 
 It is the fault you attribute to me, but 
 wrongly ; if you had ever brought an open 
 mind to our conversations, you would have 
 understood that my reverence even for your 
 ideal is not a whit less than your own ; it is 
 only that I see it in another light. You say 
 that I have no religion : what if I have not ? 
 Are one's final conclusions to be achieved in a 
 year or two of early manhood ? I have my 
 inner voices, and I try to understand them. 
 Often enough they are ambiguous, contradic- 
 tory ; I live m hope that their bidding will 
 become clearer. I search for meanings, try
 
 BEATRICE REDWING 89 
 
 to understand myself, strive after know- 
 ledge.' 
 
 ' You miglit as well have been bom a 
 pagan. One voice has spoken ; its bidding is 
 the sufficient and only guide.' 
 
 ^ Say rather that so it seems to you. 
 Your inheritance of conviction is not mine ; 
 your modes of reasoning and my own have 
 nothing in common. AVe inhabit different 
 worlds.' 
 
 Beatrice let her eyes turn slowly to his 
 face. The smile with which he met her 
 found no reflection on her countenance ; her 
 look was that of one who realises a fatality. 
 
 * Shall we join them ? ' she asked m a 
 moment, nodding towards the far-off carriage 
 which was about to hide itself amonsf trees. 
 
 Wilfrid mused instead of answering:. She 
 began to ride on. 
 
 ' Stay one minute,' he said. ' I ]iave been 
 anything but courteous in my way of speaking
 
 90 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 to you, but it was better to put off idle forms, 
 was it not ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; I shall know hencefortli what you 
 think of me ? ' 
 
 ^Not from this one conversation, if you 
 mean that.' 
 
 ' Well, it does not matter.' 
 
 ^ Perhaps not. Difference of opinion has 
 fortunately little to do with old- standing 
 kindness.' 
 
 ' I am not sure that you are right, at all 
 events when it has expressed itself in words 
 of contempt.' 
 
 It was not resentment that her voice con- 
 veyed, but something which Wilfrid found it 
 harder to bear. Her drooped eyelids and 
 subdued tone indicated a humble pride, which 
 the protest of her beauty made pathetic. 
 
 * We will never speak of such things 
 again,' he said, gently. ' Let me have your 
 forgiveness. When we join them down there,
 
 BEATRICE REDWJAG 91 
 
 they will laugh at us and say we have been 
 quarrellmg as usual ; in future I think we 
 mustn't quarrel, we are both of us gettmg too 
 old for the amusement. When you sing to 
 us to-night, I shall remember how foolish I 
 was even to pretend contempt.' 
 
 ' You will be thhaking,' she said, ' that I 
 am a mere amateur.' 
 
 ' If I do, I shall be an ungrateful wretch — 
 and an insensible one, to boot.' 
 
 She rode down the hill without replying.
 
 92 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LYRICAL. 
 
 Miss Hood did not, of course, dine with the 
 family. Though, as Mrs. Rossall said, it 
 was a distinct advantage to have in the house 
 a governess whom one could in many re- 
 spects treat as an equal, yet there was 
 naturally a limit, in this as in all other 
 matters. We have not yet, either in fact 
 or in sentiment, quite outgrown the social 
 stage in which personal hiring sets on the 
 hired a stigma of servitude. Mrs. Rossall 
 was not unaware that, in all that concerned 
 intellectual refinement, her governess was 
 considerably superior to herself, and in
 
 LYRICAL 93 
 
 personal refinement not less a lady ; but the 
 fact of quarterly payments, spite of all this, 
 inevitably indicated a place below the salt. 
 Mr. Athel, though, as we liave seen, anxious 
 to indulofe himself in humane reofard when- 
 ever social regulations permitted, was the 
 last man to suffer in his household serious 
 innovations upon traditional propriety. 
 
 So Miss Hood — Emily, as she was called by 
 the little group of people away in Yorkshire, 
 to whom she was other than a froverness ; 
 Emily, as we will permit ourselves to call 
 her henceforth — always had the meal of tea 
 with the children. After that the evening 
 was her own, save that the twins kept her 
 company until their hour of bedtime. The 
 schoolroom was also her sittinn^-room. After 
 half-past eight in the evening she had it to 
 herself, and there she passed many an hour of 
 quiet content, playing softly on the piano, 
 reading, dreaming. In the matter of books
 
 94 
 
 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 she was well oiF ; Mr. Athel and his sister 
 had subscriptions at several London libraries, 
 and of these the governess was invited to 
 make free use. It was some restraint upon 
 her that her choice of reading always passed 
 under Mrs. Rossall's eyes, but not so much 
 after the first few weeks. The widow was by 
 this time well advanced in the resumption of 
 purely mundane literature, and the really 
 liberal tone which prevailed in the house 
 removed apprehension in the pursuit of 
 modern studies. For it was rather an ideal 
 towards which she was working than an 
 attainment in fact, that eclecticism of which 
 she spoke to Wilfrid Athel. The monthly 
 library lists which came under her eyes offered 
 many a sore temptation. She was true on 
 the whole to her system ; she did not read at 
 random, and never read frivolously ; but a 
 taste strongly directed to the best in litera- 
 ture will find much in the work of our day,
 
 LYRICAL 95 
 
 especially its criticism, which is indispensable 
 as guidance, or attractive by its savour. 
 This was not Emily's first access, fortunately, 
 to the streams of contemporary thought ; 
 already she had enjoyed and largely used 
 opportunities of the most various reading. 
 She was able now to choose with discretion, 
 and in a great degree to make her study serve 
 directly the scheme of culture which she had 
 devised for herself. 
 
 Few governesses had so pleasant a life. 
 Mrs. Rossall, supported by her brother's views, 
 imposed on her children a minimum of brain - 
 work. Bodily health was after all the first 
 thing, especially in the case of girls. A 
 couple of hours' school in the morning, one 
 hour given to preparation of lessons after tea, 
 this for the present was deemed quite enough. 
 * Your companionship throughout thu day 
 will always be forming their minds,' ^Irs. 
 Rossall said in one of her earliest con versa-
 
 96 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 tions with Emily ; it was pleasantly put, 
 and truer than it would have been in the 
 case of many instructresses. The twins were 
 not remarkably fond of their lessons, but in 
 Emily's hands they became docile and 
 anxious to please. She had the art of 
 winnino: their affection without losino^ control 
 over them ; had Mrs. Rossall's rather languid 
 habits of mind allowed her to give attention 
 to the subject, she would have been struck 
 with the sino-ular combination of tenderness 
 and reverence which the two entertained 
 towards their teacher. Little laxities of 
 behaviour and phrase upon which their 
 mother's presence would be no check, they 
 did not venture to allow themselves when 
 with Emily ; her only reproof was a steady 
 gaze, eloquent of gentleness, but it proved 
 quite sufficient. The twins were in truth 
 submitting to the force of character. They 
 felt it without understanding what it meant ;
 
 L YRICAL 97 
 
 one other person in the house experienced 
 the same influence, but in his case it led to 
 reflection. 
 
 Wilfrid was at Balliol when Miss Hood 
 first arrived ; he saw her for the first time 
 when he came to town after his collapse. All 
 hastened away to The Firs together. Wilfrid 
 sufi'ered no positive illness ; he shared in the 
 amusements of the family, and, with the 
 exception of a good deal of pishing and 
 pshawing at the restraints put upon hun, had 
 the appearance of one taking an ordinary holi- 
 day. There was undeniable truth in Beatrice 
 Redwing's allusion to his much talking ; 
 without social mter course he would soon have 
 become ill in earnest ; association with intelli- 
 gent — all the better if argumentative — people 
 was an indispensable condition of his exist- 
 ence. In his later school, and early college, 
 days this tendency to give free utterance to 
 his thoughts made him not altogether the most 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 98 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 delightful of companions to such as were 
 older than himself ; his undeniable cleverness 
 and the stores of knowledge he had already 
 acquired needed somewhat more of the restraint 
 of tact than his character at that time 
 supplied. People occasionally called him a 
 prig ; now and then he received what the 
 vernacular of youth terms a ' sitting upon.' 
 The saving feature of his condition was that 
 he allowed himself to be sat upon gracefully; 
 a snub well administered to him was sure of 
 its full artistic, and did not fail in its moral, 
 effect : there was no vulgar insolence in the 
 young fellow. AYhat he received he could 
 acknowledcre that he deserved. A term or 
 two at Balliol put this right ; in mingling 
 with some that were his equals, and one or 
 two who were his superiors, he learned pru- 
 dence in the regulation of his speech. 
 
 For a brief time he perhaps talked not 
 quite so much. When his ' set ' was formed,
 
 L YRICAL 99 
 
 the currents of argument and rhetoric had 
 once more free course, but they were begin- 
 ning to flow less turbidly. His nature, as we 
 know, was not merely vehement ; he had the 
 instincts of a philosophical inquirer, and his 
 intellect speedily outgrew the stage of callow- 
 ness. AVhen he came down for his first ' long ' 
 the change in him was so marked that it 
 astonished all who met him ; that he appeared 
 wholly unconscious of the ripening he had 
 undergone only made his development more 
 impressive. He had gone away a boy, and 
 returned a man. He talked no less than ever, 
 but in a markedly improved tone. He was 
 graver, more seemly in the buoyant outbreaks 
 in which he still occasionally indulged. One 
 reason of his rapid maturing no doubt lay in 
 the fact that he was already working too 
 hard ; his sprightliness was in a measure 
 subdued by wear of tissue. His fatlier was 
 shrewd enough to suspect something of this, 
 
 n 2
 
 loo A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 but it was difficult to interfere in any way. 
 A month in Switzerland seemed to set things 
 right. On the present more serious occa- 
 sion, it had been deemed better not to set 
 forth on a journey forthwith ; perfect repose 
 at the house in Surrey was all that was 
 advised in the first instance. But it was 
 clear that Wilfrid must have some one to talk 
 with. A succession of visits from such 
 friends as were available was speedily arranged. 
 By the end of the first week, Wilfrid had 
 accommodated himself to his circumstances. 
 His fi-etting at the regulations imposed for his 
 health almost ceased. At first this change 
 was viewed with suspicion, especially when 
 he became more absorbed in reflectiveness 
 and seemed to have less taste for conversation. 
 However, he was perfectly cheerful ; there 
 were no further symptoms to excite alarm. 
 Xor did the brooding period last very long. 
 The only permanent change was that he
 
 L YRICAL loi 
 
 ceased to grumble at his hard lot. and 
 appeared to find his position very tolerable. 
 
 ' It is the physical reaction,' observed 
 Mr. Athel to his sister. ' The body is in- 
 dulging itself ; recovery of health absorbs his 
 energies.' 
 
 Opportunities for anything like sustained 
 converse with Miss Hood, Wilfrid found very 
 few and far between ; only once before the long 
 talk in the hollow had he been able to gratify 
 his curiosity — perhaps already some other 
 feeling — in a dialogue of any intimacy. In a 
 situation such as this, delicacy prescribed a 
 v^ery rigid discretion ; Emily, moreover, was 
 not facile of approach. Throughout the day 
 she was scarcely away from the children ; of 
 course he could and did often exchanofe 
 words with her in the presence of the twins, 
 but he felt himself held at a distance by a 
 tact which was perfect ; without undue 
 reserve, without a shadow of unrefined
 
 I02 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 manoBuvrmg, Emily limited their intercourse 
 in precisely the way that Mr. Athel or Mrs. 
 Eossall would have deemed becoming. Then 
 there were almost always guests at the house. 
 With prudent regard to the character of 
 these visitors, Mrs. Eossall chose opportu- 
 nities for inviting the governess to the 
 drawing-room during the evening, but Emily 
 was not wholly at her ease under such 
 conditions, and Wilfrid was withheld by only 
 half- conscious motives from talking with her 
 at these times. He shrank from subjecting 
 himself to examination whilst encouraging 
 her to speak on the subjects he would 
 naturally choose ; he felt, too, that she 
 desired him not to address her, though this 
 perception came to him in subtle ways of 
 which he could render to himself no account. 
 For all this, their acquaintance, nay their 
 intimacy, grew. If ever eyes habitually 
 expressed a self-respecting frankness, if ever
 
 LYRICAL 103 
 
 any were incapable of ignoble artifice, they 
 were Emily's ; yet as time went on Wilfrid 
 began to long for the casual meeting with her 
 glance for the mere reason that he felt it as 
 an exchange of words between her and 
 himself. Thus it was that, when at length 
 the first real conversation came, it seamed the 
 sequel of many others, seemed so to both of 
 them. They had divined each other ; speech 
 did but put the seal of confirmation on know- 
 ledge gained by mutual sympathy. 
 
 It may be presumed that neither Mr. 
 Athel nor Mrs. Rossall was altogether re- 
 gardless of possibilities suggested by the 
 abiding beneath the same roof of an im- 
 petuous young man, forced into idleness, 
 and a girl who was above the average in 
 mental endowments, whilst, on the whole, 
 she mi<i:lit be considered interestirifr in 
 appearance. They exchanged no remark on 
 the subject ; it was scarcely likely they
 
 I04 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 should ; but during the first few weeks both 
 were observant. Their observations were 
 reassuring to them. And indeed they had 
 not anticipated trouble, for the simple reason 
 that both believed Wilfrid^ s affections to tend 
 already in a marked direction, and one of 
 which they altogether approved. That he 
 would some day take for his wife Beatrice 
 Redwing was a conclusion upon which 
 father and aunt had settled their minds ; the 
 conclusion was reasonable enough, and well 
 supported by such evidence as the case 
 admitted. Mr. Athel had at an earlier 
 period entertained certain misgivings as to 
 the desirability of such a marriage ; mis- 
 givings which had reference to the disastrous 
 story of the Redwing household ; the con- 
 ception of hereditary tendencies has become 
 a strong force in our time, and pronounced 
 madness in a parent cannot as easily be 
 disreofarded as it once was. But the ad-
 
 LYRICAL 105 
 
 vantaofes of the alliance were so considerable, 
 its likelihood so indisputable, that prudence 
 had scarcely fair play ; besides, Beatrice had 
 reached her twenty-first year without any 
 sign of mental trouble, and seemed as sound 
 a girl as could anywhere be discovered. The 
 habitual sword-crossing between her and 
 Wilfrid was naturally regarded as their mode 
 of growing endeared to each other ; their 
 intellectual variances could not, by a sober 
 gentleman of eight -and-forty and by a young 
 widow whose interest in the world was 
 reviving, be regarded as a bar to matrimony. 
 * Family,' Beatrice would not bring, but she 
 was certain to inherit very large fortune, 
 which, after all, means more than flimily 
 now-a-days. On the whole, it was a capital 
 thino; for Wilfrid that marriasre would be 
 entered upon in so smooth a way. Mr. 
 Athel was not forgetful of his oAvn course 
 in that matter. He understood his flither's
 
 io6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 attitude as he could not when resisting it, 
 and was much disposed to concede that there 
 might have been two opinions as 1o his own 
 proceeding five -and -twenty years ago. But 
 for Beatrice, the young man's matrimonial 
 future would have been to his father a subject 
 of constant apprehension ; as it was, the 
 situation lost much of its natural hazard. 
 
 In Emily there was nothing that suggested 
 sentimentality ; rather one would have 
 thought her deficient in sensibility, judging 
 from the tone of her conversation. She did 
 not freely express admiration, even in the 
 form of assent to what was said by others. 
 To interpret her reticence as shyness was 
 a misunderstanding, or a misuse of words, 
 natural in the case of an inexact observer like 
 Mrs. Rossall. Four years ago, when Beatrice 
 met her in Dunfield, her want of self-con- 
 fidence was pronounced enough ; she had at 
 that time never quitted her provincial home,
 
 LYRICAL 107 
 
 and was in the anomalous position of one who 
 is intellectually outgrowing very restricted 
 social circumstances. The Baxendales were 
 not wrong in discussing her as shy. But that 
 phase of her life was now left far behind. 
 Her extreme moderation was deliberate ; it 
 was her concession to the fate which made her 
 a governess. Courtesy and kindliness might 
 lead those whose bread she ate to endeavour 
 occasionally to remove all show of social dis- 
 tinction ; neither her temperament nor her 
 sense of comeliness in behaviour would allow 
 her to shrink from such advances, but she 
 could not lose sight of the unreality of the 
 situations to which they led. Self-respect is 
 conditioned by the influence of circumstance 
 on character ; in Emily it expressed itself as 
 a subtle sensitiveness to grades of sympathy. 
 She could not shut her eyes to the actuality of 
 things ; sincerity was the foundation of her 
 being, and delicate appreciation of its degrees
 
 io8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 in others regulated her speech and demeanour 
 with an exactitude inappreciable by those who 
 take life in a rough and ready way. When 
 engaged in her work of teaching, she was 
 at ease ; alone in the room which had been 
 set apart for her, she lived in the freedom of 
 her instincts ; but in Mrs. Ros sail's drawing- 
 room she could only act a part, and all such 
 divergence from reality was pain. It was not 
 that she resented her subordination, for she 
 was almost devoid of social ambitions and 
 knew nothing of vulgar envy ; still less did 
 it come of reasoned revolt against the arti- 
 ficial ordering of precedences ; Emily's 
 thoughts did not tend that way. She could 
 do perfect justice to the amiable qualities of 
 those who were set above her ; she knew no 
 bitterness in the food which she duly earned ; 
 but, by no one's fault, there was a vein of 
 untruth in the life she had to lead. To re- 
 mind herself that such untruth was common
 
 LYRICAL 109 
 
 to all lives, was an outcome of the conditions 
 of society, did not help her to disregard it ; 
 nature had endowed her with a stern idealism 
 which would not ally itself with compromise. 
 She was an artist in life. The task before 
 her, a task of which in these days she was 
 growing more and more conscious, was to 
 construct an existence every moment of which 
 should serve an all-pervading harmony. The 
 recent birth within her of a new feelins: was 
 giving direction and vigour to the forces of 
 her being ; it had not as yet declared itself as 
 a personal desire ; it wrought only as an 
 impassioned motive in the sphere of her in- 
 tellectual aspirations. She held herself more 
 persistently apart from conventional inter- 
 course ; she wished it had been possible to 
 keep wholly to herself in the hours when her 
 services were not demanded. Mr. xVthel, who 
 liked to express himself to young people with 
 a sort of paternal geniality, rallied her one
 
 no A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 day on her excessive study, and bade her be 
 warned by a notorious example. This had 
 the effect of making her desist from reading 
 in the presence of other people. 
 
 She had known much happiness during 
 these two months at The Firs, happiness of a 
 kind to dwell in the memory and be a resource 
 in darker da^^s. Though mere personal ease 
 was little the subject of her thoughts, she prized 
 for its effect upon her mind the air of graceful 
 leisure, of urbane repose, which pervaded the 
 house. To compare The Firs with that plain 
 little dwelhng on the skirts of a Yorkshire 
 manufacturing town which she called her home 
 was to understand the inestimable advantage 
 of those born into the material refinement 
 which wealth can command, of those who 
 breathe from childhood the atmosphere of 
 liberal enjoyment, who walk from the first on 
 clean ways, with minds disengaged from 
 anxiety of casual soilure, who know not even
 
 LYRICAL III 
 
 by domestic story the trammels of sordid pre- 
 occupation. Thus it was with a sense of well- 
 being that she stepped on rich carpets, let her 
 eyes wander over the light and dark of rooms 
 where wealth had done the bidding of taste, 
 watched the neat and silent ministerinir of 
 servants. These things to her meant price- 
 less opportunity, the facilitating of self-culture. 
 Even the little room in which she sat by her- 
 self of evenings was daintily furnished ; when 
 weary with reading, it eased and delighted her 
 merely to gaze at the soft colours of the wall- 
 paper, the vases with their growing flowers, the 
 well- chosen pictures, the graceful shape of a 
 chair ; she nursed her appreciation of these joys, 
 resisted the ingress of familiarity, sought daily 
 for novel aspects of things become intimately 
 known. She rose at early hours that she 
 might have the garden to herself in all its 
 freshness ; she loved to look from her window 
 into the calm depth of the summer midnight.
 
 112 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 In this way she brought into consciousness 
 the craving of her soul, made the pursuit of 
 beauty a religion, grew to welcome the per- 
 ception of new meaning in beautiful things 
 with a spiritual delight. This was the secret 
 of her life which she guarded so jealously, 
 which she feared even by chance to betray in 
 the phrasmgs of common intercourse. Wilfrid 
 had divined it, and it was the secret influence 
 of this sympathy that had led her to such un- 
 wonted frankness m then- latest conversation. 
 Mrs. Rossall had spoken to her of Beatrice 
 Redwing's delightful singing, and had asked 
 her to come to the drawing-room during the 
 evenino- ; having declined the afternoon's 
 drive, Emily did not feel able to neglect this 
 other mvitation. The day had become sultry 
 towards its close ; when she jomed the com- 
 pany about nine o'clock, she found Beatrice 
 and Mrs. Rossall sitting in the dusk by the 
 open Frencli windows, Mr. Athel in a chair
 
 LYRICAL 113 
 
 just outside, and Wilfrid standing by him, 
 the latter pair smoking. The sky beyond the 
 line of dark greenery was still warm with 
 after-orlow of sunset. 
 
 Emily quietly sought a chair near Mrs. 
 Rossall, from whom she received a kind look. 
 Mr. Athel was relating a story of his early 
 wanderings in Egypt, with a leisurely gusto, 
 an effective minuteness of picturing, the re- 
 sult of frequent repetition. At the points of 
 significance he would pause for a moment or 
 two and puff life into liis cigar. PI is anec- 
 dotes were seldom remarkable, but they 
 derived interest from the enjoyment with 
 which he told them ; they impressed one witli 
 a sense of mental satisfaction, of physical 
 robustness held in reserve, of life content 
 among the good. things of the world. 
 
 ' Shall we have lights ? ' Mrs. Rossall 
 asked, when the story at length came to an 
 end. 
 
 VOL I. I
 
 114 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ^ Play us something first,' said Beatrice. 
 ' This end of twilight is so pleasant.' 
 
 Mrs. Rossall went to the piano, upon 
 which still fell a glimmer from another 
 window, and filled the room with harmony 
 suiting the hour. Wilfrid had come in and 
 seated himself on a couch in a dark corner ; 
 his father paced up and down the grass. 
 Emily watched the first faint gleam of stars 
 in the upper air. 
 
 Then lamps and candles were brought in. 
 Beatrice was seen to be dressed in dark blue, 
 her hair richly attired, a jewelled cross below 
 her throat, her bosom and arms radiant in 
 bare loveliness. Emily, at the moment that 
 she regarded her, found herself also observed. 
 Her oTvn dress was of warm grey, perfectly 
 simple, with a little lace at the neck and 
 wrists. Beatrice averted her eyes quickly, 
 and made some lauo'liinof remark to Mr. 
 Athel.
 
 LYRICAL 115 
 
 ^ I know you always object to sing with- 
 out some musical preparation,' said Mrs. 
 Rossall, as slie took a seat by the girl's side. 
 ' I wonder whether we ought to close the 
 windows ; are you afraid of the air ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, leave them open ! ' Beatrice replied. 
 ' It is so close.' 
 
 Her cheeks had a hiirher colour than 
 usual ; she lay back in the chair with lace 
 turned upwards, her eyes dreaming. 
 
 ' You are tired, I am afraid,' Mrs. Eossall 
 said, ' in spite of your sleep in the hammock. 
 The first day in the country always tires me 
 dreadfully.' 
 
 ' Yes, I suppose I am, a little,' murmured 
 Beatrice. 
 
 ' Not too tired, I hope, to sing,' said 
 Wilfrid, coming from his couch in the corner 
 to a nearer seat. His way of speaking was 
 not wholly natural ; like his attitude, it had 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 something constrained ; he seemed to be dis- 
 charging a duty. 
 
 ^ Observe the selfishness of youth,' re- 
 marked Mr. Athel. 
 
 * Age, I dare say, has its selfishness too 
 in the present instance,' was Mrs. Rossall's 
 rejoinder. 
 
 'To whom does that refer?' questioned 
 her brother, jocosely. 
 
 Beatrice turned her head suddenly to- 
 wards Emily. 
 
 ' Shall I sing, Miss Hood ? ' she asked, 
 with a touch of her ingenue manner, though 
 the playfulness of her words rang strangely. 
 
 * It will give me much pleasure to hear 
 you,' was the sober reply, coming after an 
 instant of embarrassment. 
 
