Читать книгу Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885 - Various - Страница 10

At the period when the following incidents occurred I was living with my father at The Grove, a large old house in the immediate neighborhood of a little town. This had been his home for a number of years; and I believe I was born in it. It was a kind of house which, notwithstanding all the red and white architecture, known at present by the name of Queen Anne, builders nowadays have forgotten how to build. It was straggling and irregular, with wide passages, wide staircases, broad landings; the rooms large but not very lofty; the arrangements leaving much to be desired, with no economy of space; a house belonging to a period when land was cheap, and, so far as that was concerned, there was no occasion to economise. Though it was so near the town, the clump of trees in which it was environed was a veritable grove. In the grounds in spring the primroses grew as thickly as in the forest. We had a few fields for the cows, and an excellent walled garden. The place is being pulled down at this moment to make room for more streets of mean little houses, – the kind of thing, and not a dull house of faded gentry, which perhaps the neighborhood requires. The house was dull, and so were we, its last inhabitants; and the furniture was faded, even a little dingy, – nothing to brag of. I do not, however, intend to convey a suggestion that we were faded gentry, for that was not the case. My father, indeed, was rich, and had no need to spare any expense in making his life and his house bright if he pleased; but he did not please, and I had not been long enough at home to exercise any special influence of my own. It was the only home I had ever known; but except in my earliest childhood, and in my holidays as a schoolboy, I had in reality known but little of it. My mother had died at my birth, or shortly after, and I had grown up in the gravity and silence of a house without women. In my infancy, I believe, a sister of my father's had lived with us, and taken charge of the household and of me; but she, too, had died long, long ago, my mourning for her being one of the first things I could recollect. And she had no successor. There was, indeed, a housekeeper and some maids, – the latter of whom I only saw disappearing at the end of a passage, or whisking out of a room when one of “the gentlemen” appeared. Mrs. Weir, indeed, I saw nearly every day; but a curtsey, a smile, a pair of nice round arms which she caressed while folding them across her ample waist, and a large white apron, were all I knew of her. This was the only female influence in the house. The drawing-room I was aware of only as a place of deadly good order, into which nobody ever entered. It had three long windows opening on the lawn, and communicated at the upper end, which was rounded like a great bay, with the conservatory. Sometimes I gazed into it as a child from without, wondering at the needlework on the chairs, the screens, the looking-glasses which never reflected any living face. My father did not like the room, which probably was not wonderful, though it never occurred to me in those early days to inquire why.

I may say here, though it will probably be disappointing to those who form a sentimental idea of the capabilities of children, that it did not occur to me either, in these early days, to make any inquiry about my mother. There was no room in life, as I knew it, for any such person; nothing suggested to my mind either the fact that she must have existed, or that there was need of her in the house. I accepted, as I believe most children do, the facts of existence, on the basis with which I had first made acquaintance with them, without question or remark. As a matter of fact, I was aware that it was rather dull at home; but neither by comparison with the books I read, nor by the communications received from my school-fellows, did this seem to me anything remarkable. And I was possibly somewhat dull too by nature, for I did not mind. I was fond of reading, and for that there was unbounded opportunity. I had a little ambition in respect to work, and that too could be prosecuted undisturbed. When I went to the university, my society lay almost entirely among men; but by that time and afterwards, matters had of course greatly changed with me, and though I recognised women as part of the economy of nature, and did not indeed by any means dislike or avoid them, yet the idea of connecting them at all with my own home never entered into my head. That continued to be as it had always been, when at intervals I descended upon the cool, grave, colorless place, in the midst of my traffic with the world; always very still, well-ordered, serious – the cooking very good, the comfort perfect – old Morphew, the butler, a little older (but very little older, perhaps on the whole less old, since in my childhood I had thought him a kind of Methuselah), and Mrs. Weir, less active, covering up her arms in sleeves, but folding and caressing them just as always. I remember looking in from the lawn through the windows upon that deadly-orderly drawing-room, with a humorous recollection of my childish admiration and wonder, and feeling that it must be kept so forever and ever, and that to go into it would break some sort of amusing mock mystery, some pleasantly ridiculous spell.

