That is not surprising; they suit each other very well. She is very clever, and has somewhat of his peculiar temperament, only she is stronger, more selfreliant, and can separate the ideal from the real, which I am convinced Cyril cannot, or does not always do. I think Miss Craven may be of great use to Cyril Denham; I can see she understands him better than the rest of us."

"I do not see how that can be; they have known each other little better than a fortnight; surely we, who have known him all our lives, and Mamma, who has so much insight into character, must understand him better than a stranger."

"My dear, there are some persons who may live with each other for a life-time, and be bound together by the closest, holiest ties, without full comprehension of each other's real character; for it is not perception nor tact that gives the key in every case; while again there are natures whose affinities are so undoubted, that they flash into union at once. This is one of those mysteries of humanity that mere intellect can never solve."

"And you think Cyril Denham and Miss Craven have these-affinities?"

"It seems like it. Your mamma thinks so as well as myself, and she is glad of it-glad that Cyril should have a friend who-"

May one day be more than a friend!" broke in Miss Ashburner, impetuously.

'Perhaps so, but on that point we need not speculate, certainly not yet. Miss Craven would not like it; she would feel constrained at once, did she know we joined her name in that way with Cyril's. And Cyril himself would be displeased-he would think it unsisterly in us, for whom he feels a brother's true affection."

Nothing more was said, for just then the end of the wood was reached, and Sir John appeared ready to join them for the rest of the way home, which was not very long.

That evening Miss Ashburner excused herself from family prayers, which on Sunday night were always conducted from eight to half-past eight o'clock. She had a terrible headache, she said, and must go to bed, for her German master was coming in the morning, and she had a world of practising to do, and she wanted to put the finishing touches to Mrs. Erskine's dressing-room herself; she had ordered the gardener to have some plants in readiness, etc., etc. And after Sir John had felt her pulse, and advised her to drink a tumblerful of cold water the last thing—his invariable recipe in cases of slight indisposition—she went away, and was seen no more, till she came all glowing and smiling into the breakfast-room on Monday morning. She had been into the garden, and gathered a bouquet, and the air and exercise had made her truly radiant. She had forgotten all about her headache, and Sir John, for the fiftieth time, sang a pæan in honour of a draught of clear cold Adam's wine.

73

CHAPTER IX.

THE ERSKINES.

TUESDAY came, and with it of course more or less bustle; for a quiet family, however perfect in its arrangements, cannot fail to be in some degree disturbed from the unbroken tenor of its way, when eight guests and several servants are to be added to its circle. The Denhams were the first arrivals.

They came about four o'clock in the afternoon, in the old lumbering family coach in which Mrs. Denham always travelled when she paid a visit. Such a coach! It must have been an antique even in her bridal days. Cyril believed that his grandfather had caused it to be built on the occasion of his own marriage. Certainly what was wanting in taste and modern elegance was atoned for by spaciousness. Four ladies might have gone in it to court on presentation-day, in the most extensive hoops with billowy breadths of gauze and silk and ærophane, and have alighted at St. James's with their finery uninjured, which is more than can be said for any modern vehicle I ever saw. It was a carriage to go to Siberia in, or to the equator, as far as roominess and convenience for packages might be considered; but then it was in a most dilapidated state. The body had been mended more than once since Cyril could remember; the wheels had been repaired the panels varnished by old Darke himself, and once he had tried to touch up the faded coat-of-arms, of which Mrs. Denham was intensely proud, in spite of her stern renunciation of worldly pomps and vanities in general. But the Denham arms, quartered with her own-for she had been an heiress-were a pomp she

never dreamed of giving up; crests, and escutcheons, and heraldic honours, and such-like patrician vanities were decidedly her "little weakness." And yet she quoted St. Peter to Lady Ashburner, because she sometimes wore a diamond necklace on occasions of great ceremony, and she scolded Elizabeth severely for the money spent at her instigation on her latest hobby-the new fernery. The Denham coach, like a dismantled hearse, drove up to Forest Range; the horses were post-horses from "The George," for the Monkswood stables had been empty now for many a year; and they, that is the quadrupeds, seemed quite ashamed of drawing such a lumbering concern, which ought by rights to have given up the ghost in some carriage-breaker's yard, a quarter of a century since.

Out of the depths, the musty, fusty depths of this black, yawning sepulchre, Cyril presently emerged. He handed out his mother reverently, and she came down the steps-which were really a short flight of stairs, the carriage being hung so high-like a female undertaker, if such a thing there be, marshalling a funeral on its way. Then Sally Hawkes appeared, and Cyril helped her down the shaky steps with all due care and courtesy, and then the two young people proceeded to drag out a huge cap-basket, several gaping bags, filled apparently with needle-work, for a ball of worsted tumbled out of one, and knitting-pins obtruded from another, a travelling-trunk, coeval with the coach, a dozen or two of sombrest-looking volumes, bound in dingy calf-sermons, no doubt, and theological treatises, since the library at Forest Range did not include the writings of Mrs. Denham's favourite authors, and no others would she condescend to read or listen to. Lastly, came Cyril's own valise, which looked ridiculously new, 'standing among its venerable fellow-travellers: and while Sally and Mr. Denham were emptying the huge receptacle, Job Darke, most imperturbable of serving men, sat sourly on the box.

"It is a regular Noah's Ark, I declare!" said Miss Craven, as she watched the result of her friend's exer

tions, and admired his patience and good temper as he obeyed unmurmuringly his mother's high behests. It was some minutes before they entered the house, for though the Forest Range servants had flown immediately to the help of the young man and their favourite, Miss Sally Hawkes, Mrs. Denham had imperatively waved them back.

The weather had changed since Sunday, changed abruptly and completely as it often does in March, and the balmy breezes of the south had given place to keen north-eastern blasts, which threatened snow, and sent the mercury down to shivering point. It was a bitter day, and the slow ride in that heavy, draughty vehicle had pinched the Denhams' toes and fingers, and turned their noses blue. Mrs. Denham looked more grim than usual, with her face all puckered with the cold, and the drive had certainly not conduced to render her more amiable. It was a relief when she had gone to her own chamber, and was shut in with Sally Hawkes,-" Only," as Elizabeth whispered to Agnes, "she must come out again before dinner, and it was awful to think what Sally must endure." And she did come out again, half an hour before any one else was dressed; and when Elizabeth, in all the glories of a splendid rich blue silk, rustled into the drawingroom, she found Mrs. Denham sitting by the fire, on the hardest chair the room afforded, knitting away as vigorously as if her life depended upon the completion of so many rounds within a given time. The knitting itself was a large grey stocking meant for Cyril's wear, and Sally Hawkes was reading to her from one of frowsty tomes they had brought with them from Monkswood. As Elizabeth came in, Mrs. Denham sharply bade Sally shut the book,—“ for it's not your kind of literature," she assured Miss Ashburner; "it would be well for you if your mother made you read Divinity for certain hours a day; it would stand you in better stead than jabbering strange languages, and spending precious time in running up and down pianoforte keys. I suppose you never read a religious book."