Читать книгу We Two - Lyall Edna - Страница 10

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Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many

South Sea Islanders; but a real human heart, with Divine

love in it, beats with the same glow under all the patterns

of all earth's thousand tribes. O. Wendell Holmes.

For the next fortnight Brian and Erica continued to pass each other every afternoon in Gower Street, as they had done for so long, the only difference was that now they greeted each other, that occasionally Brian would be rendered happy for the rest of the day by some brief passing remark from his Undine, or by one of her peculiarly bright smiles. One day, however, she actually stopped; her face was radiant.

“I must just tell you our good news,” she said. “My father has won his case, and has got heavy damages.”

“I am very glad,” said Brian. “It must be a great relief to you all to have it over.”

“Immense! Father looks as if a ton's weight had been taken off his mind. Now I hope we shall have a little peace.”

With a hasty good bye she hurried on, an unusual elasticity in her light footsteps. In Guilford Square she met a political friend of her father's, and was brought once more to a standstill. This time it was a little unwillingly, for M. Noirol teased her unmercifully, and at their last meeting had almost made her angry by talking of a friend of his at Paris who offered untold advantages to any clever and well-educated English girl who wished to learn the language, and who would in return teach her own. Erica had been made miserable by the mere suggestion that such a situation would suit her; the slightest hint that it might be well for her to go abroad had roused in her a sort of terror lest her father might ever seriously think of the scheme. She had not quite forgiven M. Noirol for having spoken, although the proposal had not been gravely made, and probably only persevered in out of the spirit of teasing. But today M. Noirol looked very grave.

“You have heard our good news?” said Erica. “Now don't begin again about Madame Lemercier's school; I don't want to be made cross today of all days, when I am so happy.”

“I will tease you no more, dear mademoiselle,” said the Frenchman; but he offered no congratulations, and there was something in his manner which made Erica uneasy.

“Is anything wrong? Has anything happened?” she asked quickly.

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“Who knows! It is an evil world, Mademoiselle Erica, as you will realize when you have lived in it as long as I have. But I detain you. Good bye. AU REVOIR!”

He took off his hat with a flourish, and passed on.

Erica, feeling baffled and a little cross, hurried home. M. Noirol had not teased her today, but he had been inscrutable and tiresome, and he had made her feel uneasy. She opened the front door, and went at once to her father's study, pausing for a moment at the sound of voices within. She recognized, however, that it was her cousin, Tom Craigie, who was speaking, and without more delay she entered. Then in a moment she understood why M. Noirol had been so mysterious. Tom was speaking quickly and strongly, and there was a glow of anger on his face. Her father was standing with his back to the mantlepiece, and there was a sort of cold light in his eyes, which filled Erica with dismay. Never in the most anxious days had she seen him look at once so angry, yet as weighed down with care.

“What is the matter?” she questioned, breathlessly, instinctively turning to Tom, whose hot anger was more approachable.

“The scamp of a Christian has gone bankrupt,” he said, referring to the defendant in the late action, but too furious to speak very intelligibly.

“Mr. Cheale, you mean?” asked Erica.

“The scoundrel! Yes! So not a farthing of costs and damages shall we see! It is the most fiendish thing ever heard of!”

“Will the costs be very heavy?”

“Heavy! I should think they would indeed!” He named the probable sum; it seemed a fearful addition to the already existing burden of debts.

A look of such pain and perplexity came over Erica's face that Raeburn for the first time realizing what was passing in the room, drew her toward him, his face softening, and the cold, angry light in his eyes changing to sadness.

“Never mind, my child,” he said, with a sigh. “'Tis a hard blow, but we must bear up. Injustice won't triumph in the end.”

There was something in his voice and look which made Erica feel dreadfully inclined to cry; but that would have disgraced her forever in the eyes of stoical Tom, so she only squeezed his hand hard and tried to think of that far-distant future of which she had spoken to Charles Osmond, when there would be no tiresome Christians and bigots and lawsuits.

