self. He knew that he should be higher and better in every way from the very hour in which she promised to become his wife.

And to a certain degree he was right. Esther was not a woman to inspire any other than a worthy and an honest passion. Mr. Carew's mental condition was not visibly improved by his love; indeed, he became, if anything, more awkward and less agreeable in her society than he had been at first, but he was none the less bettered in his spirit— less selfish, less worldly, less selfseeking than he had ever been before since he was born (less so than he will ever be again while he lives). And on the evening when he finally determined to tell her his love he felt and knew that a richer stake was about to be won or lost by him than any upon which, during his two-and-twenty years of life, his hopes had ever before been staked.

This state of feeling had not, of course, all arisen out of that one meeting in the woods, or that one twilight parting on the moorside. Mr. Carew had, through a succession of happy accidents, met Esther every day during the fortnight of his stay at Lynmouth: had met her by the seaside, in the valleys, on the moors; once, by special invitation of Miss Joan, had spent a long evening with her in her own garden at Countisbury. Acquaintance is never slow of ripening between persons whose united ages scarce make forty years. A fortnight is quite enough to bring the deepest passion of a very young man to maturity. On this evening, when his confession was just trembling upon Oliver's lips, it seemed to him as though his love had already existed for years, as though no further knowledge of life or of Esther could be needed than that which these dozen of country walks, of lingering twilight partings, had accorded him.

It was a glorious summer night; the last night in June. From the heathy uplands around Countisbury they had watched the sun set until all its gold was merged in pale and fading azure above the sea; then, when the shadows deepened round the twilight moors, and the purple

of the night began to fall, they turned away through one of the shaded field-paths towards the woods, and Mr. Carew's voice began to falter as he talked.

Now Esther Fleming, in spite of all the self-communings recorded at the end of the last chapter, was not in love with Mr. Carew one whit. She was flattered exceedingly by his evident regard for her; she thought frequently, 'If this is love, love is a very pleasant thing, and so is life.' She liked to put on her best muslin frock and a flower in her waist-belt, when she walked out to meet him on the hills; she liked to hear his voice sink as he spoke to her; she liked to feel, for the first time in her life, that inordinately strong sensation common to all women's hearts, namely, pleasure in possessing a young, and brave, and handsome man for her trembling slave. But she did not love him. No shade of real passion had crossed her heart, no deeper emotion than that of flattered vanity had made her cheek flush and her eyes sink beneath his. A girl very honestly, I was going to say icily, brought up, as she had been, does not, you know, warm into sudden emotion as quickly as do indwellers of towns or readers of romance, or frequenters of crowded assemblies (young women, in a word, whose stimulated imagination has acted out the drama of love a great number of times before the actual uprising of the curtain), although passion in such a nature as Esther's is, when once aroused, strong and obstinate in proportion to the very slowness of its growth. And so, not being at all in love, but only fancying she was, and knowing, instinctively, that Oliver's declaration was coming, Esther felt intensely happy and proud at the thought of accepting him, and knew none of the agony, the fear, the torturing doubts, the ague fits of suspense, which experience should one day tell her are the sure heralds of any scene of mature and earnest passion.

It was, as I said, a glorious summer night. In dark and wintry days to come, and when all the lovedelusion had become hollowness and

vanity in her sight, how clearly Esther could recall every outward sound and sensation of that next half-hour! the faint swirr of the scythe from distant hayfields in the valley; the sonorous drone of wild bees on the wing; the hushed cry of the cuckoo from the woods; the elastic warmth of the thyme-laden air. One by one she could remember all the mass of summer foliage over which at the time her eyes unconsciously passed, as, with beating heart and flushing cheeks, she turned away from Oliver's pleading face, the pink and scarlet wreaths of honeysuckle bending low around the foam-like balls of elder, and tall red fox-gloves in the hedges, or meeting in close embrace with the delicate tendrils of the wax-like briony across the path; the dim and mellow light cast by the transparent leafage overhead-yes, the single briar-rose that stood out so clear in its half-blown crimson against the sky just at the moment when Oliver's voice no longer faltered, and she was forced to meet his pleading face and answer, she remembered all.

