CHAPTER XXXVI.

LOVE AMONGST THE ROSES.

LITTLE Weston's proclivities towards the God Bacchus were growing stronger and stronger, and Lennard's occupation of the violinist's chair in the orchestra consequently became more frequent. One night the boy returned from the theatre with a pallid face, and weary and saddened as no bodily fatigue would have left him. His step was unusually heavy and lagging as he mounted the stairs, and his beautiful sapphire-hued eyes were dim with the grief that was too proud for weeping.

He flung his violin-case on a diminutive sofa with a violence that made the instrument within send out a faint weird wail.

After that he quietly lay down beside it, and, covering his face with both hands, gave way to the feelings that overwhelmed him. His mouth, so pensive in its sweetness, began to quiver at the corners, and a vivid red flush glowed on the portions of his forehead which his small hands could not conceal.

'She did not look towards menot once, not once!' he complained piteously, turning suddenly and throwing his arms over his beloved violin, as though that had some power to comfort him. 'Not once; and I know she is going away— going away to-to America!'

A sob choked the utterance of the last words, as the door opened softly and Nell came in, leading her father by the hand, or rather dragging him along with all her little might.

She scolded him too, whenever she could get breath for speech.

'How could you do it, you wicked, wicked old dear! How could you go and get yourself unsteady again! Don't you know that the neighbours see it, and talk

about it, and make fun? The next time I go out I'll lock you in, and put the key in my pocket: I will!'

'No, you won't, little one; no, you won't do any such thing, you pint of bitter, threatening your old father! I am ashamed of you, Nell! I'm hu-humil-iated-and dreadfully-dreadfully dis-couraged. Remember the Scriptures -the Bi-Bible, I mean. Honhon-our thy fa-a―ther and thy mo-'

'Don't say that, father; don't dare to mention her when your lips are hot with drink! I can't stand by and hear it,' cried the child, seizing the little dry hand which was waving to and fro with a motion feeble as his broken speech. 'Don't you go and mention her!

'Why-why not? She was an angel; a—a—'

'Hush, father! Stop this minute! What do you want to hurt me so for ?'

Weston listened to her with his head a little on one side, and, as she finished, seized' with a fit of maudlin tenderness, he threw out his arms, and, in trying to embrace her, half fell from his seat.

Nell shrank away from him in terror, and sat down at some distance in piteous distress.

'Oh, dear, oh, dear! What shall I do? what can I do?' she cried out, wringing her hands. 'He grows worse and worse, and I can't keep him in the house, all I can do. The neighbours will find it out. Oh, father dear, pleaseplease don't go to that public again!'

'Not go to the public! Who's been to the public?'

Here the little man gave way, his head drooped on his breast, his eyes closed, both hands fell heavily into his lap, and he became quite oblivious of the poor child and everything else.

Lennard rose up quietly from the dark corner where he had been lying, and, stealing up to Nell, put an arm round her neck. She started and looked round.

'Oh, it's only you, Lennard! I thought it might be some one else come to find it all out and pity us, you know!'

'Shall I help you to get him to his bed, Nell?'

'Yes, or some one may be coming in and seeing him.'

She shook her father, who opened his eyes with a stare, and made an effort to stand up.

'What-what is-is it? Fifire? No, no, it's only a dozen can-dles hopping about. Stop 'em, do stop 'em!'

'Come to bed, father; come along. You are not well, and it's getting very late,' said Lennard persuasively.

'Not well! Never bet-better in my life; but as it's you I'll go to bed, cer-certainly I wi— will.'

So Lennard, staggering under the weight of his father, led the old man away, and soon a deep breathing showed that he had sunk into a profound sleep. Then the boy returned to the sittingroom and sat down despondent enough, and the girl went and leaned over him, sighing wearily.

'What is the matter, Lennard? Something more than father, I can see.'

He lifted his great blue eyes to her, and answered with innocent frankness,

'She is going away, Nell.'

Evidently the two had no secrets from one another, for the girl did not ask who, but simply said, 'Going away-where?' 'To America.'

'How do you know?'

'This way. I followed her home from the theatre last night. I always do that, Nell, and I think

she knows it. Sometimes I slip a little bunch of flowers into her hand when she gets into the carriage. I waited to do so to-night, and I heard her father tell a gentleman at the door of the theatre that they were going to live out "west." That means America, I know. O Nell, the words made me feel faint; they came on me so suddenly. She turned and looked at me, then turned away again, without a smile on her face. I stole up to the carriage and pushed the flowers into her hand, and then I came home and felt as if my heart would break. What shall I do when she is gone?'

