Читать книгу A Reconstructed Marriage - Amelia E. Barr - Страница 4

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As it was Saturday morning, Mrs. Traquair Campbell was examining her weekly accounts and clearing off her week's correspondence; for she found it necessary to her enjoyment of the Sabbath Day that her mind should be free from all worldly obligations. This was one of the inviolable laws of Traquair House, enunciated so frequently and so positively by its mistress, that it was seldom violated in any way.

It was therefore with fear and uncertainty that Miss Campbell ventured to break this rule, and to open softly the door of her mother's room. No notice was taken of the intruder for a few moments, but her presence proving disastrous to the total of a line of figures which Mrs. Campbell was adding, she looked up with visible annoyance and asked:

"What do you want, Isabel? You are disturbing me very much, and you know it."

"I beg pardon, mother, but I think the occasion will excuse me."

"What is the occasion?"

"There is something in my brother's room that I feel sure you ought to see."

"Could you not have waited until I had finished my work here?"

"No, mother. It is Saturday, and Robert may be home by an early train. I think he will, for he is apparently going to England."

"Going to England, so near the Sabbath? Impossible! What set your thoughts on that track?"

"His valise is packed, and directed to Sheffield; but I think he will stop at a town called Kendal. He may go to Sheffield afterwards, of course."

"Kendal! Where is Kendal? I never heard of the place. What do you know about it?"

"Nothing at all. But in going over the mail, I noticed that four letters with the Kendal post-office stamp came to Robert this week. They were all addressed in the same handwriting—a woman's."

"Isabel Campbell!"

"It is the truth, mother."

"Why did you not name this singular circumstance before?"

"It was not my affair. Robert would likely have been angry at my noticing his letters. I have no right to interfere in his life. You have—if it seems best to do so."

"Have you told me all?"

"No, mother."

"What else?"

"There is on his dressing table, loosely folded in tissue paper, an exquisite Bible."

"Very good. Robert cannot have The Word too exquisitely bound."

"I do not think Robert intends this copy of the Word for his own use. No, indeed!"

"Why should you think different?"

"It is bound in purple velvet. The corner pieces are of gold, and a little gold plate on the cover has engraved upon it the word Theodora. Can you imagine Robert Traquair Campbell using a Bible like that? It would be remarked by every one in the church. I am sure of it."

Mrs. Campbell had dropped her pencil and had quite forgotten her accounts and letters. Her hard, handsome face was flushed with anger, her tawny-colored eyes full of calculating mischief, as she demanded with scornful passion:

"What is your opinion, Isabel?"

"I can only have one opinion, mother. You know on what occasion a young man gives such a Bible. I am compelled to believe that Robert is engaged to marry some woman called Theodora, who lives probably at Kendal."

"He can not! He shall not! He must marry Jane Dalkeith—Jane, and no other woman. I will not permit him to bring a stranger here, and an Englishwoman is out of all consideration. Theodora, indeed! Theodora!" and she flung the three words from her with a scorn no language could transcribe.

"It is not a Scotch name, mother. I never knew any one called Theodora."

"Scotch? the idea! Does it sound like Scotch? No, not a letter of it. There were never any Theodoras among the Traquairs, or the Campbells, and I will not have any. Robert will find that out very quickly. Why, Isabel, Honor is before Love, and Honor compels Robert to marry Jane Dalkeith. Her father saved Robert's father from utter ruin, and I believe Jane holds some claim yet upon the Campbell furnaces. It has always been understood that Robert and Jane would marry, and I am sure the poor, dear girl loves Robert."

"I do not believe, mother, that Jane could love any one but herself; and I feel sure that if the Campbells owed her money, she would have collected it long ago. Why do you not ask Robert about the money? He will know if anything is owing."

"Because Scotch men resent women asking questions about their business. They will not answer them truly; often they will not answer them at all."

"Ask Jane Dalkeith herself."

"Indeed, I will not. When you are as old as I am, you will have learned to let sleeping dogs lie."

"Will you go and look at the Bible?"

"It is not likely I will be so foolish. Surely you do not require to be told that Robert left it there for that purpose. He has his defence ready on the supposition that I will ask him about this Theodora. On the contrary, he shall bring the whole tale to me, beginning and end, and I shall make the telling of it as difficult and disagreeable as possible."

"I am afraid I have interfered with your Saturday's duties, mother; but I thought you ought to know."

"As mother and mistress I ought to know all that concerns either the family or Traquair House. I will now finish my examinations and correspondence. And Isabel, when Robert comes home, ask him no questions, and give him no hint as to what has been discovered. I am very angry at him. He ought to have told me about the woman at the very beginning of the affair; and I should have put a stop to it at once. It might have been more easily managed then than it will be now."

