A TRUE FRIEND.

A NOVEL.

BY ADELINE SERGEANT

Author of "The Luck of the House," "A Life Sentence," etc., etc.

MONTREAL
CHAPTER I.

AN UNSUITABLE FRIENDSHIP.

Janetta was the music governess—a brown little thing of no particularimportance, and Margaret
Adair was a beauty and an heiress, and theonly daughter of people who thought themselves very
distinguished indeed; so that the two had not, you might think, very much in common, and were
not likely to be attracted one to the other. Yet, inspite of differing circumstances, they were close
friends and allies; and had been such ever since they were together at the same fashionable school
where Miss Adair was the petted favorite of all, and Janetta Colwyn was the pupil-teacher in the
shabbiest of frocks, who got all the snubbing and did most of the hard work. And great offence
was given in several directions by Miss Adair's attachment topoor little Janetta.

"It is an unsuitable friendship," Miss Polehampton, the principal of the school, observed on more
than one occasion, "and I am sure I donot know how Lady Caroline will like it."

Lady Caroline was, of course, Margaret Adair's mamma.

Miss Polehampton felt her responsibility so keenly in the matter that at last she resolved to speak
"very seriously" to her dear Margaret. She always talked of "her dear Margaret," Janetta used to
say, when she was going to make herself particularly disagreeable. For "her dearMargaret" was the
pet pupil, the show pupil of the establishment: her
air of perfect breeding gave distinction, Miss Polehampton thought, to the whole school; and her
refinement, her exemplary behavior, herindustry, and her talent formed the theme of many a lecture
to less accomplished and less decorous pupils. For, contrary to all conventional expectations,
Margaret Adair was not stupid, although she was beautiful and well-behaved. She was an
exceedingly intelligent girl; she had an aptitude for several arts and accomplishments, and she was
remarkable for the delicacy of her taste and the exquisite discrimination of which she sometimes
showedherself capable. At the same time she was not as clever—("notas glaringly clever,"
a friend of hers once expressed it)—as little Janetta Colwyn, whose nimble wits gathered
knowledge as a bee collects honey under the most unfavorable circumstances. Janetta hadto learn
her lessons when the other girls had gone to bed, in a little room under the roof; a room which was
like an ice-house in winter and an oven in summer; she was never able to be in time for her classes,
and she often missed them altogether; but, in spite of these disadvantages, she generally proved
herself the most advanced pupil in her division, and if pupil-teachers had been allowed to take
prizes,would have carried off every first prize in the school. This, to be sure,was not allowed. It
would not have been "the thing" for the little governess-pupil to take away the prizes from the girls
whose parentspaid between two and three hundred a year for their tuition (the fees were high,
because Miss Polehampton's school was so exceedingly fashionable); therefore, Janetta's marks
were not counted, and her exercises were put aside and did not come into competition with thoseof
the other girls, and it was generally understood amongst theteachers that, if you wished to stand
well with Miss Polehampton, it
would be better not to praise Miss Colwyn, but rather to put forwardthe merits of some charming
Lady Mary or Honorable Adeliza, and leave Janetta in the obscurity from which (according to
Miss Polehampton) she was fated never to emerge.

Unfortunately for the purposes of the mistress of the school, Janetta was rather a favorite with the
girls. She was not adored, like Margaret; she was not looked up to and respected, as was the
Honorable Edith Gore; she was nobody's pet, as the little Ladies Blanche and Rose Amberley had
been ever since they set foot in the school; but she waseverybody's friend and comrade, the recipient
of everybody's confidences, the sharer in everybody's joys or woes. The fact was thatJanetta had the
inestimable gift of sympathy; she understood the difficulties of people around her better than many
women of twice her age would have done; and she was so bright and sunny-temperedand quick-
witted that her very presence in a room was enough to dispel gloom and ill-temper. She was,
therefore, deservedly popular,and did more to keep up the character of Miss Polehampton's school
for comfort and cheerfulness than Miss Polehampton herself was everlikely to be aware. And the girl
most devoted to Janetta was Margaret Adair.

"Remain for a few moments, Margaret; I wish to speak to you," said Miss Polehampton,
majestically, when one evening, directly after prayers, the show pupil advanced to bid her teachers
good-night.

The girls all sat round the room on wooden chairs, and Miss Polehampton occupied a high-backed,
cushioned seat at a centre tablewhile she read the portion of Scripture with which the day's work
concluded. Near her sat the governesses, English, French and
German, with little Janetta bringing up the rear in the draughtiest place and the most uncomfortable
chair. After prayers, Miss Polehampton and the teachers rose, and their pupils came to bid them
good-night, offering hand and cheek to each in turn. There was always a great deal of kissing to
be got through on these occasions. Miss Polehampton blandly insisted on kissing all her thirty
pupils every evening; it made them feel more as if they were at home, she used to say; and her
example was, of course, followed by the teachersand the girls.

Margaret Adair, as one of the oldest and tallest girls in the school, generally came forward first for
that evening salute. When Miss Polehampton made the observation just recorded, she stepped back
toa position beside her teacher's chair in the demure attitude of a well- behaved schoolgirl—hands
crossed over the wrists, feet in position, head and shoulders carefully erect, and eyes gently
lowered towards the carpet. Thus standing, she was yet perfectly well aware that Janetta Colwyn
gave her an odd, impish little look of mingled fun andanxiety behind Miss Polehampton's back; for
it was generally knownthat a lecture was impending when one of the girls was detained afterprayers,
and it was very unusual for Margaret to be lectured! Miss Adair did not, however, look
discomposed. A momentary smile flitted across her face at Janetta's tiny grimace, but it was
instantly succeeded by the look of simple gravity becoming to the occasion.

When the last of the pupils and the last also of the teachers had filed out of the room, Miss
Polehampton turned and surveyed the waiting girl with some uncertainty. She was really fond of
Margaret Adair. Not only did she bring credit to the school, but she was a good, nice, lady-like girl
(such were Miss Polehampton's epithets), and very fair
to look upon. Margaret was tall, slender, and exceedingly graceful in her movements; she was
delicately fair, and had hair of the silkiest texture and palest gold; her eyes, however, were not
blue, as one would have expected them to be; they were hazel brown, and veiled by long brown
lashes—eyes of melting softness and dreaminess, peculiarly sweet in expression. Her features were
a very little too longand thin for perfect beauty; but they gave her a Madonna-like look ofpeace and
calm which many were ready enthusiastically to admire. And there was no want of expression in
her face; its faint rose bloomvaried almost at a word, and the thin curved lips were as sensitive to
feeling as could be desired. What was wanting in the face was what gave it its peculiar maidenly
charm—a lack of passion, a little lack, perhaps, of strength. But at seventeen we look less for these
characteristics than for the sweetness and docility which Margaret certainly possessed. Her dress
of soft, white muslin was quite simple—the ideal dress for a young girl—and yet it was so beautifully
made, so perfectly finished in every detail, that Miss Polehampton never looked at it without an
uneasy feeling that she was too well- dressed for a schoolgirl. Others wore muslin dresses of
apparently the same cut and texture; but what the casual eye might fail to observe, the
schoolmistress was perfectly well aware of, namely, that the tinyfrills at neck and wrists were of
the costliest Mechlin lace, that the hem of the dress was bordered with the same material, as if it
had been the commonest of things; that the embroidered white ribbons with which it was trimmed
had been woven in France especially for Miss Adair, and that the little silver buckles at her waist
and on her shoes were so ancient and beautiful as to be of almost historicimportance. The effect
was that of simplicity; but it was the costly
simplicity of absolute perfection. Margaret's mother was never content unless her child was clothed
from head to foot in materials ofthe softest, finest and best. It was a sort of outward symbol of what
she desired for the girl in all relations of life.

This it was that disturbed Miss Polehampton's mind as she stood and looked uneasily for a moment
at Margaret Adair. Then she took the girl by the hand.

"Sit down, my dear," she said, in a kind voice, "and let me talk to youfor a few moments. I hope
you are not tired with standing so long."

"Oh, no, thank you; not at all," Margaret answered, blushing slightly as she took a seat at Miss
Polehampton's left hand. She was more intimidated by this unwonted kindness of address than by
any imaginable severity. The schoolmistress was tall and imposing in appearance: her manner was
usually a little pompous, and it did not seem quite natural to Margaret that she should speak so
gently.

"My dear," said Miss Polehampton, "when your dear mamma gave you into my charge, I am sure
she considered me responsible for the influences under which you were brought, and the friendships
that you made under my roof."

"Mamma knew that I could not be hurt by any friendship that I made here," said Margaret, with
the softest flattery. She was quite sincere: it was natural to her to say "pretty things" to people.

"Quite so," the schoolmistress admitted. "Quite so, dear Margaret, if you keep within your own
grade in society. There is no pupil in this establishment, I am thankful to say, who is not of suitable
family andprospects to become your friend. You are young yet, and do not
understand the complications in which people sometimes involve themselves by making
friendships out of their own sphere.But I understand, and I wish to caution you."

"I am not aware that I have made any unsuitable friendships," said Margaret, with a rather proud
look in her hazel eyes.

"Well—no, I hope not," said Miss Polehampton with a hesitating littlecough. "You understand, my
dear, that in an establishment like mine,persons must be employed to do certain work who are not
quite equalin position to—to—ourselves. Persons of inferior birth and station, Imean, to whom the
care of the younger girls, and certain menial duties, must be committed. These persons, my dear,
with whom you must necessarily be brought in contact, and whom I hope you will always treat
with perfect courtesy and consideration, need not, at the same time, be made your intimate friends."

"I have never made friends with any of the servants," said Margaret, quietly. Miss Polehampton
was somewhat irritated by this remark.

"I do not allude to the servants," she said with momentary sharpness."I do not consider Miss
Colwyn a servant, or I should not, of course, allow her to sit at the same table with you. But there
is a sort of familiarity of which I do not altogether approve——"

She paused, and Margaret drew up her head and spoke with unusual decision.

"Miss Colwyn is my greatest friend."

"Yes, my dear, that is what I complain of. Could you not find a friendin your own rank of life
without making one of Miss Colwyn?"
"She is quite as good as I am," cried Margaret, indignantly. "Quite asgood, far more so, and a great
deal cleverer!"

"She has capabilities," said the schoolmistress, with the air of one making a concession; "and I hope
that they will be useful to her in her calling. She will probably become a nursery governess, or
companionto some lady of superior position. But I cannot believe, my dear that dear Lady Caroline
would approve of your singling her out as your especial and particular friend."

"I am sure mamma always likes people who are good and clever," said Margaret. She did not fly
into a rage as some girls would have done, but her face flushed, and her breath came more quickly
than usual—signs of great excitement on her part, which Miss Polehampton was not slow to
observe.

"She likes them in their proper station, my dear. This friendship is notimproving for you, nor for
Miss Colwyn. Your positions in life are sodifferent that your notice of her can but cause discontent
and ill- feeling in her mind. It is exceedingly injudicious, and I cannot think that your dear mamma
would approve of it if she knew the circumstances."

"But Janetta's family is not at all badly connected," said Margaret, with some eagerness. "There
are cousins of hers living close to us— the next property belongs to them——"

"Do you know them, my dear?"