 Beatrice rose. Her movement across the 
 room had a union of conscious stateliness and 
 virgin grace which became her style of 
 beautv ; it was in itself the introduction to
 
 LYRICAL 117 
 
 fine music. Mrs. Rossall Tvent to accompany. 
 Choice was made of a solo from an oratorio ; 
 Beatrice never sang trivialities of the day, a 
 noteworthy variance from her habits in other 
 things. In a little while, AVilfrid stirred to 
 enable himself to see Emily's face ; it showed 
 deep feeling. And indeed, it was impossible 
 to hear that voice and remain unmoved ; 
 its sweetness, its force, its skill were alike 
 admirable. Beatrice conversing was quite 
 other than Beatrice when she sang ; music 
 was her mode of self-utterance ; from the 
 first sustained note it was felt that a difficulty 
 of expression had been overcome, that she 
 was saying things which at other times she 
 could not, disclosing motives which as a rule 
 the complexities of her character covered and 
 concealed, which were not clear to her own 
 consciousness till the divine impulse gave 
 them form. It was no shallow nature that 
 could pour forth this flood of harmony. The
 
 ii8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 mere gift of a splendid voice, wrought to 
 whatever degree of perfection, would not in- 
 vest with this rare power. In technical 
 qualities she might have much still to learn, 
 but the passionate poetry of her notes was 
 what no training could have developed, and 
 it would never evince itself with more im- 
 pressiveness than to-night. 
 
 It seemed frivolous to speak thanks. 
 Wilfrid gazed out into the dark of the garden ; 
 Emily kept her eyes bent downwards. She 
 heard the rustle of Beatrice's dress near 
 her. Mr. Athel began to speak of the piece ; 
 the sound of Beatrice's voice replying caused 
 Emily at length to look up, and she met the 
 dark eyes, still large with the joy of song. 
 Her own gaze had a beautiful solemnity, a 
 devout admiration, of which it was impossible 
 to doubt the genuineness. Beatrice, observing 
 it, smiled very sliglitly before turning away 
 ag^ain.
 
 LYRICAL 119 
 
 A quarter of an hour after, Emily 
 withdrew. Mrs. Rossall played a little, and 
 talk of an idle kind followed. Wilfrid was 
 not disposed to take his usual part in con- 
 versation, and his casual remarks were scarcely 
 ever addressed to Beatrice. Presently Mrs. 
 Rossall wished to refer to the ' Spectator,' 
 which contained a criticism of a new pianist 
 of whom there was much talk just then. 
 
 'Have you had it, Wilf ? ' Mr. Athel 
 asked, after turning over a heap of papers in 
 vain. 
 
 ' Oh, the " Spectator," ' Wilfrid rephed, 
 rousing himself from absentness. ' Yes, I 
 had it in the summer-house just before dinner ; 
 I believe I left it there. Shall I fetch it ? ' 
 
 ' It would serve you right if I said yes,' 
 admonished Mrs. Rossall. ' In the first place 
 you had no business to be reading it ' 
 
 * I will go,' Wilfrid said, rising with an 
 effort.
 
 I20 A LIFE'S MORXLXG 
 
 ' Xo, no ; it will do to-morrow.' 
 ' May as well get it now,' lie said in- 
 differently, and went out by the window. 
 
 That part of the garden through which 
 he walked lay m the shadow of the house ; 
 the sky was full of moonlight, but the moon 
 itself was still low. A pathway between 
 laurels led to the summer-house. Just short 
 of the little building, he passed the edge of 
 shade, and, before entering, turned to view 
 the bright crescent as it hung just above 
 the house-roof. Gazing at the forms of 
 silvered cloud floating on blue depths, he 
 heard a movement immediately behind him ; 
 he turned, to behold Emily standing in the 
 doorway. The moon's rays shone full upon 
 her ; a light shawl which seemed to have 
 covered her head had slipped down to her 
 shoulders, and one end was held m a hand 
 passed over her breast. There was some- 
 thing in the attitude which strikingly became
 
 LYRICAL 121 
 
 her ; her slight figure looked both graceful 
 and dio'iiified. The marble hue of her face, 
 thus gleamed upon, added to the statuesque 
 effect ; her eyes had a startled look, their lids 
 drooped as AVilfrid regarded her. 
 
 ' You have been sittmg here since you 
 left us ?' he asked, in a voice attuned to the 
 night's hush. 
 
 ' I was tempted to come out ; the night is 
 so beautiful.' 
 
 ' It is.' 
 
 He uttered the assent mechanically ; his 
 eyes, like hers, had fallen, but he raised them 
 again to her face. It seemed to him in this 
 moment the perfect type of spiritual beauty ; 
 the brow so broad and pure, the eyes far- 
 seeing in their maidenly reserve, the lips full, 
 firm, of mfinite refinement and sweetness. 
 He felt abashed before her, as he liad never 
 done. They had stood thus but a moment 
 or two, yet it seemed long to both. Emily
 
 122 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 stepped from the wooden threshold on to the 
 grass. 
 
 ^ Somebody wants the '' Spectator," ' he 
 said, hurriedly. ' I believe I left it here.' 
 
 ' Yes, it is on the table.' 
 
 With a perfectly naturally impulse, she 
 quickly re-entered the house, to reach the 
 paper she had seen only a minute ago. With- 
 out reflection, heart-beats stifling his thought, 
 he stepped after her. The shadow made her 
 turn rapidly ; a shimmer of silver light 
 through the lattice- work still touched her 
 features ; her lips were parted as if in fear. 
 
 'Emily!' 
 
 He did not know that he had spoken. The 
 name upon his tongue, a name he had said 
 low to himself often to-day and yesterday, was 
 born of the throe which made fire-currents of 
 his veins, the passion which at the instant 
 seized imperiously upon his being. She could 
 not see his face, and hers to him was a half-
 
 LYRICAL 123 
 
 veiled glory, yet each knew the wild gaze, the 
 all but terror, in the other's eyes, that anguish 
 which indicates a supreme moment in life, a 
 turning-point of fate. 
 
 She had no voice. AVilfrid's words at 
 length made way impetuously. 
 
 ' I thought I could wait longer, and try in 
 the meanwhile to win your kind thoughts for 
 me ; but I dare not part from you for so long, 
 leaving it a mere chance that you will come 
 back. I must say to you what it means, the 
 hope of seeing you again. All the other 
 desires of my life are lost in that. You are 
 my true self, for which I shall seek in vain 
 whilst I am away from you. Can you give 
 me anything — a promise of kind thought — a 
 hope — to live upon till I see you ? ' 
 
 ' I cannot come back.' 
 
 But for the intense stillness he could not 
 have canglit tlie words ; they were sighed 
 rather than spoken.
 
 124 ^ LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 * Because I have said this ? — Emily ! ' 
 
 He saw the white shape of her hand rest- 
 ing upon the table, and held it in his own, 
 tliat exquisite hand which he had so often 
 longed to touch ; how cold it was ! yet how 
 soft, living ! She made no etFort to draw it 
 away. 
 
 ' I cannot say now what I wish to,' he 
 spoke hurriedly. ' I must see you to-morrow 
 — you will not refuse ? I must see you ! You 
 are often out very early ; I shall be at the 
 hollow, where we talked yesterday, early, at 
 seven o'clock — you will come ? If the morn- 
 ing is not fine, then the day after. Emily, 
 you will meet me ? ' 
 
 ' I will meet you.' 
 
 He touched her fingers with his lips, took 
 the paper, and hastened back to the house. 
 His absence had not seemed lono; ; it was 
 only of five minutes. Eeaching the open 
 windows, he did not enter at once, but stood
 
 LYRICAL 125 
 
 there and called to those within to come and 
 admu-e the night ; he felt his face hot and 
 flushed. 
 
 * What is there remarkable about the 
 night ? ' asked Mr. Athel, sauntering for- 
 wards. 
 
 ' Come and look at this glorious moon. 
 Miss Redwing/ Wilfrid exclaimed, once more 
 with the natural friendliness of his habitual 
 tone to her. 
 
 * It seems to have put you into excellent 
 spirits/ remarked Mrs. Rossall, as, followed 
 by Beatrice, she approached the window. 
 ' Have you found the " Spectator " ? that's 
 the point.' 
 
 Wilfrid continued speaking in a raised 
 voice, for it was just possible, he thought, 
 that Emily might come this way round to 
 enter, and he wished her to be apprised of 
 their presence. All went back into the room 
 after a few moments, and, as the air liad
 
 126 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 2T0WI1 cooler, the windows were closed. As 
 Wilfrid seated himself in a dusky part of the 
 room, he noticed that Beatrice was regarding 
 him steadily. She had not spoken since his 
 return, and did not do so till she presently 
 rose to say good-night. To Wilfrid she used 
 no form of words, merely giving him her 
 hand ; that other had been so cold, how hot 
 this was ! 
 
 She laughed as she turned from him. 
 
 ' What is the source of amusement ? ' 
 inquired Mr. Athel, who was standing by 
 with his hands upon his hips. 
 
 ' Indeed I don't know,' returned Beatrice, 
 laughing again slightly. ' I sometimes laugh 
 without cause.' 
 
 Emily had passed upstairs and gone to 
 her bedroom but a moment before, treading 
 with quick, soundless steps. When Wilfrid 
 left her in the summer-house, she stood un- 
 moving, and only after a minute or two
 
 LYRICAL \i'j 
 
 changed her attitude by putting her palms 
 against her face, as if in the gloom she found 
 too much light. It was a sensation of shame 
 which came upon her, a tremor of maiden- 
 hood in re-living, swift instant by instant, all 
 that had just passed. Had she in any way 
 aided in brino^ino: about that confession ? 
 Had she done anything, made a motion, 
 uttered a tone, which broke away the barrier 
 between herself and him ? When she could 
 recover self-consciousness, disembarrass her- 
 self of the phantom moments which would 
 not fleet with the rest of time, it was scarcely 
 joy which she read in her heart ; apprehension, 
 dismay, lack of courage to look forward be- 
 yond this night, these oppressed her. Then, 
 close upon the haunting reality of his voice, 
 his touch, came inability to believe what had 
 happened. Had a transient dreamful slumber 
 crept upon her as she sat here alone ? So 
 quickly had the world suffered re-creation, so
 
 128 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 magical the whelming of old days in a new 
 order, so complete the change in herself. One 
 word she knew which had power from eternity 
 to do these things, and that word neither he 
 nor she had uttered. But there was no need, 
 when the night spoke it in every beat of time. 
 Fearful of being seen, she at length ven- 
 tured to return to the house. Moonhght 
 streamed full upon her bed ; it would have 
 irked her as yet to take oiff her clothes, she 
 lay in the radiance, which seemed to touch 
 her with warm influences, and let her eyes 
 rest upon the source of light. Then at 
 length joy came and throned in her heart, joy 
 that would mate with no anxious thought, no 
 tremulous brooding. This was her night ! 
 There might be other happy beings in the 
 world to whom it was also the beo^innino; of 
 new life, but in lier name was its consecration, 
 hers the supremacy of blessedness. Let the 
 morrow wait on the hour of waking, if mdeed
 
 LYRICAL 129 
 
 sleep would ever come ; this moment, the 
 sacred noic^ was all that she could compre- 
 hend. 
 
 She undressed at length, and even slept, 
 fitfully, always to start into wakefulness with 
 a sense of something to be thought upon, to 
 be realised, to be done. The weariness of 
 excitement perturbed her joy ; the meeting 
 which was to take place in a few hours 
 became a nervous preoccupation. The moon- 
 light had died away ; the cold light of dawn 
 began to make objects in the room distinct. 
 Was it good to have consented so readily to 
 meet him? Xay, but no choice had been left 
 her ; his eagerness would take no refusal ; 
 and it was impossible for things to remain a^ 
 they were, without calmer talk between them. 
 It was lier resource to remember his ener- 
 getic will, his force of character ; the happiness 
 of passively submitting to what he might 
 dictate; sure of his scrupulous honour. Ids 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 I30 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 high ideal. Could she indeed have borne to 
 go into exile from his presence, without a 
 hope that this the noblest and most aspiring 
 life that had ever approached her might 
 be something more than a star to worship ? 
 If wealth comes, we wonder how we drew 
 breath in poverty ; 3^et we lived, and should 
 have lived on. Let the gods be thanked, 
 whom it pleases to clothe the soul with joy 
 wliich is superfluous to bare existence! 
 ]\lioiit she not now hallow herself to be a 
 true priestess of beauty? Wo aid not life be 
 vivid with new powers and possibilities ? 
 Even as that heaven was robing itself in 
 glory of sunrise, with warmth and hue which 
 strenofthened her aofain to overcome anxieties. 
 Was he wakmg? Was he impatient for the 
 liour of his meeting with her? She would 
 stand face to face with him m the full sun- 
 light this time, but with what deep humility ! 
 Should she be able to find words? She had
 
 LYRICAL 131 
 
 scarcely spoken to liim, ever, as yet. and now 
 there was more to say than hours of solitude 
 would leave time for. She knew not whether 
 to bid the sun Imger or speed. 
 
 There was nothino^ unusual in her rising; 
 and going forth early, though perhaps slie 
 had never issued from the house quite so 
 early as this morning ; it was not yet six 
 o'clock when she gently closed the garden- 
 gate behind her, and walked along the road 
 which led on to the common. The sun had 
 already warmed the world, and the sheen of 
 earth and heaven was at its brighest; the wmd 
 sweeping from the downs was like the breath 
 of creation, giving life to forms of faultless 
 beauty. Emily's heart lacked no morning 
 hymn; every sense revelled in that pure joy 
 which is the poetry of praise. She wished 
 it had been nearer the hour of meeting, yet 
 again was glad to have time to prepare her- 
 self. Walking, she drank in the loveliness 
 
 K 2
 
 132 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 about her, marked the forms of trees, the 
 light and shade of heavy leafage, the blendings 
 of colour by the roadside, the grace of remote 
 distances ; all these things she was making 
 part of herself, that in memory they might be 
 a joy for ever. It is the art of life to take 
 each moment of mental joy, of spiritual open- 
 ness, as though it would never be repeated, 
 to cling to it as a pearl of great price, to 
 exhaust its possibilities of sensation. At the 
 best, such moments will be few amid the 
 fateful succession of common cares, of lassi- 
 tudes, of disillusions. Emily had gone deep 
 enough in thought already to understand 
 this ; in her rapture there was no want of 
 discerning consciousness. If this morning 
 were to be unique in her life, she would have 
 gained from it all that it had to give. Those 
 subtle fears, spiritual misgivings, which 
 lurked behind her perceptions would again 
 have their day, for it was only by striving
 
 LYRICAL 13 J 
 
 that she had attained her present modes of 
 thought ; her nature concealed a darker 
 strain, an instinct of asceticism, which had 
 now and again predominated, especially in 
 the period of her transition to womanhood, 
 when the material conditions of her life were 
 sad and of little hope. It was no spirit of 
 unreflective joy that now dwelt within her, 
 but the more human happiness extorted 
 from powers which only yield to striving. 
 Hitherto her life's morning had been but cold 
 and grey ; she had trained herself to expect 
 no breaking forth of gleams from the sober 
 sky. This sudden splendour might be tran- 
 sitory. 
 
 But who was that already standing by 
 the hollow? Was it likely that he would 
 be later than she at the place of meeting! 
 Emily stood with a shock of life at the gates 
 of her heart. She tried to keep her eyes 
 raised to his as she approached slowly, he
 
 134 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 with more speed. Would she not after all 
 find voice for the things she had to say? 
 
 Wilfrid came to her with bare head, and 
 took her hand ; no more than took her hand, 
 for he was in awe of the solemn beauty of her 
 countenance. 
 
 ' You thought I should keep you wait- 
 ing ? ' he asked, in a low voice trembling 
 with joy. 'I have watched the sun rise.' 
 
 * The door had not been opened ' 
 
 * My window is not high above the 
 o-round,' he answered, with an uncertain 
 laugh. 
 
 They walked side by side over the heather, 
 towards the beginning of a wood, young fir 
 trees mingling with gorse and bracken. Be- 
 yond was the dense foliage of older growths. 
 He had again taken one of her hands, and so 
 led her on. 
 
 ' Emily ! ' 
 
 She was able to look into his face for a
 
 LYRICAL 135 
 
 moment, but the moving of her lips gave no 
 sound. 
 
 ' I could not sleep/ he went on, ' so I read 
 of you till dawn in the Knightes Tale. It is 
 a name I have always loved, sweet, musical, 
 but of deep meaning. Will you not let me 
 hear you speak, Emily ? ' 
 
 She uttered a few timid words, then they 
 passed on in silence till the wood was all 
 about them. 
 
 ' May I tell you the plan which I have 
 made in the night ? ' he said, as they stood 
 on a spot of smooth turf, netted with sun- 
 light. ' You leave us in two days. Before we 
 start for London, I shall speak with my 
 father, and tell him what has come about. 
 You remember what I was saying about him 
 the day before yesterday ; perhaps it was 
 with a half-thouo-ht of this — so darino; I was, 
 you see ! I have no fear of his kindness, his 
 good sense. At the same time, it is right
 
 136 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 you should know that my independence is 
 assured ; my grandfather left me far more 
 than enough for mere needs. By the summer 
 of next year I shall be free of Oxford. I care 
 little now for such honours as those ; you 
 have honoured me more than any other voice 
 has power to do. But my father would be 
 disappointed if I did not go on to the end, 
 and do something of what is expected. Now 
 you must tell me freely : is there absolute 
 necessity for your maintaining yourself in the 
 meanwhile, for your leaving home ? ' 
 
 * There is,' she replied. 
 
 ' Then will you continue to teach the 
 children as usual ? ' 
 
 She was touched with apprehension. 
 
 ' Gladly I would do so, but is it possible ? 
 Would you conceal from Mrs. Rossall ' 
 
 Wilfrid mused. 
 
 ' I meant to. But your instincts are 
 truer than mine ; say what you think. I
 
 L YRICAL 137 
 
 believe my father would countenance it, for it 
 involves no real deceit.' 
 
 ' If you wish it/ Emily said, after a silence 
 in a low voice. 
 
 ' Of my aunt,' pursued Wilfrid, ' I have 
 just this degree of doubt. She might make 
 difficulties ; her ways of thinking differ often 
 from ours. Yet it is far better that you 
 should continue to live with us. I myself 
 shall scarcely ever be at home ; it will not be 
 as if I dwelt under the roof ; I will make my 
 visits as short as possible, not to trouble you. 
 I could not let you go to the house of other 
 people — you to lack consideration, perhaps 
 to meet unkindness ! Rather than that you 
 shall stay in your own home, or I will not 
 return to Oxford at all.' 
 
 Emily stood in anxious thought. He 
 drew a step nearer to her ; seemed about to 
 draw nearer still, but checked himself as she 
 looked up.
 
 138 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' I fear we must not do that,' she said. 
 ' Mrs. Rossall would not forgive me.' 
 
 Woman's judgment of woman, and worth 
 much moi-e than Wilfrid's rough and ready 
 scheming. 
 
 Wilfrid smiled. 
 
 ^ Then she also shall know,' he exclaimed. 
 ' She shall take my view of this ; I will not 
 be gainsaid. What is there in the plan that 
 common sense can object to ? Your position 
 is not that of a servant ; you are from the 
 first our friend ; you honour us by the aid 
 you give, efficient as few could make it. 
 Yes, there shall be no concealment ; far 
 better so.' 
 
 ' You have no fear of the views they will 
 take ? ' 
 
 ' Xone ! ' he said, with characteristic 
 decision. ' If they are unreasonable, absurd, 
 our course is plain enough. You will be my 
 wife when I ask you to, Emily ? '
 
 LYRICAL 139 
 
 She faltered, and held her hand to hhn. 
 
 ' Is it worth while to go back to Oxford ? ' 
 he mused, caressing the fingers he had 
 kissed. 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; you must,' Emily urged, with a 
 sort of fear m her sudden courage. ' You 
 must not disappoint them, your father, your 
 friends.' 
 
 ' My fair wise one ! ' he murmured, gazing 
 rapturously at her. ' Oh, Emily, think what 
 our life will be I Shall we not dram the 
 world of its wisdom, youth of its delight ! 
 Hand in hand, one heart, one brain — what 
 shall escape us ? It was you I needed to 
 give completeness to my thought and desire.' 
 
 The old dream, the eternal fancy. This 
 one, this and no other, chosen from out the 
 myriads of human souls. Individuality the 
 servant of passion ; mysteries read undoubt- 
 ingly with the eye of longing. Kead perhaps 
 so truly; who knows?
 
 I40 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 She came nearer, imperceptibly, her raised 
 face aoflow like the morninof. 
 
 * Wilfrid — you beheve — you know that I 
 love you ? ' 
 
 The last word breathed out in the touch- 
 ing of lips with lips. What could he reply, 
 save those old, simple words of tenderness, 
 that small vocabulary of love, common to 
 child and man ? The goddess that made 
 herself woman for his sake — see, did he not 
 hold her clasped to him ! But she was mute 
 again. The birds sang so loudly round about 
 them, uttered their hearts so easily, but Emily 
 could only speak through silence. And after- 
 wards she knew there was so much she should 
 have said. What matter ? One cannot find 
 tongue upon the threshold of the holy of 
 holies.
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS. 
 
 Beatrice Redwing's visit only extended over 
 the second day, and during that there was 
 little, if any, separate conversation between 
 her and Wilfrid. The change in her from 
 the free gaiety and restfulness of the morning 
 of her arrival could not escape notice, though 
 she affected a continuance of the bright mood. 
 Mr. Athel and his sister both observed her real 
 preoccupation, as if of trouble, and mentally 
 attributed it to something that had passed 
 during the afternoon's ride. Mrs. Rossall 
 did not look for confidences. Beatrice would 
 gossip freely enough of trivial experiences, 
 or of tlie details of faith and ritual, but the
 
 142 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 innermost veil of lier heart was never raised ; 
 all her friends felt that, though they could not 
 easily have explained in what way they became 
 conscious of this reserve, she seemed so tho- 
 roughly open, not to say so shallow. She left 
 The Firs to return to town, and thence in a 
 week or two went to Cowes, a favourite abode 
 of her mother's. 
 
 The next day, Emily also left, journeying 
 to London on her way to the north. Wilfrid 
 and she had no second meeting ; their parting 
 was formal, in the family circle. Mr. Athel 
 displayed even more than his usual urbanity; 
 Mrs. Rossall was genuinely gracious ; the 
 twins made many promises to write from 
 Switzerland. Emily was self-possessed, but 
 Wilfrid read in her face that she was ffoins: 
 through an ordeal. He felt the folly of his 
 first proposal, that she should play a part 
 before Mrs. Rossall through the winter 
 months. He decided, moreover, that no time
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPIXIOXS 143 
 
 should be lost in making the necessary dis- 
 closure to his father. Xaturally it would be 
 an anxious time with Emily till she had 
 news from him. She had asked him to direct 
 letters to the Dunfield post office, not to her 
 home ; it was better so for the present. 
 
 Wilfrid, though anything but weakly ner- 
 vous, was impatient of suspense, and, in face 
 of a situation like the present, suffered from 
 tlie excitability of an imaginative tempera- 
 ment. He had by no means yet outgrown 
 the mood which, when he was a boy, made 
 the anticipation of any delight a physical 
 illness. In an essentially feeble nature this 
 extreme sensibility is fatal to sane acliieve- 
 ment ; in Wilfrid, it merely enforced the 
 vigour of his will. As a cliild lie used to 
 exclaim that he could not wait ; at present lie 
 was apt to say that he would not. He did 
 n(^t, in very truth, anticipate difficulties with 
 his father, his conviction of the latter's
 
 144 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 reasonableness being strongly supported by 
 immense confidence in his own powers of put- 
 ting a case incontrovertibly. As he had said 
 to Emily, he could scarcely allow that deep 
 affection for his father dwelt within him, nor 
 did the nature of the case permit him to feel 
 exactly reverent ; these stronger emotions 
 were reserved for the memory of the parent 
 who was long dead. He thought of his 
 father with warm friendliness, that temper 
 which is consistent with clear perception of 
 faults and foibles, which makes of them, in- 
 deed, an occasion for the added kindliness of 
 indulgence, and which, on the other hand, 
 leaves perfect freedom in judgment and ac- 
 tion. We know that it is for the most part a 
 misfortune to be the son of a really great man, 
 and for the reason that nature, so indifferent 
 to the individual, makes the well-being of 
 each generation mainly consist in early pre- 
 dominance over the generation which gave it
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 145 
 
 birth. Wilfrid suffered no such exceptional 
 hardship. At three- and- twenty he felt him- 
 self essentially his father's superior. He 
 would not have exposed the fact thus crudely, 
 for he was susceptible to the comely order of 
 things. The fact was a fact, and nature, not 
 he, was responsible for it. That, and the 
 circumstance of his material independence, 
 would necessarily keep the ensuing interview 
 well within the limits of urbane comedy. The 
 young man smiled already at the suggested 
 comparison with his father's own choice in 
 matrimony. Wilfrid had never had the details 
 of that story avowedly represented to him, 
 but it was inevitable that he should have 
 learnt enough to enable him to reconstruct 
 them with tolerable accuracy. 
 