"Can you put a stop to it at all, mother?"

"Can I put a stop to it?" she cried scornfully. "I can, and I will!"

"Robert is a very determined man."

"And I am a very positive woman. At the last and the long, in any dispute, the woman wins."

"Sometimes the man wins."

"Nonsense! If he does win now and then, it is always a barren victory. He loses more than he gains."

"I don't wish to discourage you, mother, but Robert is gey stubborn, and I feel sure that in this case he will take his own way, and no other person's way."

"I desire you not to contradict me, Isabel." She turned to her papers, lifted her pencil, and to all appearance was entirely occupied by her bills and letters. Isabel gave her one strange, inexplicable look ere she left the room, shutting the door this time without regard to noise and with something very like temper.

In the corridor she hesitated, standing with one foot ready to descend the stairs, but urged by a variety of feelings to take the upward flight which led to her own and her sister Christina's rooms. At present she was "out" with Christina, and they had not spoken to each other, when alone, for three days. But now the pleasure of having something new and unusual to tell, the desire to talk it over, and perhaps also a modest little wish to be friends with her sister, who was her chief confidant and ally, induced her to seek Christina in her room.

She knocked gently at the door, and Christina said in an imperative voice, "Come in." She thought it was one of the maids, and Christina wasted no politeness on any one, unless manifestly to her own interest or pleasure. But Isabel understood the curt permission was not intended for her, and, opening the door, went into the room. Christina, who was reading, lifted her eyes and then dropped them again to the book. For she was amazed at her sister's visit, and knew not what to say, priority of birth being in English and Scotch families of some consequence. In their numerous disagreements Christina had never expected Isabel to make the first advances towards reconciliation. Almost without exception she had been the one to apologize, and she had been thinking about ending their present trouble when Isabel visited her.

For a few minutes she was undecided, but as Isabel took a comfortable chair and was evidently going to remain, Christina realized that her elder sister had made a silent advance, and that she was expected to speak first. So she laid down her book, and pushing a stool under Isabel's feet, said in a fretful, worried voice:

"I am so glad to see you, sister. I have been very unhappy without your company. You know I have no friend but you. I am sorry I spoke rudely to you. Forgive me!"

"Christina, we are the world to each other. No one else seems to care anything about us, and it is foolish to quarrel."

"It was my fault, Isabel. I ought to have known you were not wearing my collar intentionally."

"Why should I? I have plenty of collars of my own. But we will not go into explanations. It is better to agree to forget the circumstance."

"Life is so lonely without you, and our little chats with each other are the only pleasure I have. I wonder if there is, in all Glasgow, a house so dull as this house is."

"It will soon be busy and gay enough. Things are going to be very different in Traquair House. They may not effect our lives much—it is too late for that, Christina—but we shall have the fun of watching the rows there are sure to be with mother. Bring your chair near to me. I have a great secret to tell you."

As they sat down together it was impossible to avoid noticing how much they resembled each other personally. Nature had intended both of them to be beautiful, but their obtuse, grieved faces had been marred in early years by the disappointments, sorrows, and tragic mistakes of the children of long ago; and later by their pathetic acquiescence in their ill-assorted fates, and the cruel certainty of youth gone forever, without the knowledge of youth's delights. Isabel was now thirty-three years old, and Christina twenty-eight, and on their dark faces, and in their sombre, black eyes, there was a resentful gloom; the shadow of lives that felt themselves to be blighted beyond the power of any good fortune to redeem.

The two sisters had lost hope early, and for this weakness they were partly excusable, since they had the most crushing and unsympathetic of mothers. Mrs. Campbell was a woman of iron constitution, iron nerves, and principles of steel. She was never sick, and she was angry if her children were sick; she met every trouble with fight, she was contemptuous to those who wept; she was never weary, but she made life a burden to all under her sway.

In another way their father had been still more unfortunate to them. Intensely vain and arrogant, he had inherited a large business which he had not had the ability or the intelligence to manage. When he had nearly ruined it, the generosity of a distant relative—jealous for the honor of the name—came to the rescue; but he placed over all other authority a manager who knew what he was doing, and who was amenable to advice. Then Traquair Campbell, unwilling to acknowledge any superior, became a semi-invalid; and retired to a seclusion which had no other duty than the indulgence of his every whim and desire, making his two daughters the handmaids of his idle, self-centred hours. Year after year this slavery continued, and their youth, beauty, and education, their hopes, pleasures, and even their friends, were all demanded in sacrifice to that dreadful incarnation of Self, who made filial duty his claim on them. It was scarcely two years since they had been emancipated by his death, and the terror of the past and the shadow of it was yet over them.