You will not quite forget me, Miss Fleming? You will think, once or twice during the next year, of the hours we have spent together?'

'Yes, I shall think of them, Mr. Carew.'

For a whole year?'

Anything I could remember for a year I could remember for my life.'

Anything? Your meeting with that old parson in the valley of Rocks last summer, or with me, or any other utterly unimportant circumstance. I understand; your memory is good; simply that.'

Mr. Carew's tone grew ironical. He wondered whether he was making a fool of himself; he reflected bitterly upon the levity and falseness of all women's natures.

'I should remember things I did not care for, but I should not think about them,' began Esther; then she stopped short.

'And you will think of our walks, and, sometimes, of me?' cried Oliver, eagerly, and flushing with hope

Miss Fleming, will you say it, and make me the happiest man in all England? Will you tell me that you won't forget me?-that I may think of you and write to you sometimes, when I am away? Oh, Esther!' cried the lad, passionately, 'will you let me love you? You can't prevent that, for I love you from my soul already. Will you let me hope that some day you will care a little for me?'

He

A subject could not have wooed a queen more humbly. He never tried to take her hand; he hardly dared to look into her face. could have proposed to marry any London young lady at a ball, in the full presence of tall brothers and Argus-eyed duennas, with less diffidence than he felt towards this simple girl of eighteen amidst the lonely silence of the country lanes. Esther, will you give me no answer?' 'Oliver!'

All he sought, all he wanted (just then) upon earth was in that one word. Esther, you will let me hope?'

He looked into her eyes-her frank and girlish eyes-and thought he read there the very fruition of hope; thought that in their unabashed bright happiness there was the confession of real love.

'Esther, you will be my wife?' 'Some day, sir, perhaps. I am very young now.'

"Never say "sir," any more. I am only Oliver to you now.'

'Yes, Oliver.'

I

How the word thrilled through the lad's heart again, coming from her lips. You promise me. am exacting, Esther; I must have more than a mere indifferent "yes" on such a subject. You promise me that you will be my wife?'

As you wish, sir.'

Long afterwards, Esther Fleming

strove to assuage reproachful conscience with the thought that she did not give the verbal promise he required from her. I am afraid that when eyes and cheeks do not say nay 'tis but a spirit of Jesuitic casuistry that can seek refuge in the fact that the lips have not promised. What are mere bare words at such a time? Oliver, poor boy, never knew whether she said 'I promise,' or 'I do not;' he knew simply that she had accepted him, and so thinking, trod upon air for the remainder of the night. He was really intensely happy, as much in love as it was possible for him to be; too newly intoxicated to reflect upon the exceeding folly of the entanglement, too enamoured of himself to doubt for one instant the reality of Esther's love. With the passion of men and women there mixes some degree of bitterness, some recollection, some dread, from the first moment that the enchanted cup is raised to the lips. With boy-and-girl sentiment there is no bitterness at all; and, however mawkish older persons may consider the draught, they in their simplicity do, no doubt, regard it as nectar fresh from the hands of the gods. Only one thing, reader, don't let us older persons attempt to chronicle their first raptures. Some singularly rare love scenes may come within the limits of fiction that aspires to be sensible; but the earliest stage of a very immature engagement is not of these. Oliver and Miss Fleming lingered among the silent lanes till ten that night. They thought of the stars, they thought vaguely of their own delicious future. They were silent frequently for long spaces at a time; their conversation when they spoke consisted of monosyllables, at once disconnected and inane. Could the prince of realistic writers-could M. de Balzac himself-make much out of such innocuous raw materials? I think not very much. Love, to be amenable to art, must be misplaced, or darkened by impediments, or coming very near indeed to the end of the third volume; and as Oliver's and Esther's love is at present in no one of these conditions, we will leave the lovers, if VOL. V.-NO. XXVIII.

you please, to their own ambrosial but infantine raptures, and turn to the remarkably prosaic people who awaited Esther's return beside the frugal supper table of the Countisbury farm.