There was, however, one person in the house who was invariably the recipient of all the troubled confidences of others. In a very few minutes Erica had left the study and was curled up beside her mother's couch, talking out unreservedly all her grief, and anger, and perplexity.

Mrs. Raeburn, delicate and invalided as she was, had nevertheless a great deal of influence, though perhaps neither Raeburn, nor Erica, nor warm-hearted Tom Craigie understood how much she did for them all. She was so unassuming, so little given to unnecessary speech, so reticent, that her life made very little show, while it had become so entirely a matter of course that every one should bring his private troubles to her that it would have seemed extraordinary not to meet with exactly the sympathy and counsel needed. Today, however, even Mrs. Raeburn was almost too despondent to cheer the others. It comforted Erica to talk to her, but she could not help feeling very miserable as she saw the anxiety and sadness in her mother's face.

“What more can we do, mother?” she questioned. “I can't think of a single thing we can give up.”

“I really don't know, dear,” said her mother with a sigh. “We have nothing but the absolute necessaries of life now, except indeed your education at the High School, and that is a very trifling expense, and one which cannot be interfered with.”

Erica was easily depressed, like most high-spirited persons; but she was not used to seeing either her father or her mother despondent, and the mere strangeness kept her from going down to the very deepest depths. She had the feeling that at least one of them must try to keep up. Yet, do what she would, that evening was one of the saddest and dreariest she had ever spent. All the excitement of contest was over, and a sort of dead weight of gloom seemed to oppress them. Raeburn was absolutely silent. From the first Erica had never heard him complain, but his anger, and afterward his intense depression, spoke volumes. Even Tom, her friend and play fellow, seemed changed this evening, grown somehow from a boy to a man; for there was a sternness about him which she had never seen before, and which made the days of their childhood seem far away. And yet it was not so very long ago that she and Tom had been the most light-hearted and careless beings in the world, and had imagined the chief interest of life to consist in tending dormice, and tame rats, and silk worms! She wondered whether they could ever feel free again, whether they could ever enjoy their long Saturday afternoon rambles, or whether this weight of care would always be upon them.

With a very heavy heart she prepared her lessons for the next day, finding it hard to take much interest in Magna Charta and legal enactments in the time of King John, when the legal enactments of today were so much more mind-engrossing. Tom was sitting opposite to her, writing letters for Raeburn. Once, notwithstanding his grave looks, she hazarded a question. “Tom,” she said, shutting up her 'History of the English People,' “Tom, what do you think will happen?”

Tom looked across at her with angry yet sorrowful eyes.

“I think,” he said, sternly, “that the chieftain will try to do the work of ten men at once, and will pay off these debts or die in the attempt.”

The “chieftain” was a favorite name among the Raeburnites for their leader, and there was a great deal of the clan feeling among them. The majority of them were earnest, hard-working, thoughtful men, and their society was both powerful and well-organized, while their personal devotion to Raeburn lent a vigor and vitality to the whole body which might otherwise have been lacking. Perhaps comparatively few would have been enthusiastic for the cause of atheism had not that cause been represented by a high-souled, self-denying man whom they loved with all their hearts.

The dreary evening ended at length, Erica helped her mother to bed, and then with slow steps climbed up to her little attic room. It was cold and comfortless enough, bare of all luxuries, but even here the walls were lined with books, and Erica's little iron bedstead looked somewhat incongruous surrounded as it was with dingy-looking volumes, dusky old legal books, works of reference, books atheistical, theological, metaphysical, or scientific. On one shelf, amid this strangely heterogeneous collection, she kept her own particular treasures—Brian's Longfellow, one or two of Dickens's books which Tom had given her, and the beloved old Grimm and Hans Andersen, which had been the friends of her childhood and which for “old sakes' sake” she had never had the heart to sell. The only other trace of her in the strange little bedroom was in a wonderful array of china animals on the mantlepiece. She was a great animal lover, and, being a favorite with every one, she received many votive offerings. Her shrine was an amusing one to look at. A green china frog played a tuneless guitar; a pensive monkey gazed with clasped hands and dreadfully human eyes into futurity; there were sagacious looking elephants, placid rhinoceroses, rampant hares, two pug dogs clasped in an irrevocable embrace, an enormous lobster, a diminutive polar bear, and in the center of all a most evil-looking jackdaw about half an inch high.