 Emily was gone long before the hour of 
 luncheon. After that meal, Mr. Athel lit a 
 cigar and went to a favourite seat in the 
 garden. Mrs. Rossall was gonig with the 
 
 VOL I. L
 
 146 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 twins to make a farewell call on neighbouring 
 friends. As soon as the carriage had left the 
 house, Wilfrid sought his father, who was 
 amusing himself with a review. 
 
 ' I thought you would have gone with 
 your aunt,' Mr. Athel remarked, after a glance 
 to see who was approaching him. 
 
 ' I had an object in remaining behind,' 
 Wilfrid returned, composedly, seating himself 
 on a camp-stool which he had brought out. 
 ' I wished to talk over with you a matter of 
 some importance.' 
 
 'Oh?' 
 
 Mr. Athel stroked his chin, and smiled a 
 little. It occurred to hhn at once that some- 
 tliinir relative to Beatrice was about to be 
 disclosed. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' he added, throwing one leg 
 over the other, and letting the review He open 
 on his lap. 
 
 ' It concerns Miss Hood,' pursued the
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPIXIOXS 147 
 
 other, assuming the same attitude, save that 
 he had nothing to lean back against. ' A day 
 or two ago I asked her to engage herself to 
 me, and she consented.' 
 
 Perhaps this was the simplest way of 
 putting it. Wilfrid could not utter the words 
 with complete calmness ; his hands had begun 
 to tremble a little, and his temples were hot. 
 By an effort he kept his eyes steadily fixed on 
 his father's face, and what he saw there did 
 not supply encouragement to proceed in the 
 genial tone with which he had begun. Mr. 
 Athel frowned, not angrily, but as if not 
 quite able to grasp what had been told him. 
 He had cast his eyes down. 
 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 ' I have chosen the earliest moment for 
 telling you of this,' Wilfrid continued, rather 
 hurriedly. ' It was of course better to leave 
 it till Miss Hood had gone.' 
 
 L 2
 
 1 48 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 On the father's face displeasure had suc- 
 ceeded to mere astonishment. 
 
 ' You could have told me few things that 
 I should be so sorry to hear,' were his first 
 words, delivered in an undertone and with 
 grave precision. 
 
 ' Surely that does not express your better 
 thought,' said Wilfrid, to whom a hint of 
 opposition at once gave the firmness he had 
 lacked. 
 
 ' It expresses my very natural thought. 
 In the first place, it is not pleasant to know 
 that clandestine proceedings of this kind have 
 been going on under my roof. I have no 
 Avish to say anything disrespectful of Miss 
 Hood, but I am disposed to think that she 
 Las mistaken her vocation ; such talents for 
 dissimulation would surely have pointed 
 to ' 
 
 Mr. Athel had two ways of expressing 
 displeasure. Where ceremony was wholly
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 149 
 
 unnecessary, lie gave vent to his feelings in 
 an outburst of hearty English wrath, not 
 coarsely, for his instincts were invariably 
 those of a gentleman, but in the cultivated 
 autocratic tone ; an offending groom, for in- 
 stance, did not care to incur reproof a second 
 time. Where this mode of utterance was out 
 of place, he was apt to have recourse to a 
 somewhat too elaborate irony, to involve him- 
 self in phrases which ultimately led to awk- 
 ward hesitations, with the effect that he grew 
 more heated by embarrassment. Had he 
 been allowed to proceed, he would at present 
 have illustrated this failing, for he had begun 
 with extreme deliberation, smoothing the 
 open pages with his right hand, rounding his 
 words, reddening a little in the face. But 
 Wilfrid interposed. 
 
 ' I must not let you speak or think of 
 Miss Hood so mistakenly,' he said, firmly, 
 but without unbecoming self-assertion. * She
 
 I50 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 could not possibly have behaved with more 
 reserve to me than she did until, three days 
 ago, I myself gave a new colour to our re- 
 lations. The outward propriety which you 
 admit has been perfectly genuine ; if there is 
 any blame in the matter — and how can there 
 be any ? — it rests solely upon me. I dare say 
 you remember my going out to fetch the 
 " Spectator," after Miss Kedwing had been 
 singing to us. By chance I met Miss Hood 
 in the garden. I was led to say something 
 to her which made a longer interview inevit- 
 able ; she consented to meet me on the 
 common before breakfast, the following morn- 
 ing. These are the onl}- two occasions which 
 can be called clandestine. If she has dis- 
 guised herself since then, how could she have 
 behaved otherwise ? Disguise is too strong a 
 word ; she has merely kept silence. I need 
 not inquire whether you fully believe what I 
 say.'
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 151 
 
 ^ What you say, I believe, as a matter of 
 course,' replied Mr. Athel, who had drummed 
 with his fingers as he listened impatiently. 
 ' It can scarcely alter my view of the position 
 of things. Had you come to me before offer- 
 ing yourself to this young lady, and done 
 me the honour of asking my advice, I should 
 in all probability have had a rather strong 
 opinion to express ; as it is, I don't see that 
 there is anything left to be said.' 
 
 ^ What would your opinion have been ? 
 Wilfrid asked. 
 
 * Simply that for an idle fancy, the unfor- 
 tunate result of unoccuioied days, you were 
 about to take a step which would assuredly 
 lead to regret at least, very probably to more 
 active repentance. In fact, I should have 
 warned you not to spoil your hfe in its com- 
 mencement.' 
 
 ' I think, father, that you would have 
 spoken with too little knowledge of the case.
 
 152 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 \ ou caD scarcely know Miss Hood as I do. 
 I have studied her since we came here, and 
 with — well, with these results.' 
 
 ]\Ir. Athel looked up with grave sadness. 
 
 ' Wilf, this is a deeply unfortunate thing, 
 my boy. I grieve over it more than I can 
 tell you. I am terribly disappointed. Your 
 position and your hopes pointed to very dif- 
 ferent things. You have surprised me, too ; 
 I thought your mind was already made up, in 
 quite a different quarter.' 
 
 ' You refer to Miss Kedwing ? ' 
 
 ' Naturally.' 
 
 ' You have, indeed, been mistaken. It 
 was impossible that I should think of her as 
 a wife. I must have sympathy, intellectual 
 and moral. With her I have none. AYe 
 cannot talk without flagrant differences — dif- 
 ferences of a serious, a radical nature. Be 
 assured that such a thought as this never 
 occurred to Miss Redwing herself; her very
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIOXS 153 
 
 last conversation with me forbids any such 
 idea.' 
 
 Mr. Athel still drummed on the book, 
 seemingly paying little heed to the speaker. 
 
 ' You find sympathy in Miss Hood ? ' he 
 asked suddenly, with a touch of sarcasm. 
 
 ' The deepest. Her intellectual tendencies 
 are the same as my own ; she has a mind 
 which it refreshes and delights me to discover. 
 Of course that is not all, but it is all I need 
 speak of I know that I have chosen well 
 and rightly.' 
 
 ' I won't be so old-fashioned,' remarked 
 Mr. Athel, still with subdued sarcasm, ' as to 
 hint that some thought of me might have 
 entered into your choosuig' (did he con- 
 sciously repeat his own father's words of five- 
 and- twenty years back, or was it but destiny 
 making him play his part in the human 
 comedy?), 'and, in point of fact' (perhaps 
 the parallel touched him at this point), 'you
 
 154 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 are old enough to judge the affair on its own 
 merits. ^ly wonder is that your judgment 
 has not been sounder. Has it occurred to 
 you that a young lady in Miss Hood's posi- 
 tion would find it at all events somewhat 
 difficult to be unbiassed in her assent to what 
 you proposed ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing has occurred to me,' replied 
 Wilfrid, more shortly than hitherto, ' which 
 could cast a shadow of suspicion on her 
 perfect truth. I beg that you will not sug- 
 gest these things. Some day you will judge 
 her with better knowledge.' 
 
 ' I am not sure of that/ was the rejoinder, 
 almost irritably uttered. 
 
 ' What do you mean by that, father ? ' 
 Wilfrid asked in a lower tone. 
 
 ' I mean, Wilf, that I am not yet in the 
 frame of mind to regard the children's gover- 
 ness as my daughter-in-law. Miss Hood 
 may be all you say ; I would not willingly be
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPLYIONS 155 
 
 anything but scrujDulously just. The fact 
 remains that this is not the alliance which it 
 became you to make. It is, in a very pro- 
 nounced sense, marrying beneath you. It is 
 not easy for me to reconcile myself to that.' 
 
 It was Wilfrid's turn to keep silence. 
 What became of his plans ? They were 
 hardly in a way to be carried out as he had 
 conceived them. A graver uneasiness was 
 possessing him. Resolve would only grow 
 by opposition, but there was more of pain in 
 announcing an independent course than he 
 had foreseen. 
 
 ' What are your practical proposals ? ' his 
 father inquired, his mollified tone the result 
 of observing that he had made a certain im- 
 pression, for he was distinctly one of the men 
 who are to be overcome by yielding. 
 
 ' I had a proposal to make, but of such a 
 kind that it is hardly worth while to speak of 
 it. I shall have to reflect.'
 
 156 A LIFE'S MORNLXG 
 
 ^ Let me hear wlmt you were going to 
 say. There's no harm in that, at all events.' 
 
 ' My idea was, that, with your consent 
 and my aunt's. Miss Hood should return just 
 as if nothing had happened, and continue to 
 teach the twins till next summer, when I 
 should have done with Oxford. There ap- 
 pears to me to be nothing irrational or un- 
 seemly in such a plan. If she were our cook 
 or housemaid, there might be reasonable ob- 
 jections. As it is, it would hardly involve a 
 change even in your tone to her, seeing that 
 you are in the habit of treating her as a lady, 
 and with a certain degree of familiar kindness. 
 I confess I had anticipated no difficulties. 
 We are not a household of bigoted Con- 
 servatives ; it is hard for me to imagine 
 you taking any line but that of an en- 
 lightened man who judged all things from the 
 standpoint of liberal reflection. I suppose 
 my own scorn of prejudices is largely due to
 
 A COXFLICT OF OPIXIOXS 157 
 
 your influence. It is not easy to realise our 
 being in conflict on any matter involving 
 calm reasonableness.' 
 
 In another this would have been a shrewd 
 speech. Wilfrid was incapable of conscious 
 artifice of this kind ; this appeal, the very 
 strongest he could have made to his father, 
 was urged in all sincerity, and derived its 
 force from that very fact. He possessed not 
 a little of the persuasive genius which goes to 
 make an orator — hereafter to serve him in 
 fields as yet undreamed of — and natural en- 
 dowment guided his feeling in the way of 
 most impressive utterance. Mr. Athel smiled 
 in spite of himself. 
 
 ' And what about your aunt ? ' he asked. 
 • Pray remember that it is only by chance 
 that Miss Hood lives under my roof. Do 
 you imagine your aunt equally unprejudiced? ' 
 
 Mr. Athel was, characteristically, rather 
 fond of side-glancings at feminine weak-
 
 158 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 nesses. An opportunity of tlie kind was 
 wont to mellow his mood. 
 
 ' To be quite open in the matter,' Wilfrid 
 replied, ' I will own that my first idea was to 
 take you alone into my confidence ; to ask 
 you to say nothing to Aunt Edith. Miss 
 Hood felt that that would be impossible, and 
 I see that she was right. It would involve 
 deceit which it is not in her nature to 
 practise.' 
 
 * You and Miss Hood have discussed us 
 freely,' observed the father, with a return to 
 his irony. 
 
 ' I don't reply to that,' said Wilfrid 
 quietly. ' I think you must give me credit 
 for the usual measure of self-respect ; and 
 Miss Hood does not fall short of it.' 
 
 The look which Mr. Athel cast at his son 
 had in it something of j)ride. He would not 
 trust himself to speak immediately. 
 
 ' I don't say,' he began presently, with
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 159 
 
 balancing of phrase, ' that your jjlan is not 
 on the face of it consistent and reasonable. 
 Putting aside for the moment the wretchedly 
 unsatisfactory circumstances which originate 
 it, I suppose it is the plan which naturally 
 suggests itself But, of course, in practice it 
 is out of the question.' 
 
 ' You feel sure that aunt would not 
 entertain it ? ' 
 
 ' I do. And I don't see how I could 
 recommend her to do so.' 
 
 Wilfrid reflected. 
 
 ' In that case,' he said, ^ I have only one 
 alternative. I must give up my intention of 
 returning to Oxford and marry before the end 
 of the year.' 
 
 The words had to his own ears a some- 
 what explosive sound. They were uttered, 
 however, and he was glad of it. A purpose 
 thus formulated he would not swerve from. 
 Of that his father too was well aware.
 
 i6o A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Mr. Atliel rose from his seat, held the 
 roUed-up magazine in both hands behind his 
 back, and took a turn across a few yards of 
 lawn. "Wilfrid sat still, leaning forward, 
 watching his father's shadow. The shadow 
 approached him. 
 
 '■ Wilf, is there no via media ? Cannot 
 Miss Hood remain at home for a while? Are 
 you going to throw up your career, and lay 
 in a stock of repentance for the rest of your 
 life? ' 
 
 ' I don't think you quite understand me, 
 father. I contemplate no career which could 
 possibly be injured even by my immediate 
 marriage. If you mean University honours 
 — I care nothing about them. I would go 
 through the routine just for the sake of 
 completeness ; it is her strong wish that I 
 should. But my future, most happily, does 
 not depend on success of that kind. I shall 
 live the life of a student, my end will be
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPIXWNS i6i 
 
 self-culture And Miss Hood is unfortu- 
 nately not able to remain at home. I say 
 unfortunately, but I should have regarded it 
 as preferable that she should continue in her 
 position with us. You and aunt Edith 
 would come to know her, and the air of a 
 home Hke ours would, I believe, suit her 
 better than that of her own. There is 
 nothino; in her work that mio-ht not be 
 performed by any lady.' 
 
 ' What do you know of her people ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing, except that her father has 
 scientific interests. It is plain enough, 
 though, that they cannot be without refine- 
 ment. Xo doubt they are poor ; we hardly 
 consider that a crime.' 
 
 He rose, as if he considered the interview 
 at an end. 
 
 ^ Look here,' said Mr. Athel, with a little 
 bluffness, the result of a difficulty in making 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 concessions ; ' if Miss Hood returned to us, as 
 you propose, sliould you consider it a point of 
 honour to go on with your work at Balliol as 
 if nothing had happened, and to abstain jfrom 
 communication with her of a kind which 
 would make things awkward ? ' 
 
 ' Both, undoubtedly. I could very well 
 arrange to keep away from home entirely in 
 the interval.' 
 
 ' Well, I think we have talked enough for 
 the present. I have no kind of sympathy 
 with your position, pray understand that. I 
 think you have made about as bad a mistake 
 as you could have done. All the same, I will 
 speak of this with your aunt ' 
 
 ' I think you had better not do that, 
 interrupted Wilfrid, ' I mean, with any view 
 of persuading her. I am afraid I can't very 
 well bring myself to compromises which in- 
 volve a confession of childish error. It is 
 better I should go my own way.'
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 163 
 
 ^ Well, well, of course, if you take the 
 strictly independent attitude ' 
 
 Mr. Athel took another turn on the lawn, 
 his brows bent. It was the first time that 
 there had ever been an approach to serious 
 difference between himself and his son. The 
 paternal instinct was strong in him, and it 
 was inevitable that he should be touched by 
 sympathetic admiration of his past self as re- 
 vived in Wilfrid's firm and dignified bearing. 
 He approached the latter again. 
 
 ' Come to me in the study about ten to- 
 night, will you ? ' he said. 
 
 It was the end of the discussion for the 
 present. 
 
 Shortly after dinner, when coifee had 
 been brought to the drawing-room, Wilfrid 
 wandered out to the summer-house. Emily 
 would be at home by this time. He thought 
 of her. . . . 
 
 * The deuce of it is,' exclaimed Mr. Athel,
 
 1 64 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 conversing with his sister, ' that it's so hard 
 to find valid objections. If he had proposed 
 to marry a barmaid, one's course would be 
 clear, but as it is ' 
 
 Mrs. Rossall had listened in silence to a 
 matter-of-fact disclosure of Wilfrid's proceed- 
 ings. In the commencement her attention 
 had marked itself by a slight elevation of the 
 brows ; at the end she was cold and rather 
 disdainful. Observation of her face had the 
 result of confirming her brother in the 
 apologetic tone. He was annoyed at perceiv- 
 ing that Edith would justify his prediction. 
 
 ' I am sorry to hear it, of course,' were 
 her first words, ' but I suppose Wilfrid will 
 act as he chooses.' 
 
 ' Well, but this isn't all,' pursued Mr. 
 Athel, laying aside an afi*ectation of half- 
 humorous indulgence which he had assumed. 
 ' He has urged upon mc an extraordinary 
 proposal. His idea is that Miss Hood might
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 165 
 
 continue to hold her position here until lie 
 has taken his degree.' 
 
 ' I am not surprised. You of course told 
 him that such a thing was out of the ques- 
 tion?' 
 
 ' I said that you would probably consider 
 it so.' 
 
 ' But surely Do you hold a different 
 
 view ? ' 
 
 ' Keally, I hold no views at all. I am not 
 sure that I have got the right focus yet. I 
 know that the plans of a lifetime are upset ; I 
 can't get much beyond that at present.' 
 
 Mrs. Rossall was deeply troubled. She 
 sat with her eyes drooped, her lower lip 
 drawn in. 
 
 ' Do you refer to any plan in particular ? * 
 she asked next. 
 
 * Yes, I suppose I do.' 
 
 * I am very, very sorry for Beatrice,' she 
 said, in a subdued voice.
 
 1 66 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 You think it will- 
 
 Mrs. Rossall raised her eyebrows a little, 
 and kept her air of pained musing. 
 
 ' Well, what is to be done ? ' resumed her 
 brother, always impatient of mere negatives. 
 ' He has delivered a sort of ultimatum. In 
 the event of this proposal — as to Miss Hood's 
 return — being rejected, he marries at once.' 
 
 ' And then o^oes back to Balliol ? ' 
 
 ' Xo, simply abandons his career.' 
 
 Mrs. Rossall smiled. It was not in 
 Avoman's nature to be uninterested by de- 
 cision such as this. 
 
 ' Do you despair of influencing him ? ' she 
 asked. 
 
 ' Entirely. He wiU not hear of her taking 
 another place in the interval, and it seems 
 there are difficulties in the way of her remain- 
 ing at home. Of course I see very well the 
 objections on the surface to her coming 
 back '
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPIXIOXS 167 
 
 ' The objections are not on the surface at 
 all, they are fundamental. You are probably 
 not in a position to see the case as I do. 
 Such a state of things would be ludicrous ; 
 we should all be playing parts in a farce. He 
 cannot have made such a proposal to her ; 
 she would have shown him at once its 
 absurdity.' 
 
 ^ But the fact of the matter is that she 
 acceded to it,' said Mr. Athel, with a certain 
 triumph over female infallibiUty. 
 
 ^ Then I think worse of her than I did; 
 that's all.' 
 
 ' I'm not at all sure that you are right in 
 that,' observed her brother with an impartial 
 air. ' Pray tell me your serious opuiion of 
 Miss Hood. One begias, naturally, with a 
 suspicion that she has not been altogether 
 passive in this affair. What Wilf says is, of 
 course, nothing to the point ; he protests 
 that her attitude has been irreproachable.'
 
 1 68 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 * Especially in making assignations for 
 six o'clock in the morning.' 
 
 ' AVell, well, that is merely granting the 
 issue ; you are a trifle illogical, Edith.' 
 
 ' Xo doubt I am. You, on the other 
 hand, seem to be very much of Wilfs 
 opinion. I am sorry that I can't do as you 
 wish.' 
 
 ' Well, we shall not gain anything by 
 giving way to irritation. He must be 
 told how matters stand, and judge for him- 
 self.' 
 
 As Mr. Athel was speaking, Wilfrid 
 entered the room. Impatience had overcome 
 him. He knew of course that a discussion 
 was in progress between his father and his 
 aunt, and calm waiting upon other people's 
 decisions was not in his nature. He came 
 forward and seated himself. 
 
 ' I gather from your look, aunt,' he began 
 when the others did not seem disposed to
 
 A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS 169 
 
 break silence, ' that you take my father's view 
 of what he has been telling you.' 
 
 ' I am not sure what your father's \new 
 is,' was Mrs. Rossall's reply, given very 
 coldly. ' But I certainly think you have 
 proposed what is impossible.' 
 
 ' Yes, you are right,' rejoined AAllfrid, to 
 the surprise of both. ' The plan was not 
 well considered. Pray think no more of it.' 
 
 ' What do you substitute ? ' his father 
 inquired, after another long silence. 
 
 ' I cannot say.' He paused, then con- 
 tinued with some emotion, ' I would gladly 
 have had your sympathy. Perhaps I fail to 
 see the whole matter in the same light as 
 yourselves, but it seems to me that in the 
 step I have taken there is nothing that should 
 cause lasting difference between us. I in- 
 volve the family in no kind of disgrace — that, 
 I suppose, you admit ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Rossall made no answer. ^Ir. Athel
 
 170 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 moved uneasily upon his chair, coughed, 
 seemed about to sj)eak, but in the end said 
 nothing. 
 
 * I am afraid I shall not be able to leave 
 England with you,' continued \Yilfrid, rising. 
 ' But that fortunately need cause no change in 
 your plans.' 
 
 Mr. Athel was annoyed at his sister's 
 behaviour. He had looked to her for media- 
 tion ; clearly she would offer nothing of the 
 kind. She was wrapping herself in a cloak 
 of offended dignity ; she had withdrawn from 
 the debate. 
 
 ' Come with me to my room,' he said, 
 moviQg from his chair. 
 
 ' I think it will be better to have no 
 further discussion,' Wilfrid replied firmly, ' at 
 all events to-night.' 
 
 ' As you please,' said his father shortly. 
 
 He went from the room, and Wilfrid, 
 without further speech to his aunt, presently 
 followed.
 
 171 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME. 
 
 The house which was the end of Emily's 
 journey was situated two miles outside the 
 town of Dunfield, on the hio^h road ofoin"; 
 southward, just before it enters upon a rising 
 tract of common land known as the Heath. 
 It was one of a row of two-storeyed dwellings, 
 built of glazed brick, each with a wide pro- 
 jecting window on the right hand of the front 
 door, and with a patch of garden railed in 
 from the road, the row being part of a strag- 
 gling colony which is called Banbrigg. Im- 
 mediately opposite these houses stood an eccle- 
 siastical edifice of depressing appearance, stone- 
 built, wholly without ornament, presenting
 
 172 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 a corner to the highway, a chapel -of-ease 
 for worshippers unable to go as far as Dun- 
 field in the one (hrection or the village of 
 Pendal in the other. Scattered about were 
 dwelhng-houses old and new ; the former 
 being cottages of the poorest and dirtiest 
 kind, the latter brick structures of the most 
 unsightly form, e^ddently aiming at consti- 
 tuting themselves into a thoroughfare, and, in 
 point of fact, already rejoicing in the name 
 of Regent Street. There was a public-house, 
 or rather, as it frankly styled itself in large 
 letters on the window, a dram-shop ; and 
 there were two or three places for the sale of 
 very miscellaneo-js articles, exhibiting the 
 same specimens of discouraging stock through- 
 out the year. At no season, and under no 
 advantage of sky, was Banbrigg a delectable 
 abode. Though within easy reach of country 
 which was not without rural aspects, it was 
 marked too unmistakably with the squalor
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 173 
 
 of a manufacturing district. Its existence 
 impressed one as casual ; it was a mere bit 
 of Dunfield got away from the main mass, 
 and having brought its dirt with it. The 
 stretch of road between it and the bridge by 
 which the river was crossed into Dunfield 
 had in its lonfj, hard uo^liness somethinor 
 dispiriting. Though hedges bordered it here 
 and there, they were stunted and grimed : 
 though fields were seen on this side and on 
 that, the grass had absorbed too much mill 
 smoke to exhibit wholesome verdure ; it was 
 fed upon by sheep and cows, seemingly turned 
 in to be out of the way till needed for 
 slaughter, and by the sorriest of superannuated 
 horses. The land was blighted by the curse 
 of what we name, using a word as ugly as 
 the thing it represents, industrialism. 
 