But it was only at rare intervals that I went home. In the long vacation, as in my school holidays, my father often went abroad with me, so that we had gone over a great deal of the Continent together very pleasantly. He was old in proportion to the age of his son, being a man of sixty when I was twenty, but that did not disturb the pleasure of the relations between us. I don't know that they were ever very confidential. On my side there was but little to communicate, for I did not get into scrapes nor fall in love, the two predicaments which demand sympathy and confidences. And as for my father himself, I was never aware what there could be to communicate on his side. I knew his life exactly – what he did almost at every hour of the day; under what circumstances of the temperature he would ride and when walk; how often and with what guests he would indulge in the occasional break of a dinner-party, a serious pleasure – perhaps, indeed, less a pleasure than a duty. All this I knew as well as he did, and also his views on public matters, his political opinions, which naturally were different from mine. What ground, then, remained for confidence? I did not know any. We were both of us of a reserved nature, not apt to enter into our religious feelings, for instance. There are many people who think reticence on such subjects a sign of the most reverential way of contemplating them. Of this I am far from being sure; but, at all events, it was the practice most congenial to my own mind.

And then I was for a long time absent, making my own way in the world. I did not make it very successfully. I accomplished the natural fate of an Englishman, and went out to the Colonies; then to India in a semi-diplomatic position; but returned home after seven or eight years, invalided, in bad health and not much better spirits, tired and disappointed with my first trial of life. I had, as people say, “no occasion” to insist on making my way. My father was rich, and had never given me the slightest reason to believe that he did not intend me to be his heir. His allowance to me was not illiberal, and though he did not oppose the carrying out of my own plans, he by no means urged me to exertion. When I came home he received me very affectionately, and expressed his satisfaction in my return. “Of course,” he said, “I am not glad that you are disappointed, Philip, or that your health is broken; but otherwise it is an ill wind, you know, that blows nobody good – and I am very glad to have you at home. I am growing an old man – ”

“I don't see any difference, sir,” said I; “everything here seems exactly the same as when I went away – ”

He smiled, and shook his head. “It is true enough,” he said, “after we have reached a certain age we seem to go on for a long time on a plane, and feel no great difference from year to year; but it is an inclined plane – and the longer we go on, the more sudden will be the fall at the end. But at all events it will be a great comfort to me to have you here.”

“If I had known that,” I said, “and that you wanted me, I should have come in any circumstances. As there are only two of us in the world – ”

“Yes,” he said, “there are only two of us in the world; but still I should not have sent for you, Phil, to interrupt your career.”

“It is as well, then, that it has interrupted itself,” I said, rather bitterly; for disappointment is hard to hear.

He patted me on the shoulder and repeated, “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,” with a look of real pleasure which gave me a certain gratification too; for, after all, he was an old man, and the only one in all the world to whom I owed any duty. I had not been without dreams of warmer affections, but they had come to nothing – not tragically, but in the ordinary way. I might perhaps have had love which I did not want, but not that which I did want, – which was not a thing to make any unmanly moan about, but in the ordinary course of events. Such disappointments happen every day; indeed, they are more common than anything else, and sometimes it is apparent afterward that it is better it was so.

However, here I was at thirty stranded – yet wanting for nothing, in a position to call forth rather envy than pity from the greater part of my contemporaries, – for I had an assured and comfortable existence, as much money as I wanted, and the prospect of an excellent fortune for the future. On the other hand, my health was still low, and I had no occupation. The neighborhood of the town was a drawback rather than an advantage. I felt myself tempted, instead of taking the long walk into the country which my doctor recommended, to take a much shorter one through the High Street, across the river, and back again, which was not a walk but a lounge. The country was silent and full of thoughts – thoughts not always very agreeable – whereas there were always the humors of the little urban population to glance at, the news to be heard, all those petty matters which so often make up life in a very impoverished version for the idle man. I did not like it, but I felt myself yielding to it, not having energy enough to make a stand. The rector and the leading lawyer of the place asked me to dinner. I might have glided into the society, such as it was, had I been disposed for that – everything about me began to close over me as if I had been fifty, and fully contented with my lot.