But tonight the childish side of Erica was in abeyance; the cares of womanhood seemed gathering upon her. She put out her candle and sat down in the dark, racking her brain for some plan by which to relieve her father and mother. Their life was growing harder and harder. It seemed to her that poverty in itself was bearable enough, but that the ever-increasing load of debt was not bearable. As long as she could remember, it had always been like a mill-stone tied about their necks, and the ceaseless petty economies and privations seemed of little avail; she felt very much as if she were one of the Danaids, doomed forever to pour water into a vessel with a hole in it.

Yet in one sense she was better off than many, for these debts were not selfish debts—no one had ever known Raeburn to spend an unnecessary sixpence on himself; all this load had been incurred in the defense of what he considered the truth—by his unceasing struggles for liberty. She was proud of the debts, proud to suffer in what she regarded as the sacred cause; but in spite of that she was almost in despair this evening, the future looked so hopelessly black.

Tom's words rang in her head—“The chieftain will try to do the work of ten men!” What if he overworked himself as he had done once a few years ago? What if he died in the attempt? She wished Tom had not spoken so strongly. In the friendly darkness she did not try to check the tears which would come into her eyes at the thought. Something must be done! She must in some way help him! And then, all at once, there flashed into her mind M. Noirol's teasing suggestion that she should go to Paris. Here was a way in which, free of all expense, she might finish her education, might practically earn her living! In this way she might indeed help to lighten the load, but it would be at the cost of absolute self-sacrifice. She must leave home, and father and mother, and country!

Erica was not exactly selfish, but she was very young. The thought of the voluntary sacrifice seemed quite unbearable, she could not make up her mind to it.

“Why should I give up all this? Why should prejudice and bigotry spoil my whole life?” she thought, beginning to pace up and down the room with quick, agitated steps. “Why should we suffer because that wretch has gone bankrupt? It is unfair, unjust, it can't be right.”

She leaned her arms on the window sill and looked out into the silent night. The stars were shining peacefully enough, looking down on this world of strife and struggle; Erica grew a little calmer as she looked; Nature, with its majesty of calmness, seemed to quiet her troubled heart and “sweep gradual-gospels in.”

From some recess of memory there came to her some half-enigmatical words; they had been quoted by Charles Osmond in his speech, but she did not remember where she had heard them, only they began to ring in her ears now:

“There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death, Nor glory but by bearing shame, Nor justice but by taking blame.”

She did not altogether understand the verse, but there was a truth in it which could hardly fail to come home to one who knew what persecution meant. What if the very blame and injustice of the present brought in the future reign of justice! She seemed to hear her father's voice saying again, “We must bear up, child; injustice won't triumph in the end.”

“There is no gain except by loss!”

What if her loss of home and friends brought gain to the world! That was a thought which brought a glow of happiness to her even in the midst of her pain. There was, after all, much of the highest Christianity about her, though she would have been very much vexed if any one had told her so, because Christianity meant to her narrow-mindedness instead of brotherly love. However it might be, there was no denying that the child of the great teacher of atheism had grasped the true meaning of life, had grasped it, and was prepared to act on it too. She had always lived with those who were ready to spend all in the promotion of the general good; and all that was true, all that was noble in her creed, all that had filled her with admiration in the lives of those she loved, came to her aid now.

She went softly down the dark staircase to Raeburn's study; it was late, and, anxious not to disturb the rest of the house, she opened the door noiselessly and crept in. Her father was sitting at his desk writing; he looked very stern, but there was a sort of grandeur about his rugged face. He was absorbed in his work and did not hear her, and for a minute she stood quite still watching him, realizing with pain and yet with a happy pride how greatly she loved him. Her heart beat fast at the thought of helping him, lightening his load even a little.