 As the cab brought her along this road 
 from Dunfield station, Emily thought of the 
 downs, the woodlands, the fair pastures of
 
 174 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Surrey. There was sorrow at her heart, even 
 a vagiie tormenting fear. It would be hard 
 to find solace in Banbrigg. 
 
 Hither her parents had come to live when 
 she was thirteen years old, her home having 
 previously been in another and a larger 
 manufacturing town. Her father was a man 
 marked for ill-fortune : it pursued him from 
 his entrance into the world, and would inevit- 
 ably — you read it in his face — hunt him into 
 a sad grave. He was the youngest of a large 
 family ; his very birth had been an added 
 misery to a household struggling with want. 
 His education was of the sHghtest ; at twelve 
 years of age he was already supporting him- 
 self, or, one would say, keeping himself above 
 the point of starvation ; and at three- and - 
 twenty — the age when Wilfiid Athel is enter- 
 ing upon life in the joy of freedom — was 
 ludicrously bankrupt, a petty business he had 
 established being sold up for a debt something
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 175 
 
 short of as many pounds as he had years. 
 He drifted into indefinite mercantile clerk- 
 sliips, an existence possibly preferable to that 
 of the fom'th circle of Inferno, and then 
 seemed at length to have fallen upon a piece 
 of good luck, such as, according to a maxim 
 of pathetic optimism wherewith he was wont 
 to cheer himself, must come to every man 
 sooner or later — provided he do not die of 
 hunger whilst it is on the way. He married 
 a schoolmistress, one Miss Martin, who was 
 responsible for the teaching of some twelve 
 or fifteen children of tender age, and who, 
 what was more, owned the house in which 
 she kept school. The result was that James 
 Hood once more established himself in busi- 
 ness, or rather in several businesses, va"*ue, 
 indescribable, save by those who are unhappy 
 enough to understand such matters — a com- 
 mission agency, a life-insurance agency and a 
 fire-insurance ditto, I know not what. Yet
 
 176 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 the semblance of prosperity was fleeting. As 
 if connection with him meant failure, his 
 wife's school, which she had not abandoned 
 (let us employ negative terms in speaking of 
 this pair), began to fall off ; ultimately no 
 school was left. It did in truth appear that 
 Miss ^lartin had suffered somethinof in be- 
 coming Mrs. Hood. At her marriage she 
 was five-and-twenty, fairly good-lookmg, in 
 temper a tiifle exigent perhaps, sanguine, and 
 capable of exertion ; she could not claim more 
 than superficial instruction, but taught read- 
 ino; and writino^ with the usual success which 
 attends teachers of these elements. After the 
 birth of her first child, Emily, her moral 
 nature showed an unaccountable weakening ; 
 the origin was no doubt physical, but in 
 story-telling we dwell very much on the 
 surface of things ; it is not permitted us to 
 describe human nature too accurately. The 
 exigence of her temper became something
 
 THE SHADOW OF HO.VE 177 
 
 generally described by a harsher term ; she 
 lost her interest in the work which she had 
 unwillingly entrusted for a time to an 
 assistant : she found the conditions of her 
 life hard. Alas, they grew harder. After 
 Emily, two children were successively born ; 
 fate was kind to them, and neither survived 
 infancy. Their mother fell into fretting, into 
 hysteria ; some change in her life seemed 
 imperative, and at length she persuaded her 
 husband to quit the town in which they lived 
 and begin life anew elsewhere. Begin life 
 anew ! James Hood was forty years old ; 
 he possessed, as the net result of his com- 
 mercial enterprises, a capital of a hundred 
 and thirty pounds. The house, of course, 
 could be let, and would bring five-and -twenty 
 pounds a year. This it was resolved to do. 
 He had had certain dealings in Dunfield, and 
 in Dunfield he would strike his tent. That 
 is to say, in Banbrigg, whence he walked 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 daily to a little office in the town. Kents 
 were lower in Banbrigg, and it was beyond 
 the range of certam municipal taxings. 
 
 Mrs. Hood possessed still her somewhat 
 genteel furniture. One article was a piano, 
 and upon this she taught Emily her notes. It 
 had been a fairly good piano once, but the 
 keys had become very loose. They were 
 looser than ever, now that Emily tried to play 
 on them, on her return from Surrey. 
 
 Busmess did not thrive in Dunfield, yet 
 there was more than ever need that it should, 
 for to neglect Emily's education would be to 
 deal cruelly with the child ; she would have 
 nothing else to depend upon in her battle 
 with the world. Poor Emily ! A feeble, 
 overgrown child, needing fresh air which she 
 could not get, needing food of a better kind 
 just as unattainable. Large-eyed, thm-cheeked 
 Emily ; she, too, already in the clutch of the 
 great brute world, the helpless victim of a
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 179 
 
 civilisation which makes its food of those the 
 heart most pities. How well if her last sigh 
 had been drawn in infancy, if she had lain 
 with the little brother and sister in that gaunt, 
 grimy cemetery, under the shadow of mill 
 chimneys ! She was reserved for other griefs ; 
 
 for consolations, it is true, but 
 
 Education she did get, by hook or by 
 crook ; there was dire pinching to pay for it, 
 and, too well knowing this, the child strove 
 her utmost to use the opportunities offered 
 her. Each morning going mto Dunfield, 
 taking with her some sandwiches that were 
 called dmner, walking home again by tea- 
 time, tired, hungry — ah, hungry ! Xo matter 
 the weather, she must walk her couple of 
 miles — it was at least so fir to the school. In 
 winter you saw her set forth with her water- 
 proof and umbrella, the too-heavy bag of 
 books on her arm ; sometimes tlie wind and 
 rain beating as if to delay her, they, too, 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 cruel. In summer the hot days tried her 
 perhaps still more ; she reached home in the 
 afternoon well-nis^h faintino^, the books were 
 so heavy. Who would not have felt kmdly to 
 her ? So gentle she was, so dreadfully shy and 
 timid, her eyes so eager, so full of unconscious 
 pathos. ' Hood's little girl,' said the people 
 on the way who saw her pass daily, and, how- 
 ever completely strangers, they said it with a 
 certain kindness of tone and meaning. A 
 little thing that happened one day — take it as 
 an anecdote. On her way to school she 
 passed some boys who were pelting a most 
 wretched dog, a poor, scraggy beast driven 
 into a corner. Emily, so timid usually she 
 could not raise her eyes before a stranger, 
 stopped, quivering all over, commanded them 
 to cease their brutality, divine compassion be- 
 come a heroism. The boys somehow did her 
 bidding, and walked on together. Emily 
 stayed behind, opened her bag, threw some-
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME i8i 
 
 thing for the dog to eat. It was half her 
 dinner. 
 
 Her mind braced itself. She had a pas- 
 sionate love of learning ; all books were food 
 to her. Fortunately there was the library of 
 the ^lechanics' Institute : but for that she 
 would have come short of mental sustenance, 
 for her father had never been able to buy more 
 than a dozen volumes, and these all dealt 
 with matters of physical science. The strange 
 things she read, books wliich came down to 
 her from the shelves with a thickness of dust 
 upon them ; histories of Greece and Rome 
 (not much asked for, these, — said the libra- 
 rian), translations of old classics, the Koran. 
 Mosheim's * Ecclesiastical History,' works of 
 Swedenborg, all the poetry she could lay 
 hands on, novels not a few. One day she 
 asked for a book on ' Gymnoblastic Hy- 
 droids ' ; the amazing title in the catalogue 
 had filled her with curiosity ; she must know
 
 l82 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 the meaning of everything. She was not idle, 
 Emily. 
 
 But things in the home were going from 
 bad to worse. ^Vhen Emily was sixteen, her 
 father scarcely knew where to look for each 
 day's dinner. Something must be done. 
 Activity took a twofold direction. First of 
 all, Emily got work as a teacher in an infants' 
 school. It was at her own motion ; she could 
 bear her mother's daily querulousness no 
 longer ; she must take some step. She 
 earned a mere trifle ; but it was earning, 
 instead of being a source of expense. And 
 in the meantime she worked on for certain 
 examinations which it would benefit her to 
 have passed. The second thing done was 
 that her father abandoned his office, and 
 obtained a place in the counting-house of a 
 worsted-mill, under the firm of Dagworthy 
 and Son. His salary was small, but the 
 blessing of it was its certainty ; the pre-
 
 cariousness of his existence had all but driven 
 poor Hood mad. There came a season of 
 calm. Emily's sphere of work extended 
 itself; the school only took her mornings, 
 and for the afternoon there was proposed to 
 her the teaching of the little Baxendales. 
 The Baxendales were well-to-do people ; the 
 father was, just then, mayor of Dunfield, the 
 mother was related to the member of Parlia- 
 ment for the town. AVe have had mention of 
 them, as connections of Beatrice Redwing. 
 
 At nineteen she for the first time left 
 home. Through the Baxendales she obtained 
 the position of governess in a family residing 
 in Liverpool, and remained with them till she 
 went to London, to the Athels. These three 
 years in Liverpool were momentous for her ; 
 they led her from girlhood to womanhood, 
 and established her character. Her home 
 was in the house of a prosperous shipowner, 
 a Lancashire man, outwardly a blustering
 
 iS4 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 good-tempered animal, yet with an inner light 
 vvhich showed itself in his love of books and 
 pictures, in his easy walking under the burden 
 of self- acquired riches, in a certain generous 
 freedom which marked his life and thoughts. 
 His forename was Laurence ; Emily, in 
 letters to her father, used to call him Lorenzo 
 the Mao;nificent, a title which became him 
 well enough. In the collection of works of 
 art he was really great ; he must have spent 
 appalling sums annually on his picture gallery 
 and the minor ornaments scattered about his 
 house. He had a personal acquaintance, 
 through his pecuniary dealings, with the fore- 
 most artists of the day ; he liked to proclaim 
 the fact and describe the men. To Emily the 
 constant proximity of these pictures was a 
 priceless advantage ; the years she spent 
 among them were equivalent to a university 
 course. Moreover, she enjoyed, as with the 
 Athels later, a free command of books ; here
 
 began her acquaintance with the most modern 
 literature, which was needful to set her 
 thoughts in order, to throw into right per- 
 spective her previous miscellaneous reading, 
 and to mark out her way in the future. Her 
 instinctive craving for intellectual beauty ac- 
 quired a reflective consistency ; she reformed 
 her ideals, found the loveliness of much that 
 in her immaturity had seemed barren, put 
 aside, with gentle firmness, much that had 
 appeared indispensable to her moral life. 
 The meanings which she attached to that 
 word ^ moral ' largely modified themselves, 
 that they should do so was the note of her 
 progress. Her prayer was for ' beauty m the 
 inward soul,' wliich, if it grew to be her con- 
 viction, was greatly — perhaps wholly — depen- 
 dent on the perception of external beauty. 
 The development of beauty in the soul would 
 mean a life of ideal purity ; all her instincts 
 pointed to such a life ; her passionate motives
 
 1 86 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 converged on the one end of spiritual 
 chastity. 
 
 One ever-present fear she had to strive 
 with in her progress toward serene convic- 
 tions. The misery of her parents' house 
 haunted her, and by no effort could she expel 
 the superstition that she had only escaped 
 from that for a time, that its claws would 
 surely overtake her and fix themselves again 
 in her flesh. Analysing her own nature, she 
 discerned, or thought she did, a lack of in- 
 dependent vigour ; it seemed as if she were 
 too reliant on external circumstances ; she 
 dreaded what might follow if their assistance 
 were withdrawn. To be sure she had held 
 her course through the countless discourage- 
 ments of early years, but that, in looking 
 back, seemed no assurance for the future ; her 
 courage, it appeared to her, had been of the 
 unconscious kind, and might fail her when 
 she consciously demanded it. As a child she
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 187 
 
 had once walked in her sleep, had gone forth 
 from the house, and had, before she was 
 awakened, crossed the narrow footing of a 
 canal-lock, a thing her nervousness would not 
 allow her to do at other times. This became 
 to her a figure. The feat she had performed 
 when mere vital instinct guided her, she 
 would have failed in when attempting it with 
 the full understanding of its danger. Sup- 
 pose something happened which put an end 
 to her independence — failure of health, some 
 supreme calamity at home — could she hold 
 on in the way of salvation ? Was she capa- 
 ble of conscious heroism ? Could her soul 
 retain its ideal of beauty if environed by 
 ugliness ? 
 
 The vice of her age — nay, why call it a 
 vice ? — the necessary issue of that intellectual 
 egoism which is the note of our time, found 
 as good illustration in this humble life as in 
 men and women who are the mouthpieces
 
 i88 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 of a civilisation. Preoccupied with problems 
 of her own relation to the world, she could 
 not enjoy without thought in the rear, ever 
 ready to trouble her with suggestions of 
 unreality. Her distresses of conscience were 
 all the more active for being purely human ; 
 in her soul dAvelt an immense compassion, 
 which, with adequate occasion, might secure 
 to itself such predominance as to dwarf 
 into inefficiency her rehgion of culture. It 
 was exquisite misery to conceive, as, from inner 
 observation, she so well could, some demand 
 of life which would make her ideals appear the 
 dreams of bygone halcyon days, useless and 
 worse amid the threats of gathering tempest. 
 An essentially human apprehension, be it un- 
 derstood. The vulgarities of hysterical pietism 
 Emily had never known ; she did not fear 
 the invasion of such blight as that ; the 
 thought of it was noisome to her. Do you 
 recall a kind of trouble that came upon her,
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 189 
 
 during that talk in the holloTr, when Wilfrid 
 suggested the case of her being called upon 
 to make some great sacrifice in her father's 
 behalf ? It was an instance of the weakness 
 I speak of; the fact of Wilfrid's putting 
 forward such a thought had in that moment 
 linked her to him with precious bonds of 
 sympathy, till she ftlt as if he had seen into 
 the most secret places of her heart. She 
 dreaded the force of her compassionateness. 
 That dog by the roadside ; how the anguish 
 of its eyes had haunted her through the day ! 
 It was tlie revolt of her whole beino; ajrainst 
 the cruelty inherent in life. That evening 
 she could not read the book she had in 
 hand ; its phrases seemed to Ml into 
 triviality. Yet — she reasoned at a later 
 time — -it should not have been so ; the hag- 
 gard gaze of fate should not daunt one ; pity 
 is but an element in the soul's ideal of order, 
 it should not usurp a barren sovereignty. It
 
 I90 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 is the miserable contradiction in our lot tliat 
 tlie efficiency of the instmcts of beauty - 
 worship waits ujoon a force of individuality 
 attainable only by a sacrifice of sensibility. 
 Emily divined this. So it was that she came 
 to shun the thought of struggle, to seek an 
 abode apart from turbid conditions of life. 
 She was hard at work building for her soul 
 its ' lordly pleasure-house,' its Palace of Art. 
 Could she, poor as she was, dependent, bound 
 by such obvious chains to the gross earth, 
 hope to abide in her courts and corridors for 
 ever ? . . . 
 
 Friday was the day of her arrival at 
 Banbrigg. On the Saturday afternoon she 
 hoped to enjoy a walk with her father ; he 
 would reach home from the mill shortly after 
 two o'clock, and would then have his dinner. 
 Mrs. Hood dined at one, and could not bring 
 herself to alter the hour for Saturday ; it was 
 characteristic of her. That there might be
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 191 
 
 no culinary cares on Sunday morning, she 
 alvvays cooked her joint of meat on the last 
 day of the week ; partaking of it herself at 
 one o'clock, she cut slices for her husband 
 and kept them warm, with vegetables, in the 
 oven. This was not selfishness m theory, 
 however much it may have been so in prac- 
 tice ; it merely meant that she was unable to 
 introduce variation into a mechanical order ; 
 and, as her husband never dreamed of com- 
 plaining, Mrs. Hood could see in the arrange- 
 ment no breach of the fitness of things, even 
 though it meant that poor Hood never sat 
 down to a freshly cooked meal from one end 
 of the year to the other. To Emily it was 
 simply a detestable instance of the worst 
 miseries she had to endure at home. Cominf»- 
 on this first day, it disturbed her much. 
 She knew the uselessness, the danger, of 
 opposing any traditional habit, but her 
 appetite at one o'clock was small.
 
 192 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Mrs. PIoocl did not keep a servant in the 
 house ; she engaged a charwoman once a 
 week, and did all the work at other times 
 herself. This was not strictly necessary ; 
 the expense of such a servant as would have 
 answered purposes could just have been 
 afforded ; again and again Emily had en- 
 treated to be allowed to pay a girl out of her 
 own earnings. Mrs. Hood steadily refused. 
 No, she had once known what it was to have 
 luxuries about her (that was naturally before 
 her marriage), but those days were gone by. 
 She thus entailed upon herself a great deal 
 of labour, at once repugnant to her tastes 
 and ill-suited to the uncertainty of her health, 
 but all this was forgotten in the solace of 
 possessing a standing grievance, one obvious 
 at all moments, to be uttered in a sigh, to be 
 emphasised by the affectation of cheerfulness. 
 The love which was Emily's instinct grew 
 chill in the presence of such things.
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 193 
 
 Saturday was from of old a day of ills. 
 The charwoman was in the house, and Mrs. 
 Hood went about in a fatigued way, coming- 
 no w and then to the sitting-room, sinking 
 into a chair, letting her head fall back with 
 closed eyes. Emily had, of course, begged to 
 be allowed to give assistance, but her mother 
 declared that there was nothing whatever 
 she could do. 
 
 * Shut the door,' she said, ' and then you 
 won't hear the scrubbing so plainly. I can 
 understand that it annoys you ; I used to 
 have the same feeling, but I've accustomed 
 myself. You might play something ; it 
 would keep away your thoughts.' 
 
 * But I don't want to keep away my 
 thoughts,' exclaimed Emily, with a laugh. 
 * I want to help you so that you will have 
 done the sooner.' 
 
 ' No, no, my dear ; you are not used to 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 it. You'll tell me when you'd like something 
 to eat if you get faint.' 
 
 ' I am not likely to grow faint, mother, if 
 I do nothing.' 
 
 ^ Wei], well; I have a sinking feeling 
 now and then, I thought you might be the 
 same.' 
 
 Just when his dinner in the oven had had 
 time to grow crusty, Mr. Hood arrived. He 
 was a rather tall man, of sallow complexion, 
 with greyish hair. The peculiarly melan- 
 choly expression of his face was due to the 
 excessive drooping of his eyelids under 
 rounded brows ; beneath the eyes were 
 heavy lines ; he generally looked like one 
 who has passed through a night of sleepless 
 cfrief. He wore a suit of black, which had 
 for several years been his reserve attire, till 
 it grew too seamy for use on Sundays. The 
 whole look of the man was saddening ; to 
 pass him in the street as a stranger was to
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 195 
 
 experience a momentary heaviness of lieart. 
 He had very long slender fingers — Emily's 
 matchless hand in a rudimentary form — and 
 it seemed to be a particular solicitude to keep 
 them scrupulously clean ; he frequently exa- 
 mined them, and appeared to have a pleasure 
 in handling things in a dainty way — the 
 pages of a book, for instance. When he 
 smiled it was obviously with effort — a painful 
 smile, for all that an exceedingly gentle one. 
 In his voice there was the same s^entleness. 
 a self-suppression, as it were ; his way of 
 speaking half explained his want of success 
 in life. 
 
 Emily was standing at the window in 
 expectation of his coming. As soon as he 
 reached the iron c^ate in front of the liou^^e 
 she ran to open the door for him. He did 
 not quicken his step, even stopped to close 
 the gate with deliberate care, but if his face 
 could ever be said to light up it did so as he
 
 196 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 bent to the girl's kiss. She took his hat 
 from him, and went to see that his dinner 
 was made ready. 
 
 ' How fine it is ! ' he said in his subdued 
 tone, when he came downstairs and stood by 
 the table, stroking his newly-washed hands. 
 ' Shall we have a walk before tea-time ? 
 Mother is too busy, I'm afraid.' 
 
 Mrs. Hood came into the room shortly, 
 and seated herself in the usual way. 
 
 ' Did you bring the cake ? ' she asked, 
 when her presence had caused silence for a 
 few moments. 
 
 ' The cake? ' he repeated in surprise. 
 
 ^Didn't I ask you to bring a cake? I 
 suppose my memory is going ; I meant to, 
 and thought I mentioned it at breakfast. I 
 shall have nothing for Emily's tea.' 
 
 Emily protested that it was needless to 
 o-et unusual thine^s on her account. 
 
 ' We must do what we can to make you
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 197 
 
 comfortable, my dear. I can't keep a table 
 like that you are accustomed to, but that I 
 know you don't expect. Which way are vou 
 going to walk this afternoon? If you pass 
 a shop you might get a cake, or buns, which- 
 ever you like.' 
 
 ' AVell. I thought we might have a turn 
 over the Heath,' said Mr. Hood. ' However, 
 we'll see what we can do.' 
 
 A thought of some anxious kind appeared 
 suddenly to strike Mrs. Hood ; she leaned 
 forward in her chair, seemed to listen, then 
 started up and out of the room. 
 
 Emily sat where she could not see her 
 father eating ; it pained, exasperated her to 
 be by him whilst he made such a meal. He 
 ate slowly, with thought of other things ; at 
 times his eye wandered to the window, and 
 he regarded the sky in a brooding manner. 
 He satisfied his hunger without pleasure, 
 apparently with indifference.
 
 198 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Shortly after tliree o'clock the two started 
 for their walk. Not many yards beyond the 
 house the road passed beneath a railway 
 bridfi^e, then over a canal, and at once entered 
 upon the common. The Heath formed the 
 long side of a slowly rising hill ; at the foot 
 the road divided itself into two branches, and 
 the dusty tracks climbed at a wdde angle with 
 each other. The one which Emily and her 
 father pursued led up to stone quarries, which 
 had been for a long time in working, and, 
 skirting these, to the level ground above 
 them, which was the end of the region of 
 furze and bracken. Here began a spacious 
 tract of grassy common ; around it were 
 houses of pleasant appearance, one or two 
 meritino; the name of mansion. In one of 
 them dwelt Mr. Richard Dagworthy, the 
 mill-owner, in whose counting-house James 
 Hood earned his living. He alone represented 
 the firm of Dagworthy and Son ; his father
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 199 
 
 had been dead two years, and more recently he 
 had become a widower, his wife leaving him 
 one child, still an infant. 
 
 At the head of the quarries the two paused 
 to look back upon Dunfield. The view from 
 this point was extensive, and would have been 
 interesting but for the existence of the town 
 itself. It was seen to He m a broad valley, 
 along wliich a river flowed ; the remoter 
 districts were pleasantly wooded, and only 
 the murkiness in the far sky told that a yet 
 larger centre of industry lurked beyond the 
 horizon. Dunfield offered no prominent 
 features save the chimneys of its factories and 
 its fine church, the spire of which rose high 
 above surrounding buildings ; over all hung 
 a canopy of foul vapour, heavy, pestiferous. 
 Take in your fingers a spray from one of the 
 trees even here on the Heath, and its touch 
 left a soil. 
 
 * How I wish you could see the views from
 
 200 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 the hills in Surrey ! ' Emily exclaimed when 
 they had stood in silence. ' I can imagine 
 nothing more delightful in English scenery. 
 It realises my idea of perfect rural beauty, as 
 I got it from engravings after the landscape 
 painters. Oh, you shall go there with me 
 some day.' 
 
 Her father smiled and shook his head a 
 little. 
 
 ' Perhaps,' he said, and added a favourite 
 phrase of his : ' while there is life there is hope.' 
 
 ' Of course there is,' rejoined Emily, wdth 
 gaiety which was unusual in her. *No 
 smoke ; the hills blue against a lovely sky ! 
 trees covered to the very roots with greenness ; 
 rich old English homes and cottages — oh, you 
 know the kind ; your ideal of a cottage ; low 
 tiled roofs, latticed wmdows, moss and lichen 
 and climbing flowers. Farmyards sweet with 
 hay, and gleaming dairies. That country is 
 my home ! '
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 201 
 
 With how rich a poetry it clothed itself in 
 her remembrance, the land of milk and honey, 
 indeed, her heart's home. It was all but im- 
 possible to keep the secret of her joy, yet she 
 had resolved to do so, and her purpose held 
 firm. 
 
 ' I am very glad indeed that you are so 
 happy there,' said her father, looking at her 
 with that quiet absorption in another's mood 
 of which he was so capable. 'But it will 
 be London through the winter. You haven't 
 told me much about London ; but then you 
 were there so short a time.' 
 
 ' But I saw much. Mrs. Rossall could 
 not have been kinder ; for the first few days 
 it was almost as if I had been a visitor ; I 
 was taken everywhere.' 
 