'Don't fret, Lennard; you have your music, you know,' Nell said, sadly at a loss for some means of consolation. Her bright practical nature could not in any way comprehend the passion and sensitive refinement of his. Besides, I will be so good to you.'

You are always good to me,' murmured the boy, with a great mist of tears in his large eyes.

Nell kissed his white forehead and smoothed his hair like a little old woman; and then the tears began to drop big and fast. Lennard no longer attempted to control them.

'No, no,' cried Nell, smitten with self-reproach: 'I am not always good to you. I didn't sew the buttons on your coat, and you had to fasten it anyhow with a crooked pin. But it sha'n't happen again. I was so tired that night, and he came home so- but never mind; you sha'n't trouble about buttons again, I promise you.'

Lennard hardly knew what his sister was saying, though he looked at her earnestly the while.

'O Nell, shall I never see her again?' he asked, in a low hopeless sort of voice, that cut to the girl's heart like a knife.

'Don't talk in that way, Nell; it makes me shiver all over.'

Nell made an impatient gesture. She was a little angry at her brother's queer romantic ways. To give vent to her ruffled feelings, she began to set back the chairs in their accustomed places, and to clatter the tea-things with unusual energy.

'Do you want to see her again very much, Lennard ?'

'Do I want to see her! Haven't I said so?'

'When are they going out to America ?'

'I don't know. They said nothing about the time, but talked of "reverses," and suchlike.'

'Reverses! That must mean that they have had misfortunelost their money, perhaps, poor things.'

The boy started into an upright position and clasped his hands together, while his eyes glowed brightly, like living sapphires.

I wish she was poor, I do!' he cried passionately.

'You do!' answered Nell, in a tone of rebuke. 'It's very wicked of you to say such a thing, then. You think you love her; and because you don't want her to be grander than you are, you would wish her to be poor and halfstarved, like we are sometimes. O brother Lennard, I am ashamed of you !'

I didn't mean that, Nell; indeed I didn't!' cried Lennard piteously. 'I don't mind how much

she is above me. I would kiss the

ground just where her foot trod over and over again, and think it very good of her to let me do it. And when I think I shall never see her face, my heart feels as if it was freezing into a big lump of ice, sister Nell.'

His voice broke into a half sob, and down went his head once more amongst the old tattered cushions.

'Don't fret, Lennard. It may be months and months before they go,' suggested Nell sensibly. 'You'll see her fifty times before that; you'll see her at the theatre tomorrow night, I daresay.'

He brightened out of his despondency at once.

'Do you think I may?'

'Think so! of course I do. Now go to bed and to sleep, and don't forget to say your prayers, that mother may hear them up there, in case she's listening.'

'I never forget to pray that I may reach her, Nell, and that you may go with me,' the boy murmured softly as he went towards the room where his father still lay in the torpor of drink.

'Couldn't you say a word for father too? You see he is not able to say his prayers always, though he would if he could,' Nell said apologetically. It wouldn't be kind for us both to leave him. behind with that hateful public so close by, poor old dear!'

Lennard paused, his bit of lighted candle in his hand.

'Nell,' he whispered, 'that man in the Bible who had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out, "What have we to do with Thee, Jesus?" must have been to the public. Don't you think so?'

'Yes,' answered the girl gravely and feelingly, dropping her voice, with her blue eyes as solemn as an owl's, 'I think he must have. We haven't heard about it; but I daresay learned people like Mrs. Keane know that the devil brewed the

What

'Father's own Cremona. are you going to do with that ?'

The boy went close up to her, and whispered, as though there were listeners hard by,

'Nell dear, don't make a fuss. I have done it before, and she looked out of the window. It doesn't make her angry.'

'Done !-done what, Lennard ?' 'Why, played the Cremona under her window. I have found a way through a garden next door into hers a little place full of lovely pinks, roses, and white jasmine stars, and great round wreaths of honeysuckle. Her room is on the second floor; but she can hear me ; and if she was angry at my doing it she would let me know, so that I might not go again.'

'And you are going there tonight?'

'Yes; now that your words last night made me feel happier. Perhaps she may speak to me, Nell.'

'Perhaps she will. I know that I would. If any little boy was to bring a penny whistle and play it under my window, when he might be comfortable and asleep in his bed, I would take a piece of cake, if I had it, and drop it to him,

sure.'

'Kiss me, Nell. I won't be gone very long, though it's a long walk.'