“Father,” she said, softly.

Raeburn was the sort of a man who could not be startled, but he looked up quickly, apparently returning from some speculative region with a slight effort. He was the most practical of men, and yet for a minute he felt as if he were living in a dream, for Erica stood beside him, pale and beautiful, with a sort of heroic light about her whole face which transformed her from a merry child to a high-souled woman. Instinctively he rose to speak to her.

“I will not disturb you for more than a minute, father,” she said, “it is only that I have thought of a way in which I think I could help you if you would let me.”

“Well, dear, what is it?” said Raeburn, still watching half dreamily the exceeding beauty of the face before him. Yet an undefined sense of dread chilled his heart. Was anything too hard or high for her to propose? He listened without a word to her account of M. Noirol's Parisian scheme, to her voluntary suggestion that she should go into exile for two years. At the end he merely put a brief question. “Are you ready to bear two years of loneliness?”

“I am ready to help you,” she said, with a little quiver in her voice and a cloud of pain in her eyes.

Raeburn turned away from her and began to pace up and down the little room, his eyes not altogether free from tears, for, pachydermatous as he was accounted by his enemies, this man was very tender over his child, he could hardly endure to see her pain. Yet after all, though she had given him a sharp pang, she had brought him happiness which any father might envy. He came back to her, his stern face inexpressibly softened.

“And I am ready to be helped, my child; it shall be as you say.”

There was something in his voice and in the gentle acceptance of help from one so strong and self-reliant which touched Erica more than any praise or demonstrative thanks could have done. They were going to work together, he had promised that she should fight side by side with him.

“Lawsuits may ruin us,” said Raeburn, “but, after all, the evil has a way of helping out the good.” He put his arm round her and kissed her. “You have taught me, little one, how powerless and weak are these petty persecutions. They can only prick and sting us! Nothing can really hurt us while we love the truth and love each other.”

That was the happiest moment Erica had ever known, already her loss had brought a rapturous gain.

“I shall never go to sleep tonight,” she said. “Let me help you with your letters.”

Raeburn demurred a little, but yielded to her entreaties, and for the next two hours the father and daughter worked in silence. The bitterness which had lurked in the earlier part of the pamphlet that Raeburn had in hand was quite lacking in its close; the writer had somehow been lifted into a higher, purer atmosphere, and if his pen flew less rapidly over the paper, it at any rate wrote words which would long outlive the mere overflow of an angry heart.

Coming back to the world of realities at last somewhere in the small hours, he found his fire out, a goodly pile of letters ready for his signature, and his little amanuensis fast asleep in her chair. Reproaching himself for having allowed her to sit up, he took her in his strong arms as though she had been a mere baby, and carried her up to her room so gently that she never woke. The next morning she found herself so swathed in plaids and rugs and blankets that she could hardly move, and, in spite of a bad headache, could not help beginning the day with a hearty laugh.

Raeburn was not a man who ever let the grass grow under his feet, his decisions were made with thought, but with very rapid thought, and his action was always prompt. His case excited a good deal of attention; but long before the newspapers had ceased to wage war either for or against him, long before the weekly journals had ceased to teem with letters relating to the lawsuit, he had formed his plans for the future. His home was to be completely broken up, Erica was to go to Paris, his wife was to live with his sister, Mrs. Craigie, and her son, Tom, who had agreed to keep on the lodgings in Guilford Terrace, while for himself he had mapped out such a programme of work as could only have been undertaken by a man of “Titanic energy” and “Herculean strength,” epithets which even the hostile press invariably bestowed on him. How great the sacrifice was to him few people knew. As we have said before, the world regarded him as a target, and would hardly have believed that he was in reality a man of the gentlest tastes, as fond of his home as any man in England, a faithful friend and a devoted father, and perhaps all the more dependent on the sympathies of his own circle because of the bitter hostility he encountered from other quarters. But he made his plans resolutely, and said very little about them either one way or the other, sometimes even checking Erica when she grumbled for him, or gave vent to her indignation with regard to the defendant.