Such treatment would have soured even good dispositions, but the nature of both these girls was as awry by inheritance, as their destiny in regard to parental influence and environment had been tragically unfortunate. Only the loftiest or the sweetest of spirits could have dominated the evil influences by which they were surrounded, and turned them into healthy and happy ones. And neither Isabel nor Christina knew the uplifting of a lofty ideal, nor yet the gentle power of the soft word and the loving smile.

Sitting close together and moved by the same feelings, their physical resemblance was remarkable. As before said, Nature had intended them to be beautiful. Their features were regular, their hair abundant, their eyes dark and well formed, their figures tall and slender, but they lacked those small accessories to beauty without which it appears crude and undeveloped. Their faces were dull and uninteresting for want of that interior light of the soul and intellect without which "the human face divine" is not divine—is indeed only flesh and blood. Their abundant hair was badly cared for, and not becomingly arranged; their figures, in spite of tight lacing, badly managed and ungracefully clothed; their eyes, though dark and long-lashed, carried no illumination and were only expressive of evil or bitter emotions; they knew not either the languors or the sweet lights of love or pity. Isabel and Christina had slipped about sick rooms too much; and they had been too little in the busy world to estimate themselves by comparison with others, and so find out their deficiencies.

This morning their likeness to each other was accentuated by the fact that they were dressed exactly alike in dark brown merino, with a narrow band of white linen round their throats. Each had fastened the linen band with a gold brooch of the same pattern, and both wore a small Swiss watch pinned on her plain, tight waist.

Isabel reclined in her chair, and as she knew all there was to know at present, a faint smile of satisfaction was on her face. Christina sat upright, with an almost childish expression of expectation.

"What do you know, Isabel?" she asked impatiently. "How, or why, are things going to be different in Traquair House?"

"Because there is to be a marriage in the family."

"A marriage! Is it mother? Old lawyer Galt has been very attentive lately."

"No, it is not mother."

"Then it is Robert?"

Isabel nodded assent.

Christina's eyes filled with a dull, angry glow, and there were tears in her voice, as she cried:

"If that is so, Isabel, I will leave Traquair House. I will not live with Jane Dalkeith. She is worse than mother. She would count every mouthful we ate, and make remarks as nasty as herself."

"Exactly. That would be Jane's way; but I am led to believe Robert will never marry Jane Dalkeith."

"Who then is he going to marry? I never heard of Robert paying attention to any girl."

"I have found out the person he is paying attention to."

"Who is it, Isabel? Tell me. I will never mention the circumstance."

"Her name is Theodora."

"What a queer name—Miss Theodora. Do you know, it sounds like a Christian name; it surely can not be a surname."

"You are right. I do not know her surname."

"How did you find it out—I mean Robert's love affair?"

Isabel described the discovery of the velvet-bound Bible while Christina listened with greedy interest. "You know, Christina," she added, "that a young man on his engagement always gives the girl a Bible."

"Yes, I know; even servant girls get a Bible when they are engaged. Our Maggie and Kitty did; they showed them to me. Do the men swear their love and promises on them?"

"I should not wonder. If so, a great many are soon forsworn!"

"Is that all you know, Isabel?"

"Four times this week she has written to Robert. I saw the letters in the mail."

"Love letters, I suppose?"

"No doubt of it."

"How immodest! Do you know where she lives?"

"At a town called Kendal."

"I never heard of the place. Is it near Motherwell? Robert often goes to Motherwell."

"It is in England."

"Oh, Isabel, you frighten me! An Englishwoman! Whatever will mother say? How could Robert think of such a dreadful thing! What shall we do?"

"I see no occasion for us either to say or to do. There will be some grand set-tos between mother and Robert. We may get some amusement out of them."

"Mother will insist on Robert giving up the Englishwoman. She will make him do it."

"I do not think she will be able. Mind what I say."

"Robert has been under mother all his life."

"That is so, but he will make a stand about this Theodora, and mother will have to give in. He is now master of the works, and you will see that he will be master of the house also. He will take possession of himself, and everything else. I fancy we shall all find more changes than we can imagine."

"I don't care if we do! Anything for a change. I am almost weary of my life. Nothing ever happens in it."

"Plenty will happen soon. Robert has a way of his own, and that will be seen and heard tell of."

"He will not dare to counter mother very much. She will talk strict and positive, and hold her head as high as a hen drinking water. You know how she talks and acts."

"I know also how Robert will take her talking. I have seen Robert's way twice lately."

"What is his way?"

"A dour, cold silence, worse than any words—a silence that minds you of a black frost."