'Esther is out late,' said Joan, ostensibly shouting in her mother's ear, but with her keen eyes fixed on David's face. We had better eat our supper, and not wait, mother. Mr. Carew will have met her again; and when young people like him and Esther meet, old ones like us are not likely to be remembered.'

'He is a well-looking lad,' remarked old Mrs. Engleheart, dreamily. 'I have seen him here sometimes, haven't I, Joan?'

You saw him for one entire evening, a week ago, mother; don't you remember, we had tea under the thorn, and afterwards'-her eyes at this juncture pierced David clean through and through—' afterwards Mr. Carew and Esther walked for an hour or more up and down the terrace in the moonlight. Don't

you remember I said to you 'twas a wonder they could find so much to say after such a short acquaintance?'

'Esther is a clever girl,' said Mrs. Engleheart, turning round to David to confirm her opinion; and perhaps this Mr.-Mr.-what is his name, Joan?-is serious in his attentions. Don't you think so, nephew?'

It was very possible David thought so; but he did not look up from his book.

'Unless I thought it a great deal more than possible, I should not countenance all these daily walks together,' broke out Joan, promptly. 'Mr. Carew, if he is a young man of common honour, must declare his intentions after all that has occurred.'

"All that has occurred!' repeated David, with a groan of the spirit that Joan's sharp senses divined rather than heard. 'What, in heaven's name, do you mean by that, Joan ?'

'I mean,' said Miss Engleheart, very drily, and confronting David full, and looking, as he felt, poor creature, right into every weak part -every smallest cranny or inter

T

stice of his heart, I mean that for a fortnight this young stranger has met Esther daily, and has walked with her for hours; and that the girl keeps the flowers he gives her in her room, and makes foolish excuses when I find them there, and cannot even mention Carew's name without blushing. You don't know anything about such matters, cousin,' she pursued, pitilessly; but when I was young I remember all this was called being in love; and if our Esther cares seriously for the young man Carew, I suppose it is desirable that his intentions towards her should be openly declared.'

Miss Joan was for sharp decisive treatment in all disorders, mental and bodily. She knew the extent of the malady under which poor David was suffering to the full as well as he did himself, and was for extirpating it, as one would a thorn out of the fleshly man, by sudden violence. The searing of a nerve with red-hot iron wire was a remedy Joan had successfully tried upon herself in toothache: could not a foolish passion be treated in like manner? a moment of sharp intolerable anguish, and then the pain gone for ever. I think there was some wisdom in her opinion-at least as regarded David. When the cutting, cruel truth fell on him thus suddenly from his cousin's lips he felt, as he had not felt during this entire fortnight, that he must rouse himself, not only to endure, but to conquer. All these dull suffering days of mechanical reading, these sleepless nights, these agonies of mute jealousy, must have an end. He would have to act, to give Esther to her lover, to listen to family discussions on her prospects, to see her married. Loving her as he did, should he not make the poor exertion of striving, at least, not to cloud her happiness? He had been gentle as ever with her since he knew the utter hopelessness of his own passion; but he had been moody and silent in his manner when she tried to rouse him-unsympathizing in the poor child's natural hearty spirits. This should be over now; he would rally his forces and conquer. The feeling which had been

in secret the light of his life so long was at an end. He must return to the prosaic middle age out of which Esther's fond young face had for a few years cheated him: must go back from life to vegetation; must make such interest for his days as Joan did; must have Joan instead of Esther for a companion; succumb to Joan; marry Joan, very likely— it mattered little now whether he did or not. Well, let him swallow all this horrible bitterness like a man-not make his foolish passion any more ridiculous than it was already by moping and pining like a love-sick lad.

Joan noted the effect of her gentle tonic in a certain determination with which David flung aside his book and seized hold of his knife and fork; and during the whole of the meal continued to administer generous doses of the same wholesome draught to her unhappy victim.

'It wouldn't be ill in you, David, to ask Carew to dinner. I have not seen any one at my mother's table for fifteen years; but I think for Esther's sake this young man should be invited.'

'Yes, Joan.'