 ' I should like to see London before I die,' 
 mused her father. ' Somehow I have never 
 managed to get so far.' 
 
 ' Oh, we will see it together some day.'
 
 .202 
 
 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 * There's one thing,' said Mr. Hood re- 
 flectivety, * that I wish especially to see, and 
 that is Holborn Viaduct. It must be a 
 wonderful piece of engineering ; I remember 
 thinking it out at the time it was constructed. 
 Of course you have seen it ? ' 
 
 ^ I am afraid not. We are very far away 
 from the City. But I will go and see it on 
 the first opportunity.' 
 
 ' Do, and send me a full description.' 
 
 His thoughts reverted to the views before 
 them. 
 
 ^ After all, this isn't so bad. There's a 
 great advantage in living so near the Heath. 
 I'm sure the air here is admirable ; don't you 
 smell how fresh it is ? And then, one gets 
 fond of the place one's lived in for years. I be- 
 lieve I should find it hard to leave Dunfield.' 
 
 Emily smiled gently. 
 
 * I wonder,' he pursued, ' whether you 
 have the kind of feeling that came to me just
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 203 
 
 then ? It struck me that, suppose anything 
 happened that would enable us to go and live 
 in another place, there would be a sort of in- 
 gratitude, something like a shabby action, in 
 turning one's back on the old spot. I don't 
 like to feel unkind even to a town.' 
 
 The gu4 glanced at him with meaning 
 eyes. Here was an instance of the sympathetic 
 relations of which she had spoken to Wilfrid, 
 in these words was disclosed the origin of the 
 deepest sensibilities of her own nature. 
 
 They pursued their walk, across the com- 
 mon and into a tree-shaded lane. Emily tried 
 to believe that this at length was really the 
 country ; there were no houses m view, 
 meadows lay on either hand, the leafage was 
 thick. But it was not mere prejudice which 
 saw in every object a struggle with hard con- 
 ditions, a degeneration into coarseness, a blight. 
 The quality of the earth was probably poor, 
 to begin with ; the herbage seemed of gross
 
 204 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 fibre ; one would not risk dipping a finger 
 in the stream which trickled by the roadside, 
 it suggested an impure source. And behold, 
 what creatures are these coming along the 
 lane, where only earth- stained rustics should 
 be met ? Two colliers, besmutted wretches, 
 plodding homeward from the ' pit ' which is 
 half a mile away. Yes, their presence was in 
 keeping with the essential character of the scene. 
 
 ' One might have had a harder life,' 
 mused Mr. Hood aloud, when the pitmen 
 were gone by. 
 
 ' I think there's a fallacy in that,' replied 
 Emily. ' Their life is probably not hard at 
 all. I used to feel that pity, but I have 
 reasoned myself out of it. They are really 
 happy, for they know nothing of their own 
 degradation.' 
 
 ' By the by,' said her father presently, 
 ' how is young Mr. Athel, the young fellow 
 who had to come home from college ? '
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 205 
 
 * He is quite well again, I think/ was 
 Emily's reply. 
 
 ' I suppose, poor fellow, he has a very 
 weak constitution ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, no. I think not.' 
 
 ' What is he studying for ? Going into 
 the Church ? ' 
 
 Emily laughed ; it was a relief to do so. 
 
 * Isn't it strange,' she said, ' how we con- 
 struct an idea of an unknown person from 
 some circumstance or piece of description ? I 
 see exactly what your picture of ^Ir. Athel 
 is : a feeble and amiable young man, most 
 likely with the shocking voice with which 
 curates sometimes read the lessons ' 
 
 She broke off and launched ao^ain. 
 
 * Well,' said her father, ' I admit I thought 
 of him a little in that way — I scarcely know 
 why.' 
 
 ' You could hardly have been further 
 from the truth. Try to imagine the intel-
 
 2o6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 lectiial opposite of sucli a young man, and 
 
 you That will be far more like Mr. 
 
 Athel/ 
 
 ^ He isn't conceited ? ]\Iy want of expe- 
 rience has an unfortunate tendency to make 
 me think of young fellows in his position as 
 unbearably vain. It must be so hard to avoid 
 it.' 
 
 ' Perhaps it is, if they have the common 
 misfortune to be born without brains.' 
 
 Other subjects engaged their attention. 
 
 ' When do you take your holiday, father ? ' 
 Emily asked. 
 
 ' I think about the middle of this month. 
 It won't be more than a week or ten days.' 
 
 ' Don't you think you ought to go to 
 Cleethorpes, if only for a day or two ? ' 
 
 To suggest any other place of summer 
 retreat would have been too alarming. Mr. 
 Hood's defect of imagination was illustrated 
 in this matter ; he had been somehow led,
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 207 
 
 years ago, to pay a visit to Cleethorpes, and 
 since then that one place represented for him 
 the seaside. Others might be just as acces- 
 sible and considerably more delightful, but it 
 did not even occur to him to vary. It would 
 have cost him discomfort to do so, the appre- 
 hension of entering upon the unknown. The 
 present was the third summer which had 
 passed without his quitting home. Anxiety 
 troubled his countenance as Emily made the 
 proposal. 
 
 ' Xot this year, I think,' he said, as if 
 desirous of passing the subject by. 
 
 ^ Father, what possible objection can there 
 be to my bearing the expense of a week at 
 Cleethorpes ? You know how well I can 
 afford it ; indeed I should like to go ; it is 
 rather unkind of you to refuse.' 
 
 This was an old subject of discussion. 
 Since Emily had lived away from home, not 
 only her father, but her mother just as strenu-
 
 2o8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ously, had refused to take from her any of the 
 
 monev that she earned. It had been her 
 
 4/ 
 
 habit at first indirectly to overcome this re- 
 sistance by means of substantial presents in 
 holiday time ; but she found such serious dis- 
 comfort occasioned by the practice that most 
 reluctantly she had abandoned it. For the 
 understanding of the Hoods' attitude in this 
 matter, it must be realised how deeply their 
 view of life was coloured by years of incessant 
 preoccupation with pecuniary difficulties. The 
 hideous conception of existence which regards 
 each individual as fighting for his own hand, 
 striving for dear life against every other 
 individual, was ingrained in their minds by 
 the inveterate bitterness of their own expe- 
 rience ; when Emily had become a woman, and 
 was gone forth to wrest from the adverse 
 world her own subsistence, her right to 
 what she earned was indefeasible, and affec- 
 tion itself protested against her being mulcted
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 209 
 
 for their advantage. As for the slight addi- 
 tional expense of her presence at home during 
 the holidays, she must not be above paying a 
 visit to her parents ; the little inconsistency 
 was amiable enouo:h. Father and mother both 
 held forth to her m the same tone : * You 
 have the battle of life before you ; it is a 
 terrible one, and the world is relentless. Xot 
 only is it your right, but your very duty, to 
 spare every penny you can ; for, if anything 
 happened to prevent your earning money, 
 you would become a burden upon us — a bur- 
 den we would gladly strive to bear, but the 
 thought of which would be very hard for 
 yourself. If, on the other hand, your motlier 
 were left a widow, think liow dreadful it 
 would be if you could give her no assistance. 
 You are wrong in spending one farthing more 
 than your absolute needs require ; to say you 
 do it in kindness to us is a mere mistake of 
 yours.' The logic was not to be encountered ; 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 2IO A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 it was as irresistible as the social conditions 
 which gave it birth. Emily had abandoned 
 discussion on these points ; such reasoning 
 cost her sickness of heart. In practice she 
 obeyed her parents' injunctions, for she herself 
 was hitherto only too well aware of the fate 
 which might come upon her in consequence of 
 the most trifling mishap ; she knew that no 
 soul in the world save her parents would 
 think it a duty to help her, save in the way of 
 bare charity. Naturally, her old point of view 
 was now changed ; it was this that led her to 
 revive the discussion with her father, and to 
 speak in a tone which Mr. Hood heard with 
 some surprise. 
 
 ' Next year, perhaps, Emily,' he said. 
 ^ After Surrey, I don't think you can really 
 need another change. I am delighted to see 
 how well you look. I, too, am remarkably 
 well, and I can't help thinking your mother 
 gets stronger. How do you find her looking ? '
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 211 
 
 ' Better than usual, I really think. All 
 the same, it is clearly impossible for you and 
 her to live on year after year without any 
 kind of change.' 
 
 ' Oh, my dear, we don't feel it. It's so 
 different with older people ; a change rather 
 upsets us than otherwise. You know how 
 nervous your mother gets when she is away 
 from home.' 
 
 Their walk brou2:ht them round ao;ain to 
 the top of the Heath. Mr. Hood looked at 
 his watch, and found that it was time to be 
 moving homewards. Tea was punctually at 
 five. Mrs. Hood would take it ill if they 
 were late, especially on Saturday. 
 
 As they walked across the smooth part of 
 the upper common, looking at the houses 
 around, they saw coming toAvards them a 
 gentleman followed by three dogs. He was 
 dressed in a llglit tweed suit, and brandished 
 
 p 2
 
 212 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 a walkiiig-stick, as if animal spirits possessed 
 him strongly. 
 
 ' Why, here comes Mr. Dagworthy,' re- 
 marked Mr. Hood, in a low tone, though the 
 other was still at a considerable distance. 
 ' He generally goes oiF somewhere on Satur- 
 day afternoon. What a man he is for dogs ! 
 I believe he keeps twenty or thirty at the 
 house there.' 
 
 Emily evinced just a little self-conscious- 
 ness. It was possible that Mr. Dagworthy 
 would stop to speak, for she had become, in a 
 measure, acquainted with him in the preced- 
 ing spring. She was at home then for a few 
 weeks before her departure for London, and 
 the Baxendales, who had always shown her 
 much kindness, invited her to an evening 
 part}^, at which Dagworthy was present. He 
 had chatted with her on that occasion. 
 
 Yes, he was going to speak. He was a 
 man of five-and-thirty, robust, rather florid.
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 213 
 
 with eyes wliicli it was not disagreeable to 
 meet, though they gazed with embarrassing 
 persistency, and a mouth which he would 
 have done well to leave under the natural 
 shelter of a moustache ; it was at once hard 
 and sensual. The clean- shavinc: of his face 
 gave his appearance a youthfuhiess to which 
 his tone of speech did not correspond. 
 
 ' How do you do, Miss Hood ? Come 
 once more into our part of the world, then ? 
 You have been in London, I hear.' 
 
 It was the tone of a man long accustomed 
 to have his own way in life, and not over- 
 much troubled with delicacies of feeling. His 
 address could not be called disrespectful, but 
 the smile which accompanied it expressed a 
 sort of good-natured patronage, perhaps in- 
 evitable in such a man when speaking to his 
 clerk's daughter. The presence of the clerk 
 himself very little concerned liim. He kept 
 his eyes steadily on the girl's face, examining
 
 214 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 lier with complete frankness. His utterance 
 was that of an educated man, but it had some- 
 thing of the Yorkshire accent, a broadness 
 wliich would have distressed the ear in a 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Emily replied that she had been in Lon- 
 don ; it did not seem necessary to enter into 
 details. 
 
 ' Pleasant afternoon, isn't it ? Makes one 
 want to get away to the moors. I suppose 
 you will be off somewhere soon with your 
 family, Mr. Hood.' 
 
 He would not have employed the formal 
 prefix to his clerk's name but for Emily's 
 presence ; the father knew that, and felt 
 o^rateful. 
 
 ' Xot this year, I think, sir,' he replied, 
 with perfect cheerfulness. 
 
 Of the three dogs that accompanied Dag- 
 worthy, one was a handsome collie. This 
 animal came snuffing at Emily's hand, and
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 215 
 
 involuntarily, glad perhaps to have a pretence 
 for averting her face, she caressed the silky 
 ears. 
 
 ' Fine head, isn't it, Miss Hood ? ' said 
 Dag worthy at once, causing her to remove 
 her hand quickly. ' Ay, but I've a finer 
 collie than that. Just walk in with me, will 
 you ? ' he added, after a scarcely perceptible 
 pause. ' I always like to show off my dogs. 
 You're in no hurry, I suppose ? Just come 
 and have a look at the kennels.' 
 
 Emily was deeply annoyed, both because 
 such a visit was in itself distasteful to her. 
 and on account of the irritation which she 
 knew the delay would cause her mother. 
 She did not for a moment expect her father 
 to refuse ; his position would not allow him 
 to do so. Mr. Hood, in fact, murmured 
 thanks, after a mere half glance at his 
 daughter, and the three w^alked together to 
 Dagworthy's house, the entrance to which
 
 216 A LIFES MORXIXG 
 
 was not fifty yards from where they were 
 standing. 
 
 The dwelling was neither large nor 
 handsome, but it stood in a fine garden 
 and had an air of solid well-being. As soon 
 as they had passed the gates, they were met 
 by a middle-aged woman carrying a child of 
 two years old, an infant of wonderfully 
 hearty ai:)pearance. At the sight of its 
 father it chuckled and crowed. Dagworthy 
 took it from the woman's arms, and began a 
 game which looked not a little dangerous ; 
 with surprising strength and skill, he tossed 
 it up some feet into the air, caught it as it 
 descended, tossed it ujd again. The child 
 shrieked with delight, for all that the swift 
 descent positively stopped its breath, and 
 made a hiatus in the screaming. 
 
 ' Theer, that's abaht enough, Mr. 
 Richard,' said the woman, in broad dialect, 
 when the child had gone up half a dozen
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 217 
 
 times ; she was nervous, and kept liolding 
 out her arms invohmtarily. ' Ah doan't 
 ovver much fancy that kind 0' laakin. 
 What's more, he's alius reight dahn fratchy 
 after a turn o' that. See nah, he'll nivver 
 want you to stop. Do a' done nah, Mr. 
 Richard.' 
 
 ' Here you are then ; take him in, and 
 tell them I want some tea ; say I have 
 friends with me.' 
 
 The child was carried away, roaring 
 obstreperously, and Dagworthy, laughing 
 at the vocal power displayed, led the way 
 round to the back of the house. Here had 
 been constructed elaborate kennels ; several 
 dogs were pacing in freedom about the clean 
 yard, and many more were chained up. 
 Much information was imparted to the 
 visitors concerning the more notable animals ; 
 some had taken prizes at shows, others were 
 warranted to do so, one or two had been
 
 2i8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 purchased at fancy prices. Mr. Hood now 
 and then put a question, as in duty bound 
 to do ; Emily restricted her speech to the 
 absolutely necessary replies. 
 
 Dagworthy conducted them into the 
 house. It appeared to be furnished in a 
 solid, old-fashioned way, and the ornaments, 
 though few, were such as might better have 
 been dispensed with. Old Dagworthy had 
 come to live here some five -and -twenty years 
 previously, having before that occupied a 
 small house in conjunction with his mill. 
 He had been one of the ' worthies ' of 
 Dunfield, and in his time did a good deal 
 of useful work for the town. Personally, 
 he was anything but amiable, being devoid 
 of education and refinement, and priding 
 himself on his spirit of independence, which 
 exhibited itself in mere boorishness. Thou(T:h 
 anything but miserly, he had, where his 
 interests were concerned, an extraordinary
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 219 
 
 cunning and pertinacity ; he was universally 
 reorarded as one of the shrewdest men of 
 business in that part of Yorkshire, and report 
 credited him with any number of remarkable 
 meannesses. It was popularly said that 
 ' owd Dick Dagworthy ' Avould shrink from 
 no dirty trick to turn a sixpence, but was 
 as likely as not to give it away as soon as 
 he had got it. His son had doubtless ad- 
 vanced the character of the stock, and, putting 
 aside the breeding of dogs, possessed many 
 tastes of which the old man had no notion ; 
 none the less, he was credited with not a 
 little of his father's spirit in business. In 
 practical affairs he was shrewd and active ; 
 he never — as poor Hood might have testified 
 — paid a man in his employ a penny more 
 than there was need, and fell far short of 
 the departed Dagworthy' s generosity ; to be 
 at his mercy in a pecuniary transaction was 
 to expect and to receive none. For all that,
 
 220 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 there was sometliing in the man which hinted 
 at qualities beneath the surface ; a glance, 
 a tone, now and then, which seemed on the 
 point of revealing a hidden humanity. 
 
 When he chose he could be courteous ; 
 he was so at present, as he requested Emily 
 and her father to seat themselves in a large 
 homely room which looked out upon the 
 garden. The woman who had carried the 
 child reappeared and poured out cups of tea. 
 When she had left the room — 
 
 ' I must ask you to excuse the roughness 
 of my establishment, Miss Hood,' he said. 
 ' I have to make shift for the present with 
 Mrs. Jenkins. She isn't as refined as she 
 misfht be, but she's been with us here for 
 more than twelve years, and I should be 
 sorry to replace her with any other servant.' 
 
 Pieces of bread and butter of somewhat 
 undue solidity were offered. Emily declined 
 anything but the cup of tea. She was very
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 221 
 
 ill at ease, though she succeeded in sup- 
 pressing any manifestation of it ; Dagworthy 
 kept his gaze on her constantly. 
 
 ' Now I know you didn't care very much 
 about the dogs,' he said to her presently. ' I 
 think I've got something here that will be 
 rather more in your line.' 
 
 He brought from a corner of the room a 
 large portfolio, set it upon a chair in front 
 of Emily, and exposed its contents. These 
 were a number of fine photographs of conti- 
 nental cathedrals and churches. 
 
 ' I bought these when I took my run 
 through France and Germany last year,' lie 
 explained. ' I've something of a turn for 
 architecture, I believe ; at all events I know 
 I like a fine building, and I like to find out 
 all I can about it.' 
 
 He went through the collection, witli re- 
 marks which proved that he had certaiuly 
 attained a rudimentary knowledge of the
 
 222 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 subject, and that his appreciation was often 
 keen when his technical understanding might 
 be at fault. 
 
 ^ The worst of it is,' he said, at one point, 
 with a modesty which was a new feature 
 in his conversation, ' I can't pronounce the 
 names properly. Now, how do you read 
 that, Miss Hood? To be sure, I know it 
 when I hear it. Have you ever been in 
 France ? ' 
 
 The negative reply came. 
 
 ' You'd like to see the old-fashioned streets 
 in which some of these churches stand.' 
 
 As soon as it was possible to do so, Emily 
 looked meaningly at her father, and he, just 
 as anxious to be on his way homeward, rose 
 for leave-taking. Dagworthy offered no 
 opposition ; he went with them to the gates, 
 and shook hands with both, then stood 
 gazing after them as they walked across the 
 common.
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 223 
 
 ^ Well, I never knew young Dagworthy 
 anything like that before,' said Mr. Hood, 
 when they were at some distance from the 
 o'ate. ' I couldn't believe it when he asked us 
 to go into the house.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid mother will be very uneasy,' 
 was Emily's reply. 
 
 * Yes, my dear, I'm afraid she will ; let's 
 walk sharply. But he was really uncom- 
 monly pleasant ; I shall think a good deal 
 better of him than I have done.' 
 
 This was the only aspect of the after- 
 noon's adventure which presented itself to 
 Mr. Hood. Emily was divided between re- 
 lief at having got away from that persistent 
 gaze and apprehension of what might meet 
 them on their arrival at home. The Latter 
 feeling was only too well justified. Mrs. 
 Hood sat in the kitchen, the window 
 darkened. AVhen speech was at length 
 elicited from her, it appeared that a headache
 
 224 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 to wliicli she was subject had come on in its 
 severest form. Emily was at once active 
 with remedies, not that any of those that she 
 urged were likely to avail in themselves, but 
 because she was well aware that the more 
 solicitude she showed the sooner her mother 
 would resume her ordinary state. Mrs. Hood 
 begged to be left to herself; let them have 
 their tea and leave her in the kitchen, she 
 was best there, out of people's way ; it would 
 soon be bed-time, the evening was practically 
 gone. In the course of half an hour she was 
 at length prevailed upon to come into the 
 sitting-room, and even to taste a cup of tea. 
 At first she had paid no attention to the 
 reasons alleged for the unpunctuality ; little 
 by little she began to ask questions on her 
 own account, petulantly, but with growing 
 interest. Still, the headache was not laid 
 aside, and all spent a very dolorous 
 evening.
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 225 
 
 In the relation these thmg-s have their 
 
 o 
 
 humorous side ; Emily may be excused if she 
 was slow to appreciate it. She knew very 
 well that the crisis meant for her father 
 several days of misery, and perhaps in her 
 youthful energy she was disposed to make 
 too little allowance for her mother, whose life 
 had been so full of hardship, and who even 
 now was suffering from cares and anxieties 
 the worst of which her daughter was not 
 allowed to perceive. After the girl's early 
 departure to her bedroom the other two sat 
 talking drearily; after one of her headaches 
 Mrs. Hood always dwelt in conversation on 
 the most wretched features of her life, with 
 despairing forecast. Poor woman, there was 
 little of a brighter kind to occupy her 
 thoughts. Two occasions of grave anxietv 
 were at present troubling her, and. though he 
 spoke of them less, her husband in no less a 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 degree. It had just been announced to them 
 that at the ensuing Christmas their rent 
 would be raised, and at the same time the 
 tenant who had for years occupied the house 
 which they owned in the town of Barnhill 
 had given notice of departure. There was a 
 certain grotesqueness in the fact of James 
 Hood being a proprietor of real estate. Twice 
 an attempt had been made to sell the house 
 in question, but no purchaser could be found ; 
 the building was in poor repair, was con- 
 stantly entailing expense to the landlord, 
 and, in the event of its becoming unoccupied, 
 would doubtless wait long for another tenant. 
 This event had come about, or would in a 
 couple of months, and the loss of that five- 
 and -twenty pounds a year would make the 
 difficulty of existence yet more desperate. 
 Once more an attempt at sale must be made, 
 in itself involving outlays which, however 
 petty, could ill be borne ; and to sell, even if
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 227 
 
 it could be done, meant a serious loss of 
 income. 
 
 ' What did it mean, do you think ? ' Mrs. 
 Hood asked, recurring to the subject of Dag- 
 worthy and his astonishing behaviour. She 
 put the question dispiritedly, not venturing 
 to hope for a solution that would help her to 
 a more cheerful frame of mind. 
 
 Hood scarcely dared to utter the words 
 which came into his mind. 
 
 ' You remember that they met at the 
 Baxendales' ' 
 
 ' How did Emily behave ? ' the mother 
 next inquired. 
 
 ' She was very quiet. I don't think she 
 liked it. We must bear in mind the kind of 
 society she is used to. Young Dagworthy 
 won't seem of much account to her, I 
 fancy.' 
 
 ' But he has had a good education, hasn't 
 he?' 
 
 q2
 
 238 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' Pretty good, I suppose. He confessed to 
 us, though, that he couldn't pronounce French 
 words.' 
 
 * It's quite certain,' said Mrs. Hood, ^ he 
 wouldn't have invited you in if you had been 
 alone.' 
 
 ^ Certain enough,' was the reply, in a tone 
 wholly disinterested. ' But it must have been 
 just a fancy, a whim. Things of that kind 
 don't happen nowadays.' 
 
 ' Not to us, at all events,' murmured the 
 other, dejectedly. 
 
 * Well, there must come what will,' she 
 added, leaning her head back once more, and 
 losing interest in the subject. ' I hope 
 nothing and expect nothing.' 
 
 Alas, these two sitting together in the 
 dull little room, speaking in disjointed phrases 
 of despondency, exchanging no look, no word 
 of mutual kindness, had they not once loved 
 each other, with the love of youth and hope ?
 
 THE SHADOW OF HOME 229 
 
 Had it not once been enough to sit through 
 long evenings and catch with eagerness each 
 other's lightest word ? Time had robbed 
 them of youth, and the injustice of the world's 
 order had starved love to less than a shadow 
 of itself, to a mere habit of common suffering. 
 Tender memories were buried in the grave of 
 children whom the resources of ever so modest 
 a fortune would have kept alive ; the present 
 was a mere struggle to support existence, 
 choking the impulses of affection. One would 
 not murmur at the kindly order of life, 
 whereby passion gives place to gentle halji- 
 tudes, and the fiery soul of youth tames itself 
 to comely gravity ; but that love and joy, the 
 delights of eager sense and of hallowed aspira- 
 tion, should be smothered in the foul dust of 
 a brute combat for bread, that the stinted 
 energies of early years should change them- 
 selves to the blasted hopes of failing manhood 
 in a world made ill by human perverseness,
 
 230 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 this is not easily — it may be, not well — borne 
 with patience. Put money in thy purse ; and 
 again, put money in thy purse ; for, as the 
 world is ordered, to lack current coin is to 
 lack the privileges of humanity, and indigence 
 is the death of the soul.
 
 231 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS. 
 