Having finished her story Isabel looked at her watch, and said: "I'll be going now, Christina, and you can think over what is coming. We be to consider ourselves in any change. I am almost sure Robert will be home to-day at one o'clock, for if I am not mistaken, it will be the Caledonian Railway Station at three o'clock. That train will land him in Kendal about eight o'clock, just in time to drink a cup of tea with Theodora, and have a stroll after it. There is a full moon to-night."

"How did you find out about Kendal?"

"Bradshaw; I suppose he knows."

"Of course, but it will be late Saturday night when Robert arrives, and surely he will not think of making love so near the Sabbath Day. I would not believe that of him, however much he likes Theodora."

"A handsome young Master of Iron Works can make love any day he pleases; even Scotchwomen would listen gladly to what he had to say. I think I would myself."

"I would, but it might be wrong, Isabel."

"I don't believe it would; anyway I would risk it."

"So would I; but neither of us will be led into the temptation."

"I fear not. Now I will be stepping downstairs. I have no more to say at present and I should not like to miss Robert."

"We are friends again, Isabel?"

"We are aye friends, Christina. Whiles, there is a shadow between us, but it is only a shadow—nothing to it but what a word puts right. There is the lunch bell."

"I had no idea it was so late."

"Let us go down together. I hate the servants to be whispering and snickering anent our little terrivees."

They had scarcely seated themselves at the table when Robert entered the room. He was a typical Scot of his order—tall, blonde, and very erect. His eyes were his most noticeable feature; they were modern eyes with that steely point of electric light in them never seen in the older time. The lids, drawn horizontally over them, spoke for the man's acuteness and dexterity of mind, and perhaps also for his superior cunning. He was arrogant in manner, a trait either inherited or assumed from his mother. In disposition he was kindly disposed to all who had claims on him, but these claims required to be brought to his notice, for he did not voluntarily seek after them. He certainly had humanity of feeling, but of the delicacies and small considerations of life he was very ignorant.

As yet he was commonplace, because nothing had happened to him. He had neither lost money, nor broken down in health, nor been unfairly treated or unjustly blamed. He had never known the want of money, nor the necessity for work; he had lost nothing by death and was only beginning to gain by loving. In the eyes of all who knew him his conduct was blameless. He was very righteous, and a great stickler for morality and all respectable conventions; so much so, that even if he should sin, it would be done with a certain decorum. But spiritually his soul lived in a lane—the narrow lane of a bigoted Calvinism.

This morning he was in high spirits, and inclined to be unusually talkative. But it was not until the meal was nearly over that he said: "There will be a new preacher in our church to-morrow morning. I am sorry I shall not be able to hear him. Dr. Robertson says he has a wonderful gift in expounding the Word."

"When did you see the doctor?" asked Mrs. Campbell.

"This morning. He called at my office on a little matter of business."

"And why will you not hear the new preacher?"

"I am going to England by the three o'clock train, mother."

At this answer Isabel looked at Christina, and Mrs. Campbell said: "I suppose you are going to Sheffield?"

"Yes, I shall go to Sheffield."

"You go there a great deal."

"It belongs to my duty to go there."

With these words he suddenly became—not exactly cross—but reserved and ungracious. His mother's words had betrayed her. As soon as she remarked on the frequency of his visits to Sheffield, he knew that she was aware of the facts that she had positively asserted she would not name, and he divined her intention to put him in the position of one who confesses a fault or acknowledges a weakness. He retired immediately into the fortress of his manly superiority. He was not going to be put to catechism by a cabal of women, so he hastily finished his lunch and rose from the table.

"When will you return, Robert?" asked his mother.

"In a few days. You had better give liberally to the church collection to-morrow—paper or gold—silver from you will be remarked on." He opened the door to these words, and, turning a moment, said "good-bye" with a glance which included every one in the room.

Silence followed his exit. Mrs. Campbell cut her veal chop into minute strips, which she did not intend to eat; Isabel crumbled her bread on her plate, lifted her scornful eyes a moment, and then began to fold her napkin; Christina took the opportunity to help herself to another tartlet. It was an uncomfortable pause, not to be relieved until Mrs. Campbell chose to speak or rise. She continued the purposeless cutting of her food, until Isabel's patience was worn out, and she asked: "Shall I ring the bell, mother?"

"No, I have not finished my lunch; you can safely bide my time. Christina, pass me a tart."

"Take two, mother. McNab makes them smaller every day. There is only a mouthful in two of them."

Mrs. Campbell took no notice of the criticism.

"Isabel," she said, "what do you think of Robert's behavior?"

"Do you mean the sudden change in his manner?"

"Yes."