"I know about them," answered Margaret, suddenly coloring very deeply, and looking
uncomfortable, "but I don't think I have ever seenthem, they are so much away from home——"
"I know about them, too," said Miss Polehampton, grimly; "and I donot think that you will ever
advance Miss Colwyn's interests by mentioning her connection with that family. I have heard Lady
Caroline speak of Mrs. Brand and her children. They are not people, my dear Margaret, whom it is
desirable for you to know."

"But Janetta's own people live quite near us," said Margaret, reduced to a very pleading tone. "I
know them at home; they live at Beaminster—not three miles off."

"And may I ask if Lady Caroline visits them, my dear?" asked Miss Polehampton, with mild
sarcasm, which brought the color again to Margaret's fair face. The girl could not answer; she knew
well enoughthat Janetta's stepmother was not at all the sort of person whom LadyCaroline Adair
would willingly speak to, and yet she did not like to say that her acquaintance with Janetta had
only been made at a Beaminster dancing class. Probably Miss Polehampton divined the fact.
"Under the circumstances," she said, "I think I should be justifiedin writing to Lady Caroline and
asking her to remonstrate a little withyou, my dear Margaret. Probably she would be better able to
make you understand the impropriety of your behavior than I can do."

The tears rose to Margaret's eyes. She was not used to being rebukedin this manner.

"But—I don't know, Miss Polehampton, what you want me to do," she said, more nervously than
usual. "I can't give up Janetta; I can't possibly avoid speaking to her, you know, even if I wanted
to——"

"I desire nothing of the sort, Margaret. Be kind and polite to her, as usual. But let me suggest that
you do not make a companion of her in
the garden so constantly—that you do not try to sit beside her in classor look over the same book. I
will speak to Miss Colwyn herself aboutit. I think I can make her understand."

"Oh, please do not speak to Janetta! I quite understand already," said Margaret, growing pale with
distress. "You do not know how kind and good she has always been to me——"

Sobs choked her utterance, rather to Miss Polehampton's alarm. She did not like to see her girls
cry—least of all, Margaret Adair.

"My dear, you have no need to excite yourself. Janetta Colwyn has always been treated, I hope,
with justice and kindness in this house. If you will endeavor only to make her position in life less
instead of more difficult, you will be doing her the greatest favor in your power.I do not at all mean
that I wish you to be unkind to her. A little more reserve, a little more caution, in your demeanor,
and you will be all that I have ever wished you to be—a credit to your parents and to theschool
which has educated you!"

This sentiment was so effusive that it stopped Margaret's tears out of sheer amazement; and when
she had said good-night and gone to bed,Miss Polehampton stood for a moment or two quite still,
as if to recover from the unwonted exertion of expressing an affectionate emotion. It was perhaps
a reaction against it that caused her almost immediately to ring the bell a trifle sharply, and to
say—still sharply—to the maid who appeared in answer.

"Send Miss Colwyn to me."

Five minutes elapsed before Miss Colwyn came, however, and the schoolmistress had had time to
grow impatient.
"Why did you not come at once when I sent for you?" she said, severely, as soon as Janetta
presented herself.

"I was going to bed," said the girl, quickly; "and I had to dress myselfagain."

The short, decided accents grated on Miss Polehampton's ear. Miss Colwyn did not speak half so
"nicely," she said to herself, as did dearMargaret Adair.

"I have been talking to Miss Adair about you," said the schoolmistress, coldly. "I have been telling
her, as I now tell you, that the difference in your positions makes your present intimacy very
undesirable. I wish you to understand, henceforward, that Miss Adairis not to walk with you in the
garden, not to sit beside you in class, not to associate with you, as she has hitherto done, on equal
terms."

"Why should we not associate on equal terms?" said Janetta. She wasa black-browed girl, with a
clear olive skin, and her eyes flashed and her cheeks glowed with indignation as she spoke.

"You are not equals," said Miss Polehampton, with icy displeasure inher tone—she had spoken very
differently to Margaret. "You have towork for your bread: there is no disgrace in that, but it puts
you on a different level from that of Miss Margaret Adair, an earl's grand- daughter, and the only
child of one of the richest commoners in England. I have never before reminded you of the
difference in position between yourself and the young ladies with whom you have hitherto been
allowed to associate; and I really think I shall have to adopt another method—unless you conduct
yourself, Miss Colwyn, with a little more modesty and propriety."
"May I ask what your other method would be?" asked Miss Colwyn, with perfect self-possession.

Miss Polehampton looked at her for a moment in silence.

"To begin with," she said, "I could order the meals differently, and request you to take yours with
the younger children, and in other wayscut you off from the society of the young ladies. And if this
failed, I could signify to your father that our arrangement was not satisfactory,and that it had better
end at the close of this term."

Janetta's eyes fell and her color faded as she heard this threat. It meant a good deal to her. She
answered quickly, but with some nervousnessof tone.

"Of course, that must be as you please, Miss Polehampton. If I do notsatisfy you, I must go."

"You satisfy me very well except in that one respect. However, I do not ask for any promise from
you now. I shall observe your conduct during the next few days, and be guided by what I see. I
have alreadyspoken to Miss Adair."

Janetta bit her lips. After a pause, she said—"Is that all? May I
go now?"
"You may go," said Miss Polehampton, with majesty; and Janetta softly and slowly retired.

But as soon as she was outside the door her demeanor changed. She burst into tears as she sped
swiftly up the broad staircase, and her eyeswere so blinded that she did not even see a white figure
hovering on the landing until she found herself suddenly in Margaret's arms. In
defiance of all rules—disobedient for nearly the first time in her life— Margaret had waited and
watched for Janetta's coming; and now, clasped as closely together as sisters, the two friends held a
whisperedcolloquy on the stairs.

"Darling," said Margaret, "was she very unkind?"

"She was very horrid, but I suppose she couldn't help it," said Janetta,with a little laugh mixing itself
with her sobs. "We mustn't be friendsany more, Margaret."

"But we will be friends—always, Janetta."

"We must not sit together or walk together——"

"Janetta, I shall behave to you exactly as I have always done." The gentle Margaret was in revolt.

"She will write to your mother, Margaret, and to my father."

"I shall write to mine, too, and explain," said Margaret with dignity. And Janetta had not the heart
to whisper to her friend that the tone inwhich Miss Polehampton would write to Lady Caroline
would differvery widely from the one that she would adopt to Mr. Colwyn.
CHAPTER II.

LADY CAROLINE'S TACTICS.

Helmsley Court was generally considered one of the prettiest houses about Beaminster; a place
which was rich in pretty houses, being a Cathedral town situated in one of the most beautiful
southern countiesof England. The village of Helmsley was a picturesque little group ofblack and
white cottages, with gardens full of old-fashioned flowers before them and meadows and woods
behind. Helmsley Court was on slightly higher ground than the village, and its windows
commandedan extensive view of lovely country bounded in the distance by a longlow range of blue
hills, beyond which, in clear days, it was said, keeneyes could catch a glimpse of the shining sea.
The house itself was a very fine old building, with a long terrace stretching before its lower
windows, and flower gardens which were the admiration of half the county. It had a picture gallery
and a magnificent hall with polished floor and stained windows, and all the accessories of an
antique and celebrated mansion; and it had also all the comfort and luxury that modern civilization
could procure.

It was this latter characteristic that made "the Court," as it was commonly called, so popular.
Picturesque old houses are sometimes draughty and inconvenient, but no such defects were ever
allowed toexist at the Court. Every thing went smoothly: the servants were perfectly trained: the
latest improvements possible were always
introduced: the house was ideally luxurious. There never seemed to be any jar or discord: no
domestic worry was ever allowed to reach the ears of the mistress of the household, no cares or
troubles seemedable to exist in that serene atmosphere. You could not even say of it that it was
dull. For the master of the Court was a hospitable man, with many tastes and whims which he liked
to indulge by having down from London the numerous friends whose fancies matched his own, and
his wife was a little bit of a fine lady who had London friends too, as well as neighbors, whom she
liked to entertain. The house was seldom free from visitors; and it was partly for that very reason
that Lady Caroline Adair, being in her own way a wise woman,had arranged that two or three years
of her daughter's life should be spent at Miss Polehampton's very select boarding-school at
Brighton.It would be a great drawback to Margaret, she reflected, if her beautywere familiar to all
the world before she came out; and really, when Mr. Adair would insist on inviting his friends
constantly to the house,it was impossible to keep the girl so mewed up in the schoolroom thatshe
would not be seen and talked of; and therefore it was better that she should go away for a time. Mr.
Adair did not like the arrangement; he was very fond of Margaret, and objected to her leaving home;
butLady Caroline was gently inexorable and got her own way—as she generally did.

She does not look much like the mother of the tall girl whom we sawat Brighton, as she sits at the
head of her breakfast-table in the daintiest of morning gowns—a marvelous combination of silk,
muslin and lace and pale pink ribbons—with a tiny white dog reposing in her lap. She is a much
smaller woman than Margaret, anddarker in complexion: it is from her, however, that Margaret
inherits
the large, appealing hazel eyes, which look at you with an infinite sweetness, while their owner is
perhaps thinking of the menu or her milliner's bill. Lady Caroline's face is thin and pointed, but
hercomplexion is still clear, and her soft brown hair is very prettily arranged. As she sits with her
back to the light, with a rose-colored curtain behind her, just tinting her delicate cheek (for Lady
Caroline is always careful of appearance), she looks quite a young woman still.

It is Mr. Adair whom Margaret most resembles. He is a tall and exceedingly handsome man, whose
hair and moustache and pointed beard were as golden once as Margaret's soft tresses, but are now
toned down by a little grey. He has the alert blue eyes that generally go with his fair complexion,
and his long limbs are never still for many minutes together. His daughter's tranquillity seems to
have come from her mother; certainly it cannot be inherited from the restless Reginald Adair.

The third person present at the breakfast-table—and, for the time being, the only visitor in the
house—is a young man of seven or eight-and-twenty, tall, dark, and very spare, with a coal-black
beard trimmed to a point, earnest dark eyes, and a remarkably pleasant andintelligent expression.
He is not exactly handsome, but he has a face that attracts one; it is the face of a man who has quick
perceptions, great kindliness of heart, and a refined and cultured mind. Nobody is more popular in
that county than young Sir Philip Ashley, although his neighbors grumble sometimes at his
absorption in scientific and philanthropic objects, and think that it would be more creditable to
them if he went out with the hounds a little oftener or were a rather better shot. For, being
shortsighted, he was never particularly fond either of sport or of games of skill, and his interest had
always centred
on intellectual pursuits to a degree that amazed the more countrified squires of the neighborhood.

The post-bag was brought in while breakfast was proceeding, and two or three letters were laid
before Lady Caroline, who, with a careless word of apology, opened and read them in turn. She
smiled as she putthem down and looked at her husband.

"This is a novel experience," she said. "For the first time in our lives,Reginald, here is a formal
complaint of our Margaret."

Sir Philip looked up somewhat eagerly, and Mr. Adair elevated his eyebrows, stirred his coffee,
and laughed aloud.

"Wonders will never cease," he said. "It is rather refreshing to hear that our immaculate Margaret
has done something naughty. What is it, Caroline? Is she habitually late for breakfast? A touch of
unpunctuality is the only fault I ever heard of, and that, I believe, sheinherits from me."