It was possibly my own want of occupation which made me observe with surprise, after a while, how much occupied my father was. He had expressed himself glad of my return; but now that I had returned, I saw very little of him. Most of his time was spent in his library, as had always been the case. But on the few visits I paid him there, I could not but perceive that the aspect of the library was much changed. It had acquired the look of a business-room, almost an office. There were large business-like books on the table, which I could not associate with anything he could naturally have to do; and his correspondence was very large. I thought he closed one of those books hurriedly as I came in, and pushed it away, as if he did not wish me to see it. This surprised me at the moment, without arousing any other feeling; but afterward I remembered it with a clearer sense of what it meant. He was more absorbed altogether than I had been used to see him. He was visited by men sometimes not of very prepossessing appearance. Surprise grew in my mind without any very distinct idea of the reason of it; and it was not till after a chance conversation with Morphew that my vague uneasiness began to take definite shape. It was begun without any special intention on my part. Morphew had informed me that master was very busy, on some occasion when I wanted to see him. And I was a little annoyed to be thus put off. “It appears to me that my father is always busy,” I said, hastily. Morphew then began very oracularly to nod his head in assent.

“A deal too busy, sir, if you take my opinion,” he said.

This startled me much, and I asked hurriedly, “What do you mean?” without reflecting that to ask for private information from a servant about my father's habits was as bad as investigating into a stranger's affairs. It did not strike me in the same light.

“Mr. Philip,” said Morphew, “a thing 'as 'appened as 'appens more often than it ought to. Master has got awful keen about money in his old age.”

“That's a new thing for him,” I said.

“No, sir, begging your pardon, it ain't a new thing. He was once broke of it, and that wasn't easy done; but it's come back, if you'll excuse me saying so. And I don't know as he'll ever be broke of it again at his age.”

I felt more disposed to be angry than disturbed by this. “You must be making some ridiculous mistake,” I said. “And if you were not so old a friend as you are, Morphew, I should not have allowed my father to be so spoken of to me.”

The old man gave me a half-astonished, half-contemptuous look. “He's been my master a deal longer than he's been your father,” he said, turning on his heel. The assumption was so comical that my anger could not stand in face of it. I went out, having been on my way to the door when this conversation occurred, and took my usual lounge about, which was not a satisfactory sort of amusement. Its vanity and emptiness appeared to be more evident than usual to-day. I met half a dozen people I knew, and had as many pieces of news confided to me. I went up and down the length of the High Street. I made a small purchase or two. And then I turned homeward – despising myself, yet finding no alternative within my reach. Would a long country walk have been more virtuous? – it would at least have been more wholesome – but that was all that could be said. My mind did not dwell on Morphew's communication. It seemed without sense or meaning to me; and after the excellent joke about his superior interest in his master to mine in my father, was dismissed lightly enough from my mind. I tried to invent some way of telling this to my father without letting him perceive that Morphew had been finding faults in him, or I listening; for it seemed a pity to lose so good a joke. However, as I returned home, something happened which put the joke entirely out of my head. It is curious when a new subject of trouble or anxiety has been suggested to the mind in an unexpected way, how often a second advertisement follows immediately after the first, and gives to that a potency which in itself it had not possessed.

I was approaching our own door, wondering whether my father had gone, and whether, on my return, I should find him at leisure – for I had several little things to say to him – when I noticed a poor woman lingering about the closed gates. She had a baby sleeping in her arms. It was a spring night, the stars shining in the twilight, and everything soft and dim; and the woman's figure was like a shadow, flitting about, now here, now there, on one side or another of the gate. She stopped when she saw me approaching, and hesitated for a moment, then seemed to take a sudden resolution. I watched her without knowing, with a prevision that she was going to address me, though with no sort of idea as to the subject of her address. She came up to me doubtfully, it seemed, yet certainly, as I felt, and when she was close to me, dropped a sort of hesitating curtsey, and said, “It's Mr. Philip?” in a low voice.

“What do you want with me?” I said.

Then she poured forth suddenly, without warning or preparation, her long speech – a flood of words which must have been all ready and waiting at the doors of her lips for utterance. “Oh, sir, I want to speak to you! I can't believe you'll be so hard, for you're young; and I can't believe he'll be so hard if so be as his own son, as I've always heard he had but one, 'll speak up for us. Oh, gentleman, it is easy for the likes of you, that, if you ain't comfortable in one room, can just walk into another; but if one room is all you have, and every bit of furniture you have taken out of it, and nothing but the four walls left – not so much as the cradle for the child, or a chair for your man to sit down upon when he comes from his work, or a saucepan to cook him his supper – ”

“My good woman,” I said, “who can have taken all that from you? surely nobody can be so cruel?”