"He had his own 'because' for it. I do not rightly comprehend what it could be, unless he suspected from your remark that you had seen the Bible, and were trying to lure him on to talk of Theodora."

"That is uncommonly likely, but I'm not caring if he did."

"Robert is very shrewd, and he sees through people as if they were made of glass."

"If he is going to marry the girl, why should he object to tell us about her? Is she too good to talk about? Such perfect unreasonableness!"

"He wished to tell us in his own time, and way, and thought a plot had been laid to force his confidence. Robert Campbell is a very suspicious man. He has a bad temper too. It is always near at hand, and short as a cat's hair. And he hates a scene."

"So do I. Goodness knows, I have always lifted myself above the ordinary of quarrelling and disputing. Not so, Robert. He investigates the outs and the ins of everything, and argues and argues about the most trifling matter; but I must say, he is always in the wrong. And he can keep his confidence as long as he wants to—the longer the better. I shall never give him another opportunity."

"It is a pity you offered him one this morning, mother."

"I do not require to be reminded, Isabel. The whole affair, as it stands, is an utterly unspeakable business. We will let it alone until we have more facts, and more light given us."

"Just so," answered Isabel.

"Mother," interrupted Christina, "what do you say about the new preacher and the collection?"

"I know nothing about the new preacher. Dr. Robertson has aye got some wonderfully gifted tongue in his pulpit, and all just to beguile the silver out o' your purse."

"Robert said we were not to give silver."

"You will each of you give a silver crown piece; that, and not a bawbee over it. As for myself, I am not going to church at all to-morrow. I am o'erfull of my own thoughts and trouble. God will excuse me, I have no doubt, for He knows the heart of a wounded mother."

"Do you know what the collection is for, mother?"

"The Foreign Missionary Fund. I have always been opposed to Foreign Missions. The conversion of the heathen is in God's wise foreknowledge, and He will accomplish it in His own way and time. It is not clear to me that we have any right to interfere with His plans."

"The world will come to an end when the heathen are converted," said Christina. "Dr. Robertson read us prophecies to prove it, and then will occur the Millennium, and the second coming of——"

"Hush, Christina!" cried Mrs. Campbell impatiently. "The world is a very good world, and suits me well enough in spite of Theodora, and the like of her. I hope the world will not come to an end while I live. As to the collection, you might each of you, as I said before, give a silver crown piece. It is enough. Young people are not expected to give extravagantly."

"We are not young people, mother."

"You are not married people. Women without husbands are not supposed to have money to give away; women with husbands don't often have it either, poor things!"

"The greatest of all calamities is to be born a woman," said Isabel, bitterly.

"Especially a Scotchwoman," added Mrs. Campbell. "I have heard that in the United States of America women are very honorably treated. Mrs. Oliphant, who is from New York, told me a respectable man always consulted his wife about his business, and his pleasure, and all that concerns him, 'and in consequence,' she added, 'they are happy and prosperous.'"

"I did not know Mrs. Oliphant was an American," said Isabel. "Mr. Oliphant comes from Inverness."

"Inverness men are too far north to be fools; and Tom Oliphant soon found out that his wife's judgment and good sense more than doubled his working capital. People say, 'Tom Oliphant has been lucky,' and so he has, because he had intelligence enough to take his wife's advice. But this is not a profitable or improving conversation, so near the Sabbath. I will go to my room for an hour or two, girls. I have much to think about."

She left them with an air of despondency, but her daughters knew she was not really unhappy. Some opposition to her supremacy she foresaw, but the impending struggle interested her. She was not afraid of it nor yet doubtful of its result.

"I know my own son, I hope," she whispered to herself, "and as for Theodora—that for Theodora!" And she snapped her fingers scornfully and defiantly.

Isabel and Christina followed their mother, taking the long, broad stairway with much slower steps. Their dull faces, listless tread, and monotonous speech were in remarkable contrast to the passionate eagerness of the elder woman, whose whole body radiated scorn and anger. As they began the ascent, the clock struck three, and Isabel looked at Christina, who answered her with a slight movement of the head.

"He is just leaving the Caledonian Station," she said.

"For Theodora," replied Christina bitterly.

"How I hate that name already!"

"And the girl also, Isabel?"

"Yes, the girl also. What has she to do in our family? The Campbells can live without her—fine!"

"I wonder if Mrs. Robertson will ask us to meet this new minister."

"I hope not. He will just be one of her 'divinity lads,' with his license to preach fresh in his pocket. They are all of them poor and sickeningly young. No man is fit to marry until he is forty years old, unless you want the discipline of training him."

"That is some of Mrs. Oliphant's talk, Isabel."