"I should be sorry to think that she was immaculate," said Lady Caroline, calmly, "it has such an
uncomfortable sound. But Margaret is generally, I must say, a very tractable child."

"Do you mean that her schoolmistress does not find her tractable?" said Mr. Adair, with
amusement. "What has she been doing?"

"Nothing very bad. Making friends with a governess-pupil, or something of, that sort——"
"Just what a generous-hearted girl would be likely to do!" exclaimedSir Philip, with a sudden warm
lighting of his dark eyes.
Lady Caroline smiled at him. "The schoolmistress thinks this girl an unsuitable friend for Margaret,
and wants me to interfere," she said.

"Pray do nothing of the sort," said Mr. Adair. "I would trust my Pearl'sinstinct anywhere. She would
never make an unsuitable friend!"

"Margaret has written to me herself," said Lady Caroline. "She seemsunusually excited about the
matter. 'Dear mother,' she writes, 'pray interpose to prevent Miss Polehampton from doing an
unjust and ungenerous thing. She disapproves of my friendship with dear JanettaColwyn, simply
because Janetta is poor; and she threatens to punish Janetta—not me—by sending her home in
disgrace. Janetta is a governess-pupil here, and it would be a great trouble to her if she weresent away.
I hope that you would rather take me away than let such an injustice be done.'"

"My Pearl hits the nail on the head exactly," said Mr. Adair, with complacency. He rose as he spoke,
and began to walk about the room."She is quite old enough to come home, Caroline. It is June now,
andthe term ends in July. Fetch her home, and invite the little governess too, and you will soon see
whether or no she is the right sort of friendfor Margaret." He laughed in his mellow, genial way,
and leaned against the mantel-piece, stroking his yellow moustache and glancingat his wife.

"I am not sure that that would be advisable," said Lady Caroline, withher pretty smile. "Janetta
Colwyn: Colwyn? Did not Margaret know her before she went to school? Are there not
some Colwyns atBeaminster? The doctor—yes, I remember him; don't you, Reginald?"
Mr. Adair shook his head, but Sir Philip looked up hastily.

"I know him—a struggling man with a large family. His first wife was rather well-connected, I
believe: at any rate she was related to the Brands of Brand Hall. He married a second time after
her death."

"Do you call that being well-connected, Philip?" said Lady Caroline, with gentle reproach; while
Mr. Adair laughed and whistled, but caught himself up immediately and apologized.

"I beg pardon—I forgot where I was: the less any of us have to do with the Brands of Brand Hall
the better, Phil."

"I know nothing of them," said Sir Philip, rather gravely.

"Nor anybody else"—hastily—"they never live at home, you know. So this girl is a connection of
theirs?"

"Perhaps not a very suitable friend: Miss Polehampton may be right,"said Lady Caroline. "I suppose
I must go over to Brighton and see Margaret."

"Bring her back with you," said Mr. Adair, recklessly. "She has had quite enough of school by this
time: she is nearly eighteen, isn't she?"

But Lady Caroline smilingly refused to decide anything until she had herself interviewed Miss
Polehampton. She asked her husband to order the carriage for her at once, and retired to summon
her maid andarray herself for the journey.

"You won't go to-day, will you, Philip?" said Mr. Adair, almost appealingly. "I shall be all alone,
and my wife will not perhaps returnuntil to-morrow—there's no saying."
"Thank you, I shall be most pleased to stay," answered Sir Philip, cordially. After a moment's pause,
he added, with something very likea touch of shyness—"I have not seen—your daughter since she
was twelve years old."

"Haven't you?" said Mr. Adair, with ready interest. "You don't say so!Pretty little girl she was then!
Didn't you think so?"

"I thought her the loveliest child I had ever seen in all my life," said Sir Philip, with curious
devoutness of manner.

He saw Lady Caroline just as she was starting for the train, with manand maid in attendance, and
Mr. Adair handing her into the carriage and gallantly offering to accompany her if she liked. "Not
at all necessary," said Lady Caroline, with an indulgent smile. "I shall be home to dinner. Take
care of my husband, Philip, and don't let him be dull."

"If they are making Margaret unhappy, be sure you bring her back with you," were Mr. Adair's
last words. Lady Caroline gave him a kind but inscrutable little smile and nod as she was whirled
away. SirPhilip thought to himself that she looked like a woman who would take her own course
in spite of advice or recommendation from her husband or anybody else.

He smiled once or twice as the day passed on at her parting injunctionto him not to let her husband
be dull. He had known the Adairs for many years, and had never known Reginald Adair dull under
any circumstances. He was too full of interests, of "fads," some people called them, ever to be dull.
He took Sir Philip round the picture- gallery, round the stables, to the kennels, to the flower-garden,
to his
own studio (where he painted in oils when he had nothing else to do)with never-flagging energy
and animation. Sir Philip's interests lay in different grooves, but he was quite capable of
sympathizing with Mr.Adair's interests, too. The day passed pleasantly, and seemed rather short
for all that the two men wanted to pack into it; although from time to time Mr. Adair would say,
half-impatiently, "I wonder how Caroline is getting on!" or "I hope she'll bring Margaret back with
her! But I don't expect it, you know. Carry was always a great one foreducation and that sort of
thing."

"Is Miss Adair intellectual—too?" asked Sir Philip, with respect.

Mr. Adair broke into a sudden laugh. "Intellectual? Our Daisy?—ourPearl?" he said. "Wait until
you see her, then ask the question if you like."

"I am afraid I don't quite understand."

"Of course you don't. It is the partiality of a fond father that speaks, my dear fellow. I only meant
that these young, fresh, pretty girls put such questions out of one's head."

"She must be very pretty then," said Sir Philip, with a smile.

He had seen a great many beautiful women, and told himself that he did not care for beauty.
Fashionable, talkative women were hisabomination. He had no sisters, but he loved his mother
very dearly; and upon her he had founded a very high ideal of womanhood. He had begun to think
vaguely, of late, that he ought to marry: duty demanded it of him, and Sir Philip was always
attentive, if not obedient, to the voice of duty. But he was not inclined to marry a girlout of the
schoolroom, or a girl who was accustomed to the enervating
luxury (as he considered it) of Helmsley Court: he wanted an energetic, sensible, large-hearted,
and large-minded woman whowould be his right hand, his first minister of state. Sir Philip was fairly
wealthy, but by no means enormously so; and he had other uses for his wealth than the buying of
pictures and keeping up stables and kennels at an alarming expense. If Miss Adair were so pretty,
he mused, it was just as well that she was not at home, for, of course, it was possible that he might
find a lovely face an attraction: and much as he liked Lady Caroline, he did not want particularly to
marry LadyCaroline's daughter. That she treated him with great consideration, and that he had
once overheard her speak of him as "the mosteligible parti of the neighborhood," had already
put him a little on hisguard. Lady Caroline was no vulgar, match-making mother, he knewthat well
enough; but she was in some respects a thoroughly worldly woman, and Philip Ashley was an
essentially unworldly man.

As he went upstairs to dress for dinner that evening, he was struck bythe fact that a door stood open
that he had never seen opened before:a door into a pretty, well-lighted, pink and white room, the
ideal apartment for a young girl. The evening was chilly, and rain had begun to fall, so a bright
little fire was burning in the steel grate, and casting a cheerful glow over white sheepskin rugs and
rose-colored curtains. A maid seemed to be busying herself with some white material—all gauze
and lace it looked—and another servant was, as Sir Philip passed, entering with a great white vase
filled with red roses.

"Do they expect visitors to-night?" thought the young man, who knewenough of the house to be
aware that the room was not one in general
use. "Adair said nothing about it, but perhaps some people are comingfrom town."

A budget of letters was brought to him at that moment, and in readingand answering them he did
not note the sound of carriage-wheels on the drive, nor the bustle of an arrival in the house. Indeed,
he left himself so little time that he had to dress in extraordinary haste, and went downstairs at last
in the conviction that he was unpardonably late.

But apparently he was wrong.

For the drawing-room was tenanted by one figure only—that of a young lady in evening dress.
Neither Lady Caroline nor Mr. Adair had appeared upon the scene; but on the hearthrug, by the
small crackling fire—which, in deference to the chilliness of an English June evening, had been
lighted—stood a tall, fair, slender girl, with pale complexion, and soft, loosely-coiled masses of
golden hair. Shewas dressed in pure white, a soft loose gown of Indian silk, trimmed with the most
delicate lace: it was high to the milk-white throat, but showed the rounded curves of the finely-
moulded arm to the elbow. She wore no ornaments, but a white rose was fastened into the lace frill
of her dress at her neck. As she turned her face towards the new comer, Sir Philip suddenly felt
himself abashed. It was not that she was so beautiful—in those first few moments he scarcely
thought herbeautiful at all—but that she produced on him an impression of serious, virginal grace
and innocence which was almostdisconcerting. Her pure complexion, her grave, serene eyes, her
graceful way of moving as she advanced a little to receive him stirred him to more than
admiration—to something not unlike awe. She
looked young; but it was youth in perfection: there was some marvelous finish, delicacy, polish,
which one does not usually associate with extreme youth.

"You are Sir Philip Ashley, I think?" she said, offering him her slim cool hand without
embarrassment.

"You do not remember me, perhaps, but I remember you perfectly well, I am Margaret Adair."
CHAPTER III.

AT HELMSLEY COURT.

"Lady Caroline has brought you back, then?" said Sir Philip, after hisfirst pause of astonishment.

"Yes," said Margaret, serenely. "I have been expelled.""Expelled! You?"

"Yes, indeed, I have," said the girl, with a faintly amused little smile."And so has my great friend,
Janetta Colwyn. Here she is: Janetta, I am telling Sir Philip Ashley that we have been expelled,
and he will not believe me."

Sir Philip turned in some curiosity to see the girl of whom he had heard for the first time that
morning. He had not noticed before that she was present. He saw a brown little creature, with eyes
that had been swollen with crying until they were well-nigh invisible, small, unremarkable
features, and a mouth that was inclined to quiver. Margaret might afford to be serene, but to this
girl expulsion from school had evidently been a sad trouble. He threw all the more kindness and
gentleness into his voice and look as he spoke to her.

Janetta might have felt a little awkward if she had not been so entirelyabsorbed by her own woes.
She had never set foot before in half so grand a house as this of Helmsley Court, nor had she ever
dined late or spoken to a gentleman in an evening coat in all her previous life. The size and the
magnificence of the room would perhaps have
oppressed her if she had been fully aware of them. But she was for the moment very much wrapped
up in her own affairs, and scarcely stopped to think of the novel situation in which she found herself.
Theonly thing that had startled her was the attention paid to her dress by Margaret and Margaret's
maid. Janetta would have put on her afternoon black cashmere and little silver brooch, and would
have feltherself perfectly well dressed; but Margaret, after a little consultationwith the very grand
young person who condescended to brush Miss Colwyn's hair, had herself brought to Janetta's
room a dress of blacklace over cherry-colored silk, and had begged her to put it on.

"You will feel so hot downstairs if you don't put on something cool,"Margaret had said. "There is
a fire in the drawing-room: papa likes the rooms warm. My dresses would not have fitted you, I am
so muchtaller than you; but mamma is just your height, and although you are thinner perhaps——
But I don't know: the dress fits you perfectly. Look in the glass, Janet; you are quite splendid."