'If his attentions end as I intend them to do, it will be one of the most fortunate things that ever happened in our family. I have had a letter this evening from Aunt Tudor, and my own opinion is that she is breaking up. Her feet are swelling, David.'

'Are they indeed, Joan?'

'Mother,' emphatically, to the poor patient old lady at her side, did I tell you that Aunt Tudor's feet are swelling?'

'Dear, dear!' cried Mrs. Engleheart, in her deprecating way, 'now I call that very odd indeed of Thalia. She is two years younger than me, and when we were girls

'I know what it means, David,' proceeded Joan, who seldom troubled herself to hear anybody out. 'I remember Uncle Garratt and a dozen other people going off in the same way. She writes more than ever of her parties and her gaiety, and her excellent health and spirits, but she doesn't deceive me. She's breaking up fast.'

'I thought I heard you tell your mother she was going to Weymouth, and wanted Esther to stay with her on her return.'

'Oh, you were listening after all, then, cousin, when you never lifted your eyes up from your book. Yes, Mrs. Tudor is going to Weymouth, and has asked Esther to stay with her; and that confirms my belief. She wouldn't go to the seaside in the dog-days, unless she felt she was ill. Now, just look what the child's position will be at her death.' 'We have sometimes thought it would be better than it is now,' suggested David.

'I have never thought so,' answered Miss Engleheart. 'I have

never built upon my Aunt Tudor's goodness of heart, or her sense of duty either. She helps to keep the child now because it would be a disgrace not to do so; but she wouldn't spare a farthing from her superfluities to save all belonging to her from starvation, if the starvation was to come when she could be no longer shamed by it.'

'You are severe, Joan.'

'I am just, David. Mrs. Tudor, while she lives, is not likely to be a hard or a miserly woman. She has

too much of her brother Garratt in her nature not to wish to be liked. She is too thoroughly worldly not to spend money where the decencies of the world require it to be spent. But dead-that is quite another thing. Uncle Garratt was generous and affectionate to his son at the very time when he was squandering the last shilling of the lad's inheritance. Mrs. Tudor will be the same as ever to Esther till she diesthen

"Then her money will not be buried with her, I presume, Joan?' David hazarded.

'Her money will be left to some one who doesn't want it, or-which is much more likely-will be found to die with her. I took it into my head years ago that Aunt Tudor had sunk her money; and when I take up a fixed opinion, Cousin David, I generally find myself right. Then see what Esther's position will be. We could not support her upon our income, David.'

'We would try, Joan.'

'We should do nothing of the kind; nor is Esther one who would live in poverty without trying to help herself. Besides, our money, such as it is, dies out with my mother's life and my own; and what provision could be made for her even if we could manage to support her-which is doubtful? No; Esther, unless she marries, must work. When Aunt Tudor volunteered this fifty pounds' worth of accomplishments, I believe it was with the notion that a wretched smattering of accomplishments will be able some day or other to get the child a living as a governess.'

'A governess,' repeated old Mrs. Engleheart, who seldom caught up more than the last words of Joan's harangues. What is that you are saying?

And

I hope you don't still keep to that dreadful idea of Esther's being a governess. Oh! if my poor dear brother, with his refined delicacy, had thought that a granddaughter of his would be brought to work for her own bread!' the old lady glanced towards the picture of Garratt Fleming, which, with its imposing Hussar dress and medals, and handsome tranquil face, really looked awfully well-bred and condescending upon the bare oak panels of that humble room.

'Oh, if Garratt Fleming had had common honour, and had not wasted his sisters' portion and squandered the inheritance of his own descendants!' said Miss Joan, who was never bitterer than upon the subject of deceased relations. When I see what these sentiments of refined delicacy end in, I thank God for being as I am-honest at least. I should be glad to see Esther earning her own living to-morrow, if there was need; and I am proud to say the girl herself inherits none of the aristocratic feelings of honour of our family.'

'Family,' repeated Mrs. Engleheart, unconsciously; 'do I hear you right? The young man who brings his suit to my niece Esther is of family, you say?'

"Yes, mother; yes, of course,' answered Joan, sharply; 'he comes of honourable ancestors like our