He went down-stairs with a light step, carrying the violin under his arm; and after trudging, as briskly as he was able, down a road that led into a suburb of the town, he entered a little garden of flowers, that gave out their odours on the night air, and made inspiration a

pleasure. The honeysuckle wreaths rained a shower of fragrant dew over him as he brushed by them, and presently a faint sweet strain of music stole upwards from out of that shelter of blossoms.

A young girl lay sleeping quietly in a little room overhead. The moonbeams crept in through the folds of white lace that veiled the window, silvering them with a delicate transparency, and etherealising the lovely face they fell upon. One soft cheek rested on her hand, just as Murillo puts his cherubs to sleep among the clouds. Masses of pale-gold hair fell in waves on the pillow. An arm, not yet fully rounded to its promise of beauty, lay in relief on the coverlet, looking still and white as marble, with the loose sleeve falling right away from the shoulder, plump as an infant's.

The girl stirred in her slumber, and a sweet smile stole over her half-parted lips. The music was sighing through her young heart even in sleep. Louder and sweeter the strains floated up to her room, and with them a soft west wind, that stirred the curtains gently. Then the girl began to move amid the whiteness of her couch; both hands were lifted to her face, and fell away again, leaving the sweet blue eyes wide open and full of pleasant wonder. She raised herself on her elbow, and, with the moonlight turning her face and neck into alabaster, listened intently.

'How lovely it is! Oh, if papa were here to listen! I wonder if the music will awake him? It seems wicked to enjoy it by myself.' And Ethel Seymour started up, flung on a wrapper, and, with her pretty feet gleaming on the rich colours of the carpet, she crept down the stairs.

'Papa, mamma! wake up and listen she said, peeping into a darkened chamber. That boy

from the theatre is hidden away among the honeysuckle again, and is playing like an angel.'

Ethel ran up to her own room, and, leaning out of the window, gave herself up to the music, which was a passion with her.

Lennard saw her from his fragrant covert, with the bright moonlight glorifying her young face and the masses of fair hair that swept over her shoulders. A love for the beautiful was as strong and earnest in the boy's heart as his thirst for music; and with it was mingled now the sweet but keen agony of wild first love, such as no man ever feels.

When he saw Ethel leaning above him, a thrill-a thousand times more subtle and exquisite than his own music-ran through his frame, and gave a tremor to his fingers that made the notes beneath them shiver, then gradually die away, faintly but sweetly.

Ethel bent forward and listened breathlessly for a minute. Has he gone? She felt quite sorry that the treat was over.

'Lennard!'

She had never spoken his name before; but she had heard the leader of the orchestra call it, and she remembered it well.

'Lennard!' How deliciously the word dropped from her lips! The boy could see them move in the moonlight like glowing rosebuds cleaving together.

She saw he was there by the shadow against a laurel-bush, and called out again,

'Lennard! Lennard!'

He came out from his hidingplace, and raised his face to look upon her.

'You are not angry with me?' he faltered, with a beating heart.

'Angry! oh, no! It was like waking up in heaven. I never heard that air before.'

'I know another one. It came VOL. XXI.

to me directly I saw you up there. Please don't move; don't look away!'

The violin was lifted lovingly to his shoulder, and once more the melody that sprang out of his genius, clear and perfect as the fall of crystal water on marble, appeared to the girl as though it made the flowers vibrate and drop their dew-laden heads in the moonlight. Ethel never moved. She heard her father's window open, and called out,

'Papa, isn't it lovely?'

Lennard grew frightened and ashamed, and, with his face burning with shame, he stole quietly out of his covert. But a kind voice called out,

'Let us have more of your music; don't go away yet.'

He moved back to his original place and played again; but the zeal and glory of the hour were gone. He dared not glance up at Ethel's window as he had done before, and a discord now and then broke into the harmony which had been so perfect before.

Ethel felt no such restraint; and, reaching out her hand, she plucked a few sprigs of jasmine that clung round her window, and dropped them at the boy's feet. The starry flowers lay white and gleaming in the moonlight for a second; then the music stopped suddenly. Lennard stooped, seized on his treasure, and, lifting his glowing face upward, darted towards the fence and disappeared.

Once out of sight of the house, the boy fell on his knees, pressing the scented blossoms to his lips over and over again, as if they had been living loving things that could give back his caresses. He heard the windows of the house that contained his heart close; and, struck all at once by the stillness around, he went home, holding his jasmine to his breast all the while.

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