Janetta looked and blushed a little—not because she thought herself at all splendid, but because
the dress showed her neck and arms in a way no dress had ever done before. "Ought it to be—
open—like this?" she said, vaguely. "Do you wear your dresses like this when you are at home?"

"Mine are high," said Margaret. "I am not 'out,' you know. But you are older than I, and you used
to teach——I think we may consider that you are 'out,'" she added, with a little laugh. "You look
very nice,Janetta: you have such pretty arms! Now I must go and dress, and I will call for you when
I am ready to go down."
Janetta felt decidedly doubtful as to whether she were not a great dealtoo grand for the occasion;
but she altered her mind when she saw Margaret's dainty silk and lace, and Lady Caroline's
exquisite brocade; and she felt herself quite unworthy to take Mr. Adair's offered arm when dinner
was announced and her host politely convoyed her to the dining-room. She wondered whether he
knew that she was only a little governess-pupil, and whether he was not angry with her for being
the cause of his daughter's abrupt departure from school. As a matter of fact, Mr. Adair knew her
position exactly,and was very much amused by the whole affair; also, as it had procured him the
pleasure of his daughter's return home, he had an illogical inclination to be pleased also with
Janetta. "As Margaret is so fond of her, there must be something in her," he said to himself, with
a critical glance at the girl's delicate features and big dark eyes. "I'll draw her out at dinner."

He tried his best, and made himself so agreeable and amusing that Janetta lost a good deal of her
shyness, and forgot her troubles. She had a quick tongue of her own, as everybody at Miss
Polehampton's was aware; and she soon found that she had not lost it. She was a gooddeal surprised
to find that not a word was said at the dinner table aboutthe cause of Margaret's return: in her own
home it would have been the subject of the evening; it would have been discussed from every point
of view, and she would probably have been reduced to tears before the first hour was over. But
here it was evident that the matter was not considered of great importance. Margaret looked serene
as ever, and joined quietly in talk which was alarmingly unlike Miss Polehampton's improving
conversation: talk about county gaieties and county magnates: gossip about neighbors—gossip of
a harmless
although frivolous type, for Lady Caroline never allowed any talk at her table that was anything
but harmless, about fashions, about old china, about music and art. Mr. Adair was passionately fond
of music,and when he found that Miss Colwyn really knew something of it hewas in his element.
They discoursed of fugues, sonatas, concertos, quartettes, and trios, until even Lady Caroline raised
her eyebrows a little at the very technical nature of the conversation; and Sir Philip exchanged a
congratulatory smile with Margaret over her friend's success. For the delight of finding a congenial
spirit had brought the crimson into Janetta's olive cheeks and the brilliance to her dark eyes:she had
looked insignificant when she went in to dinner; she was splendidly handsome at dessert. Mr.
Adair noticed her flashing, transitory beauty, and said to himself that Margaret's taste was
unimpeachable; it was just like his own; he had complete confidence in Margaret.

When the ladies went back to the drawing-room, Sir Philip turned with a look of only half-
disguised curiosity to his host. "Lady Caroline brought her back then?" he said, longing to ask
questions, yet hardly knowing how to frame them aright.

Mr. Adair gave a great laugh. "It's been the oddest thing I ever heardof," he said, in a tone of
enjoyment. "Margaret takes a fancy to that little black-eyed girl—a nice little thing, too, don't you
think?—and nothing must serve but that her favorite must walk with her, sit by her, and so on—
you know the romantic way girls have? The schoolmistress interfered, said it was not proper, and
so on; forbade it. Miss Colwyn would have obeyed, it seems, but Margaret took the bit in a quiet
way between her teeth. Miss Colwyn was ordered to takeher meals at a side table: Margaret insisted
on taking her meals there
too. The school was thrown into confusion. At last Miss Polehamptondecided that the best way out
of the difficulty was first to complain tous, and then to send Miss Colwyn home, straight away. She
would not send Margaret home, you know!"

"That was very hard on Miss Colwyn," said Sir Philip, gravely.

"Yes, horribly hard. So Margaret, as you heard, appealed to her mother, and when Lady Caroline
arrived, she found that not only wereMiss Colwyn's boxes packed, but Margaret's as well; and that
Margaret had declared that if her friend was sent away for what was after all her fault, she would
not stay an hour in the house. Miss Polehampton was weeping: the girls were in revolt, the teachers
in despair, so my wife thought the best way out of the difficulty was to bring both girls away at
once, and settle it with Miss Colwyn's relations afterwards. The joke is that Margaret insists on it
that she has been 'expelled.'"

"So she told me."

"The schoolmistress said something of that kind, you know. Carolinesays the woman entirely lost
her temper and made an exhibition of herself. Caroline was glad to get our girl away. But, of
course, it's all nonsense about being 'expelled' as a punishment; she was leaving of her own accord."

"One could hardly imagine punishment in connection with her," said Sir Philip, warmly.

"No, she's a nice-looking girl, isn't she? and her little friend is a goodfoil, poor little thing."
"This affair may prove of some serious inconvenience to Miss Colwyn, I suppose?"

"Oh, you may depend upon it, she won't be the loser," said Mr. Adair,hastily. "We'll see about that.
Of course she will not suffer any injurythrough my daughter's friendship for her."

Sir Philip was not so sure about it. In spite of his intense admiration for Margaret's beauty, it
occurred to him that the romantic partisanship of the girl with beauty, position, and wealth for her
less fortunate sister had not been attended with very brilliant results. No doubt Miss Adair, reared
in luxury and indulgence, did not in the leastrealize the harm done to the poor governess-pupil's
future by her summary dismissal from Miss Polehampton's boarding-school. To Margaret,
anything that the schoolmistress chose to say or do mattered little; to Janetta Colwyn, it might some
day mean prosperity or adversity of a very serious kind. Sir Philip did not quite believe in the
compensation so easily promised by Mr. Adair. He made a mentalnote of Miss Colwyn's condition
and prospects, and said to himself that he would not forget her. And this meant a good deal from a
busyman like Sir Philip Ashley.

Meanwhile there had been another conversation going on in the drawing-room between the three
ladies. Margaret put her arm affectionately round Janetta's waist as they stood by the hearthrug,
and looked at her mother with a smile. Lady Caroline sank into an easy-chair on the other side of
the fireplace, and contemplated the twogirls.

"This is better than Claremont House, is it not, Janet?" said Margaret.

"Indeed it is," Janetta answered, gratefully.

"You found the way to papa's heart by your talk about music—did she not, mamma? And does not
this dress suit her beautifully?"

"It wants a little alteration in the sleeve," said Lady Caroline, with theplacidity which Janetta had
always attributed to Margaret as a special virtue, but which she now found was merely characteristic
of the house and family in general, "but Markham can do that to-morrow. There are some people
coming in the evening, and the sleeve will lookbetter shortened."

The remark sounded a little inconsequent in Janetta's ear, but Margaret understood and assented.
It meant that Lady Caroline was on the whole pleased with Janetta, and did not object to
introducing her to her friends. Margaret gave her mother a little smile over Janetta's head, while
that young person was gathering up her couragein two hands, so to speak, before addressing Lady
Caroline.

"I am very much obliged to you," she said at last, with a thrill of gratitude in her sweet voice which
was very pleasant to the ear. "But—I was thinking—what time would be the most convenient for
me to go home to-morrow?"

"Home? To Beaminster?" said Margaret. "But you need not go, dear;you can write a note and tell
them that you are staying here."

"Yes, my dear; I am sure Margaret cannot part with you yet," said Lady Caroline, amiably.

"Thank you; it is most kind of you," Janetta answered, her voice shaking. "But I must ask my father
whether I can stay—and hear whathe says; Miss Polehampton will have written to him, and——"
"And he will be very glad that we have rescued you from herclutches," said Margaret, with a soft
triumphant little laugh. "My poorJanetta! What we suffered at her hands!"

Lady Caroline lying back in her easy chair, with the candle light gleaming upon her silvery grey
and white brocade with its touches ofsoft pink, and the diamonds flashing on her white hands, so
calmly crossed upon the handle of her ivory fan, did not feel quite so tranquilas she looked. It
crossed her mind that Margaret was acting inconsiderately. This little Miss Colwyn had her living
to earn; it would be no kindness to unfit her for her profession. So, when she spoke it was with a
shade more decision than usual in her tones.

"We will drive you over to Beaminster to-morrow, my dear Miss Colwyn, and you can then see
your family, and ask your father if youmay spend a few days with Margaret. I do not think that Mr.
Colwynwill refuse us," she said, graciously. "I wonder when those men are coming, Margaret.
Suppose you open the piano and let us have a littlemusic. You sing, do you not?"

"Yes, a little," said Janetta.

"A little!" exclaimed Margaret, with contempt. "She has a delightful voice, mamma. Come and sing
at once, Janetta, darling, and astonishmamma."

Lady Caroline smiled. She had heard a great many singers in her day,and did not expect to be
astonished. A little governess-pupil, an under-teacher in a boarding-school! Dear Margaret's
enthusiasm certainly carried her away.
But when Janetta sang, Lady Caroline was, after all, rather surprised.The girl had a remarkably
sweet and rich contralto voice, and it had been well trained; and, moreover, she sang with feeling
and passion which were somewhat unusual in one so young. It seemed as if somehidden power,
some latent characteristic came out in her singing because it found no other way of expressing
itself. Neither Lady Caroline nor Margaret understood why Janetta's voice moved them so much;
Sir Philip, who came in with his host while the music was going on, heard and was charmed also
without quite knowing why; itwas Mr. Adair alone whose musical knowledge and experience of the
world enabled him, feather-headed as in some respects he was, to layhis finger directly on the
salient features of Janetta's singing.

"It's not her voice altogether, you know," he said afterwards to PhilipAshley, in a moment of
confidence; "it's soul. She's got more of that commodity than is good for a woman. It makes her
singing lovely, you know—brings tears into one's eyes, and all that sort of thing— but upon my
honor I'm thankful that Margaret hasn't got a voice like that! It's women of that kind that are either
heroines of virtue—or goto the devil. They are always in extremes."

"Then we may promise ourselves some excitement in watching Miss Colwyn's career," said Sir
Philip, dryly.

After Janetta, Margaret sang; she had a sweet mezzo-soprano voice, of no great strength or
compass, but perfectly trained and verypleasing to the ear. The sort of voice, Sir Philip thought,
that would be soothing to the nerves of a tired man in his own house. Whereas, Janetta's singing
had something impassioned in it which disturbed and excited instead of soothing. But he was
quite ready to admire
when Margaret called on him for admiration. They were sittingtogether on a sofa, and Janetta, who
had just finished one of her songs,was talking to, or being talked to, by Mr. Adair. Lady Caroline
had taken up a review.

"Is not Miss Colwyn's voice perfectly lovely?" Margaret asked, with shining eyes.

"It is very sweet."

"Don't you think she looks very nice?"—Margaret was hungering foradmiration of her friend.

"She is a very pretty girl. You are very fond of each other?"

"Oh, yes, devoted. I am so glad I succeeded!" said the girl, with agreat sigh.

"In getting her away from the school?""Yes."

