"Disobedience " was on Irene's lips, but she forbore. After a minute's pause, Mrs. Williamson continued, "And what did Sir Philip say? Did you find him easy to get on with? It was a very awkward position for you to put yourself in, driving home with a perfect stranger, or at least a man you never saw till yesterday." "I did not find it awkward; it was a great deal more awkward to be hanging over the steep rock, holding Randal's arm." "You are very silly, Irene; you never will talk like a reasonable person. I don't believe you feel in the slightest degree how embarrassing it will be when Lady Eugenia asks you who you were driving with in that dreadful old vehicle; really, when I saw it turn into the square, I could scarcely help laughing, miserably anxious as I was. And the Tilletts, too, to see you! By-the-bye, old Mrs. Thornycroft, Mr. Tillett's aunt, and those three plain daughters, were here this afternoon, she was very full of Sir Philip Dennistoun. They were in the same steamer with him on the Lake of Geneva, when the news of Sir Jasper's death was made known to him by the 'Times.' They have been a tour, as usual, and would not have come back so soon, Mrs. Thornycroft said, only her husband telegraphed that he was very ill, and they must return immediately. They implied that the old man was not so ill as he represented himself to be. They came here simply to find out all that could be found out about Sir Philip Dennistoun. Margaret Thornycroft talked like an idiot about him, and said she had been so struck with Sir Philip's appearance; it is quite easy to see what she will drive at. I know it will be perfectly disgust Forster is gone to ing, the set Rodham people will make on Sir Philip. I think I must go to Randal, now. dine at Dr. Simpson's; he asked him to-day, when they returned from the funeral together. Old Dr. Simpson is terribly sly. I do hope Forster will be cautious. "I should think Forster is to be trusted," said Irene quietly; and then she followed her sister upstairs, and went to her own room; a small room at the top of the house, with two narrow windows, and no great attraction about it. But Irene liked the elevation. She liked to be nearer the sky, and above the square-removed from the noise of the town. She was very tired; and it was not till she lay down upon her bed that she knew how tired, nor how great the strain had been upon her, for the boy and she had been face to face with death. She knew a fall of sixty feet on the large boulders, which checked the course of the stream immediately below, and over which Sir Philip had stepped so lightly and so rapidly when he came to their rescue, would have been mutilation if not death. Then came the thought, that no one had given any thanks for her preservation; that none in that house had even thought of her especial deliverance; all interest having centred in the boy; and, except from Cuthbert, she had received no tender word of inquiry or sympathy. Once, she had been everything to a mother, between whom and herself had existed a tie, half-sisterly, half-maternal, which only very few women can understand. It is a tie which is not frequent; but when it exists, is stronger than death; and when severed, leaves the survivor very desolate. Mary had married early, and she and her husband had settled in a town in one of the Midland counties, far from the home, in a Devonshire village, where Irene and her mother had been happy for years. Mr. Balfour, the agent and man of business of Sir Jasper Dennistoun, was a relation of Forster Williamson. He had a high opinion of his abilities and integrity, and two years before the time of which I write, the offer of a partnership had been made and accepted; and the Williamsons removed to Rodham. Almost immediately afterwards, Mrs. Clifford caught a cold, which ended in congestion of the lungs, and she sank in a few days. Irene was left alone in the world, and her brother-inlaw's offer of a home in his house seemed one she ought not to refuse. Cuthbert, the lame boy, had been an especial favourite of his grandmother's, and he had often spent months with her and his aunt Irene at Orchard Leigh, before his hip disease had so completely laid him prostrate. To minister to him, and brighten his suffering young life, seemed to Irene an aim in the first days of her mourning; and she went to Rodham to fulfil her mission, and forget herself and her sorrow in service-that great panacea for wounded hearts, if they would but try to take it. And she was peaceful and content. Within her lay a deep spring of love, which was never dry. Hers was a faithful unquestioning soul, and it looked through her clear stedfast eyes far beyond earthly vexations and perplexities. Of women like Irene it is hard to write; they are not generally very caressing and effusive in their manner. Sometimes even abrupt and reserved, they do not take a prominent place amongst the "popular people" of their own particular circle. We think we have known them for years, and we find we never knew them at all. Then some sudden flash of tenderness, some great act of devotion and self-sacrifice, some burst of sympathy in sorrow, some gleam of brightness which dazzles us with its lustre, and they stand revealed before us. Alas, alas! sometimes, in the bitterness of our soul, we hear but the rustle of the wings, as "the angel of the house" passes from our sight for ever, CHAPTER V. GLIMPSES OF RODHAM SOCIETY. "So I left the place, and weary, A. A. PROCTER. In the course of a few months the aspect of Rockdeane was changed. If its outward walls still frowned above the babbling stream, and rose dark and grim amidst the universal greenness of spring, within there was a brightness and freshness which charmed the eyes of the many guests who flocked thither to pay their respects to Sir Philip and Mrs. Dennistoun, now that they were settled in their new home. Mrs. Dennistoun had received her stepson's orders to superintend the decoration and beautifying of this old home of his ancestors with a glad heart. There was only one stipulation made, which Mrs. Dennistoun tried in vain to overrule. The tradesmen employed were to be Rodham tradesmen. Everything |