“We work for freedom, little one,” he used to say; “and it is an honor to suffer in the cause of liberty.”

“But every one says you will kill yourself with overwork,” said Erica, “and especially when you are in America.”

'“They don't know what stuff I'm made of,” said Raeburn; “and, even if it should use me up, what then? It's better to wear out than to rust out, as a wise man once remarked.”

“Yes,” said Erica, rather faintly.

“But I've no intention of wearing out just yet,” said Raeburn, cheerfully. “You need not be afraid, little son Eric; and, if at the end of those two years you do come back to find me gray and wrinkled, what will that matter so long as we are free once more. There's a good time coming; we'll have the coziest little home in London yet.”

“With a garden for you to work in,” said Erica, brightening up like a child at the castle in the air. “And we'll keep lots of animals, and never bother again about money all our lives.”

Raeburn smiled at her ides of felicity—no cares, and plenty of dogs and cats! He did not anticipate any haven of rest at the end of the two years for himself. He knew that his life must be a series of conflicts to the very end. Still he hoped for relief from the load of debt, and looked forward to the reestablishment of his home.

Brian Osmond heard of the plans before long, but he scarcely saw Erica; the Christmas holidays began, and he no longer met her each afternoon in Gower Street, while the time drew nearer and nearer for her departure for Paris. At length, on the very last day, it chanced that they were once more thrown together.

Raeburn was a great lover of flowers, and he very often received floral offerings from his followers. It so happened that some beautiful hot-house flowers had been sent to him from a nursery garden one day in January, and, unwilling to keep them all, he had suggested that Erica should take some to the neighboring hospitals. Now there were two hospitals in Guilford Square; Erica felt much more interested in the children's hospital than in the one for grown-up people; but, wishing to be impartial she arranged a basketful for each, and well pleased to have anything to give, hastened on her errand. Much to her delight, her first basket of flowers was not only accepted very gratefully, but the lady superintendent took her over the hospital, and let her distribute the flowers among the children. She was very fond of children, and was as happy as she could be passing up and down among the little beds, while her bright manner attracted the little ones, and made them unusually affectionate and responsive.

Happy at having been able to give them pleasure, and full of tender, womanly thoughts, she crossed the square to another small hospital; she was absorbed in pitiful, loving humanity, had forgotten altogether that the world counted her as a heretic, and wholly unprepared for what awaited her, she was shown into the visitors' room and asked to give her name. Not only was Raeburn too notorious a name to pass muster, but the head of the hospital knew Erica by sight, and had often met her out of doors with her father. She was a stiff, narrow-minded, uncompromising sort of person, and, in her own words was “determined to have no fellowship with the works of darkness.” How she could consider bright-faced Erica, with her loving thought for others and her free gift, a “work of darkness,” it is hard to understand. She was not at all disposed, however, to be under any sort of obligation to an atheist, and the result of it was that after a three minutes' interview, Erica found herself once more in the square, with her flowers still in her hand, “declined WITHOUT thanks.”

No one ever quite knew what the superintendent had said to her, but apparently the rebuff had been very hard to bear. Not content with declining any fellowship with the poor little “work of darkness,” she had gone on in accordance with the letter of the text to reprove her; and Erica left the house with burning cheeks, and with a tumult of angry feeling stirred up in her heart. She was far too angry to know or care what she was doing; she walked down the quiet square in the very opposite direction to “Persecution Alley,” and might have walked on for an indefinite time had not some one stopped her.

“I was hoping to see you before you left,” said a pleasant quiet voice close by her. She looked up and saw Charles Osmond.

Thus suddenly brought to a standstill, she became aware that she was trembling from head to foot. A little delicate, sensitive thing, the unsparing censure and the rude reception she had just met with had quite upset her.

Charles Osmond retained her hand in his strong clasp, and looked questioningly into her bright, indignant eyes.