"You think it was for her good?" Margaret opened her
lovely eyes.
"For her good?—to come here instead of staying in that close uncomfortable house to give music
lessons, and bear MissPolehampton's snubs?——" It had evidently never occurred to her that the
change could be anything but beneficial to Janetta.

"It is very pleasant for her, no doubt," said Sir Philip, smiling in spiteof his disapproval. "I only
wondered whether it was a good preparation for the life of hard work which probably lies before
her."
He saw that Margaret colored, and wondered whether she would be offended by his suggestion.
After a moment's pause, she answered, gravely, but quite gently—

"I never thought of it in that way before, exactly. I want to keep her here, so that she should never
have to work hard at all."

"Would she consent to that?""Why not?"

said Margaret.
Sir Philip smiled and said no more. It was curious, he said to himself,to see how little conception
Margaret had of lives unlike and outside her own. And Janetta's brave but sensitive little face, with
its resolute brows and lips and brilliant eyes, gave promise of a determination and an originality
which, he felt convinced, would never allow her to become a mere plaything or appendage of a
wealthy household, as Margaret Adair seemed to expect. But his words had made an impression.
At night, when Lady Caroline and her daughter were standing in the charming little room which
had always been appropriated to Margaret's use, she spoke, with the unconscious habitof saying
frankly anything that had occurred to her, of Sir Philip's remarks.

"It was so odd," she said; "Sir Philip seemed to think that it would bebad for Janetta to stay here,
mamma. Why should it be bad for her, mamma, dear?"

"I don't think it will be at all bad for her to spend a day or two with us, darling," said Lady Caroline,
keeping somewhat careful watch onMargaret's face as she spoke. "But perhaps it had better be
by-and-
bye. You know she wants to go home to-morrow, and we must not keep her away from her duties
or her own sphere of life."

"No," Margaret answered, "but her duties will not always keep her athome, you know, mamma,
dear."

"I suppose not, my dearest," said Lady Caroline, vaguely, but in the caressing tone to which
Margaret was accustomed. "Go to bed, my sweetest one, and we will talk of all these things to-
morrow."

Meanwhile Janetta was wondering at the luxury of the room which had been allotted to her, and
thinking over the events of the past day.When a tap at the door announced Margaret's appearance to
say good-night, Janetta was standing before the long looking-glass, apparentlyinspecting herself
by the light of the rose-tinted wax candles in silversconces which were fixed on either side of the
mirror. She was in herdressing-gown, and her long and abundant hair fell over her shoulderin a
great curly mass.

"Oh, Miss Vanity!" cried Margaret, with more gaiety of tone than was usual with her, "are you
admiring your pretty hair?"

"I was thinking," said Janetta, with the intensity which often characterized her speech, "that now I
understood you—now I know why you were so different from other girls, so sweet, so calm and
beautiful! You have lived in this lovely place all your life! It is like afairy palace—a dream-
house—to me; and you are the queen of it, Margaret—a princess of dreams!"

"I hope I shall have something more than dreams to reign over some day," said Margaret, putting
her arms round her friend's neck. "And whatever I am queen over, you must share my queendom,
Janet. You
know how fond I am of you—how I want you to stay with me alwaysand be my friend."

"I shall always be your friend—always, to the last day of my life!" said Janetta, with fervor. The
two made a pretty picture, reflected in the long mirror; the tall, fair Margaret, still in her soft white
silk frock,with her arm round the smaller figure of the dark girl whose curly masses of hair half
covered her pink cotton dressing-gown, and whose brown face was upturned so lovingly to her
friend's.

"And I am sure it will be good for you to stay with me," said Margaret, answering an unspoken
objection in her mind.

"Good for me? It is delicious—it is lovely!" cried Janetta, rapturously."I have never had anything so
nice in my whole life. Dear Margaret, you are so good and so kind—if there were only anything
that I coulddo for you in return! Perhaps some day I shall have the chance, and ifever I have—then
you shall see whether I am true to my friend or not!"

Margaret kissed her, with a little smile at Janetta's enthusiasm, whichwas so far different from the
modes of expression customary at Helmsley Court, as to be almost amusing.
CHAPTER IV. ON

THE ROAD.

Miss Polehampton had, of course, written to Mr. and Mrs. Colwyn when she made up her mind
that Janetta was to be removed from school; and two or three letters had been interchanged before
that eventful day on which Margaret declared that if Janetta went she should go too. Margaret had
been purposely kept in the dark until almost the last moment, for Miss Polehampton did not in the
least wish to make a scandal, and annoyed as she was by Miss Adair's avowed preference for
Janetta, she had arranged a neat little plan by which Miss Colwyn was to go away "for change of
air," and be transferred to a school at Worthing kept by a relation of her own at the beginning of
the following term. These plans had been upset by afoolish and ill-judged letter from Mrs. Colwyn
to her stepdaughter, which Janetta had not been able to keep from Margaret's eyes. This letter was
full of reproaches to Janetta for giving so much trouble to her friends; "for, of course," Mrs.
Colwyn wrote, "Miss Polehampton's concern for your health is all a blind in order to get you away:
and if it hadn't been for Miss Adair taking you up, she would have been only too glad to keep you.
But knowing Miss Adair'sposition, she sees very clearly that it isn't fit for you to be friends withher,
and so she wants to send you away."
This was in the main true, but Janetta, in the blithe confidence of youth, would never have
discovered it but for that letter. Together sheand Margaret consulted over it, for when Margaret saw
Janettacrying, she almost forced the letter from her hand; and then it was thatMiss Adair vindicated
her claim to social superiority. She wentstraight to Miss Polehampton and demanded that Janetta
shouldremain; and when the schoolmistress refused to alter her decision, shecalmly replied that in
that case she should go home too. Miss Polehampton was an obstinate woman, and would not
concede the point; and Lady Caroline, on learning the state of affairs, at once perceived that it was
impossible to leave Margaret at the school whereopen warfare had been declared. She accordingly
brought both girls away with her, arranging to send Janetta to her own home next morning.

"You will stay to luncheon, dear, and I will drive you over toBeaminster at three o'clock," she said
to Janetta at breakfast. "No doubt you are anxious to see your own people."

Janetta looked as if she might find it difficult to reply, but Margaret interposed a remark—as usual
at the right moment.

"We will practice our duets this morning—if Janetta likes, that is; andwe can have a walk in the
garden too. Shall we have the landau, mamma?"

"The victoria, I think, dear," said Lady Caroline, placidly. "Your father wants you to ride with him
this afternoon, so I shall have the pleasure of Miss Colwyn's society in my drive."
Margaret assented; but Janetta became suddenly aware, by a flash of keen feminine intuition, that
Lady Caroline had some reason for wishing to go with her alone, and that she had purposely made
the arrangement that she spoke of. However, there was nothing to displease her in this, for Lady
Caroline had been most kind and considerate to her, so far, and she was innocently disposed to
believein the cordiality and sincerity of every one who behaved with common civility.

So she spent a pleasant morning, singing with Margaret, loitering about the garden with Mr. Adair,
while Margaret and Sir Philip gathered roses, and enjoying to the full all the sweet influences of
peace, refinement, and prosperity by which she was surrounded.

Margaret left her in the afternoon with rather a hasty kiss, and an assurance that she would see her
again at dinner. Janetta tried to remind her that by that time she would have left the Court, but
Margaret did not or would not hear. The tears came into the girl's eyesas her friend disappeared.

"Never mind, dear," said Lady Caroline, who was observing her closely, "Margaret has forgotten
at what hour you were going and I would not remind her—it would spoil her pleasure in her ride.
We will arrange for you to come to us another day when you have seen your friends at home."

"Thank you," said Janetta. "It was only that she did not seem to remember that I was going—I had
meant to say good-bye."
"Exactly. She thinks that I am going to bring you back this afternoon.We will talk about it as we go,
dear. Suppose you were to put on yourhat now. The carriage will be here in ten minutes."

Janetta prepared for her departure in a somewhat bewildered spirit. She did not know precisely
what Lady Caroline meant. She even felt a little nervous as she took her place in the victoria and cast
a last lookat the stately house in which she had spent some nineteen or twenty pleasant hours. It
was Lady Caroline who spoke first.

"We shall miss your singing to-night," she said, amiably. "Mr. Adair was looking forward to some
more duets. Another time, perhaps——"

"I am always pleased to sing," said Janetta, brightening at this address.

"Yes—ye—es," said Lady Caroline, with a doubtful little drawl. "No doubt: one always likes to do
what one can do so well; but—I confessI am not so musical as my husband or my daughter. I must
explain why dear Margaret did not say good bye to you, Miss Colwyn. I allowed her to remain in
the belief that she was to see you again to- night, in order that she might not be depressed during
her ride by thethought of parting with you. It is always my principle to make the lives of those dear
to me as happy as possible," said Margaret's mother, piously.

"And if Margaret had been depressed during her ride, Mr. Adair and Sir Philip might have suffered
some depression also, and that would be a great pity."

"Oh, yes," said Janetta. But she felt chilled, without knowing why.
"I must take you into my confidence," said Lady Caroline, in her softest voice. "Mr. Adair has
plans for our dear Margaret. Sir Philip Ashley's property adjoins our own: he is of good principles,
kind- hearted, and intellectual: he is well off, nice-looking, and of a suitable age—he admires
Margaret very much. I need say no more, I am sure."

Again she looked keenly at Janetta's face, but she read there nothing but interest and surprise.

"Oh—does Margaret know?" she asked.

"She feels more than she knows," said Lady Caroline, discreetly. "Sheis in the first stage of—of—
emotion. I did not want the afternoon's arrangements to be interfered with."

"Oh, no! especially on my account," said Janetta, sincerely.

"When I go home I shall talk quietly to Margaret," pursued Lady Caroline, "and tell her that you
will come back another day, that your duties called you home—they do, I am sure, dear Miss
Colwyn—andthat you could not return with me when you were so much wanted."

"I'm afraid I am not much wanted," said Janetta, with a sigh; "but I daresay it is my duty to go
home——"

"I am sure it is," Lady Caroline declared; "and duty is so high and holy a thing, dear, that you will
never regret the performance of it."

It occurred dimly to Janetta at that point that Lady Caroline's views of duty might possibly differ
from her own; but she did not venture to say so.

"And, of course, you will never repeat to Margaret——"

Lady Caroline did not complete her sentence. The coachman suddenly checked the horses' speed:
for some unknown reason he actually stopped short in the very middle of the country road between
Helmsley Court and Beaminster. His mistress uttered a little cry of alarm.

"What is the matter, Steel?"

The footman dismounted and touched his hat.

"I'm afraid there has been an accident, my lady," he said, as apologetically, as if he were
responsible for the accident.

"Oh! Nothing horrible, I hope!" said Lady Caroline, drawing out her smelling-bottle.

"It's a carriage accident, my lady. Leastways, a cab. The 'orse is lyingright across the road, my lady."

"Speak to the people, Steel," said her ladyship, with great dignity. "They must not be allowed to
block up the road in this way."

"May I get out?" said Janetta, eagerly. "There is a lady lying on the path, and some people bathing
her face. Now they are lifting her up—I am sure they ought not to lift her up in that way—oh, please,
I mustgo just for one minute!" And, without waiting for a reply, she stepped,out of the victoria and
sped to the side of the woman who had been hurt.