"Mrs. Oliphant knows what she is talking about, Christina."

"I wonder what you see in that American!"

"Everything I would like to be—if I dared."

"Why do you not call on her, then?"

"Mother does not approve either of her conversation, or her dress, Christina."

"Her dress is lovely. I wish I could dress like her."

"Christina Campbell! Her neck is shockingly uncovered, and her trains half fill a small room. Mother says her modesty begins at her feet—and stops there; but she is certainly very clever, and her husband waits on her like a lover. The men look at him as if they thought him a fool, but very likely he is the only wise man among them. What are you going to do this afternoon?"

"Dress and then unpick the work I did yesterday. It is all wrong."

"How interesting!"

"As much so as anything else. I should like to practise a little, but the piano is closed on Saturdays."

"That's all right. You always had a knack of playing unsuitable music on Saturdays."

"Mother makes two Sundays in a week. It isn't fair."

By this time they were on the corridor of the floor on which their rooms were situated, and as they stood at the door of Isabel's room, Christina said: "At eight o'clock to-night, I wish you would make a remark about Robert being with Theodora."

"Make it yourself, Christina."

"You know mother pays no attention to anything I say. You are the eldest."

But at dinner time Mrs. Campbell was in a mood so gloomy, that even Isabel did not care to remind her of her son's delinquency. She did not speak during dinner, and when tea was served she rose from the sofa with a sigh so portentous, it caused the footman to stand still in the middle of the drawing-room with the little silver kettle steaming in his hand. She took her own cup with a sigh, and every time she lifted it or put it down, she sighed deeply. Very soon Isabel began to sigh also, and Christina ventured timidly to express her feelings in the same miserable manner. But there was no spoken explanation of these mournful symptoms, unless they typified disapproval and sorrow beyond the reach of words.

As they sat thus with their teacups in their hands, a little clock on the mantel struck eight. Mrs. Campbell cast reproachful eyes upon it. "It reminds me, Isabel," she sighed; "you said eight o'clock, I think. My poor son! He is now entering the gates of temptation."

"I should not worry, mother. Robert is quite able to take care of himself."

Judging from the happy alacrity with which Robert left the train at Kendal Station, Isabel's opinion was well founded. He had no doubts about the road he was taking. He leaped into a cab, left his valise at the Crown Inn, and then rode rapidly down the long antique street to a pretty cottage standing with a church, or chapel, in a green croft surrounded by poplar trees.

The moon was full in the east, and the twilight still lingered in the west, and in that heavenly gloaming a woman walked lightly towards the little gate to welcome him. She had a tall, elastic, slender figure, and moved with swift, graceful steps; her white dress, in that shadowy mysterious light, giving her an ethereal beauty beyond description.

Robert took both her hands, kissed them passionately, and led her to a little rustic bench under the poplars. For a few moments they sat there, and he filled his eyes and heart with her loveliness. Then they went into the cottage and he found—as Isabel had predicted—that tea was waiting for him. Theodora's mother, a woman of scrupulous neatness, simple and unadorned, was sitting at the table; she smiled and gave him her hand, and he sat down beside her.

"How is Mr. Newton?" asked Robert.

"He is in his study," she answered. "He will be here in a few minutes. He does not wish us to wait for him."

Theodora was at Robert's right hand, and never before had he thought her beauty so bewildering. It had the magic of a countenance where the intellect was of a high order, and the perfect features were the portrait of a pure, translucent soul such as God loves. Her eyes transfigured her, but the process was not intentional. Her sensitive lips, her bright soft smile, her joyful heart, the fulness of her health and life, all these things were entrancing, and made still more so, by an unconsciousness sincere and natural as that of a bird, or a flower. Robert Campbell might well feel his unworthiness, and tremble lest so great a blessing should escape him.

In a short time Mr. Newton entered. He had a tall, intellectual figure, with the stoop forward and piercing glance of one straining after things invisible. A singular unearthliness pervaded the whole man, and his spare form appeared to be the suitable apparel for a pure and exalted spirit. Prayer was his native air. He prayed even in his dreams.

After some inquiries about the journey, the conversation turned naturally to the subject of preaching. Robert Campbell remarked that, "Sunday newspapers, Sunday magazines, and above all Sunday trips down the river, had in Glasgow greatly injured Sabbath observance and weakened the influence of the pulpit."

"No, no, sir!" cried the preacher; "books, papers, amusements, nothing, can take the place of sermons. The face to face element is indispensable. It is the Word made Flesh that prevails. As soon as a real preacher appears, what crowds follow him! Not to go back to the preachers of old, consider only Farrar, Liddon, Spurgeon, Hyacinthe, Lacordaire, and the great American Beecher. Think of Spurgeon for thirty years preaching twice every Sunday to six thousand souls!"