 It had been arranged that Emily should re- 
 ceive news from Wilfrid by the first post on 
 Monday morning. Her father left home at 
 half-past eight, and Emily, a little ashamed 
 at so deceivin2^ him. went into the town at 
 the same time on pretence of a desire to share 
 his walk. Taking leave of him as soon as 
 the mill was in sight, she walked towards the 
 post-office. At this early hour there was no 
 one before the counter : she overcame her 
 nervousness and asked for letters. That 
 which she expected was given to her, and at 
 the same time a telegram. 
 
 The siiz;lit of the teleo^ram a^^itated her. 
 Drawing aside, she opened it at once.
 
 232 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Wilfrid had despatched it the previous night 
 from London. ' I shall be in Dimfield at one 
 o'clock to-morrow. Please leave a note for 
 me at the post-office, appointing any place of 
 meeting at any time you like. I shall find 
 the place from your description.' 
 
 The letter, as she could perceive by feeling 
 it, was long ; there was no necessity to open 
 it until she reached home. But the note she 
 must write at once. In agitation which 
 would scarcely allow her to reflect, she left 
 the office and sought a small shop where she 
 could procure note-paper. On her way she 
 devised a plan for meeting. In the shop where 
 she made her purchase she was permitted 
 also to write the note. Having stamped the 
 envelope, she returned to the post-office, and, 
 to make sure that no delay might disaf)point 
 AVilfrid, gave the letter into the hands of a 
 clerk, who promised, with a smile, that it 
 should at once be put into the right place.
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 233 
 
 Emily found the smile hard to bear, but for- 
 tunately she was unknown. 
 
 Then she set forth homewards. Such 
 news as this, that sbe would see and speak 
 ^^th Wilfrid in a few hours, set self-command 
 at defiance. Between joy at the thought that 
 even now he was nearing her, and fear of the 
 events which might have led him to such a 
 step, she was swayed in a tumult of emotion. 
 She longed to open the letter, yet felt she 
 could not do so in the public roads. She 
 tried to think whether any ill chance could 
 possibly interpose to prevent her being at the 
 place of meeting ; none was to be anticipated, 
 unless, what was very unlikely, her mother 
 should propose to join her afternoon walk. 
 But what could his coming mean ? She 
 feared that she understood too well. 
 
 Often she had to check tlie over-haste of 
 her pace, and the way seemed terribly long, 
 but at length she was at home and close
 
 234 A LIFE'S MORNL\G 
 
 shut in her bedroom. The letter did not 
 aid her to account for his coming ; it had 
 been written late on Friday night, but made 
 absolutely no reference to what had passed 
 between Wilfrid and his relations. It was a 
 long and passionate poem of his love, con- 
 cerned not with outward facts, but with states 
 of feeling. Only at the end he had added a 
 postscript, saying that he should write again 
 on Monday. 
 
 It was difficult to live through the morn- 
 ing. She felt that she must be busy with 
 her hands, and, her mother's objections not- 
 withstanding, set herself resolutely to active 
 house-work. Her anxious feelings in this 
 way toned themselves to mere cheerfulness. 
 She listened with unfailing patience to the 
 lengthily described details of domestic annoy- 
 ances of which Mrs. Hood's conversation 
 chiefly consisted, and did her best to infuse 
 into her replies a tone of hopefulness, which
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 235 
 
 might animate without betraying too much. 
 The hours passed over, and at length it was 
 time to set forth. Mrs. Hood showed no 
 desire to leave home. Emily, though foresee- 
 ing that she might again be late for tea, did 
 not venture to hint at such a possibility, but 
 started as if for a short walk. 
 
 Not much more than a mile from Ban- 
 brigg, in a direction away alike from the 
 Heath and from Dunfield, is the villa fre of 
 Pendal. where stand the remains of an ancient 
 castle. Very slight indeed are these relics, 
 one window and some shapeless masses of 
 defaced masonry being alone exposed ; but a 
 hill close beside them is supposed to cover 
 more of the fabric, though history tells not 
 how or when the earth was so heaped up. 
 The circle of the moat is still complete, and 
 generally contains water. Pendal Castle Hill, 
 as the locality is called, is approached by a 
 rustic lane leading from the village ; it is
 
 236 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 enclosed like an ordinary meadow, and 
 shadowed here and there with trees. On 
 Sundays and holidays it is a resort much 
 favoured by Dunfieldians ; at other times its 
 solitude is but little interfered with. Know- 
 ing this, Emily had appointed the spot for 
 the meeting. She had directed Wilfrid to 
 take a train from Dunfield to Pendal, and 
 had described the walk up to the castle hill. 
 
 He was not before her this time, and 
 there were endless reasons for fear lest she 
 should wait in vain. She remained standing 
 on the inner side of the stile by which the 
 field was entered, and kept her gaze on the 
 point where the lane turned. A long quarter 
 of an hour passed, then of a sudden the ex - 
 pected form appeared. 
 
 There had been no train to Pendal at the 
 right time ; he had taken a meal at Dunfield 
 station, and then had found a cab to convey 
 him to the village.
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 237 
 
 Wilfrid was very calm, only the gleam of 
 his line eyes showed his delight at holding 
 her hands again. They walked to the side of 
 the hill remote from the road. Wilfrid looked 
 about him, and remarked that the place was 
 interesting. He seemed in no hurry to speak 
 of what had brought him here ; they walked 
 hand in hand like children. ' Emily ! ' — 
 and then his name in return, with inter- 
 change of looks ; was it not enough for some 
 minutes ? 
 
 * There is a fallen trunk,' Wilfrid said, 
 pointing to a remoter spot. ' Shall we sit 
 there ? ' 
 
 ' How well it has been managed ! ' lie 
 exclaimed, when they had seated themselves. 
 * You remember the fairy tales in which the 
 old woman bids some one go to a certain 
 place and do such and such a thing, and some- 
 thing is sure to happen ? " And it befell 
 just as the old woman had said." '
 
 238 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' And I am the old woman. They call 
 her a witch in the stories.' 
 
 ^ A witch, yes ; but so young and so 
 beautiful. What delight it was to find your 
 letter, dearest ! What careful directions ! I 
 laughed at your dreadful anxiety to make it 
 quite, quite clear. Won't you take the glove 
 off ? How your hand trembles ; no, I will 
 unbutton it myself.' 
 
 He kissed the fingers lightly, and then 
 held them pressed. 
 
 * But why have you come all this distance, 
 Wilfrid?' 
 
 ' Would it not be enough if I said I had 
 come to see you ? What distance would be 
 too far for that ? ' 
 
 ' But you were to have left England to-day ? ' 
 
 ' So I was, but I shall not go — till you go 
 with me, Emily.' 
 
 She looked at him with anxious eyes. 
 
 ' Well, I will tell you all there is to tell.
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 239 
 
 In the first place, my father and my aunt 
 think that the plan of your returning to teach 
 the little girls is not a very good one.' 
 
 He spoke with perfect cheerfulness, but 
 firmly, as was his wont. Emily's eyes fell. 
 
 ' I have felt it myself,' she said. 
 
 * And so have I ; so that we are happily 
 all agreed. We talked it all over after you 
 had gone on Friday, and since then I have 
 taken time to make up my mind. I can see 
 that you would be uncomfortable in the house 
 under such conditions ; at the same time it is 
 certainly out of the question that you should 
 go elsewhere ; and so — come to London and 
 let us be married as soon as the arrangements 
 can be made.' 
 
 ' I don't quite understand, Wilfrid. Do 
 you mean that your father approves this ? ' 
 
 ^ They all went off to-day. He knows, 
 no doubt, what my intention is. In a matter 
 like this I must judge for myself.'
 
 240 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Slie was silent, then asked with appre- 
 hension, * Has it caused trouble ? ' 
 
 * Of the kind which passes as soon as it 
 has been well talked about,' he answered with 
 a smile : ' no thins: more serious.' 
 
 She could not meet his look. 
 
 ' And you wish not to return to Oxford ? ' 
 
 ' I have done with that. I see now that 
 to go back and play the schoolboy would have 
 been impossible ; all that is over and a new 
 life beo^inning — you will be in readiness to 
 come up as soon as I send for you ? ' 
 
 She looked in his face now with pleading. 
 
 ' It is too hasty, Wilfrid. It was better, 
 flxr better, that we should wait till next year. 
 Can it be yoar father's wish that your 
 marriage should take place in his absence ? 
 You know that I have no foolish desires ; the 
 more simply everything is done the better it 
 will please me. But I would, I would have 
 it done with your father s goodwill. I fore-
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 241 
 
 saw his objections only too well ; they are 
 natural, it could not be otherwise ; but I 
 hoped that time would help. Let us wait I ' 
 
 She closed both hands on his, and gazed 
 at him steadily. 
 
 * I think you must be guided by me, 
 Emily,' he replied, with his calm self-assert- 
 iveness. ' There is no reason why we should 
 wait. My father is a man who very sensibly 
 accepts the accomplished fact. His own 
 marriage, I may tell you, was an affair of 
 decision in the face of superficial objections, 
 and he will only think the better of me for 
 following his example. You say, and I am 
 sure, that you care nothing for the show of a 
 wedding ; if you did, I should not be here at 
 this moment. It is only for that that we need 
 postpone the marriage. I will take rooms till 
 I can find a house and have it made ready 
 for us.' 
 
 Emily kept silence. She had released his 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 242 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 hand. There were signs on her face of severe 
 inward conflict. 
 
 * Will you let me go and see your 
 parents ? ' he asked. ' Shall our marriage 
 take place here ? To me it is the same ; I 
 would only be ruled by your choice. May I 
 go home with you now ? ' 
 
 ' I would say yes if I could make up my 
 mind to a marriage at once,' she answered. 
 ' Dear, let me persuade you.' 
 
 ^ The sound of your words persuades too 
 strongly against their sense, Emily,' he said 
 tenderly. ' I will not put off our marriage a 
 day longer than forms make necessary.' 
 
 ' Wilfrid, let me say what ' 
 
 ' I have scraps of superstition in my 
 nature,' he broke in with a half laugh. ^ Fate 
 does not often deal so kindly as in giving you 
 to me ; 1 dare not seem even to hesitate before 
 the gift. It is a test of the worth that is in 
 us. We meet by chance, and we recognise
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 243 
 
 each other ; here is the end for which we 
 might have sought a lifetime ; we are not 
 worthy of it if we hold back from paltry 
 considerations. I dare not leave you, Emily ; 
 everything points to one result — the rejection 
 of the scheme for your return, my father's 
 free surrender of the decision to myself, the 
 irresistible impulse which has brought miC 
 here to you. Did I tell you that I rose in 
 the middle of the nif^ht and went to Charing^ 
 Cross to telegraph ? It would have done just 
 as well the first thinor in the morninn^. but I 
 could not rest till the message was sent. I 
 will have no appearances come between us ; 
 there shall be no pause till you bear my name 
 and have entered my home ; after that, let life 
 do with us what it will.' 
 
 Emily drank in the vehement flow of 
 words with delight and fear. It was this 
 virile eagerness, this force of personality, 
 which had before charmed her thought into 
 
 B '2
 
 244 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 passiveness, and made her senses its subject ; 
 but a stronger motive of resistance actuated 
 her now. In her humility she could not 
 deem the instant gain of herself to be an 
 equivalent to him for what he would cer- 
 tainly, and what he might perchance, lose. 
 She feared that he had disguised his father's 
 real displeasure, and she could not reconcile 
 herself to the abrupt overthrow of all the 
 purposes Wilfrid had entertained before he 
 knew her. She strove with all the energy of 
 her own strong character to withstand him 
 for his good. 
 
 ' Wilfrid, let it at least be postponed till 
 3'our father's return. If his mind is what 
 you say, he will by then have fully accepted 
 your views. I respect your father, I owe 
 him consideration ; he is prejudiced against 
 me now, and I would gain his goodwill. 
 Just because we are perfectly independent let 
 us have regard for others ; better, a thousand
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 245 
 
 times better, that lie should be reconciled to 
 our marriage before it takes place than per- 
 force afterwards. Is it for my constancy, or 
 your own, that you fear ? ' 
 
 ' I do not doubt your love, and my own is 
 unalterable. I fear circumstances ; but what 
 has fear to do with it ? I wish to make you 
 my own ; the empire of my passion is all- 
 subduing. I will not wait ! If you refuse 
 me, I have been mistaken ; you do not love 
 me.' 
 
 ' Those are only words,' she answered, 
 a proud smile lighting the trouble of her 
 countenance. ' You have said that you do 
 not doubt my love, and in your heart you 
 cannot. Answer me one question, AVilfrid : 
 have you made little of your flither's oppo- 
 sition, in order to spare me pain? Is it 
 more serious than you are willing to tell 
 me?' 
 
 The temptation was strong to reply with
 
 246 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 an affirmative. If she believed his father to 
 be utterly irreconcilable, there could be no 
 excuse for lingering, yet his nobler self pre- 
 vailed ; to her no word of falseness. 
 
 ' I have told you the truth. His opposi- 
 tion is temporary. When you are my wife 
 he will be to you as to any wife I could have 
 chosen, 1 am convinced of it.' 
 
 ' Then more than ever I entreat you to 
 wait, only till his return to England. If you 
 fail then, I will resist no longer. Show him 
 this much respect, dearest ; join him abroad 
 now ; let him see that you desire his kind- 
 ness. Is he not disappointed that you mean 
 to break off your career at Oxford? Why 
 should you do that? You promised me — 
 did you not promise me, Wilfrid, that you 
 would go on to the end ? ' 
 
 ' I cannot ! I have no longer the calm- 
 ness, no longer the old ambitions — how trivial 
 they were ! '
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 247 
 
 ' And yet there will come a day when you 
 will regret that you left your course un- 
 finished, just because you fell in love with a 
 foolish girl.' 
 
 ' Do not speak like that, Emily ; I hate 
 that way of regarding love ! My passion for 
 you is henceforth my life ; if it is trifling, so 
 is my whole being, my whole existence. 
 There is no sacrifice possible for me that I 
 should ever regret. Our love is what we 
 choose to make it. Regard it as a foolish 
 pastime, and we are no better than the vulgar 
 crowd — we know how they speak of it. What 
 detestable thoughts your words brought to 
 my mind! Have you not heard men and 
 women, those who have outlived such 
 glimpses of high things as nature ever sent 
 them, making a jest of love in young lives, 
 treating it, from the height of their wisdom 
 forsooth, as a silly dream of boys and girls? 
 K we ever live to speak or think like that, it
 
 248 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 will indeed be time to have done with the 
 world. Even as I love you now, my heart's 
 darling, I shall love you when years of in- 
 timacy are like some happy journey behind us, 
 and on into the very portal of death. Regret ! 
 How paltry all will seem that was not of the 
 essence of our love ! And who knows how short 
 our time may be? When the end comes, will 
 it be easy to bear the thought that we lost 
 one day, one moment of union, out of respect 
 for idle prejudices which vanish as soon as 
 they find themselves ineffectual? Will not 
 the longest life be all too short for us ? ' 
 
 ' Forgive me the words, dear. Love is no 
 less sacred to me.' 
 
 Her senses were playing the traitor ; or 
 — which you will — were seconding love's 
 triumph. 
 
 * I shall come home with you now/ he 
 said. ^ You will let me ? ' 
 
 Why was he not content to win her
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 249 
 
 promise? This proposal, by reminding her 
 most strongly of the inevitable difficulties her 
 marriage would entail, forced her again into 
 resistance. 
 
 * Not now, Wilfrid. I have not said a 
 word of this ; I must prepare them for it/ 
 
 * You have not spoken of me? ^ 
 
 ^ I would not do so, till I — till everything 
 was more certain.' 
 
 * Certain ! ' he cried impatiently. ' Why 
 do you torture me so, Emily? What un- 
 certainty is there ? Everything is uncertain, 
 if you like to make it so. Is there something 
 in your mind that I do not understand ? ' 
 
 * You must remember, Wilfrid, that this 
 is a strange, new thing in my life. It has 
 come to me so suddenly, that even yet I 
 cannot make it part of my familiar self. It 
 has been impossible to speak of it to others.' 
 
 *Do you think I take it as a matter of 
 course ? Is your love less a magic gift to
 
 250 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 me ? I wake in a terror lest I have only 
 dreamed of it ; but then the very trutn 
 comes back, and shall I make myself 
 miserable with imagining uncertainties, when 
 there need be none ? ' 
 
 Emily hesitated before speaking again. 
 
 ' I have told you very little about my 
 home/ she said. ' You know that we are 
 very poor.' 
 
 She could not say it as simply as she 
 wished ; she was angry with herself to 
 recognise how nearly her feeling was one of 
 shame, what a long habit of reason it needed 
 to expel the unintelligent prejudice which 
 the world bestows at birth. 
 
 * I could almost say I am glad of it,' 
 Wilfrid replied. 'We shall have it in our 
 power, you and I, to help so much.' 
 
 ' There are many reasons,' she continued, 
 too much occupied with her thoughts to 
 dwell on what he said, * why I should have
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 251 
 
 time to prepare my father and mother. You 
 will let me write the things which it is not 
 very easy to say.' 
 
 ' Say what you will, and keep silence on 
 what you will, Emily. I cannot give so 
 much consequence to these external things, 
 You and I are living souls, and as such we 
 judge each other. Shall I fret about the 
 circumstances in which chance has cased your 
 life ? As reasonable if I withdrew my love 
 from you because one day the colour of your 
 glove did not please me. Time you need. 
 You shall have it ; a week, ten days. Then 
 I will come myself and fetch you, — or you 
 shall come to London alone, as you please.' 
 ' Let it be till your father returns.' 
 *But he vnW. be two months away.' 
 ' You will join him in Switzerland. 
 Your health requires it.' 
 
 ^ My health ! Oh, how tired I am of that 
 word ! Spare it me, you at least, Emily.
 
 252 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 I am well in body and mind ; your love 
 would have raised me if I had lain at the 
 point of death. I cannot leave England alone ; 
 I have made up my mind that you shall go 
 with me. Have I then no power to persuade 
 you ? You will not indeed refuse ? ' 
 
 He looked at her almost in despair. He 
 had not anticipated more than the natural 
 hesitancy which he would at once overcome 
 by force of passion. There was something 
 terrible to him in the disclosure of a quiet 
 force of will equal to his own. Frustration 
 of desire joined with irritated instincts of 
 ascendency to agitate him almost beyond 
 endurance. 
 
 Emily gazed at him with pleading as 
 passionate as his own need. 
 
 ' Do you distrust me ? ' he asked sud- 
 denly, overcome with an intolerable sus- 
 picion. At the same moment he dropped her 
 hand, and his gaze grew cold.
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 253 
 
 * Distrust you ? ' She could not think 
 that she understood him. 
 
 ' Do you fear to come to London with 
 me ? ' 
 
 ' Wilfrid ? ' 
 
 Her bosom heaved with passionate re- 
 sentment of his thought. 
 
 ' Is that how you understand my 
 motives ? ' she asked with tremulous, 
 subdued earnestness, fixing upon him a gaze 
 which he could not meet. 
 
 * Yes/ he answered, below his breath, ' in 
 a moment when love of you has made me 
 mad.' 
 
 He turned away, leaning i;\'ith one hand 
 upon the trunk. In the silence which 
 followed he appeared to be examining the 
 shapeless ruins, which, from this point of 
 view, stood out boldly against the sky. 
 
 ' When was this castle destroyed ? ' he 
 asked presently, in a steady voice.
 
 2 54 ^ LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 He received no answer, and turned his 
 eyes to lier again. Emily's face was strung 
 into a hard intensity. He laid his hand once 
 more upon hers, and spoke with self-control. 
 
 * You do not know the strength of a 
 man's love. In that moment it touched the 
 borders of hate. I know that your mind is 
 incapable of such a suspicion ; try to think 
 what it meant to be possessed for an instant 
 by such frenzy.' 
 
 '- You felt able to hate me ? ' she said, 
 with a shake in her voice which might have 
 become either a laugh or a sob. ' Then there 
 are things in love that I shall never know.' 
 
 ' Because your soul is pure as that of 
 the angels they dream of. I could not love 
 vou so terribly if you were not that perfection 
 of womanhood to which all being is drawn. 
 Send me to do your bidding ; I will have no 
 will but yours.' 
 
 How the light of rapture flashed athwart
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 255 
 
 her face ! It was hard for her to iincl words 
 that would not seem too positive, too insub- 
 missive. 
 
 ' Only till you have lived with your father 
 in the thought of this thing/ she murmured, 
 ' and until I have taught myself to bear my 
 happiness. Are we not one already, dear ? 
 Why should you needlessly make your life 
 poorer by the loss — if only for a time — of all 
 the old kindnesses ? I think, I know, that in 
 a few days your mind vnW. be the same as my 
 own. Do you remember how long it is since 
 we first spoke to each other ? ' 
 
 ' Not so many days as make a week,' he 
 answered, smiling. 
 
 ' Is not that hard to believe ? And hard 
 to realise that the new world is still within 
 the old ? ' 
 
 * Sweet, still eyes — give to me some of your 
 wisdom ! But you have a terrible way of 
 teaching calmness.'
 
 256 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 * You will go straight to the Continent, 
 Wilfrid ? ' 
 
 ' Only with one j^romise.' 
 ' And that ? ' 
 
 ^ You will bow to my judgment when I 
 return.' 
 
 * My fate shall be in your hands.' 
 
 They talked still, while the shadows of 
 the ruins moved over towards them. All the 
 afternoon no footsteps had come near ; it was 
 the sight of two strangers which at length 
 bade Emily think of the time. It was after 
 six o'clock. 
 
 ' Wilfrid, I must go. My absence will 
 seem so strange ; what fables I shall have to 
 invent on the way home ! Do you know of 
 any train that you can leave by ? ' 
 
 ' No ; it matters very little ; I suppose 
 there is a mail some time to-night ? I will 
 go back to Duniield and take my chance.' 
 
 ' How tired 3^ou will be ! Two such 
 journeys in one day.'
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 257 
 
 ' And a draught of the water of life be- 
 tween them. But even now there is some- 
 thing more I ask for.' 
 
 ' Somethinsr more ? ' 
 
 ' One touch of the lips that speak so 
 nobly.' 
 
 It was only then that her eyes gleamed for a 
 moment throuo;h moisture. But she strenoi;h- 
 ened herself to face the parting, in spite of 
 a heaviness at the heart like that which she 
 had felt on leaving The Firs. She meant at 
 first to go no further than the stile into the 
 lane, and there Wilfrid held out his hand 
 She used it to aid herself in steppmg over. 
 
 ' I must go as far as Pendal station,' she 
 said. ' Then you can look at the time-table, 
 and tell u:ie what train you will take.' 
 
 They walked the length of the lane almost 
 in silence, glancing at each other once or twice. 
 At the village station, Wilfrid discovered that 
 a good train left Dunfield shortly after nine 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 o'clock. From Pendal to Dunfield there 
 would be a train in a quarter of an hour. 
 
 They stood together under the station shed. 
 No other passenger was waiting, and the 
 official had not yet arrived to open the book- 
 ing-office. 
 
 ^ When shall I hear from you ? ' Emily 
 asked, putting off from instant to instant the 
 good-bye which grew ever harder to say. 
 
 ' In less than a week. I shall leave 
 London early to-morrow morning.' 
 
 ' But it will give you no time for rest.' 
 
 'I am not able to rest. Go as often as 
 you can to the castle, that I may think of you 
 as sitting there.' 
 
 ' I will go very often.' 
 
 She could not trust herself to utter more 
 than a few words. As she spoke, the station- 
 master appeared. They moved away to the 
 head of the stairs by which Emily had to 
 leave.
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 259 
 
 ' I shall see your train to-night as it passes 
 Penclal,' she said. 
 
 Then there was the clasp of hands, and 
 — good-bye. To Emily the way was dark 
 before her as she hurried onwards. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Hood had subsided into the calm of 
 bitter resignation. Emily found her in the 
 kitchen, engaged in polishmg certam metal 
 articles, an occupation to which she always 
 had recourse when the legitimate work of the 
 day was pretty well over. Years ago, Mrs. 
 Hood had not lacked interest in certain kinds 
 of reading, but the miseries of her life had 
 killed all that ; the need of mechanical exer- 
 tion was constantly upon lier ; an automatic 
 conscience refused to allow her re]30se. When 
 she heard Emily entering by the front door, 
 a sickly smile fixed itself upon her lips, and 
 with this she silently greeted the girl. 
 
 ' It is too bad of me, mother,' Emily said, 
 trying to assume playfulness, which contrasted
 
 26o A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 strangely with an almost haggard weariness 
 on her face. ' You will give me up as hope- 
 less ; I will promise, like the children, that it 
 shall never happen again.' 
 