“You say it's cruel!” she cried with a sort of triumph. “Oh, I knowed you would, or any true gentleman that don't hold with screwing poor folks. Just go and say that to him inside there, for the love of God. Tell him to think what he's doing, driving poor creatures to despair. Summer's coming, the Lord be praised, but yet it's bitter cold at night with your counterpane gone; and when you've been working hard all day, and nothing but four bare walls to come home to, and all your poor little sticks of furniture that you've saved up for, and got together one by one, all gone – and you no better than when you started, or rather worse, for then you was young. Oh, sir!” the woman's voice rose into a sort of passionate wail. And then she added, beseechingly, recovering herself – “Oh, speak for us – he'll not refuse his own son – ”

“To whom am I to speak? who is it that has done this to you?” I said.

The woman hesitated again, looking keenly in my face – then repeated with a slight faltering, “It's Mr. Philip?” as if that made everything right.

“Yes; I am Philip Canning,” I said; “but what have I to do with this? and to whom am I to speak?”

She began to whimper, crying and stopping herself. “Oh, please, sir! it's Mr. Canning as owns all the house property about – it's him that our court and the lane and everything belongs to. And he's taken the bed from under us, and the baby's cradle, although it's said in the Bible as you're not to take poor folks's bed.”

“My father!” I cried in spite of myself – “then it must be some agent, some one else in his name. You may be sure he knows nothing of it. Of course I shall speak to him at once.”

“Oh, God bless you, sir,” said the woman. But then she added, in a lower tone – “It's no agent. It's one as never knows trouble. It's him that lives in that grand house.” But this was said under her breath, evidently not for me to hear.

Morphew's words flashed through my mind as she spoke. What was this? Did it afford an explanation of the much occupied hours, the big books, the strange visitors? I took the poor woman's name, and gave her something to procure a few comforts for the night, and went indoors disturbed and troubled. It was impossible to believe that my father himself would have acted thus; but he was not a man to brook interference, and I did not see how to introduce the subject, what to say. I could but hope that, at the moment of broaching it, words would be put into my mouth, which often happens in moments of necessity, one knows not how, even when one's theme is not so all-important as that for which such help has been promised. As usual, I did not see my father till dinner. I have said that our dinners were very good, luxurious in a simple way, everything excellent in its kind, well cooked, well served, the perfection of comfort without show – which is a combination very dear to the English heart. I said nothing till Morphew, with his solemn attention to everything that was going, had retired – and then it was with some strain of courage that I began.

“I was stopped outside the gate to-day by a curious sort of petitioner – a poor woman, who seems to be one of your tenants, sir, but whom your agent must have been rather too hard upon.”

“My agent? who is that?” said my father, quietly.

“I don't know his name, and I doubt his competence. The poor creature seems to have had everything taken from her – her bed, her child's cradle.”

“No doubt she was behind with her rent.”

“Very likely, sir. She seemed very poor,” said I.

“You take it coolly,” said my father, with an upward glance, half-amused, not in the least shocked by my statement. “But when a man, or a woman either, takes a house, I suppose you will allow that they ought to pay rent for it.”

“Certainly, sir,” I replied, “when they have got anything to pay.”

“I don't allow the reservation,” he said. But he was not angry, which I had feared he would be.

“I think,” I continued, “that your agent must be too severe. And this emboldens me to say something which has been in my mind for some time” – (these were the words, no doubt, which I had hoped would be put into my mouth; they were the suggestion of the moment, and yet as I said them it was with the most complete conviction of their truth) – “and that is this: I am doing nothing; my time hangs heavy on my hands. Make me your agent. I will see for myself, and save you from such mistakes; and it will be an occupation – ”

“Mistakes? What warrant have you for saying these are mistakes?” he said testily; then after a moment: “This is a strange proposal from you, Phil. Do you know what it is you are offering? – to be a collector of rents, going about from door to door, from week to week; to look after wretched little bits of repairs, drains, etc.; to get paid, which, after all, is the chief thing, and not to be taken in by tales of poverty.”

“Not to let you be taken in by men without pity,” I said.

He gave me a strange glance, which I did not very well understand, and said, abruptly, a thing which, so far as I remember, he had never in my life said before, “You've become a little like your mother, Phil – ”

“My mother!” The reference was so unusual – nay, so unprecedented – that I was greatly startled. It seemed to me like the sudden introduction of a quite new element in the stagnant atmosphere, as well as a new party to our conversation. My father looked across the table, as if with some astonishment at my tone of surprise.