"Then you believe, sir, the influence of the pulpit depends on the preacher?"

"Yes. If there is a good intelligent man in the pulpit, there will be good intelligent men in the pews."

"Then you would have only highly-cultured, up-to-date men in the pulpit?"

"I would not have men in the pulpit whom no one would think of listening to, out of the pulpit. The people want sermons that bring the pulpit near to the hearth, the table, and the counter; sermons of homely fertility, local allusions, and personal application, such as Christ gave them. Remember for a moment His everyday similes and parables: the lighting of a candle, the seeking of a piece of lost silver, the search for the lost sheep. That is one kind of sermon that always draws hearers. There is another kind that is irresistible to a very large number—sermons full of the spirit of Paul, reaching out to the Heavenly Church with its invisible rites and the splendor and music in the soul of the saints."

There was a silence, for the preacher was pursuing his thoughts, leaning forward with a burning look, drinking in the joy of his own spiritual vision.

Robert broke the pause by saying: "We Scots are used to logical and argumentative discourses," but he spoke in a much lower tone than was usual to him.

"Then your preachers must talk to their congregations in the pulpit, as they never would think of talking to them out of it."

"Well, we are not in favor of mingling sacred and material things; we believe it might have a tendency to bring preaching into contempt."

"Mr. Campbell," said Newton, "preaching is a great example of the survival of the fittest. If it could have been killed by contempt, or inefficiency, or ignorance, or too much book learning, or by any other cause, the imbecile sermons preached every Sunday through the length and breadth of the land would have killed it long ago."

"Do you then consider oratorical power a necessity to preaching, sir?"

"No. Other power can take its place, such as great piety, great sincerity, the simplicity of the Gospel, or the personal character of the preacher. I once heard Newman preach. He was far from what we are accustomed to call eloquent. One long sentence was followed by another equally long, separated by a sharp fracture like the utterance of a primitive saint or martyr; but also like a direct message from heaven. And never, while I live, shall I forget the ecstasy of love and longing with which he cried out: 'Oh that I knew where to find Him! that I might come into His presence!' The church of St. Mary was crowded with young men, and I believe the heart of every one present burned within him, and he longed as I did, to fall down and kiss the feet of Christ."

Conversation akin to this sweetened the simple meal, and after it Robert and Theodora walked up and down the pretty lane running past the Chapel Croft. It had a hedge of sweet-briar which perfumed the warm, still air, and the full moon made everything beautiful, and Theodora loveliest of all. And though it was near the Sabbath, Robert did not hold his sisters' creed regarding love-making at that time. He could no more help telling Theodora how beautiful she was, and how he loved her excellencies and her beauty, than he could help breathing.

It was no new tale. He had told it to her ever since they first met. But this night he felt he must venture all, to win all. The light on her face, the sweet gentleness of her voice, the touch of her hand on his arm, all these things urged him to ask that question, which if asked from the heart, is never forgotten. Theodora answered it with a shy but loving honesty. The little word which made all things sure was softly spoken, and then the purple Bible was given, and clasping it between their hands, they made over it their solemnly happy promises of eternal love and faithfulness. And what conversation followed is not to be written down; it was every word of it in the delicious, stumbling patois of love.

The next morning Robert went to the Methodist Chapel with Theodora, but his Calvinism was in no degree prejudiced by the Arminian sermon, for he did not hear a word of it. He was listening to the tale of love in his heart, Theodora sat at his side, and he would not have changed places with the king on his throne. Love had thrown the gates of life wide open for the Queen of Love to enter in, and for the first time in all his thirty years of existence, he knew what it was to be joyful.

He left Kendal on Monday afternoon and went to Sheffield, and did much profitable business there. And he was so gay and good-natured that many thought they had misjudged him on former occasions, and that after all he was really a fine fellow. Others wondered if he had been drinking, and no one but a woman, the wife of one of his business friends with whom he dined, had the wit to see, and to say:

"The man is in love, and the girl has accepted him—poor thing!"

"Why 'poor thing,' Louise?"

"Because he will get out of love some day, and then——"

"Then, what?"

"He will be the old Robert Campbell, a little older, a little more selfish, a little more sure of his own infallibility, and a great deal worse-tempered."

"That will depend on the girl, Louise."

"And on circumstances! Generally speaking, women may write themselves circumstances' 'most obedient servants.' They can't help it."