"Very impulsive and undisciplined," said Lady Caroline to herself, asshe leaned back and held the
smelling-bottle to her own delicate nose."I am glad I have got her out of the house so soon. Those
men were wild about her singing. Sir Philip disapproved of her presence, but he
was charmed by her voice, I could see that; and poor, dear Reginald was positively absurd about
her voice. And dear Margaret does not sing so well—it is no use pretending that she does—
and SirPhilip is trembling on the verge—oh, yes, I am sure that I have beenvery wise. What is that
girl doing now?"

The victoria moved forward a little, so that Lady Caroline could obtain a clearer view of what was
going on. The vehicle which caused the obstruction—evidently a hired fly from an inn—was
uninjured, but the horse had fallen between the shafts and would never rise again. The occupants
of the fly—a lady, and a much younger man, perhaps her son—had got out, and the lady had then
turned faint, LadyCaroline heard, but was not in any way hurt. Janetta was kneeling by the side of
the lady—kneeling in the dust, without any regard to the freshness of her cotton frock, by the way—
and had already placed herin the right position, and was ordering the half-dozen people who had
collected to stand back and give her air. Lady Caroline watched her movements and gestures with
placid amusement, and went so far as to send Steel with the offer of her smelling salts; but as this
offer wasrejected she felt that nothing else could be done. So she sat and lookedon critically.

The woman—Lady Caroline was hardly inclined to call her a lady, although she did not exactly
know why—was at present of a ghastly paleness, but her features were finely cut, and showed
traces of former beauty. Her hair was grey, with rebellious waves in it, but hereyebrows were still
dark. She was dressed in black, with a good deal of lace about her; and on her ungloved hand Lady
Caroline's keen sight enabled her to distinguish some very handsome diamond rings. The effect of
the costume was a little spoiled by a large gaudy fan, of
violent rainbow hues, which hung at her side; and perhaps it was thisarticle of adornment which
decided Lady Caroline in her opinion of the woman's social status. But about the man she was
equally positivein a different way. He was a gentleman: there could be no doubt of that. She put
up her eye-glass and gazed at him with interest. She almost thought that she had seen him
somewhere before.

A handsome man, indeed, and a gentleman; but, oh, what an ill- tempered one, apparently! He was
dark, with fine features, and blackhair with a slight inclination to wave or curl (as far at least as
could be judged when the extremely well-cropped state of his head was taken into consideration);
and from these indications Lady Caroline judged him to be "the woman's" son. He was tall,
muscular, and activelooking: it was the way in which his black eyebrows were bent abovehis eyes
which made the observer think him ill-tempered, for his manner and his words expressed anxiety,
not anger. But that frown, which must have been habitual, gave him a distinctly ill-humored look.

At last the lady opened her eyes, and drank a little water, and sat up. Janetta rose from her knees,
and turned to the young man with a smile."She will soon be better now," she said. "I am afraid there
is nothingelse that I can do—and I think I must go on."

"I am very much obliged to you for your kind assistance," said the gentleman, but without any
abatement of the gloom of his expression.He gave Janetta a keen look—almost a bold look—Lady
Caroline thought, and then smiled a little, not very pleasantly. "Allow me to take you to your
carriage."
Janetta blushed, as if she were minded to say that it was not her carriage; but returned to the
victoria, and was handed to her seat by the young man, who then raised his hat with an elaborate
flourish which was not exactly English. Indeed, it occurred to Lady Caroline at once that there was
something French about both the travelers. Thelady with the frizzled grey hair, the black lace dress
and mantel, the gaudy blue and scarlet fan, was quite foreign in appearance; the youngman with the
perfectly fitting frock-coat, the tall hat, the flower in hisbutton-hole, was—in spite of his perfectly
English accent—foreign too. Lady Caroline was cosmopolitan enough to feel an access of greater
interest in the pair in consequence.

"They have sent to the nearest inn for a horse," said Janetta, as the carriage moved on; "and I dare
say they will not have long to wait."

"Was the lady hurt?"

"No, only shaken. She is subject to fainting fits, and the accident quiteupset her nerves, her son said."

"Her son?"

"The gentleman called her mother."

"Oh! You did not hear their name, I suppose?" "No. There was a
big B on their traveling bag."
"B—B—?" said Lady Caroline, thoughtfully. "I don't know any one in this neighborhood whose
name begins with B, except the Bevans. They must have been merely passing through; and yet the
young man's face seemed familiar to me."

Janetta shook her head. "I never saw them before," she said.
"He has a very bold and unpleasant expression," Lady Carolineremarked, decidedly. "It
spoils him entirely: otherwise he is a handsome man."

The girl made no answer. She knew, as well as Lady Caroline, that she had been stared at in a
manner that was not quite agreeable to her, and yet she did not like to endorse that lady's
condemnation of the stranger. For he was certainly very nice-looking—and he had been sokind to
his mother that he could not be entirely bad—and to her alsohis face was vaguely familiar. Could
he belong to Beaminster?

As she sat and meditated, the tall spires of Beaminster Cathedral cameinto sight, and a few minutes
brought the carriage across the grey stone bridge and down the principal street of the quaint old
place which called itself a city, but was really neither more nor less than a quiet country town.
Here Lady Caroline turned to her young guest with a question—"You live in Gwynne Street, I
believe, my dear?"

"Yes, at number ten, Gwynne Street," said Janetta, suddenly starting and feeling a little
uncomfortable. The coachman evidently knew the address already, for at that moment he turned the
horse's heads to theleft, and the carriage rolled down a narrow side-street, where the tall red brick
houses had a mean and shabby aspect, and seemed as if constructed to keep out sun and air as
much as possible.

Janetta always felt the closeness and the shabbiness a little when she first came home, even from
school, but when she came from Helmsley Court they struck her with redoubled force. She had
neverthought before how dull the street was, nor noticed that the railings were broken down in
front of the door with the brass-plate that bore her father's name, nor that the window-curtains
were torn and the
windows sadly in need of washing. The little flight of stone steps thatled from the iron gate to the
door was also very dirty; and the servantgirl, whose head appeared against the area railings as the
carriage drove up, was more untidy, more unkempt, in appearance than ever Janetta could have
expected. "We can't be rich, but we might be clean!" she said to herself in a subdued frenzy
of impatience, as she fancied (quite unjustly) that she saw a faint smile pass over Lady Caroline's
delicate, impassive face. "No wonder she thinks me an unfit friend for dear Margaret. But—oh,
there is my dear, darling father! Well, nobody can say anything against him at any rate!" And
Janetta's face beamed with sudden joy as she saw Mr. Colwyn comingdown the dirty steps to the
ricketty little iron gate, and Lady Caroline,who knew the surgeon by sight, nodded to him with
friendly condescension.

"How are you, Mr. Colwyn?" she said, graciously. "I have brought your daughter home, you see,
and I hope you will not scold her for what has been my daughter's fault—not your's."

"I am very glad to see Janetta, under any circumstances," said Mr. Colwyn, gravely, as he raised
his hat. He was a tall spare man, in a shabby coat, with a careworn aspect, and kindly, melancholy
eyes. Janetta noticed with a pang that his hair was greyer than it had been when last she went back
to school.

"We shall be glad to see her again at Helmsley Court," said Lady Caroline. "No, I won't get out,
thank you. I have to get back to tea. Your daughter's box is in front. I was to tell you from Miss
Polehampton, Mr. Colwyn, that her friend at Worthing would be gladof Miss Colwyn's services
after the holidays."
"I am much obliged to your ladyship," said Mr. Colwyn, with grave formality. "I am not sure that
I shall let my daughter go."

"Won't you? Oh, but she ought to have all possible advantages! And can you tell me, Mr. Colwyn,
by any chance, who are the people whom we passed on the road to Beaminster—an oldish lady in
blackand a young man with very dark hair and eyes? They had B on their luggage, I believe."

Mr. Colwyn looked surprised.

"I think I can tell you," he said, quietly. "They were on their way fromBeaminster to Brand Hall. The
young man was a cousin of my wife's:his name is Wyvis Brand, and the lady in black was his
mother. Theyhave come home after an absence of nearly four-and-twenty years."

Lady Caroline was too polite to say what she really felt—that she wassorry to hear it.
CHAPTER V. WYVIS

BRAND.

On the evening of the day on which Lady Caroline drove with JanettaColwyn to Beaminster, the
lady who had fainted by the wayside was sitting in a rather gloomy-looking room at Brand Hall—
a roomknown in the household as the Blue Drawing-room. It had not the look of a drawing-room
exactly: it was paneled in oak, which had grown black with age, as had also the great oak beams
that crossed the ceiling and the polished floor. The furniture also was of oak, andthe hangings of
dark but faded blue, while the blue velvet of the chairsand the square of Oriental carpet, in which
blue tints also preponderated, did not add cheerfulness to the scene. One or two greatblue vases set
on the carved oak mantel-piece, and some smaller blueornaments on a sideboard, matched the
furniture in tint; but it was remarkable that on a day when country gardens were overflowing with
blossom, there was not a single flower or green leaf in any of thevases. No smaller and lighter
ornaments, no scrap of woman's
handiwork—lace or embroidery—enlivened the place: no books were set upon the table. A fire
would not have been out of season, for the evenings were chilly, and it would have had a cheery
look; but there was no attempt at cheeriness. The woman who sat in one of the high-backed chairs
was pale and sad: her folded hands lay listlessly claspedtogether on her lap, and the sombre garb that
she wore was as unrelieved by any gleam of brightness as the room itself. In the gathering gloom
of a chilly summer evening, even the rings upon herfingers could not flash. Her white face, in its
setting of rough, wavy grey hair, over which she wore a covering of black lace, looked almost
statuesque in its profound tranquillity. But it was not the tranquillity of comfort and prosperity that
had settled on that pale, worn, high-featured face—it was rather the tranquillity that comes of
accepted sorrow and inextinguishable despair.

She had sat thus for fully half an hour when the door was roughly opened, and the young man
whom Mr. Colwyn had named as Wyvis Brand came lounging into the room. He had been dining,
but he wasnot in evening dress, and there was something unrestful and reckless in his way of
moving round the room and throwing himself in the chair nearest his mother's, which roused Mrs.
Brand's attention. She turned slightly towards him, and became conscious at once of the fumes of
wine and strong tobacco with which her son had made her only too familiar. She looked at him for
a moment, then clasped her hands tightly together and resumed her former position, with her sad
face turned to the window. She may have breathed a sigh as she did so, but Wyvis Brand did not
hear it, and if he had heard it, would not perhaps have very greatly cared.

"Why do you sit in the dark?" he said at last, in a vexed tone.

"I will ring for lights," Mrs. Brand answered quietly.

"Do as you like: I am not going to stay: I am going out," said theyoung man.

The hand that his mother had stretched out towards the bell fell to herside: she was a submissive
woman, used to taking her son at his word.

"You are lonely here," she ventured to remark, after a short silence: "you will be glad when
Cuthbert comes down."

"It's a beastly hole," said her son, gloomily. "I would advise Cuthbertto stay in Paris. What he will
do with himself here, I can't imagine."

