HESTER GOLDERING'S SACRIFICE.

BY MAGGIE SYMINGTON.

CHAPTER IX.-VIOLET'S DISCOURSE.

"PANSIE, my dear," said Violet, as we walked forth together, "when we parted from Lord Haig, it was with the promise to meet again shortly; in all probability we shall find Mr. De l'Orme at Craigdallie when we arrive there. But with Mr. Deverel it is different; he is not of our caste. We should have formed no acquaintance with him and his family but for the accidental circumstances that threw us together. They were not ordinary circumstances, and yet they were circumstances that might occur many times without drawing forth such an act of heroism as that we witnessed. It compelled our involuntary admiration, and for awhile broke down barriers and levelled social differences, but the instant the excitement was over the curtains of exclusiveness were drawn round us again. We parted from the Deverels without the slightest hint being thrown out on our side, the side from which it must come, for the renewal of that temporary intimacy. They, I know, were going north, we came southward. England is large enough to continue a large tract of land between us. In all human probability we shall never meet any of that family again. Let our river-god be forgotten, or rather let his memory remain linked with some of the most pleasant reminiscences of this summer's tour, remembered only when we feel desirous of recalling to mind some of our happy memories of Lake Leman."

"Why, Violet, how thoroughly you must have studied this subject in all its phases! You arrived at this wise conclusion before now when you present it to me?"

Violet was silent.

Presently we came out upon an open glade where, across the dewy lawns, rose the grey walls of the abbey, ancient and modern mansion blended in one grand whole in the imperfect light. The moon rising above the trees softly tipped the turrets with silver, and shone in broad, sheeted lights upon the glazed windows.

Violet gazed while her breast heaved and her brow was raised. Pansie, it is good to be born to such a position as ours, that leaves nothing for the heart to desire! It seems to me now that, did I gaze upon such a pile as that, being an alien and poor, all sorts of bad passions would be kindled in my breast, envy, hatred, malice, covetousness; I think I could sin to raise myself to the position in which I now stand."

"Oh, Violet!" I exclaimed in horror.

"Don't be shocked; it is a mere supposition; I am never likely to be tempted in that way. Nothing can deprive me of my birthright, nothing hurl me from the social elevation that is mine as a daughter of the house of Trevor. I don't believe you half enjoy your life as I do. Your tastes are so simple you could confine your desires within very small bounds, and be happy anywhere, so that love was given you ungrudgingly. Well, my dear, yours is the happier disposition after all. But I, you know, wrap the mantle of luxury around me and cradle myself in its Sybarite indulgence. What virtues I have are the mere result of the accident that placed me with such parents. I might have been born in a cottage, and, if so, oh, Pansie! what a different creature I should have been! What amiability I have now is mine without any merit. We blame people for their faults, and condemn them for wrong-doing, forgetting all the time that nine-tenths of the amiable people are amiable because they have never been tempted to be anything else; their slumbering passions have never been roused. Human nature is just about the same everywhere."

"I did not know my sister was such a philosopher."

"No, Pansie; and you might live with me to my life's end without knowing me then, unless some particular circumstances should occur to kindle into activity those forces that lie dormant now."

"But your life shall be all sunshine, Violet."

"That we cannot tell, my dear; that must be as God wills; He knows best, and will send me what is most fitting. It seems to me now, certainly, that my virtues flourish most in prosperity; that my faults would be quickened did adversity overtake me; but I may be wrong; anyway I am content to leave it to Him. If no storms arise-if, as you say it shall, my life be all sunshine, I shall inherit some such tribute to my memory as this put upon my tombstone- An amiable and virtuous lady, God rest her soul.' And yet, all the while, I may be as bad as the poor creature buried at four cross roads, with no stone to mark the spot, only I was removed from temptation, she exposed to it. It is a humiliating thought, Pansie, but nevertheless it is a true one."

"What has prompted you to study yourself so closely, sister?" "Our acquaintance with Mr. De l'Orme. My knowledge of what he is, and the circumstances that have combined to form his character have led me to fathom my own heart. I pity him so deeply, Pansie, because I feel that the result in my case, exposed as he has been, would have been something similar."

"Ah! but, Violet, he is a man; he might overcome those circumstances; he might have built up a better position than the one his family lost. When his uncle's fortune was gone irrecoverably

from him, why was he not man enough to cease to repine over what could not be helped? Why did he not bestir himself and enrol himself amongst the workers of life?"

"That is precisely what you do not understand, Pansie, and I do. Because he was beset and hemmed in with prejudices that hampered his free will."

"You mean that he allowed himself to become the slave of indolence and pride because he would not nerve himself to endure." "Take care what you say, little Heartsease, for I fear I should have acted just as he has done, and drifted with the tide."

"But you are a woman, Violet!"

"Would you excuse such lethargy on that score? I will not call it lethargy, or his senses would have been steeped in it, and there is no such happiness for them as that stupor. No; if anything dashed the full cup of plenty from my lips, I should pine for it evermore, and die of such pining, while hating every one that was happier than I. This is why I pity Mr. De l'Orme so sincerely."