In spite, however, of the disagreeable journey between Sheffield and Glasgow, Campbell reached home in very good spirits. It was then four o'clock in the afternoon, and he resolved to sleep a couple of hours before seeing any one. He thought after dinner would be as good a time as any for the communication he had to make to his family. Something of a blusterer among men, he feared the woman he called mother. His sisters he had never taken seriously, but he remembered they would come close to Theodora, and that it might be prudent to have their good will. They certainly could make things unpleasant if they wished to do so.

He had always been able to sleep, on his own order to sleep, and was proud of the circumstance; but this afternoon he had somehow lost this control. Sleep would not obey his demand, yet he lay still, because he had resolved to spend two hours in bed; nevertheless he rose unrested, and decidedly anxious.

Dinner was served at seven, and he entered the dining-room precisely at that hour. His place was prepared for him, but the women knew better than to fret him with exclamations, or with inquiries of any kind. He was permitted to take his chair as silently as if he had never missed a meal with them. And though this behavior was in exact accord with his own desires, it did not suit him that night. He had seen a different kind of family life at the Newtons', and no man is so self-reliant as to find kind inquiries effusive and tiresome, if the kindness and interest is lavished on himself.

He was, however, good-tempered enough to praise the dinner, and to say "Scotch broth and good Scotch collops were pleasant changes from the roast beef of old England, her Yorkshire pudding and cherry pies." Mrs. Campbell smiled graciously at this compliment, and answered:

"I consider collops, Robert, as the most nutritive and delicious of all the ways in which beef is cooked. I attribute my good health to eating them so regularly, and though Jepson is constantly complaining of McNab's extravagance and ill-temper, I always say, 'I don't care, Jepson, what faults McNab has, she can cook collops.' Very few can make a good dish of collops, so I think I am right."

"Tell Jepson I say he is to let McNab alone. How did you like Dr. Robertson's last protégé?"

"I did not go to church. I was not well. The girls were there."

"What is your opinion, Isabel?"

"That he is very like the lave of the doctor's wonderfuls. Mrs. Robertson told us, he had astonished his college by the tenderness of his conscience and his spirituality; and when I asked her the particulars, she said he had utterly refused to study the Latin Grammar because it contained nothing spiritual. Greek and Hebrew, of course, for they were necessary to a right reading of the Scriptures; but the Latin Grammar had no spiritual relations with literature of any kind—far from it. From what he had been told it was both idolatrous and immoral in its outcome. I suppose he is from Argyle, for when there was talk of expelling him for not conforming to rules, he wrote to the Duke, and the great Duke stood by the lad, and complimented him on his tender conscience, and the like, and took him under his own protection—and so on. Mrs. Robertson is of the opinion, he may come to be the Moderator of the Assembly with such backing."

"And what do you think?"

"I would not wonder if he did. He has the conceit for anything, and he is a black Celt, and very likely has their covetous eye and greedy heart. He will get on, no doubt of it. Why not? The great Duke at his back, and himself always pushing to the front."

"I thought he was nice-looking," said Christina timidly. "His fine black eyes were fairly ablaze when he was preaching."

"He is a ferocious Calvinist," added Isabel.

"Well, he had fine eyes and was good-looking," persisted Christina.

"Good looks are nothing, Christina," said Robert severely. "Beauty is not a moral quality."

"People who are good-looking get on in this world. I notice that. I wish I was bonnie."

"You are well enough, Christina," said Mrs. Campbell. "If you cannot talk more sensibly, keep quiet."

Christina with a wronged, grieved look subsided, and Mrs. Robertson's reception for the conscientious youth, under the Argyle protection, furnished the conversation until the cloth was drawn, and the ladies had trifled awhile with their walnuts and raisins. Then Campbell rose, drank the glass of wine that had been standing before him, and said:

"I am going to the library to smoke half-an-hour. Then, mother, you and the girls will join me there. I have something important to tell you."

He did not wait for an answer, and his mother was furious at the request. "Did you notice his tone, Isabel?" she inquired. "His words sounded more like a command than a request. It is adding insult to injury to summon me to his room—for nobody goes to the library but himself—to hear the thing he has to tell. I shall go to my own room, and he can come there and tell me his important news."

"Mother, why not send for him to return here in half-an-hour?"

This proposal was acceptable, and in half-an-hour Jepson was sent with "Mrs. Campbell's compliments, and she hopes Mr. Campbell will return to the dining-room, as she feels unable to bear the smell of tobacco to-night."

Mr. Campbell uttered two words in a low voice which sounded like "Confound it!" but he bid Jepson tell Mrs. Campbell "he would return to the dining-room immediately." Upon hearing which, Mrs. Campbell took a reclining position on the sofa, and on her face there was the satisfied, close-mouthed smile of one who compliments herself on winning the first move.