“Is that so very extraordinary?” he said.

“No; of course it is not extraordinary that I should resemble my mother. Only – I have heard very little of her – almost nothing.”

“That is true.” He got up and placed himself before the fire, which was very low, as the night was not cold – had not been cold heretofore at least; but it seemed to me now that a little chill came into the dim and faded room. Perhaps it looked more dull from the suggestion of a something brighter, warmer, that might have been. “Talking of mistakes,” he said, “perhaps that was one: to sever you entirely from her side of the house. But I did not care for the connection. You will understand how it is that I speak of it now when I tell you – ” He stopped here, however, said nothing more for a minute or so, and then rang the bell. Morphew came, as he always did, very deliberately, so that some time elapsed in silence, during which my surprise grew. When the old man appeared at the door – “Have you put the lights in the drawing-room, as I told you?” my father said.

“Yes, sir; and opened the box, sir; and it's a – it's a speaking likeness – ”

This the old man got out in a great hurry, as if afraid that his master would stop him. My father did so with a wave of his hand.

“That's enough. I asked no information. You can go now.”

The door closed upon us, and there was again a pause. My subject had floated away altogether like a mist, though I had been so concerned about it. I tried to resume, but could not. Something seemed to arrest my very breathing: and yet in this dull respectable house of ours, where everything breathed good character and integrity, it was certain that there could be no shameful mystery to reveal. It was some time before my father spoke, not from any purpose that I could see, but apparently because his mind was busy with probably unaccustomed thoughts.

“You scarcely know the drawing-room, Phil,” he said at last.

“Very little. I have never seen it used. I have a little awe of it, to tell the truth.”

“That should not be. There is no reason for that. But a man by himself, as I have been for the greater part of my life, has no occasion for a drawing-room. I always, as a matter of preference, sat among my books; however, I ought to have thought of the impression on you.”

“Oh, it is not important,” I said; “the awe was childish. I have not thought of it since I came home.”

“It never was anything very splendid at the best,” said he. He lifted the lamp from the table with a sort of abstraction, not remarking even my offer to take it from him, and led the way. He was on the verge of seventy, and looked his age; but it was a vigorous age, with no symptoms of giving way. The circle of light from the lamp lit up his white hair, and keen blue eyes, and clear complexion; his forehead was like old ivory, his cheek warmly colored: an old man, yet a man in full strength. He was taller than I was, and still almost as strong. As he stood for a moment with the lamp in his hand, he looked like a tower in his great height and bulk. I reflected as I looked at him that I knew him intimately, more intimately than any other creature in the world, – I was familiar with every detail of his outward life; could it be that in reality I did not know him at all?

The drawing-room was already lighted with a flickering array of candles upon the mantelpiece and along the walls, producing the pretty starry effect which candles give without very much light. As I had not the smallest idea what I was about to see, for Morphew's “speaking likeness” was very hurriedly said, and only half comprehensible in the bewilderment of my faculties, my first glance was at this very unusual illumination, for which I could assign no reason. The next showed me a large full-length portrait, still in the box in which apparently it had travelled, placed upright, supported against a table in the centre of the room. My father walked straight up to it, motioned to me to place a smaller table close to the picture on the left side, and put his lamp upon that. Then he waved his hand towards it, and stood aside that I might see.

It was a full-length portrait of a very young woman – I might say, a girl, scarcely twenty – in a white dress, made in a very simple old fashion, though I was too little accustomed to female costume to be able to fix the date. It might have been a hundred years old, or twenty, for aught I knew. The face had an expression of youth, candor, and simplicity more than any face I had ever seen – or so, at least, in my surprise, I thought. The eyes were a little wistful, with something which was almost anxiety – which at least was not content – in them; a faint, almost imperceptible, curve in the lids. The complexion was of a dazzling fairness, the hair light, but the eyes dark, which gave individuality to the face. It would have been as lovely had the eyes been blue – probably more so – but their darkness gave a touch of character, a slight discord, which made the harmony finer. It was not, perhaps, beautiful in the highest sense of the word. The girl must have been too young, too slight, too little developed for actual beauty; but a face which so invited love and confidence I never saw. One smiled at it with instinctive affection. “What a sweet face!” I said. “What a lovely girl! Who is she? Is this one of the relations you were speaking of on the other side?”