“What is the matter, my child?” he asked.

“I am only angry,” said Erica, rather breathlessly; “hurt and angry because one of your bigots has been rude to me.”

“Come in and tell me all about it,” said Charles Osmond; and there was something so irresistible in his manner that Erica at once allowed herself to be led into one of the tall, old-fashioned houses, and taken into a comfortable and roomy study, the nicest room she had ever been in. It was not luxurious; indeed the Turkey carpet was shabby and the furniture well worn, but it was home-like, and warm and cheerful, evidently a room which was dear to its owner. Charles Osmond made her sit down in a capacious arm chair close to the fire.

“Well, now, who was the bigot?” he said, in a voice that would have won the confidence of a flint.

Erica told as much of the story as she could bring herself to repeat, quite enough to show Charles Osmond the terrible harm which may be wrought by tactless modern Christianity. He looked down very sorrowfully at the eager, expressive face of the speaker; it was at once very white and very pink, for the child was sorely wounded as well as indignant. She was evidently, however, a little vexed with herself for feeling the insult so keenly.

“It is very stupid of me,” she said laughing a little; “it is time I was used to it; but I never can help shaking in this silly way when any one is rude to us. Tom laughs at me, and says I am made on wire springs like a twelfth-cake butterfly! But it is rather hard, isn't it, to be shut out from everything, even from giving?”

“I think it is both hard and wrong,” said Charles Osmond. “But we do not all shut you out.”

“No,” said Erica. “You have always been kind, you are not a bit like a Christian. Would you”—she hesitated a little—“would you take the flowers instead?”

It was said with a shy grace inexpressibly winning. Charles Osmond was touched and gratified.

“They will be a great treat to us,” he said. “My mother is very fond of flowers. Will you come upstairs and see her? We shall find afternoon tea going on, I expect.”

So the rejected flowers found a resting place in the clergyman's house; and Brian, coming in from his rounds, was greeted by a sight which made his heart beat at double time. In the drawing room beside his grandmother sat Erica, her little fur hat pushed back, her gloves off, busily arranging Christmas roses and red camellias. Her anger had died away, she was talking quite merrily. It seemed to Brian more like a beautiful dream than a bit of every-day life, to have her sitting there so naturally in his home; but the note of pain was struck before long.

“I must go home,” she said. “This is my last day, you know. I am going to Paris tomorrow.”

A sort of sadness seemed to fall on them at the words; only gentle Mrs. Osmond said, cheerfully:

“You will come to see us again when you come back, will you not?”

And then, with the privilege of the aged, she drew down the young, fresh face to hers and kissed it.

“You will let me see you home,” said Brian. “It is getting dark.”

Erica laughingly protested that she was well used to taking care of herself, but it ended in Brian's triumphing. So together they crossed the quiet square. Erica chattered away merrily enough, but as they reached the narrow entrance to Guilford Terrace a shadow stole over her face.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “this is the last time I shall come home for two whole years.”

“You go for so long,” said Brian, stifling a sigh. “You won't forget your English friends?”

“Do you mean that you count yourself our friend?” asked Erica, smiling.

“If you will let me.”

“That is a funny word to use,” she replied, laughing. “You see we are treated as outlaws generally. I don't think any one ever said 'will you let' to me before. This is our house; thank you for seeing me home.” Then with a roguish look in her eyes, she added demurely, but with a slight emphasis on the last word, “Good bye, my friend.”

Brian turned away sadly enough; but he had not gone far when he heard flying footsteps, and looking back saw Erica once more.

“Oh, I just came to know whether by any chance you want a kitten,” she said; “I have a real beauty which I want to find a nice home for.”

Of course Brian wanted a kitten at once; one would have imagined by the eagerness of his manner that he was devoted to the whole feline tribe.

“Well, then, will you come in and see it?” said Erica. “He really is a very nice kitten, and I shall go away much happier if I can see him settled in life first.”