"Pity, Violet! Lord Haig and I both thought"

“Lord Haig and you are a precious pair of little simpletons," said Violet, hastily; "you remind me of those birds—what do you call them ?-that stick their heads in the sand, and imagine no one can see them. My dear little Heartsease," and Violet gathered me up in her arms, "had Providence read every thought of your heart, and every instinct of your soul, and then set to work to endue a second person with qualities likely to harmonise with them, it could not have apportioned two people more perfectly to each other than you and Lord Haig."

What did she mean? and why did her idle words set all my pulses throbbing?

"But, oh, my dear!" continued Violet, with a sigh; "how different you are from me! In your breast there is a Divine sense of right, pure and strong, that you would fight for, and die for, against all inclinations, with the heroism of a martyr, if need be. As for me, I know that in me dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me. But how to perform that which is good I find not. I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.""

I could not understand Violet that night, I had never heard her talk in such a manner before; and if this were to be the influence of Mr. De l'Orme's unhappy life upon her, I devoutly wished we had never met him.

The next morning I arose early, before anyone else was astir but

the servants, eager to pay my first visit in Crowland without any unnecessary delay.

Crowland lies in the lovely vale of Eversley. I have heard papa allude to this valley in his conversations with strangers abroad, when he has been led by them to speak of the geographical surface of our native country; and he says this vale of Eversley must once have been a vast primeval ocean bed, and that its blue clay retains the imprints of fossilised remains of animals, insects, and vegetables that lived and flourished in the earliest ages of the world. Crowland lies to the east of the vale, and behind the village rise the undulating ridges of the Downscote Hills. Facing us, and seen through every opening of the trees in park and shrubbery, is the solitary hill of Brierdon, behind whose inky outline the sun sets in golden glory.

Passing down the lime-tree avenue, a turn in the road affords me a view of the grand old Abbey, its turrets and chimneys thrown into relief by the verdant groves in the background; in the plain below winds the river Nova; in the distance, on its opposite banks, can be seen the many roofs of Eversley, clustering round the lofty bell-tower and the church spires. The village of Crowland is separated by a little distance from the Abbey, and is reached by one of the most pleasant country lanes imaginable. The village is nothing more than a straggling, nondescript lane, winding under the shade of magnificent beech trees, through which one catches glimpses of blue heights afar off, with houses at intervals adown it. When I came to Crowland with papa it was in the spring time, and, in the picture impressed upon my memory, the hedges are white with sloe and apple blossom, and golden cowslips gird the pathway; all the fields are sheeted with the same pale, yellow cowslip bloom, and bell-shaped hyacinths border them with heavenly blue.

The tenements of the village are old, and many of them have their white outer walls crossed and recrossed with black oaken beams; the low, thatched roofs form wide eaves to shelter the broods of birds who build their nests there. The rooms of the cottages are spacious, though the ceilings are so low; and the floors are paved with broad flags, it is every woman's ambition to keep sanded of a snowy whiteness; the diamond or lozenge paned windows are set in deep embrasures, and have their casements framed with roses, honeysuckle, or ivy. In the middle of the village, by the side of the road, there is a pool of clear water, where families of white-feathered ducks swim under the shade of the tree branches that bend from above, almost touching the water below.

Early as the hour at which I am walking is considered at Crowland Abbey, here in the village the day is fully begun. The hens

are clucking to their well-grown broods of young ones, the ducks are performing their morning ablutions in the glassy pool; little children cross the door-steps with school books in their hands; the good men have long ago gone forth to their labours in the fields, and their wives are well on with their morning household duties.

They all know that we are back again at the Abbey. I daresay it has been the one topic of conversation amongst them for weeks past; some of them recognise me, and I am greeted by many a rude bow and bobbing courtesy as I pass.

I am bent upon visiting one particular person, and suddenly it strikes me as I near her abode what a change all these long years must have produced, that perhaps my visit is too early, perhaps I shall not find her I seek amongst the living, perhaps she may not be astir at present, or perhaps the ailments of old age may confine her entirely to her room. But there is the ivy-embowered cottage, and the little paled gate that leads to its doorway; and there, yes, there is a thin, blue stream of smoke ascending from the chimney on the roof; and there, too, is the figure of the old woman I am seeking, bending over the well, in her quaint, chintz-patterned dress, and letting down her bucket to draw water to fill her little breakfast-kettle.

It can be none other than Nurse Styleman, so I pass on to the gate; I open it softly, and stand within the fragrant little garden, beneath a bowery archway of roses and honeysuckle, wondering whether in my womanhood she will recognise the child she once nursed.

Ah! now she raises herself, and I see the cheery, apple-tinted face of the handsome old woman, the only resident upon my father's broad lands with whom my memory is associated. She is conscious of the presence of a stranger; she draws up her erect figure and gazes at me with hand laid horizontally across her brows. I can bear her scrutiny no longer; I rush forwards, and throw myself into her arms, so eager has been my longing for some familiar welcome to Crowland.

"Don't you know me, Nurse Styleman?"

"Know you, dearie? well enough now, when you greet me as only an old nurse bairn would. They told me you'd come home to Crowland, but I didn't look for you coming to me so soon. Come into the house, and let me read the changes of all these years in your face."

I crossed the threshold, under the woodbine-covered porch. Her three-legged breakfast table was spread with a brown linen cloth, as it stood on the white stone hearth; sticks were blazing in the little grate, as a great lazy cat winked his eyes before them.

Nurse Styleman offered me a seat, and I made her place a stool

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