"He is happy anywhere," said the mother, with a stifled sigh. Wyvis uttered a short,
harsh laugh.
"That can't be said of us, can it?" he exclaimed, putting his hand on his mother's knee in a rough
sort of caress. "We are generally in the shadow while Cuthbert is in the sunshine, eh? The influence
of this old place makes me poetical, you see."

"You need not be in the shadow," said Mrs. Brand. But she said it withan effort.

"Needn't I?" said Wyvis. He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back in his chair with
another laugh. "I have such a lot to makeme cheerful, haven't I?"

His mother turned her eyes upon him with a look of yearning tenderness which, even if the room
had been less dimly lighted, he would not have seen. He was not much in the habit of looking for
sympathy in other people's faces.
"Is the place worse than you expected?" she asked, with a tremor in her voice.

"It is mouldier—and smaller," he replied, curtly. "One's childish impressions don't go for much.
And it is in a miserable state—roof out of repair—fences falling down—drainage imperfect. It has
been allowed to go to rack and ruin while we were away."

"Wyvis, Wyvis," said his mother, in a tone of pain, "I kept you away for your own sake. I thought
you would be happier abroad."

"Oh—happier!" said the young man, rather scornfully. "Happiness isn't meant for me: it isn't in
my line. It makes no difference to me whether I am here or in Paris. I should have been here long
ago if I had had any idea that things were going wrong in this way."

"I suppose," said Mrs. Brand, carefully controlling her voice, "that you will not have the visitors
you spoke of if the house is in so bad a state."

"Not have visitors? Of course I shall have visitors. What else is therefor me to do with myself? We
shall get the house put pretty straight by the 12th. Not that there will be any shooting worth
speaking ofon my place."

"If nobody comes before the 12th, I think we can make the house habitable. I will do my best,
Wyvis."

Wyvis laughed again, but in a softer key. "You!" he said. "You can't do much, mother. It isn't the
sort of thing you care about. You stay inyour own rooms and do your needle-work; I'll see to the
house. Somemen are coming long before the 12th—the day after to-morrow, I believe."
"Who?"

"Oh, Dering and St. John and Ponsonby, I expect. I don't know whether they will bring any one
else."

"The worst men of the worst set you know!" sighed his mother, underher breath. "Could not you
have left them behind?"

She felt rather than saw how he frowned—how his hand twitched with impatience.

"What sort of friends am I likely to have?" he said. "Why not those that amuse me most?"

Then he rose and went over to the window, where he stood for some time looking out. Turning
round at last, he perceived from a slight familiar movement of his mother's hand over her eyes that
she was weeping, and it seemed as if his heart smote him at the sight.

"Come, mother," he said, kindly, "don't take what I say and do so much to heart. You know I'm no
good, and never shall do anything inthe world. You have Cuthbert to comfort you—"

"Cuthbert is nothing to me—nothing—compared with you, Wyvis."

The young man came to her side and put his hand on her shoulder. The passionate tone had touched
him.

"Poor mother!" he said, softly. "You've suffered a good deal through me, haven't you? I wish I
could make you forget all the past—but perhaps you wouldn't thank me if I could."
"No," she said, leaning forward so as to rest her forehead against his arm. "No. For there has been
brightness in the past, but I see little brightness in the future either for you or for me."

"Well, that is my own fault," said Wyvis, lightly but bitterly. "If it hadnot been for my own youthful
folly I shouldn't be burdened as I am now. I have no one but myself to thank."

"Yes, yes, it was my fault. I pressed you to do it—to tie yourself for life to the woman who has
made you miserable!" said Mrs. Brand, ina tone of despairing self-accusation. "I fancied—then—
that we weredoing right."

"I suppose we were doing right," said Wyvis Brand sternly, but not as if the thought gave him any
consolation. "It was better perhaps thatI should marry the woman whom I thought I loved—instead
ofleaving her or wronging her—but I wish to God that I had never seenher face!"

"And to think that I persuaded you into marrying her," moaned the mother, rocking herself
backward and forward in the extremity of her regretful anguish; "I—who ought to have been
wiser—who might have interfered——"

"You couldn't have interfered to much purpose. I was mad about her at the time," said her son,
beginning to walk about the room in a restless, aimless manner. "I wish, mother, that you would
cease to talkabout the past. It seems to me sometimes like a dream; if you would but let it lie still,
I think that I could fancy it was a dream. Rememberthat I do not blame you. When I rage against
the bond, I am perfectlywell aware that it was one of my own making. No remonstrance, no
command would have availed with me for a moment. I was determined to go my own way, and I
went."

It was curious to remark that the roughness and harshness of his first manner had dropped away
from him as it did drop now and then. He spoke with the polished utterance of an educated man. It
was almost as though he at times put on a certain boorishness of demeanor, feeling it in some way
demanded of him by circumstances—but not natural to him after all.

"I will try not to vex you, Wyvis," said his mother, wistfully.

"You do not vex me exactly," he answered, "but you stir my old memories too often. I want to
forget the past. Why else did I come down here, where I have never been since I was a child? where
Julietnever set foot, and where I have no association with that miserable passage in my life?"

"Then why do you bring those men down, Wyvis? For they know thepast: they will recall old
associations——"

"They amuse me. I cannot be without companions. I do not pretend to cut myself off from the
whole world."

As he spoke thus briefly and coldly, he stopped to strike a match, andthen lighted the wax candles
that stood on the black sideboard. By this act he meant perhaps to put a stop to the conversation of
which he was heartily tired. But Mrs. Brand, in the half-bewildered condition of mind to which
long anxiety and sorrow had reduced her,did not know the virtue of silence, and did not possess
the magic quality of tact.
"You might find companions down here," she said, pertinaciously, "people suited to your
position—old friends of your father's, perhaps——"

"Will they be so willing to make friends with my father's son?" Wyvisburst out bitterly. Then, seeing
from her white and stricken face that he had hurt her, he came to her side and kissed her penitently.
"Forgive me, mother," he said, "if I say what you don't like. I've beenhearing about my father ever
since I came to Beaminster two days ago. I have heard nothing but what confirmed my previous
idea abouthis character. Even poor old Colwyn couldn't say any good of him. He went to the devil
as fast as ever he could go, and his son seems likely to follow in his footsteps. That's the general
opinion, and, by George, I think I shall soon do something to justify it."

"You need not live as your father did, Wyvis," said his mother, whosetears were flowing fast.

"If I don't, nobody will believe it," said the young man, moodily. "There is no fighting against fate.
The Brands are doomed, mother: we shall die out and be forgotten—all the better for the world,
too. Itis time we were done with: we are a bad lot."

"Cuthbert is not bad. And you—Wyvis, you have your child."

"Have I? A child that I have not seen since it was six months old! Brought up by its mother—a
woman without heart or principle or anything that is good! Much comfort the child is likely to be
to me when I get hold of it."

"When will that be?" said Mrs. Brand, as if speaking to herself ratherthan to him. But Wyvis
replied:
"When she is tired of it—not before. I do not know where she is.""Does she not draw her
allowance?"
"Not regularly. And she refused her address when she last appeared at Kirby's. I suppose she wants
to keep the child away from me. She need not trouble. The last thing I want is her brat to bring
up."

"Wyvis!"

But to his mother's remonstrating exclamation Wyvis paid no attention in the least: his mood was
fitful, and he was glad to step outof the ill-lighted room into the hall, and thence to the silence and
solitude of the grounds about the house.

Brand Hall had been practically deserted for the last few years. A tenant or two had occupied it for
a little time soon after its late master's withdrawal from the country; but the house was inconvenient
and remote from towns, and it was said, moreover, to be damp and unhealthy. A caretaker and his
wife had, therefore, been its only inhabitants of late, and a great deal of preparation had been
required to make it fit for its owner when he at last wrote to his agents in Beaminster to intimate
his intention of settling at the Hall.

The Brands had for many a long year been renowned as the most unlucky family in the
neighborhood. They had once possessed a greatproperty in the county; but gambling losses and
speculation had greatly reduced their wealth, and even in the time of Wyvis Brand's grandfather
the prestige of the family had sunk very low. In the days of Mark Brand, the father of Wyvis, it
sank lower still. Mark Brand was not only "wild," but weak: not only weak, but wicked. His career
was one of riotous dissipation, culminating in what was generally
spoken of as "a low marriage"—with the barmaid of a Beaminster public-house. Mary Wyvis had
never been at all like the typical barmaid of fiction or real life: she was always pale, quiet, and
refined-looking, and it was not difficult to see how she had developed into the sorrowful, careworn
woman whom Wyvis Brand called mother; but she came of a thoroughly bad stock, and was not
untouched in reputation. The county people cut Mark Brand after his marriage, andnever took any
notice of his wife; and they were horrified when he insisted on naming his eldest son after his
wife's family, as if he gloried in the lowliness of her origin. But when Wyvis was a small boy, his
father resolved that neither he nor his children should be flouted and jeered at by county magnates
any longer. He went abroad,and remained abroad until his death, when Wyvis was twenty years of
age and Cuthbert, the younger son, was barely twelve. Some peoplesaid that the discovery of some
particularly disgraceful deed was imminent when he left his native shores, and that it was for this
reasonthat he had never returned to England; but Mark Brand himself always spoke as if his health
were too weak, his nerves too delicate, to bear the rough breezes of his own country and the brusque
mannersof his compatriots. He had brought up his son according to his own ideas; and the result
did not seem entirely satisfactory. Vague rumorsoccasionally reached Beaminster of scrapes and
scandals in which theyoung Brands figured; it was said that Wyvis was a particularly blacksheep,
and that he did his best to corrupt his younger brother Cuthbert.The news that he was coming back
to Brand Hall was not received with enthusiasm by those who heard it.

Wyvis' own story had been a sad one—perhaps more sad than scandalous; but it was a story that
the Beaminster people were never
to hear aright. Few knew it, and most of those who knew it had agreedto keep it secret. That his wife
and child were living, many persons inParis were aware; that they had separated was also known,
but the reason of that separation was to most persons a secret. And Wyvis, who had a great dislike
to chatterers, made up his mind when he cameto Beaminster that he would tell to nobody the history
of the past fewyears. Had it not been for his mother's sad face, he fancied that he could have put it
out of his mind altogether. He half resented the pertinacity with which she seemed to brood upon
it. The fact that shehad forwarded—had almost insisted upon—the unfortunate marriage,weighed
heavily upon her mind. There had been a point at which Wyvis would have given it up. But his
mother had espoused the sideof the girl, persuaded the young man to fulfill his promises to her—
and repented it ever since. Mrs. Wyvis Brand had developed an uncontrollable love for strong
drink, as well as a temper that made her at times more like a mad woman than an ordinary human
being; and when she one day disappeared from her husband's home, carryinghis child with her, and
announcing in a subsequent letter that she did not mean to return, it could hardly be wondered at if
Wyvis drew a long breath of relief, and hoped that she never would.
CHAPTER VI. JANETTA AT

HOME.

When Lady Caroline drove away from Gwynne Street, Janetta was left by the tumble-down iron
gate with her father, in whose hand shehad laid both her own. He looked at her interrogatively,
smiled a little and said—"Well, my dear?" with a softening of his whole face which made him
positively beautiful in Janetta's eyes.

"Dear, dearest father!" said the girl, with an irrepressible little sob. "Iam so glad to see you again!"