 ' It is your holiday, my dear,' was the 
 reply, as Mrs. Hood went to stir the fire. 
 ' You must amuse yourself in your own way.' 
 
 ' Of course you have had tea. I really 
 want nothing till supper-time.' 
 
 ' It w^as not w^orth while to make tea for 
 one,' said her mother, with a sigh. 
 
 'And you have had none? Then I will 
 make it this minute. When will father be 
 home ? ' 
 
 ' It is quite uncertain. He gets more and 
 more irregular.' 
 
 ' Why should he be kept so beyond the 
 proper time? It is really too bad.' 
 
 * My dear, your fiither is never satisfied 
 with doing his own work ; he's alw^ays taking 
 somebody else's as well. Of course, they find
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 26 r 
 
 that out, and they put upon him. I've 
 talked and talked, but it's no use ; I suppose 
 it'll go on in the same way to the end.' 
 
 Half an hour later Mr. Hood reached 
 home, as usual, worn out. The last half-mile 
 of the walk from Dunfield was always a 
 struggle with exhaustion. He had to sit 
 several minutes before he was able to go 
 upstairs to refresh himself with cold water. 
 
 ' I met Mrs. Cartwright,' he said, when 
 an unexpected cup of tea from Emily's hands 
 had put him into good spirits. ' Jessie got 
 home on Saturday, and wants you to go and 
 see her, Emily. I half promised you would 
 call to-morrow morning.' 
 
 ' Yes, I will,' said Emily. 
 
 ' I don't think it's altoofether riorht,' re- 
 marked Mrs. Hood, * that Emily should have to 
 work in her holidays ; and I'm sure it's all no 
 use ; Jessie Cartwright will never do any good 
 if she has lessons from now to Doomsday.'
 
 262 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 ' Well, it's very necessary she should,' 
 replied Mr. Hood. ' How ever they live as 
 they do passes my comprehension. There 
 was Mrs. Cartwright taking home fruit and 
 flowers which cost a pretty penny, I'll be 
 bound. And her talk! I thought I should 
 never get away. There's one thing, she 
 never has any but good-natured gossip ; I 
 never leave her without feeling that she is 
 one of the best-hearted women I know.' 
 
 ' I can't say that her daughters take after 
 her,' Mrs. Hood remarked, soothed, as always, 
 by comment upon her acquaintances. ' Amy 
 was here the other afternoon, and all the time 
 she never ceased making fun of those poor 
 Wilkinses ; it really was all I could do to 
 keep from telling her she ought to be ashamed 
 of herself. Mary Wilkins, at all events, 
 makes no pretences ; she may be plain, but 
 she's a good girl, and stays at home to do 
 what's required of her. As for the Cart-
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 263 
 
 Wright girls — well, we shall see what'll 
 happen some day. It can't go on, that's 
 quite certain.' 
 
 ' I don't thmk there's any real harm in 
 them. They're thoughtless, but then they're 
 very young. They oughtn't to have so 
 much of their own way. What's your 
 opinion of Jessie, Emily? Do you think 
 she'll ever be fit to teach ? ' 
 
 ' She might, if she could live apait from 
 her mother and sisters for a time. I think 
 she'll have to come here for her lessons ; it's 
 out of the question to do anything at that 
 house.' 
 
 It was Mr. Hood's habit to spend his 
 evenings in a little room at the top of the 
 house, which he called his laboratory. It 
 was furnished with a deal table, a couple of 
 chairs, and some shelves. On the table was 
 his apparatus for the study of electricity, 
 mostly the product of his own ingenuity ;
 
 264 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 also a number of retorts, crucibles, test-tubes, 
 and the like, wherewith he experimented 
 chemically. The shelves exhibited bottles 
 and jars, and the dozen or so volumes which 
 made his scientific library. These tastes he 
 had kept up from boyhood ; there was some- 
 thing pathetic in the persistency with which 
 he clung to the pretence of serious study, 
 though the physical fatigue which possessed 
 him during his few hours of freedom would in 
 any case have condemned him to mere trifling. 
 Often he came upstairs, lit his lamp, and sat 
 for a couple of hours doing nothing more 
 than play with his instruments, much as a 
 child might ; at other times a sudden revival 
 of zeal would declare itself, and he would 
 read and experiment till late in the night, 
 always in fear of the inevitable lecture on his 
 reckless waste of lamp-oil. In the winter 
 time the temperature of this garret was arctic, 
 and fii^place there was none ; still he could
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 265 
 
 not intermit his custom of spending at least an 
 hour in what he called scientific study, with 
 the result that he went to bed numbed and 
 shivering. It was but another illustration of 
 possibilities rendered futile by cuxumstances. 
 It was more than likely that the man might, 
 with fair treatment, have really done some- 
 thing in one or other branch of physics. To 
 Emily, who strove to interest herself in his 
 subjects out of mere love and compassion, he 
 appeared to have gained not a little know- 
 ledge of facts and theories. She liked to 
 encourage herself in the faith that his attain- 
 ments were solid as far as they went, and 
 that they might have been the foundation of 
 good independent work ; it helped her to 
 respect her father. 
 
 ' Will you come up to-night, Emily ? ' he 
 asked, with the diffidence wliich he always 
 put into this request. 
 
 She assented Avith apparent cheerfulness,
 
 266 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 and they climbed the stairs together. The 
 last portion of them was uncarpeted, and 
 their footsteps sounded with hollow echoes 
 under the roof. It was all but dark by this 
 time ; Mr. Hood found matches on the table 
 and lit the lamp, which illuminated the bare 
 white-washed walls and sloping ceiling with 
 a dreary dimness. There was no carpet 
 on the floor, which creaked as they moved 
 here and there. When her father was on the 
 point of drawing down the blind Emily inter- 
 posed. 
 
 * Do you mind leaving it up, father ? ' 
 
 * Of course I will,' he assented, with a 
 smile. ' But why ? ' 
 
 ' The last daylight in the sky is pleasant 
 to look at.' 
 
 On the landing below stood an old eight- 
 day clock. So much service had it seen that 
 its voice was grown faint, and the strokes of 
 each hour that it gave forth were wheezed
 
 A VISITOR BY EXPRESS 267 
 
 ^ith intervals of several seconds. It was 
 now striking nine, and the succession of 
 long-drawn ghostly notes seemed intermin- 
 able. 
 
 The last daylight — how often our lightest 
 words are omens ! — faded out of the sky. 
 Emily kept her eyes upon the windows none 
 the less. She tried to understand what her 
 father was saying sufficiently to put in a 
 word now and then, but her sense of hearing 
 was strained to its utmost for other sounds. 
 There was no traffic in the road below, and 
 the house itself was hushed ; the ticking of 
 the old clock, performed with such painful 
 effort that it ever seemed on the point of 
 failing, was the only sign of life outside the 
 garret. At length Emily's ear caught a 
 remote rushing sound ; her father's low voice 
 did not overcome it. 
 
 ' These compounds of nitrogen and oxy- 
 gen,' he was saying, ' are very interesting.
 
 168 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Nitrous oxide, you know, is what they call 
 Laughing Gas. You heat solid nitrate of 
 ammonia, and that makes protoxide of nitrogen 
 and water.' 
 
 The words conveyed no sense to her, 
 though she heard them. The rushing sound 
 had become a dull continuous thunder. Her 
 eyes strained into the darkness. Of a sudden 
 the horizon flamed. A train was passing a 
 quarter of a mile away, and the furnace-door 
 of the engine had just been opened to feed the 
 fire, whose strength sped the carriages to 
 far-off London. A streaming cloud of smoke 
 reflected the glare ; it was as though some 
 flying dragon vomited crimson fumes. In- 
 voluntarily the girl half rose from her seat 
 and pointed. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' asked her father, looking 
 round. ' Ah ! pretty sight that fire on the 
 smoke. Well, this protoxide of nitrogen, you 
 see ' . . .
 
 269 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 ON THE LEVELS. 
 
 Not the least of many mysteries in the natural 
 history of the Cartwrights was, how they all 
 managed to bestow themselves in the house 
 which they occupied. To be sure, the family 
 — omittino; Mr. Cartwrigrht, seldom at home 
 — were all of one sex, which perhaps made 
 the difficulty less insuperable ; but the fact 
 remained that Mrs. Cartwriofht and her live 
 grown-up daughters, together with a maid- 
 servant, lived, moved and had their being in 
 an abode consisting of six rooms, a ceUar, 
 and a lumber closet. 
 
 A few years ago they had occupied a 
 much more roomy dwelling on the edge of
 
 270 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 the aristocratic region of Dunfield ; though 
 not strictly in St. Luke's — the Belgravia of 
 the town — they of course spoke of it as if it 
 were. A crisis in the fortunes of the family 
 had necessitated a reduction of their establish- 
 ment ; the district in which they now dwelt 
 was humbler, but then it could always be de- 
 scribed as ' near North Parade, you know ' ; 
 Xorth Parade being an equivalent of May fair. 
 The uppermost windows commanded a view 
 of the extensive cattle-market, of a long rail- 
 w^ay viaduct, and of hilly fields beyond. 
 
 The five Misses Cartwright did not greatly 
 relish the change ; they were disposed even 
 to resist, to hold their ground on the verge of 
 St. Luke's, to tell their father that he must do 
 his duty and still maintain them in that 
 station of life for which they were clearly 
 designed by Providence. But Mr. Cartwright, 
 after many cries of ' A\'olf,' found himself 
 veritably at close quarters with the animal,
 
 ON THE LEVELS 271 
 
 and female argument had to yield to the lo^i^ic 
 of fact. ' Be thankful,' exclaimed the hard- 
 driven paterfamilias, when his long patience 
 came to an end, ' that we haven't all to go to 
 the Union. It'll come to that yet, mark my 
 word! ' And, indeed, few people in Dunfield 
 would have expressed surprise at the actual 
 incidence of this calamity. Mr. Cartwright 
 was ostensibly a commercial traveller, but 
 obviously he must have joined with this main 
 pursuit many odds and ends of money-making 
 activity, seeing that the family kept out of 
 debt, and still indulged themselves in extrava- 
 gances which many substantial households 
 would have declared themselves unable to 
 afford. If the town were visited by an opera 
 company, or by some dramatic star going the 
 round of the provinces, the Cartwrights were 
 sure to have prominent seats, and to exhibit 
 themselves in becoming costume. If a bazaar 
 were held, their ready money was always
 
 2J2 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 forthcoming. At flower shows, galas, croquet 
 parties, they challenged comparison with all 
 who were not confessedly of the Dunfield elite. 
 They regularly adorned their pew in the parish 
 church, were liberal at offertories, exerted them- 
 selves, not without expense, in the Sunday- 
 school feast, and the like. How — cried all 
 Dunfield — how in the name of wonder was it 
 done ? 
 
 We are not concerned to probe the mystery; 
 sufiice it that the situation be exhibited as it 
 appeared to the eyes of the world. When 
 the afore-mentioned crisis declared itself, 
 though everyone enjoyed the opportunity of 
 exclaiming, ' I told you so ! ' there were few 
 who did not feel really sorry for the Cart- 
 wrights, so little of envy mingled with the 
 incessant gossip of which the family were the 
 subject. Mrs. Cartwright was held in more 
 or less affection by everyone who knew her. 
 She was a woman of Mty^ of substantial
 
 ON THE LEVELS 273 
 
 frame, florid, and somewhat masculine in 
 manner ; a thorougli Yorkshire woman, her 
 tone and demeanour were marked by a frank 
 good-nature which often exaggerated itself 
 into bluffness, and was never consistent with 
 the delicacy of refined taste, but which un- 
 mistakably evinced a sound and benevolent 
 disposition. When her sharp temper was 
 stirred — and her daughters gave it abundant 
 exercise — she expressed herself in a racy and 
 vigorous vernacular which there was no 
 opposing ; never coarse, never, in the large 
 sense, unwomanly, she made her predominance 
 felt with an emphasis which would fain have 
 been rivalled by many of the mothers of 
 Dunfield. Lavishly indulgent to her girls, 
 she yet kept them thoroughly in hand, and 
 won, if not their tenderness, at all events 
 their afi^ection and respect. The girls them- 
 selves were not outwardly charming ; Jessie, 
 the youngest but one, had perhaps a certain 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 claim to prettiness, but, like all her sisters, 
 she was of coarse type. Their education had 
 been of the most haphazard kind ; their 
 breeding was not a little defective ; but a 
 certain tact, common to the family, enabled 
 them to make the very most of themselves, so 
 that they more than passed muster among 
 the middle-class young ladies of the town. As 
 long as they sojourned on the borders of St. 
 Luke's, nothino; was farther from the thouo^hts 
 of any one of them than the idea that they 
 mio^ht have to exert themselves to earn their 
 own livinof ; it was onlv of late that certain 
 emphatic representations on the part of their 
 father had led Mrs. Cartwright to consider 
 which of the girls was good for anything. 
 Amy, the eldest, had rather a weak constitu- 
 tion ; it was plain that neither in body nor in 
 mind could she be called upon to exert her- 
 self. Eleanor, who came next, had musical 
 faculties ; after terrific family debates it was
 
 ON THE LEVELS 275 
 
 decided that she must give lessons on the 
 piano, and a first pupil was speedily found. 
 Barbara was good for nothing whatever, save 
 to spend money on her personal adornment ; 
 considermg that she was the plainest of 
 the family — her sisters having repeatedly 
 decided the point — her existence appeared 
 on the whole smgularly superfluous. Then 
 came Jessie. Of Jessie her father had 
 repeatedly said that she was the only girl 
 of his who had brains ; those brains, if 
 existent, must now be turned to account. 
 But Jessie had long smce torn up her school 
 books into curl-papers, and, as learning 
 accumulated outside her head, it vanished 
 from the interior. When she declared that 
 arithmetic was all but a mystery to her, and 
 that she had forgotten what French she ever 
 knew, there was an unprecedented outbreak 
 of parental wrath ; this was the result of 
 all that had been spent on her education! 
 
 X 2
 
 276 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 She must get it back as best she could, 
 for, as sure as fate, she should be j)acked 
 off as a governess. Look at Emily Hood : 
 why, that girl was keeping herself, and, 
 most likely, paying her mother's butcher's 
 bill into the bargain, and her advantages 
 had been fewer than Jessie's. After storms 
 beyond description, Jessie did what her 
 mother called ' buckle to,' but her progress 
 was slight. ' You must get Emily Hood 
 to help you when she comes home for her 
 holidays,' was Mrs. Cartwright's hopeful 
 suggestion, one night that the girl had 
 fairly broken down and given way to sobs 
 and tears. Emily was written to, and 
 promised aid. The remaining daughter, 
 Geraldine, was held to be too young as 
 yet for responsible undertakings ; she was 
 only seventeen, and, besides, there was 
 something rather hopeful going on between 
 her and young Baldwin, the solicitor, who
 
 ON THE LEVELS 277 
 
 had just begun practice in Dunfield. So 
 that, on the whole, Geraldine's lot looked 
 the most promising of all. 
 
 In previous years, the family had never 
 failed to betake themselves for three weeks or 
 so to Scarborough, or Whitby, or Bridling- 
 ton ; this year they had for the first time 
 contented themselves with humbler recrea- 
 tion ; Mrs. Cart Wright and four of the girls 
 managed a week at Hkley, Jessie was 
 fortunate enough to be invited to stay for 
 a fortn^'ght with friends at the sea- side. She 
 was the latest to return. Emily being now 
 at home, there was no longer an excuse for 
 postponing study ; books were procured, and 
 Jessie, by way of preparation, endeavoured 
 to fathom the abysses of her ignorance. 
 
 We have heard Emily's opinion as to the 
 possibility of studious application in the 
 house of the Cartwrights. Her own visits 
 thither were made as few as possible ; she
 
 278 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 declared that she never came away without a 
 headache. In spite of restricted space, the 
 CartTSTights found it impossible to relinquish 
 the habit of universal hospitality. As if 
 discontented with the narrow proportions of 
 her own family, Mrs. Cartwright was never 
 thoroughly at ease unless she had three or 
 four friends to occupy every available square 
 foot of floor in her diminutive sitting-room, 
 and to squeeze around the table when meals 
 were served. In vain did acquaintances hold 
 apart from a sense of consideration, or time 
 their visits when eatins^ and drinkino^ could 
 scarcely be in question; they were given 
 plainly to understand that their delicacy was 
 an offence, and that, if they stayed away, 
 it would be put down to their pride. It was 
 almost impossible to hit an hour for calling 
 at which the family would be alone ; gene- 
 rally, as soon as the front door opened, the 
 ear of the visitor was assailed with laughter
 
 ON THE LEVELS 27c) 
 
 lond and long, Tvith multitudinous vocifera- 
 tion, Mrs. Cartwriizht's rich voice hio^h above 
 all others. The room itself was a spectacle 
 for men and gods. Xot a member of the 
 family had the most rudimentary instinct of 
 order ; no article, whether of ornament or 
 use, had its recognised station. Needlework 
 lay in heaps on table, chairs, and floor ; you 
 stretched out your legs too far, and came in 
 contact with a casual flower- vase, put down 
 to be out of the way ; you desired to open 
 the piano, and had first to remove a tra}' 
 of wine-olasses. To listen to the orirls' 
 conversation for five minutes was to under- 
 stand their surroundings ; they were hope- 
 lessly feather-brained, they chattered and 
 gabbled with deafening persistency. If there 
 was no good in their talk, there could 
 scarcely be said to be any harm ; they lived 
 so completely on the surface of tilings that 
 they impressed one as incapable even of a
 
 28o A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 doubtful thought. One reason why Geraldine 
 was the only one who had yet de6nitely 
 attracted a male admirer might lie in the fact 
 that there was no air of femininity about 
 the girls, nothing whatever to touch the 
 most susceptible imagination ; a parcel of 
 schoolboys would have been as provocative. 
 And this notwithstanding that they talked 
 incessr.ntly of love-making, of flirtations, of 
 the making and breaking of matches ; it was 
 the very freedom and shallowness of such 
 gossip that made it wholly unexciting ; their 
 mother's presence put no check on the talk — 
 she, indeed, was very much like her daughters 
 in choice of subject — and the young men who 
 frequented the house joined in discussion of 
 sexual entanglements with a disengaged air 
 which, if it impugned their delicacy, at all 
 events seemed to testify to practical innocence. 
 Those young men ! Dunlield was at 
 that time not perhaps worse off in its supply
 
 ON THE LEVELS 281 
 
 of marriageable males than other small pro- 
 vincial towns, but, to judge from the ex- 
 tensive assortment which passed through 
 the Cartwrights' house, the lot of Dunfield 
 maidens might be held pathetic. They were 
 not especially ignorant or vulgar, these bud- 
 ding townsmen, simply imbecile. One could 
 not accuse them of positive faults, for they 
 had no positive qualities, unless it were here 
 and there a leaning to physical fatuity. 
 Their interests were concerned with the 
 pettiest of local occurrences ; their favouritisms 
 and animosities were those of overgrown 
 infants. They played practical jokes on each 
 other in the open streets ; they read the local 
 newspapers to extract the feeblest of gossip ; 
 they had a game which they called politics, 
 and which consisted in badi'-ino; themselves 
 with blue or yellow, according to the choice 
 of their fathers before them ; they affected 
 now and then to haunt bar- parlours and
 
 282 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 billiard-rooms, and made good resolutions 
 when they had smoked or drunk more than 
 their stomachs would support. If any Dun- 
 field schoolboy exhibited faculties of a kind 
 uncommon in the town, he was despatched to 
 begin life on a more promising scene ; those 
 who remained, who became the new genera- 
 tion of business men, of town councillors, of 
 independent electors, were such as could not 
 by any possibility have made a living else- 
 where. Those elders who knew Dunfield best 
 could not point to a single youth of fair en- 
 dowments who looked forward to remaining 
 in his native place. 
 
 The tone of Dunfield society was not high. 
 
 No wonder that Emily Hood had her 
 doubts as to the result of study taken up by 
 one of the Cartwrights. Still, she held it a 
 duty to give what help she could, knowing 
 how necessary it was that Jessie should, if 
 possible, qualify herself to earn a living.
 
 ON THE LEVELS 283 
 
 The first thicg after breakfast on Tuesday 
 moming, she set forth to visit her friends. 
 It was not quite ten o'clock when she reached 
 the house, and she looked forward with some 
 assurance of hope to finding the family alone. 
 Jessie herself opened the door, and Emily, 
 passing at once into the sitting-room, dis- 
 covered that not only had a visitor arrived 
 before her, but this the very person she would 
 most have desired to avoid. Mr. Richard 
 Dagworthy was seated in conversation with 
 Mrs. Cartwriorht and her dauofhters ; or rather 
 he had been conversing till Emily^s arrival 
 caused a momentary silence. He had called 
 thus early, on his way to the mill, to inquire 
 for Mr. Cartwright's present address, having 
 occasion to communicate with him on busi- 
 ness matters. 
 
 The room was so small that Emily had 
 a difficulty in reaching Mrs. Cartwright to 
 shake bauds with her, owing to Dagworthy' s
 
 284 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 almost blocking the only available way round 
 the table. He stood up and drew back, wait- 
 ing his turn for greeting; when it came, he 
 assumed the manner of an old friend. A 
 chair was found for Emily, and conversation, 
 or what passed for such, speedily regathered 
 volume. The breakfast thino^s were still on 
 the table, and Miss Geraldine, who was 
 always reluctant to rise of a morning, was 
 engaged upon her meal. 
 
 ^ You see what it's come to, Mr. Dag- 
 worthy,' exclaimed the mother of the family, 
 with her usual lack of reticence. ^ Jessie 
 can't or won't learn by herself, so she has to 
 bother Emily to come and teach her. It's too 
 bad, I call it, just in her holiday time. She 
 looks as if she wanted to run about and get 
 colour in her cheeks, don't you think so ? ' 
 
 ' Well, mother,' cried Jessie, ' you needn't 
 speak as if Emily was a child in short 
 clothes.'
 
 Oy THE LEVELS 285 
 
 The otlier jxii'ls laiiofhed. 
 
 ' I dare say Emily wishes she was/ pur- 
 sued Mrs. Cartwright. ' When you're little 
 ones, you're all for being grown up, and 
 when you are grown up. then you see how 
 much better off you were before — that is, if 
 you've got common sense. I ^s'ish my girls 
 had half as much all put together as Emily 
 has.' 
 
 •I'm sure I don't wish I was a child,' 
 remarked Geraldine, as she bit her bread and 
 butter. 
 
 ' Of course you don't, Geraldine,' replied 
 Dagworthy, who was on terms of much 
 familiarity with all the girls. * If you were, 
 your mother wouldn't let you come down 
 late to breakfast, would she ? ' 
 
 ' I never remember being in time for 
 breakfast since I was born,' cried the girl. 
 
 ' I dare say your memory doesn't go far 
 enough back,' rc;joiiied Dagworthy, with the
 
 286 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 smile of one who trifled from a position of 
 superior age and experience. 
 
 Mrs. Cartwriglit laughed with a little 
 embarrassment. Amy, the eldest girl, was 
 quick with an inquiry whether Emily had 
 been as yet to the Agricultural Show, the 
 resort at present of all pleasure- seeking Dun- 
 fieldians. Emily replied that she had not, 
 and to this subject the talk strayed. Mr. 
 Dagworthy had dogs on exhibition at the 
 show. Barbara wanted to know how much 
 he would take for a certain animal which had ' 
 capti\'ated her ; if she had some idea that this 
 might lead to an offer of the dog as a present, 
 she was doomed to disappomtment, for Dag- 
 worthy named his price in the most matter- 
 of-fact way. But nothing had excited so 
 much interest in these young ladles as the 
 prize pigs ; they were in raptures at the 
 incredible degree of fatness attained ; they 
 delighted to recall that some of the pigs were
 
 ON THE LEVELS 287 
 
 fattened to such a point that rollers had to be 
 placed under their throats to keep their heads 
 up and prevent them from being choked by the 
 pressure of their own superabundant flesh. In 
 all this conversation Dag worthy took his part, 
 but not quite with the same freedom as before 
 Emily's arrival. His eyes turned incessantly 
 in her direction, and once or twice he only 
 just saved himself from absent-mindedness 
 when a remark was addressed to him. It 
 was with obvious reluctance that he at lenofth 
 rose to leave. 
 
 ' When are you all coming to see me ? ' 
 he asked, as he stood smoothing his felt hat 
 with the back of his hand. ' I suppose I 
 shall have to give a croquet party, and have 
 some of the young fellows, then you'll come 
 fast enough. Old men like myself you care 
 nothing about.' 
 