She took him in, introduced him to her mother, and ran off in search of the cat, returning in a few minutes with a very playful-looking tabby.

“There he is,” she said, putting the kitten on the table with an air of pride. “I don't believe he has an equal in all London.

“What do you call him?” asked Brian.

“His name is St. Anthony,” said Erica. “Oh, I hope, by the bye, you won't object to that; it was no disrespect to St. Anthony at all, but only that he always will go and preach to my gold fish. We'll make him do it now to show you. Come along Tony, and give them a sermon, there's a good little kit!”

She put him on a side table, and he at once rested his front paws on a large glass bowl and peered down at the gold fish with great curiosity.

“I believe he would have drowned himself sooner or later, like Gray's cat, so I dare say it is a good thing for him to leave. You will be kind to him, won't you?”

Brian promised that he should be well attended to, and, indeed there was little doubt that St. Anthony would from that day forth be lapped in luxury. He went away with his new master very contentedly, Erica following them to the door with farewell injunctions.

“And you'll be sure to butter his feet well or else he won't stay with you. Good bye, dear Tony. Be a good little cat!”

Brian was pleased to have this token from his Undine, but at the same time he could not help seeing that she cared much more about parting with the kitten than about saying good bye to him. Well, it was something to have that lucky St. Anthony, who had been fondled and kissed. And after all it was Erica's very childishness and simplicity which made her so dear to him.

As soon as they were out of sight, Erica, with the thought of the separation beginning to weigh upon her, went back to her mother. They knew that this was the last quiet time they would have together for many long months. But last days are not good days for talking. They spoke very little. Every now and then Mrs. Raeburn would make some inquiry about the packing or the journey, or would try to cheer the child by speaking of the house they would have at the end of the two years. But Erica was not to be comforted; a dull pain was gnawing at her heart, and the present was not to be displaced by any visions of a golden future. “If it were not for leaving you alone, mother, I shouldn't mind so much,” she said, in a choked voice. “But it seems to me that you have the hardest part of all.”

“Aunt Jean will be here, and Tom,” said Mrs. Raeburn.

“Aunt Jean is very kind,” said Erica, doubtfully. “But she doesn't know how to nurse people. Tom is the one hope, and he has promised always to tell me the whole truth about you; so if you get worse, I shall come home directly.”

“You mustn't grudge me my share of the work,” said Mrs. Raeburn. “It would make me very miserable if I did hinder you or your father.”

Erica sighed. “You and father are so dreadfully public-spirited! And yet, oh, mother! What does the whole world matter to me if I think you are uncomfortable, and wretched, and alone?”

“You will learn to think differently, dear, by and by,” said her mother, kissing the eager, troubled face. “And, when you fancy me lonely, you can picture me instead as proud and happy in thinking of my brave little daughter who has gone into exile of her own accord to help the cause of truth and liberty.”

They were inspiriting words, and they brought a glow to Erica's face; she choked down her own personal pain. No religious martyr went through the time of trial more bravely than Luke Raeburn's daughter lived through the next four and twenty hours. She never forgot even the most trivial incident of that day, it seemed burned in upon her brain. The dreary waking on the dark winter morning, the hurried farewells to her aunt and Tom, the last long embrace from her mother, the drive to the station, her father's recognition on the platform, the rude staring and ruder comments to which they were subjected, then the one supreme wrench of parting, the look of pain in her father's face, the trembling of his voice, the last long look as the train moved off, and the utter loneliness of all that followed. Then came dimmer recollections, not less real, but more confused; of a merry set of fellow passengers who were going to enjoy themselves in the south of France; of a certain little packet which her father had placed in her hand, and which proved to be “Mill on Liberty;” of her eager perusal of the first two or three chapters; of the many instances of the “tyranny of the majority” which she had been able to produce, not without a certain satisfaction. And afterward more vividly she could recall the last look at England, the dreary arrival at Boulogne, the long weary railway journey, and the friendly reception at Mme. Lemercier's school. No one could deny that her new life had been bravely begun.