"Come in, my dear," said Mr. Colwyn, who was not an emotional man, although a sympathetic
one. "We have been expecting you all day. We did not think that they would keep you so long at
the Court."

"I'll tell you all about it when I get in," said Janetta, trying to speak cheerily, with an instinctive
remembrance of the demands usually made upon her fortitude in her own home. "Is mamma in?"
She always spoke of the present Mrs. Colwyn, as "mamma," to distinguishher from her own mother.
"I don't see any of the children."

"Frightened away by the grand carriage, I expect," said Mr. Colwyn, with a grim smile. "I see a
head or two at the window. Here, Joey, Georgie, Tiny—where are you all? Come and help to carry
your sister's things upstairs." He went to the front door and called again; whereupon a side door
opened, and from it issued a slip-shod, untidy-looking woman in a shawl, while over her shoulder
and under her armappeared a little troop of children in various stages of growth and
untidiness. Mrs. Colwyn had the peculiarity of never being ready for any engagement, much less
for any emergency: she had been expecting Janetta all day, and with Janetta some of the Court
party; but she was nevertheless in a state of semi-undress, which she tried to conceal underneath
her shawl; and on the first intimation of the approach of Lady Caroline's carriage she had shut
herself and the children into a back room, and declared her intention of fainting on the spot if Lady
Caroline entered the front door.

"Well, Janetta," she said, as she advanced towards her stepdaughter and presented one faded cheek
to be kissed, "so your grand friends have brought you home! Of course they wouldn't come in; I
did not expect them, I am sure. Come into the front room—and children, don't crowd so; your
sister will speak to you by-and-bye."

"Oh, no, let me kiss them now," said Janetta, who was receiving a series of affectionate hugs that
went far to blind her eyes to the general deficiency of orderliness and beauty in the house to which
shehad come. "Oh, darlings, I am so glad to see you again! Joey, how you have grown! And Tiny
isn't Tiny any longer! Georgie, you have been plaiting your hair! And here are Curly and Jinks! But
where is Nora?"

"Upstairs, curling her hair," shouted the child who was known by thename of Jinks. While Georgie,
a well-grown girl of thirteen, added ina lower tone,

"She would not come down until the Court people had gone. She said she didn't want to be
patronized."
Janetta colored, and turned away. Meanwhile Mrs. Colwyn haddropped into the nearest arm-chair,
and Mr. Colwyn strayed in and out of the room with the expression of a dog that has lost its master.
Georgie hung upon Janetta's arm, and the younger children either clung to their elder sister, or
stared at her with round eyes and their fingers in their mouths. Janetta felt uncomfortably conscious
of beingmore than usually interesting to them all. Joe, the eldest boy, a dusty lad of fourteen, all
legs and arms, favored her with a broad grin expressive of delight, which his sister did not
understand. It was Tiny,the most gentle and delicate of the tribe, who let in a little light on thesubject.

"Did they send you away from school for being naughty?" she asked,with a grave look into Janetta's
face.

A chuckle from Joey, and a giggle from Georgie, were instantly repressed by Mr. Colwyn's frown
and Mrs. Colwyn's acid remonstrance.

"What are you thinking of, children? Sister is never naughty. We do not yet quite understand why
she has left Miss Polehampton's so suddenly, but of course she has some good reason. She'll
explain it, no doubt, to her papa and me. Miss Polehampton has been a great dealput out about it all,
and has written a long letter to your papa, Janetta;and, indeed, it seems to me as if it would have
been more becoming if you had kept to your own place and not tried to make friends with those
above you——"

"Who are those above her, I should like to know?" broke in the grey-haired surgeon with some
heat. "My Janet's as good as the best of them any day. The Adairs are not such grand people as
Miss
Polehampton makes out—I never heard of such insulting distinctions!"

"Fancy Janetta being sent away—regularly expelled!" muttered Joey,with another chuckle.

"You are very unkind to talk in that way!" said Janetta, addressing him, because at that moment
she could not bear to look at Mr. Colwyn. "It was not that that made Miss Polehampton angry. It
was what she called insubordination. Miss Adair did not like to see me having meals at a side-
table—though I didn't mind one single bit!— and she left her own place and sat by me—and then
Miss Polehampton was vexed—and everything followed naturally. It was not just my being friends
with Miss Adair that made her send me away."

"It seems to me," said Mr. Colwyn, "that Miss Adair was veryinconsiderate."

"It was all her love and friendship, father," pleaded Janetta. "And shehad always had her own way;
and of course she did not think that Miss Polehampton really meant——"

Her weak little excuses were cut short by a scornful laugh from her stepmother.

"It's easy to see that you have been made a cat's-paw of, Janetta," shesaid. "Miss Adair was tired of
school, and took the opportunity of making a to-do about you, so as to provoke the schoolmistress
and get sent away. It does not matter to her, of course: she hasn't got her living to earn. And if you
lose your teaching, and Miss Polehampton's
recommendations by it, it doesn't affect her. Oh, I understand these fine ladies and their ways."

"Indeed," said Janetta, in distress, "you quite misunderstand Miss Adair, mamma. Besides, it has
not deprived me of my teaching: MissPolehampton had told me that I might go to her sister's school
at Worthing if I liked; and she only let me go yesterday because she became irritated at—at—some
of the things that were said——"

"Yes, but I shall not let you go to Worthing," said Mr. Colwyn, with sudden decisiveness. "You
shall not be exposed to insolence of this kind any longer. Miss Polehampton had no right to treat
you as she did, and I shall write and tell her so."

"And if Janetta stays at home," said his wife complainingly, "what is to become of her career as a
music-teacher? She can't get lessons here,and there's the expense——"

"I hope I can afford to keep my daughter as long as I am alive," said Mr. Colwyn with some
vehemence. "There, don't be vexed, my dear child," and he laid his hand tenderly on Janetta's
shoulder, "nobody blames you; and your friend erred perhaps from over-affection; but Miss
Polehampton"—with energy—"is a vulgar, self-seeking, foolishold woman, and I won't have you
enter into relations with her again."

And then he left the room, and Janetta, forcing back the tears in her eyes, did her best to smile
when Georgie and Tiny hugged hersimultaneously and Jinks beat a tattoo upon her knee.

"Well," said Mrs. Colwyn, lugubriously, "I hope everything will turnout for the best; but it is not
at all nice, Janetta, to think that Miss Adair has been expelled for your sake, or that you are thrown
out of
work without a character, so to speak. I should think the Adairs wouldsee that, and would make some
compensation. If they don't offer to do so, your papa might suggest it——"

"I'm sure father would never suggest anything of the kind," Janetta flashed out; but before Mrs.
Colwyn could protest, a diversion was effected by the entrance of the missing Nora, and all
discussion was postponed to a more fitting moment.

For to look at Nora was to forget discussion. She was the eldest of the second Mrs. Colwyn's
children—a girl just seventeen, taller than Janetta and thinner, with the thinness of immature
girlhood, but witha fair skin and a mop of golden-brown hair, which curled so naturallythat her
younger brother's statement concerning those fair locks mustsurely have been a libel. She had a
vivacious, narrow, little face, withlarge eyes like a child's—that is to say, they had the transparent
lookthat one sees in some children's eyes, as if the color had been laid on in a single wash without
any shadows. They were very pretty eyes, and gave light and expression to a set of rather small
features, whichmight have been insignificant if they had belonged to an insignificantperson. But
Nora Colwyn was anything but insignificant.

"Have your fine friends gone?" she said, peeping into the room in pretended alarm. "Then I may
come in. How are you, Janetta, after your sojourn in the halls of dazzling light?"

"Don't be absurd, Nora," said her sister, with a sudden backward dartof remembrance to the tranquil
beauty of the rooms at Helmsley Courtand the silver accents of Lady Caroline. "Why didn't you
come downbefore?"
"My dear, I thought the nobility and gentry were blocking the door," said Nora, kissing her. "But
since they are gone, you might as well come upstairs with me and take off your things. Then we
can have tea."

Obediently Janetta followed her sister to the little room which they always shared when Janetta
was at home. It might have looked very bare and desolate to ordinary eyes, but the girl felt the
thrill of pleasure that all young creatures feel to anything that bears the name of home, and became
aware of a satisfaction such as she had not experienced in her luxurious bedroom at Helmsley
Court. Nora helped her to take off her hat and cloak, and to unpack her box, insisting meanwhile
on a detailed relation of all the events that had led to Janetta's return three weeks before the end of
the term, and shrieking with laughter over what she called "Miss Poley's defeat."

"But, seriously, Nora, what shall I do with myself, if father will not let me go to Worthing?"

"Teach the children at home," said Nora, briskly; "and save me the trouble of looking after them.
I should like that. Or get some pupils in the town. Surely the Adairs will recommend you!"

This constant reference to possible aid from the Adairs troubled Janetta not a little, and it was with
some notion of combatting the ideathat she repaired to the surgery after tea, in order to get a few
words on the subject with her father. But his first remark was on quite a different matter.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fish, Janet! The Brands are back again!" "So I heard you say to Lady
Caroline."
"Mark Brand was a cousin of your mother's," said Mr. Colwyn, abruptly; "and a bad lot. As for these
sons of his, I know nothing aboutthem—absolutely nothing. But their mother——" he shook his
headsignificantly.

"We saw them to day," said Janetta.

"Ah, an accident of that kind would be a shock to her: she does not look strong. They wrote to me
from the 'Clown,' where they had stayed for the last two days; some question relative to the drainage
ofBrand Hall. I went to the 'Crown' and saw them. He's a fine-looking man."

"He has not altogether a pleasant expression," remarked Janetta, thinking of Lady Caroline's
strictures; "but I—liked—his face."

"He looks ill-tempered," said her father. "And I can't say that he showed me much civility. He did
not even know that your poor mother was dead. Never asked whether she had left any family or
anything."

"Did you tell him?" asked Janetta, after a pause.

"No. I did not think it worth while. I am not anxious to cultivate his acquaintance."

"After all, what does it matter?" said the girl coaxingly, for she thought she saw a shadow of
disappointment upon his face.

"No, what does it matter?" said her father, brightening up at once. "Aslong as we are happy with
each other, these outside people need not disturb us, need they?"
"Not a bit," said Janetta. "And—you are not angry with me, are you,father, dear?"

"Why should I be, my Janet? You have done nothing wrong that I know of. If there is any blame
it attaches to Miss Adair, not to you."

"But I do not want you to think so, father. Miss Adair is the greatest friend that I have in all the
world."

And she found a good many opportunities of repeating; this conviction of hers during the next few
days, for Mrs. Colwyn and Nora were not slow to repeat the sentiment with which they had greeted
her—that the Adairs were "stuck-up" fine people, and that they did not mean to take any further
notice of her now that they hadgot what they desired.

Janetta stood up gallantly for her friend, but she did feel it a little hardthat Margaret had not written
or come to see her since her return home. She conjectured—and in the conjecture she was nearly
right— that Lady Caroline had sacrificed her a little in order to smooth over things with her
daughter: that she had represented Janetta as resolved upon going, resolved upon neglecting
Margaret and not complying with her requests; and that Margaret was a little offended with her in
consequence. She wrote an affectionate note of excuse to her friend, but Margaret made no reply.