 ' I should think not, indeed,' replied 
 Barbara the plain. 'Why, your hair's going
 
 288 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 grey. If you didn't shave, you'd have had 
 grey whiskers long ago.' 
 
 ' When I invite the others,' he returned, 
 laughing, ' you may consider yourself ex- 
 cepted.' 
 
 Amid delicate banter of this kind he took 
 his departure. Of course he was instantly 
 the subject of clamorous chatter. 
 
 ' Will he really give a croquet party ? ' 
 demanded one, eagerly. 
 
 ' Xot he ! ' was the reply from another. 
 ' It would cost him too much in tea and 
 cakes.' 
 
 ' Xonsense ! ' put in Mrs. Cartwright. 
 ' He doesn't care for society, that's what it 
 is. I believe he's a good deal happier living 
 there by himself than he was when his wife 
 was alive.' 
 
 ' That isn't very wonderful,' exclaimed 
 Amy. ' A proud, stuck-up thing, she was ! 
 Served liim right, if she made him uncomfort-
 
 ON THE LEVELS 289 
 
 able ; he only married lier because her people 
 were errand.' 
 
 o 
 
 " I don't believe they ever go near him 
 now,' said the mother. 
 
 * What did they quarrel about, mother ? ' 
 asked Jessie. ' I believe he used his wife 
 badly, that's the truth of it.' 
 
 ' How do you know what the trutli of it 
 is ? ' returned her mother, contemptuously. 
 * I know very well he did nothing of the kind ; 
 whatever his faults are, he's not that sort of 
 man.' 
 
 ' Well, you must confess, mother, he's 
 downright mean ; and you've often enough 
 said Mrs. Dagworthy spent more money than 
 pleased him. I know very well I shouldn't 
 like to be his wife.' 
 
 ' You wait till he asks you, Jessie,' cried 
 Barbara, witii sisterly reproof. 
 
 ' 1 don't suppose he's very likely to ask 
 any of you,' said Mrs. Cartwriglit, with a 
 
 VOL. 1. u
 
 290 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 laiigli whicli was not very hearty. ' Now, 
 Geraldine, ii'hen are you going to have done 
 your breakfast ? Here's ten o'clock, and 
 you seem as if you'd never stop eating. I 
 won't have this irregularity. Now to-morrow 
 mornino^ I'll have the table cleared at nine 
 o'clock, and if you're not down you'll go 
 without breakfast altogether, mind what I say.' 
 
 The threat was such an old one, that 
 Geraldine honoured it with not the least 
 attention, but helj^ed herself abundantly to 
 marmalade, which she impasted solidly on 
 buttered toast, and consumed with much 
 relish. 
 
 * Now you've got Emily here,' pursued 
 Mrs. Cartwright, turning her attack upon 
 Jessie, ' what are you going to do with her ? 
 Are you going to have your lessons in this 
 room ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know. What do you say, 
 Emily?'
 
 ON THE LEVELS 291 
 
 Emily was clearly of opinion that lessons 
 under such conditions were likely to be of 
 small profit. 
 
 * If it were not so far,' she said, ' I should 
 propose that you came to me every other day ; 
 I should think that will be often enough." 
 
 ^ Why, it's just as far for you to come 
 here,' exclaimed Mrs. Cartwright. 'If you're 
 good enough to teach her — great, lazy thing 
 that she is I — the least she can do is to save 
 you all the trouble she can.' 
 
 ' I've got an idea,' observed Jessie. ' Why 
 shouldn't we have lessons in the garden? ' 
 
 ' That's just as bad. Emily '11 have the 
 same distance to walk. Don't hear of it, 
 Emily ; you make her come to Banbrigg ! ' 
 
 'I don't in the least mind the walk.' 
 Emily said. ' Perhaps w^e might take it in 
 turns, one lesson in the garden and the next 
 at Banbrio-o^.' 
 
 After ten minutes' vociferous discussion.
 
 292 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 during which Emily held her peace, this plan 
 was eventually agreed upon. 
 
 Jessie ran upstairs to prepare herself to 
 go forth. 
 
 ' Now don't you let her waste your time, 
 
 Emily/ said Mrs. Cartwright, in the girl's 
 
 absence. ' If you see she's doing no good, 
 
 just give it up. I don't half like the thought 
 
 of making you drudge in this way in your 
 
 holidays. I'm sure it's very kind of you to 
 
 have offered to do it, and it's certain she'll 
 
 mind you more than she would anyone else. 
 
 She doesn't care a scrap for all I say to 
 
 her, thouofh she knows well enouo^h it's as 
 
 much as her father can do to keep things 
 
 ofoinor at all. There never was such bad 
 
 times in my recollection ! How are 
 
 things in London ? Did you hear much 
 
 complaint ? ' 
 
 Emily found it hard to resist a smile 
 at the thought of Mr. Athel or any of those
 
 ON THE LEVELS 293 
 
 belonging to him indulging in complaints 
 of this nature. 
 
 ' And what sort of people are they you've 
 got with this time ? ' the other went on to 
 ask. ^ Do they treat you well ? ' 
 
 ^ Very well indeed.' 
 
 It would have been difficult for a stranger, 
 comparing Emily, her tone and bearing, with 
 the members of the Cartwright family, to 
 believe that she came of the same class 
 and had lived through her girlhood under 
 precisely similar conditions. So marked a 
 difference could not but impress even the 
 Cartwrights themselves ; the girls did not 
 behave with entire freedom in her presence, 
 and influences to which they were anything 
 but readily susceptible were apparent in the 
 tone they adopted in addressing her. In 
 spite of themselves they bowed to a superiority 
 but vaguely understood. Jessie, perhaps, 
 exhibited less of tliis instinctive reverence
 
 294 ^ LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 than the others, although, in point of fact, 
 her endowments were decidedly above those 
 of her sisters ; the reason being, no doubt, 
 that acknowledged precedence in intellect 
 had fostered in her the w^orst kind of self- 
 confidence. The girl was intolerably con- 
 ceited. Emily almost disliked her ; she 
 would have found it a more agreeable task 
 to endeavour to teach any one of the more 
 stupid sisters. It was in the certainty of 
 a couple of hours* moral suffering that she 
 left the house with Jessie. 
 
 The garden which was to be the scene 
 of study was ten minutes' walk away from the 
 house. To reach it, they had to pass along a 
 road which traversed the cattle market, a 
 vast area of pens, filled on one day in each 
 week with multitudes of oxen, sheep, and 
 swine. Beyond the market, and in the 
 shadow of the railway viaduct previously 
 referred to, lay three or four acres of ground
 
 ON THE LEVELS 295 
 
 divided up by hedges into small gardens, 
 leased by people who had an ambition t(j 
 grow their own potatoes and cabbages, but 
 had no plot attached to their houses. Jessie 
 opened a rough wooden door, made fast by 
 a padlock, and, closing it again behind 
 them, led the way along a narrow path 
 between high hedges, till a second wooden 
 door was reached, wliich opened into the 
 garden itself. This was laid out with an eye 
 less to beauty than to usefulness. In the 
 centre was a patch of grass, lying between 
 two pear trees ; the rest of the ground was 
 planted with the various requisites of tlie 
 kitchen, and in one corner was a well. In 
 the tool house were kept several Windsor 
 chairs ; two of these were now brought forth 
 and placed on the grass between the pear 
 trees. But Jessie was not disposed to apply 
 herself on the instant to the books which 
 she had brought in a satchel ; lier first occu-
 
 296 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 pation was to hunt for the ripest goose- 
 berries and currants, and to try her teeth 
 in several pears which she knocked down 
 with the handle of a rake. When at length 
 she seated herself, her tongue began to have 
 its way. 
 
 ' How I do dislike that Mr. Dagworthy ! ' 
 she said, with transparent affectation. 'I won- 
 der what he came for this morning. He said 
 he wanted father's address, but I know that 
 was only an excuse. He hasn't been to see 
 us for months. It was like his impudence 
 to ever come at all, after the way he be- 
 haved when he married that stuck-up Miss 
 Wedlin.' 
 
 ' Will you tell me how many of these 
 French exercises you have written ? ' Emily 
 asked as soon as a pause gave her the 
 opportunity. 
 
 'Oh, I don't know,' was the answer ; 
 ' about ten, I think. Do you know, I really
 
 ON THE LEVELS ic^-j 
 
 believe he thinks himself o^ood-lookino^ ? And 
 he's as plain as he can be. Don't you think 
 so, Emily ? ' 
 
 ' I really have no opinion.' 
 
 ' It was strano'e lie should come this 
 
 a 
 
 morning. It was only yesterday I met him 
 over there by the mill,' — Dagworthy's mill 
 stood at one end of the cattle-market. — 
 ' and you can't think the impudent way he 
 talked. And, oh, how did he know that you 
 were eroinoc to mN^ me lessons ? ' 
 
 ' I can't say.' 
 
 ' Well, he did know, somehow ; I was 
 astonished. Perhaps your father told liim ? ' 
 
 ' That is not very likely.' 
 
 ' Well, he knew — I wonder who he'll 
 marry next. You may depend upon it he 
 did treat his wife badly ; everybody said so. 
 If he were to propose to me, I should answer 
 like that woman did to Henry the Eighth, you 
 know.' She tittered. ' I can't fancy marrying
 
 298 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 a man who's been married before, could you ? 
 I said that to Mrs. Tiehborne one day, at 
 Bridlington, and what do you think she 
 answered ? Oh, she said, they're the best 
 husbands. Only a good-natured fool marries 
 a second time.' 
 
 This was the kind of talk that Emily 
 knew she would have to endure ; it was 
 unutterably rej)ugnant to her. She had ob- 
 served in successive holidays the growth of a 
 spirit in Jessie Cartwright more distinctly 
 offensive than anything which declared itself 
 in her sisters' gabble, however irritating that 
 might be. The girl's mind seemed to have 
 been sullied by some contact, and previous 
 indications disposed Emily to think that this 
 Mrs. Tiehborne was very probably a source of 
 evil. She Avas the wife of an hotel-keeper, 
 the more vulgar for certain affectations of 
 refinement acquired during bar-maidenhood 
 in London, and her intimacy with the Cart-
 
 ON THE LEVELS 299 
 
 Wrights was now of long standing. It was 
 Jessie whom she specially affected ; ^dth her 
 Jessie had just been spending a fortnight at 
 the sea-side. The evil caught from Mrs. 
 Tichborne, or from some one of similar cha- 
 racter, did not associate itself very naturally 
 with the silly naivete which marked the girl ; 
 she had the air of assuming the objectionable 
 tone as a mark of cleverness. Emily could 
 not trust herself to utter the khid of comment 
 which would naturally have risen to her lips ; 
 it would be practically useless, and her rela- 
 tions to Jessie were not such as could en- 
 gender affectionate zeal in a serious attempt to 
 overcome evil influences. Emily was not of 
 the women whose nature it is to pursue mis- 
 sionary enterprise ; instead of calling forth 
 her energies, a situation Uke the present 
 threw her back upon herself ; she sought a 
 retreat from disgust in the sheltered purity of 
 her own heart. Outwardly she became cold ;
 
 3O0 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 her face expressed that severity which was 
 one side of her character. 
 
 ' Don't you think it would be better if we 
 made a beginning this morning ? ' she said, as 
 soon as another pause in the flow of chatter 
 gave her opportunity. 
 
 ' What a one you are for work ! ' Jessie 
 protested. ' You seem to take to it naturally, 
 and yet I'm sure it isn't a natural thing. 
 Just think of having to muddle over French 
 grammar at my age ! And I know very well 
 it'll never come to anything. Can you 
 imagine me teaching ? I always hated 
 school, and I hate the thought of being a 
 governess. It's different with you ; you're 
 right down clever, and you make people take 
 an interest in you. But just think of me ! 
 Why, I should be thought no more of than a 
 servant. I suppose I should have to make 
 friends with the milkman and the butcher's 
 boy ; I don't see who else I should have to
 
 ON THE LEVELS 301 
 
 talk to. How's a girl to get married if she 
 spends all her time in a nursery teaching 
 children grammar ? You don't seem to care 
 whether you're ever married or not, but I do, 
 and it's precious hard to have all my chances 
 taken away.' 
 
 This was Jessie's incessant preoccupation ; 
 she could not talk for five minutes without 
 returning to it. Herein she only exaggerated 
 her sisters' habits of mind. The girls had 
 begun to talk of ' sweethearts ' and husbands 
 before they were well out of the nursery. In 
 earlier years Emily had only laughed at what 
 she called such foolishness ; she could not 
 laugh now. Such ways of thinking and 
 speaking were a profanation of all she held 
 holiest ; words which she whispered in trem- 
 bling to her heart were vulgarised and de- 
 filed by use upon these tinkling tongues ; it 
 was blasphemy against her religion. 
 
 Once more she endeavoured to fix the
 
 302 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 girl's thoughts on the work m hand, and by 
 steady persistence conquered at length some 
 semblance of attention. But an hour proved 
 the utmost limit of Jessie's patience, then her 
 tongue got its way again, and the inevitable 
 subjects were resumed. She talked of the 
 * gentlemen ' whose acquaintance, in a greater 
 or less degree, she had made at the sea- side ; 
 described their mancjeuvres to obtain private 
 interviews with her, repeated jokes of their 
 invention, specified her favourites, all at head- 
 long speed of disjomted narrative. Emily sat 
 beneath the infliction, feeling that to go 
 through this on alternate days for some weeks 
 would be beyond her power. She would not 
 rise and depart, for a gathering warmth 
 within encouraged her to await a moment when 
 speech would come to her aid. It did so at 
 length ; her thought found words almost in- 
 voluntarily. 
 
 ' Jessie, I'm afraid we shall not do much
 
 ON THE LEVELS 303 
 
 good if we always spend our mornings like 
 this ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, but I thought we'd done enough for 
 to-day.' 
 
 ' Perhaps so, but What I want to 
 
 say is this. Will you, as a kindness to me, 
 forget these subjects when we are together? 
 I don't mind wliat else you talk about, but 
 stories of this kind make me fidgety ; I feel 
 as if I should be obliged to get up and run 
 away.' 
 
 ' Do you really mean it? You don't hke 
 me to talk about gentlemen? What a queer 
 girl you are, Emily ! Why you're not 
 settling down to be an old maid at your 
 age, are you ? ' 
 
 ' We'll say so ; perhaps that explains it.' 
 
 ' Well, that's queer. I can't see, myself, 
 what else there is to talk about. Grammar's 
 all very well when we're children, but it 
 seems to me that what a grown-up girl lias to
 
 304 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 do is to look out for a husband. How you 
 can be satisfied with books ' — the infinite 
 contempt she put into the word ! — ' is more 
 than I can make out.' 
 
 'But you will do what I ask, as a kind- 
 ness ? I am in earnest ; I shall be afraid of 
 seeing you if you can't help talking of such 
 things.' 
 
 Jessie laughed extravagantly ; such a 
 state of mind was to her comical beyond 
 expression. 
 
 ' You are a queer one ! Of course I'll do 
 as you wish ; you shan't hear me mention a 
 sino-le ofentleman's name, and I'll tell all the 
 others to be careful whenever you come.' 
 
 Emily averted her face ; it was reddened 
 with annoyance at the tliought of being 
 discussed in this way by all the Cartwright 
 household. 
 
 ' You can do that if you like,' she said, 
 coldly, ' though it's no part of my wish. I
 
 ON THE LEVELS 305 
 
 spoke of the hours when we are together for 
 study.' 
 
 ^ Very well, I won't say anything,' replied 
 the girl, who was good-natured enough 
 beneath all her vulgarities. ' And now what 
 shall we do till dinner-time? ' 
 
 ' I must make the best of my way home.' 
 
 ^ Oh, nonsense ! Why, you're going to 
 have dinner with us ; of course that was 
 understood.' 
 
 Not by Emily, however. It cost a good 
 deal of firmness, for the Cartwrights one and 
 all would lay hands on you rather than lose 
 a guest ; but Emily made good her escape. 
 Once well on her way to Banbrigg, she took in 
 great breaths of free air, as if after a close and 
 unwholesome atmosphere. She cried men- 
 tally for an ounce of civet. There was upon 
 her, too, that uneasy sense of shame which 
 is apt to possess a reticent nature when it 
 has been com.pelled, or tempted, to some 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 3o6 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 unwonted freedom of speech. Would it not 
 have been better, she asked herself, to merely 
 avoid the talk she found so hateful by reso- 
 lutely advancing other topics ? Perhaps 
 not ; it was just possible that her words 
 miofht bear some kind of fruit. But she 
 wished heartily that this task of hopeless 
 teaching had never been proposed to her ; it 
 would trouble her waking every other day, 
 and disturb with a profitless annoyance the 
 ideal serenity for which she was striving. 
 
 Yet it had one good result ; her mother's 
 follies and weaknesses were very easy to bear 
 in comparison, and, when the mid-day meal 
 was over, she enjoyed with more fulness the 
 peace of her father's room uj)stairs, where she 
 had arranged a table for her own work. 
 Brilliant sunlight made the bare garret, with 
 its outlook over the fields towards Pendal, a 
 cheerful and homehke retreat. Here, whilst 
 the clock below wheezed and panted after the
 
 ox THE LEVELS 307 
 
 relentless hours, Emily read hard at German, 
 or, when her mind called for rest, sheltered 
 herself beneath the wing of some poet, who 
 voiced for her the mute hymns of her soul. 
 But the most sacred hour was when her 
 parents had gone to rest, and she sat in her 
 bedroom, writino; her secret thouo-hts for 
 Wilfrid some day to read. She had resolved 
 to keep for him a journal of her inner life 
 from day to day. In this way she might 
 hope to reveal herself .more truthfully than 
 spoken words would ever allow ; she feared 
 that never, not even in the confidence of their 
 married life, would her tongue learn to over- 
 come the fear of its own utterances. How 
 little she had told him of herself, of her love! 
 In Surrey she had been so timid ; she had 
 scarcely done more than allow him to guess 
 her thoughts ; and at their last meeting she 
 had been compelled into opposition of his pur- 
 pose, so that brief time had been left for free
 
 3o8 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 exchange of tenderness. But some day she 
 would put this little book of manuscript into 
 his hands, and the shadowy bars between him 
 and her would vanish. She could only write 
 hi it late at night, when the still voice within 
 spoke clearly amid the hush. The only 
 sound from the outer world was that of a 
 train now and then speeding by, and that 
 carried her thoughts to Wilfrid, who had 
 journeyed far from her into other countries. 
 Emily loved silence, the nurse of the soul ; 
 the earliest and the latest hours were to her 
 most dear. It had never been to her either 
 an impulse or a joy to realise the existence of 
 the mass of mankind ; she had shrunk, after 
 the first excitement, from the thronged streets 
 of London, passing from them with delight to 
 the quiet country. Others might find their 
 strength in the sense of universal human 
 fellowship ; she would fain live apart, kindly 
 disposed to all, but understanding well that
 
 ON THE LEVELS 309 
 
 her first duty was to tend the garden of her 
 mind. That it was also her first joy was, by 
 the principles of her religion, justification in 
 pursuing it. 
 
 In a few days she obliged her mother to 
 concede to her a share in the work of the 
 house. She had nothing of the common 
 feminine interest in such work for its own 
 sake, but it was a pleasure to lessen her 
 mother's toil. There was very little converse 
 between them ; for evidently they belonged to 
 different worlds. When Mrs. Hood took her 
 afternoon's repose, it was elsewhere than in 
 the room where Emily sat, and Emily herself 
 did not seek to alter this habit, knowing 
 that she often, quite involuntarily, caused her 
 mother irritation, and that to reduce their 
 intercourse as far as could be without marked 
 estrangement was the best way to make it 
 endurable to both. But the evening liours 
 she invariably devoted to her fiither ; the
 
 3IO A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 shortness of the time that she was able to 
 give hiin was a reason for losmg no moment 
 of this communion. She knew that the 
 forecast of the evening's happiness sustained 
 him through the long day, and even so slight 
 a pleasure as that she bestowed in open- 
 ing the door at his arrival, she would not 
 willingly have suffered him to lose. It did 
 not appear that Mrs. Hood reflected on this 
 exclusive attachment in Emily ; it certainly 
 troubled her not at all. This order in the 
 house was of long standing ; it had grown to 
 seem as natural as poverty and hopelessness. 
 Emily and her father reasoned as little about 
 their mutual affection ; to both it was a price- 
 less part of life, given to them by the same 
 dark powers that destroy and deprive. It be- 
 hoved them to enjoy it while permitted to do so. 
 Had she known the recent causes of 
 trouble which weighed upon her parents, 
 Emily would scarcely have been able to still
 
 ON THE LEVELS 311 
 
 keep lier secret from them. The anxiety 
 upon her father's face and her mother's cease- 
 less complaming were too familiar to sug- 
 gest anything unusual. She had come home 
 with the resolve to maintain silence, if only 
 because her marriage seemed remote and 
 contingent upon many circumstances ; and 
 other reasons had manifested themselves to 
 her even before Wilfrid's visit. At any time 
 she would find a difficulty in speaking upon 
 such a subject with her mother ; strange 
 though it may sound, the intimacy between 
 them was not near enouo^h to encouras^e such 
 a disclosure, with all the explanations it 
 would involve. Xor yet to her father would 
 she willingly speak of what had happened, 
 until it became necessary to do so. Emily's 
 sense of the sanctity of relations such as those 
 between Wilfrid and herself had, through so 
 different a cause, very much the same effects 
 as what we call false shame. The complex
 
 312 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 motives of virgin modesty had with her 
 become a conscious sustaining power, a faith ; 
 of all beautiful things that the mind could 
 conceive, this mystery was the loveliest, 
 and the least capable of being revealed to 
 others, however near, without desecration. 
 Perhaps she had been aided in the nurturing 
 of this ideal by her loneliness ; no friend had 
 ever tempted her to confidences ; her gravest 
 and purest thoughts had never been imparted 
 to any. Thus she had escaped that blunting 
 of fine perceptions which is the all but 
 inevitable result of endeavouring to express 
 them. Not to speak of mere vulgarity such 
 as Jessie Cartwright exhibited, Emily's in- 
 stinct shrank from things which usage has, 
 for most people, made matters of course ; the 
 public ceremony of marriage, for instance, she 
 deemed a barbarism. As a sacrament, the 
 holiest of all, its celebration should, she felt, 
 be in the strictest privacy; as for its aspect
 
 ON THE level:; 313 
 
 as a legal contract, let that ccn cession to 
 human misery be made with the smillest, not 
 the greatest, violation of religious feelmg. 
 Thinking thus, it was natural that she should 
 avail herself of every motive for delay. And 
 in that very wretchedness of her home which 
 her marriage would, she trusted, in a great 
 measure alleviate, she found one of the 
 strongest. The atmosphere of sordid suffer- 
 ing depressed her ; it was only by an effort 
 that she shook off the influences which 
 assailed her sadder nature ; at times her 
 fears were wrought upon, and it almost 
 exceeded her power to believe in the future 
 Wilfrid had created for her. The chanije 
 from the beautiful home in Surrey to the 
 sad dreariness of Banbrigg had followed too 
 suddenly upon the revelation of her blessed- 
 ness. It indisposed her to make known what 
 was so dreamlike. For the past became more 
 dreadful viewed from the ground of hope. 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 314 A LIFE'S MORNING 
 
 Emily came to contemplate it as some hideous 
 beast, which, though she seemed to be escaping 
 its reach, might even yet spring upon her. 
 How had she borne that past so lightly? 
 Her fear of all its misery was at moments 
 excessive. Looking at her unhappy parents, 
 she felt that their lot would crush her with 
 pity did she not see the relief approaching. 
 She saw it, yet too often trembled with the 
 most baseless fears. She tried to assure her- 
 self that she had acted rightly in resisting 
 Wilfrid's proposal of an immediate marriage, 
 yet she often wished her conscience had not 
 spoken against it. Wilfrid's own words, 
 though merely prompted by his eagerness, 
 ceaselessly came back to her — that it is ill to 
 refuse a kindness offered by fate, so seldom 
 kind. The words were true enough, and 
 their truth answered to that melancholy which , 
 when her will was in abeyance, coloured iici' 
 views of life.
 
 ON THE LEVELS 315 
 
 But here at length was a letter from 
 Wilfrid, a glad, encouraging letter. His father 
 had concluded that he was staying behind in 
 England to be married, and evidently would 
 not have disturbed himself greatly even if 
 such had been the case. All was going well. 
 Nothing of the past should be sacrificed, and 
 the future was their own. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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 SPOTTDBWOODE AA'D CO^ NEW-STIIKET 3QUAP* 
 
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