"The same mind, Mamma!" said Elizabeth. "Do you suppose we could change?"

'We will not discuss that point, my dear: others have changed before you. But you quite understand: and Cyril will come as our friend still, and there will be no actual promise. If during the year either you or he alter your minds, no one must be blamed: you are both free, and must remain so, till your constancy is proved; and no one out of our own family circle is to know anything about it—that is, about the prospect of a decisive engagement in the April of next year."

Elizabeth was quite content: if Cyril were restored to his old place at Forest Range, and if their future union only depended upon constancy! she was quite happy, and could ask no more.

"But Papa asks one thing more: Cyril must exert himself, and find some regular and remunerative occupation. Whatever betide, Papa will not, cannot, give his only child to an idle husband!"

"O Mamma! Cyril is not idle: he reads immensely, and he translates, and he is always going to do something which will require all his time, and all his energies.'

“Well, now, he must be 'going' no longer, but set to work at once."

"You would not wish Cyril actually to work, Mamma?"

"Why not, my dear? Every man and woman, who is good for anything, works, and must work."

"Papa does not work!"

"I beg your pardon, there are few men in any rank of life who work harder than your father. He is one of the best farmers in the country: his own lands alone give him ample occupation. Then he is a public man—a magistrate, the president of several societies, the patron of all our local charities, and the squire of the neighbourhood, to whom all the poor people, whether tenants or not, look for advice, and work, and help in many ways. My dear, I would rather see

a son of mine making shoes, or turning market-gardener, than see him doing nothing which could be reasonably accounted labour."

"But you will not insist on Cyril making anything with his hands, or keeping a shop, or dreadful' Works,' like those at Southam?

"My love, do not be ridiculous. I have no wish to see Cyril engaged in any derogatory employment. There is generally, always indeed, work fitted to the station of life in which it has pleased God to place us. Only Cyril must not be too fastidious; and he must put his shoulder to the wheel, in whatever he undertakes; and having chosen his occupation, he must not flinch, but persevere courageously and patiently."

"I should like him to be a great author!"

"If you value his prosperity in life, Elizabeth, do not foster that idea. Cyril lacks the perseverance which is necessary to the smallest amount of literary success; that is, after all, the real fire of authorship, and if it were really in him, I think he would have distinguished himself long ere this. He has had every opportunity, and rare advantages."

"He has written some beautiful poems; Agnes says they are 'grand!'-only they want just finishing off, and making into a fair copy for the press. And he has notes on notes for that work about the cathedral; and he read me the opening pages of an historical romance, about Southchester in the olden time!"

"All of which proves, my dear, that Cyril does not possess the quiet industry, and the habit of patient toil, which alone can lead to the fulfilment of literary aspiration. There is a great deal of drudgery in authorship, as in every other profession. However brilliant the result of any labour, there is, and has been always, the workshop-labour, and the sweat of brow, behind the scenes! A waving field of golden corn at harvest-time is a beautiful feature in the landscape, but what has it not cost the husbandman? what play of muscle, and what strain of sinew, and what

weary hours of waiting! A finished piece of sculpture, or the painting of a famous master, fills us with enthusiastic pleasure: we seldom think how stroke by stroke the sculptor chiselled out the graceful outlines and the perfect loveliness of form and feature, or how the mighty master stood for hours before his easel, working patiently perhaps at one little fold of the drapery that seems so natural. We are not gods, to create strength and beauty at our will: our productions must be carefully wrought out-the brain must work, and the hand, and eye, and cultivated judgment must assist the brain, or all our labour fails, and ends in nought. Now lie down, my dear, and rest awhile. Papa will find Cyril some useful, honourable work, be sure."

119

CHAPTER XIII.

MCCORMICK'S INVESTMENT.

NEXT day Miss Ashburner was wonderfully better: she took beef-tea at eleven o'clock, and dined with appetite at half-past one, on the breast of a fowl, and a charming little custard-pudding. She asked poundcake at her tea; and on the morrow, when Mrs. Roberts came up to see her, she ordered a lobsterpatty, and perferred "still-hock" at her dinner. In less than a week she was in the drawing-room again; and Cyril was there also, looking as if he had suffered somewhat in the storm that had ended so happily in a golden calm; and the lovers, though not acknowledged as such, were so blissfully content in each other's society, that Sir John began to think he must have been a regular flinty-hearted, tyrannical father, to think of keeping them apart.

The winter was past and gone now, and the sweet spring-tide was in its glory. By the meadow-trenches were the "fair sweet cuckoo-flowers," and shining indeed like fire was the "wild marsh-marigold, in swamps and hollows grey." From early morning to sunset, the lark's clear song rang out: the woods were lovely in their fresh green verdure, though the oak and ash, and other late-leaved trees, were still in bud. But the young larches were exquisite with their emerald fringes and their tender rosy blooms, and the palm-like foliage of the horse-chestnut grew broader and deeper day by day, and the sycamore began to weave its tresses, and hawthorn, and lilac, and laburnum were giving promise of gay or fragrant clusters in a little while. The beautiful gardens of

Forest Range were rich in early flowers, and Elizabeth's fernery was nearing its completion.

As Miss Ashburner recovered, she spent a great deal of time out of doors-at first not going beyond the lawn, then strolling through the shrubberies, and at last venturing beyond the grounds into the village, and soon upon her favourite downs, and through the bowery lanes, which in our part of the country are very lovely, bright with flowers from April to October, and overshadowed by tall graceful trees, and sometimes watered by clear tinkling rivulets, with pebbly bottoms, glancing in the sun, and delicate ferns growing in profusion on the shady banks. It was a fair, sweet spring-tide—the fairest, I think, I ever recollect; and I was proud to think that Forest Range would lose little or nothing, as it lay smiling in its southern sunny beauty, when compared by Miss Craven with her glorious mountain home, in the farfamed "north countrie!"

And as Elizabeth grew strong and well again, and her spirits rose in proportion to her happiness, she seemed to grow handsomer than ever. It appeared to me, who had watched her all her life, that her loveliness was of a higher type than before her illness those days of sorrow had in some sort spiritualised her nature, and made her more serene, more contemplative, more dignified. I think we were all very happy together, and never had I seen Cyril to so much advantage. Much of the melancholy dreaminess of his character had disappeared: he talked less introspectively, and was more inclined for action; and he entered heart and soul into a correspondence carried on between Sir John and a friend of his in office, concerning a vacant post, which promised to be no sinecure, and yet would yield very fair emolument -the which Cyril hoped speedily to secure.

Mrs. Denham offered no opposition: "Cyril might follow his own devices," she ungraciously replied, when Sir John called at Monkswood to tell her what was in agitation. "She could manage her own con