My father made me no reply. He stood aside, looking at it as if he knew it too well to require to look, – as if the picture was already in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, after an interval, with a long-drawn breath, “she was a lovely girl, as you say.”

“Was? – then she is dead. What a pity!” I said; “what a pity! so young and so sweet!”

We stood gazing at her thus, in her beautiful stillness and calm – two men, the younger of us full grown and conscious of many experiences, the other an old man – before this impersonation of tender youth. At length he said, with a slight tremulousness in his voice, “Does nothing suggest to you who she is, Phil?”

I turned round to look at him with profound astonishment, but he turned away from my look. A sort of quiver passed over his face. “That is your mother,” he said, and walked suddenly away, leaving me there.

My mother!

I stood for a moment in a kind of consternation before the white-robed innocent creature, to me no more than a child; then a sudden laugh broke from me, without any will of mine: something ludicrous, as well as something awful, was in it. When the laugh was over, I found myself with tears in my eyes, gazing, holding my breath. The soft features seemed to melt, the lips to move, the anxiety in the eyes to become a personal inquiry. Ah, no! nothing of the kind; only because of the water in mine. My mother! oh, fair and gentle creature, scarcely woman – how could any man's voice call her by that name! I had little idea enough of what it meant, – had heard it laughed at, scoffed at, reverenced, but never had learned to place it even among the ideal powers of life. Yet, if it meant anything at all, what it meant was worth thinking of. What did she ask, looking at me with those eyes? what would she have said if “those lips had language”? If I had known her only as Cowper did – with a child's recollection – there might have been some thread, some faint but comprehensible link, between us; but now all that I felt was the curious incongruity. Poor child! I said to myself; so sweet a creature: poor little tender soul! as if she had been a little sister, a child of mine – but my mother! I cannot tell how long I stood looking at her, studying the candid, sweet face, which surely had germs in it of everything that was good and beautiful; and sorry, with a profound regret, that she had died and never carried these promises to fulfilment. Poor girl! poor people who had loved her! These were my thoughts: with a curious vertigo and giddiness of my whole being in the sense of a mysterious relationship, which it was beyond my power to understand.

Presently my father came back: possibly because I had been a long time unconscious of the passage of the minutes, or perhaps because he was himself restless in the strange disturbance of his habitual calm. He came in and put his arm within mine, leaning his weight partially upon me, with an affectionate suggestion which went deeper than words. I pressed his arm to my side: it was more between us two grave Englishmen than any embracing.

“I cannot understand it,” I said.

“No. I don't wonder at that; but if it is strange to you, Phil, think how much more strange to me! That is the partner of my life. I have never had another – or thought of another. That – girl! If we are to meet again, as I have always hoped we should meet again, what am I to say to her – I, an old man? Yes; I know what you mean. I am not an old man for my years; but my years are threescore and ten, and the play is nearly played out. How am I to meet that young creature? We used to say to each other that it was forever, that we never could be but one, that it was for life and death. But what – what am I to say to her, Phil, when I meet her again, that – that angel? No, it is not her being an angel that troubles me; but she is so young! She is like my – my granddaughter,” he cried, with a burst of what was half sobs, half laughter; “and she is my wife – and I am an old man – an old man! And so much has happened that she could not understand.”

I was too much startled by this strange complaint to know what to say. It was not my own trouble, and I answered it in the conventional way.

“They are not as we are, sir,” I said; “they look upon us with larger, other eyes than ours.”

“Ah! you don't know what I mean,” he said quickly; and in the interval he had subdued his emotion. “At first, after she died, it was my consolation to think that I should meet her again – that we never could be really parted. But, my God, how I have changed since then! I am another man – I am a different being. I was not very young even then – twenty years older than she was: but her youth renewed mine. I was not an unfit partner; she asked no better: and knew as much more than I did in some things – being so much nearer the source – as I did in others that were of the world. But I have gone a long way since then, Phil – a long way; and there she stands just where I left her.”

I pressed his arm again. “Father,” I said, which was a title I seldom used, “we are not to suppose that in a higher life the mind stands still.” I did not feel myself qualified to discuss such topics, but something one must say.

“Worse, worse!” he replied; “then she too will be like me, a different being, and we shall meet as what? as strangers, as people who have lost sight of each other, with a long past between us – we who parted, my God! with – with – ”

His voice broke and ended for a moment: then while, surprised and almost shocked by what he said, I cast about in my mind what to reply, he withdrew his arm suddenly from mine, and said in his usual tone, “Where shall we hang the picture, Phil? It must be here in this room. What do you think will be the best light?”

This sudden alteration took me still more by surprise, and gave me almost an additional shock; but it was evident that I must follow the changes of his mood, or at least the sudden repression of sentiment which he originated. We went into that simpler question with great seriousness, consulting which would be the best light. “You know I can scarcely advise,” I said; “I have never been familiar with this room. I should like to put off, if you don't mind, till daylight.”

“I think,” he said, “that this would be the best place.” It was on the other side of the fireplace, on the wall which faced the windows – not the best light, I knew enough to be aware, for an oil-painting. When I said so, however, he answered me with a little impatience, – “It does not matter very much about, the best light. There will be nobody to see it but you and me. I have my reasons – ” There was a small table standing against the wall at this spot, on which he had his hand as he spoke. Upon it stood a little basket in very fine lace-like wickerwork. His hand must have trembled, for the table shook, and the basket fell, its contents turning out upon the carpet, – little bits of needlework, colored silks, a small piece of knitting half done. He laughed as they rolled out at his feet, and tried to stoop to collect them, then tottered to a chair, and covered for a moment his face with his hands.

No need to ask what they were. No woman's work had been seen in the house since I could recollect it. I gathered them up reverently and put them back. I could see, ignorant as I was, that the bit of knitting was something for an infant. What could I do less than put it to my lips? It had. been left in the doing – for me.

“Yes, I think this is the best place,” my father said a minute after, in his usual tone.

We placed it there that evening with our own hands. The picture was large, and in a heavy frame, but my father would let no one help me but himself. And then, with a superstition for which I never could give any reason even to myself, having removed the packings, we closed and locked the door, leaving the candles about the room, in their soft strange illumination lighting the first night of her return to her old place.

That night no more was said. My father went to his room early, which was not his habit. He had never, however, accustomed me to sit late with him in the library. I had a little study or smoking-room of my own, in which all my special treasures were, the collections of my travels and my favorite books – and where I always sat after prayers, a ceremonial which was regularly kept up in the house. I retired as usual this night to my room, and as usual read – but to-night somewhat vaguely, often pausing to think. When it was quite late, I went out by the glass door to the lawn, and walked round the house, with the intention of looking in at the drawing-room windows, as I had done when a child. But I had forgotten that these windows were all shuttered at night, and nothing but a faint penetration of the light within through the crevices bore witness to the instalment of the new dweller there.

In the morning my father was entirely himself again. He told me without emotion of the manner in which he had obtained the picture. It had belonged to my mother's family, and had fallen eventually into the hands of a cousin of hers, resident abroad – “A man whom I did not like, and who did not like me,” my father said; “there was, or had been, some rivalry, he thought: a mistake, but he was never aware of that. He refused all my requests to have a copy made. You may suppose, Phil, that I wished this very much. Had I succeeded, you would have been acquainted, at least, with your mother's appearance, and need not have sustained this shock. But he would not consent. It gave him, I think, a certain pleasure to think that he had the only picture. But now he is dead – and out of remorse, or with some other intention, has left it to me.”

“That looks like kindness,” said I.

“Yes; or something else. He might have thought that by so doing he was establishing a claim upon me.” my father said: but he did not seem disposed to add any more. On whose behalf he meant to establish a claim I did not know, nor who the man was who had laid us under so great an obligation on his deathbed. He had established a claim on me at least: though, as he was dead, I could not see on whose behalf it was. And my father said nothing more. He seemed to dislike the subject. When I attempted to return to it, he had recourse to his letters or his newspapers. Evidently he had made up his mind to say no more.

Afterwards I went into the drawing-room to look at the picture once more. It seemed to me that the anxiety in her eyes was not so evident as I had thought it last night. The light possibly was more favorable. She stood just above the place where, I make no doubt, she had sat in life, where her little work-basket was – not very much above it. The picture was full-length, and we had hung it low, so that she might have been stepping into the room, and was little above my own level as I stood and looked at her again. Once more I smiled at the strange thought that this young creature, so young, almost childish, could be my mother; and once more my eyes grew wet looking at her. He was a benefactor, indeed, who had given her back to us. I said to myself, that if I could ever do anything for him or his, I would certainly do, for my – for this lovely young creature's sake.

And with this in my mind, and all the thoughts that came with it, I am obliged to confess that the other matter, which I had been so full of on the previous night, went entirely out of my head.

It is rarely, however, that such matters are allowed to slip out of one's mind. When I went out in the afternoon for my usual stroll – or rather when I returned from that stroll – I saw once more before me the woman with her baby whose story had filled me with dismay on the previous evening. She was waiting at the gate as before, and – “Oh, gentleman, but haven't you got some news to give me?” she said.

“My good woman – I – have been greatly occupied. I have had – no time to do anything.”

“Ah!” she said, with a little cry of disappointment, “my man said not to make too sure, and that the ways of the gentlefolks is hard to know.”

“I cannot explain to you,” I said, as gently as I could, “what it is that has made me forget you. It was an event that can only do you good in the end. Go home now, and see the man that took your things from you, and tell him to come to me. I promise you it shall be put right.”

The woman looked at me in astonishment, then burst forth, as it seemed, involuntarily, – “What! without asking no questions?” After this there came a storm of tears and blessings, from which I made haste to escape, but not without carrying that curious commentary on my rashness away with me – “Without asking no questions?” It might be foolish, perhaps: but after all how slight a matter. To make the poor creature comfortable at the cost of what – a box or two of cigars, perhaps, or some other trifle. And if it should be her own fault, or her husband's – what then? Had I been punished for all my faults, where should I have been now. And if the advantage should be only temporary, what then? To be relieved and comforted even for a day or two, was not that something to count in life? Thus I quenched the fiery dart of criticism which my protégée herself had thrown into the transaction, not without a certain sense of the humor of it. Its effect, however, was to make me less anxious to see my father, to repeat my proposal to him, and to call his attention to the cruelty performed in his name. This one case I had taken out of the category of wrongs to be righted, by assuming arbitrarily the position of Providence in my own person – for, of course, I had bound myself to pay the poor creature's rent as well as redeem her goods – and, whatever might happen to her in the future, had taken the past into my own hands. The man came presently to see me who, it seems, had acted as my father's agent in the matter. “I don't know, sir, how Mr. Canning will take it,” he said. “He don't want none of those irregular, bad-paying ones in his property. He always says as to look over it and let the rent run on is making things worse in the end. His rule is, 'Never more than a month, Stevens:' that's what Mr. Canning says to me, sir. He says, 'More than that they can't pay. It's no use trying.' And it's a good rule; it's a very good rule. He won't hear none of their stories, sir. Bless you, you'd never get a penny of rent from them small houses if you listened to their tales. But if so be as you'll pay Mrs. Jordan's rent, it's none of my business how it's paid, so long as it's paid, and I'll send her back her things. But they'll just have to be took next time,” he added, composedly. “Over and over: it's always the same story with them sort of poor folks – they're too poor for anything, that's the truth,” the man said.

Morphew came back to my room after my visitor was gone. “Mr. Philip,” he said, “you'll excuse me, sir, but if you're going to pay all the poor folk's rent as have distresses put in, you may just go into the court at once, for it's without end – ”

“I am going to be the agent myself, Morphew, and manage for my father: and we'll soon put a stop to that,” I said, more cheerfully than I felt.

“Manage for – master,” he said, with a face of consternation. “You, Mr. Philip!”

“You seem to have a great contempt for me, Morphew.”

He did not deny the fact. He said with excitement, “Master, sir – master don't let himself be put a stop to by any man. Master's – not one to be managed. Don't you quarrel with master, Mr. Philip, for the love of God.” The old man was quite pale.

“Quarrel!” I said. “I have never quarreled with my father, and I don't mean to begin now.”

Morphew dispelled his own excitement by making up the fire, which was dying in the grate. It was a very mild spring evening, and he made up a great blaze which would have suited December. This is one of many ways in which an old servant will relieve his mind. He muttered all the time as he threw on the coals and wood. “He'll not like it – we all know as he'll not like it. Master won't stand no meddling, Mr. Philip,” – this last he discharged at me like a flying arrow as he closed the door.