as much pride as if he had had a hand in the manufacture of the earth's
surface.  "A valley does not necessarily mean below the sea level, as
you must know."

The Professor laughed.

"But isn't it extremely damp and insanitary, covered over with that
weed?"

"That weed is clematis."

"Oh!" said the Professor.  "I should root it up, all the same."

"But Marg--my wife and I almost took the cottage on the strength of it."

"A foolish reason.  Did you look into your drains, young man?"

"Amelia does that," I broke in.  "You know she has a drain-bamboo."

"Of course, I remember.  Very sensible of Amelia, most sensible.  Where
is she?"

"On the pantry table."

"A curious place to sit."

"She has the best view of us from there."

He smiled.

"I like servants to be interested in their master and mistress."

"She is _very_ interested in us," I said.

"I should like to see this young person, and I should like to see your
drains.  Are they trapped?"

We both remained silent.

"I will have a look at them, if you don't mind."

Dimbie rose.

"No, I want Mrs. Smiling Face.  Women ought to know more about the
arrangements of their homes than men."

He offered me his hand.

I looked helplessly at Dimbie.  It was so difficult to speak, to tell
him.  My voice still had an annoying habit of breaking when I was
trying my hardest to refer to my--sorrow in a cheerful, careless
fashion.  The tears did not come, but--there was always the break.  I
would be telling Amelia she might have my waterproof, as I should never
require it again.  I would start quite bravely, then would come the
catch.  Will it always be so, I wonder?  Shall I never become quite
calm and indifferent?  It is eleven days since Dimbie came home--a rich
man--full of his good news.  Eleven days he has spent with me, and
never once have we spoken of the cross we are called upon to bear, for
it is Dimbie's cross as much as mine.  Are we wise to put it behind us
thus?  Should we not feel it less if we bravely discussed it?  And yet
it is my doing.  It is I who willed it so, I who bade Dimbie never to
speak of it, and now I am almost sorry.  Somehow it seems as though the
silence makes it harder to bear.  Our skeleton becomes more of a
skeleton.  Perhaps if we were to discuss it freely, frankly, we should
begin to regard it in the same way as one regards a smoky chimney--as
tiresome, annoying, but bearable if the windows are kept open to let in
the fresh air.  Our windows left wide would let in a great deal of
happiness--love, comradeship, the pleasure of friends, the interest of
books, the everlasting joy of Nature.  I must ask Dimbie what he
thinks.  Dimbie always knows what is right.

In a few brief words he explained to Professor Leighrail that I was a
prisoner to my couch, and that _he_ must conduct him to the house.  The
Professor started as though to offer me words of sympathy, and then
stopped.  Simply taking my hand in his he pressed it gently, and then
followed Dimbie into the house.

"That was nice of him," I thought.  "I wish Nanty was here that they
might renew their old friendship.  Perhaps they--but no," I laughed,
"they are a little old, and--Nanty hates men."

Amelia bore down upon me with intense excitement.

"That gentleman has got his coat off, and he's poking about the drains
with _my_ bamboo."

"It just shows how prepared you were for any emergency, Amelia," I said
sympathetically.

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye.  I never knew anyone's
eyes capable of turning back so far.  "Like a halibut's," I murmured.
They instantly became straight.

"What did you say, mum?"

"Nothing," I replied gently.  "I sometimes think aloud."

"Yes," she said, in a tone which suggested she wished I wouldn't.

"Is he a sanitary inspector, mum?"

"Who?"

"The gentleman who's doin' the drains."

"No, certainly not.  He's one of the greatest and cleverest men in
England, and--he killed his mother."

Amelia looked incredulous.

"He'd have been hung if he'd done that, mum--hung by the neck till he
was dead."

My servant is painfully dramatic on occasions.

"It was an accident," I hastened to explain.  I was afraid she might
lock the Professor in the cistern-room, or some other dark and unholy
place.  "He was driving an aerodrome.  An aerodrome is----" but Amelia
was not in the least interested in my explanation.

"What's he examining the drains for?"

"He is afraid we shall be down with typhoid."

Amelia jumped into the air and dropped with a thud on to her now
decently flat-heeled shoes.

"Tompkinses' grandfather died of typhus."

"On the maternal side?" I asked affably.

She took no notice of my question.

"He lay for twelve weeks."

"Well, that was better than standing," I said.  She resumed her
halibut-eyed expression, and--left me.

Presently I heard her in strident-voiced conversation with the
Professor.  I could not hear what they said, but they appeared to be
very much in earnest.

Dimbie came out smiling.

"One is seated on the back kitchen table, and the other is working away
at the sink with the bamboo.  It seems a nasty job, but they appear to
be very happy."

"Which is doing the work?"

"Amelia.  The Professor wanted to, but she snatched the implement from
him."

"Well, are we to be down with typhoid, or is there any chance of our
escaping?"

Dimbie sat down.

"He doesn't know yet, but he is hoping for the best.  He's a queer old
cock, but I like him immensely."

"So do I," I agreed.  "I wish Nanty would come."

It very rarely happens that one's wishes are instantly granted, but in
this particular case my fairy godmother was in a generous mood, for as
I spoke Nanty's carriage drew up at the gate, and she swept down the
path and across the lawn just as the Professor emerged from the house
brandishing in his right hand the drain-bamboo.

Now that Nanty should, after a lapse of nearly thirty years, meet her
old friend Professor Leighrail armed with a drain-bamboo would appear
to be a situation very far removed from romance.  But to me it seemed a
most delightful and natural proceeding, for Nanty would no doubt
remember that her one time lover was, to say the least of it, a little
eccentric in his habits.  And Professor Leighrail would equally
remember that Nanty with her broad outlook on life was not easily
shocked.  Did I say "broad outlook"?  I withdraw it, for Nanty with her
hard and narrow views of the genus man is anything but broad in one
respect.  Even her more intimate knowledge of Dimbie has not converted
her, and Peter pronounces her as "pig-headed."

Anyway, her meeting with the Professor left her quite calm and
unruffled, while he, poor man, because he _was_ a man, mopped his brow
and dropped the bamboo on to the grass as though it had been a live
snake.

I had omitted to tell Dimbie of their former relationship, and he now
stood and stared at them in the same way that Amelia stares at me when
I am gone, as she terms it, "a bit dotty."

Nanty dropped gracefully into a wicker basket-chair, and settled her
mauve taffeta gown comfortably and elegantly.  The Professor with his
big shoes and linen coat cut a poor figure beside her.

"Nanty and Professor Leighrail used to know one another," I explained
to Dimbie.

"It was a very long time ago, when we were young.  I won't say how
long, because the Professor might not like it," said Nanty calmly.

Here was an opening for the Professor to say something gallant, "That
_she_ was not altered in the least, that only _he_ had grown old," but
he did not take it.  The Professor is not a party man.  He stared at
the bamboo and said nothing.  Was he thinking of the days when Nanty
stood to him for everything adorable in woman, or was he thinking of
his lost Amabella?  Can the woman you have married entirely efface your
memory of the other woman you wished to marry?  And Nanty.  She had
started and seemed distressed when I told her of the Professor's
loneliness, of his unkempt appearance.  She was downright cross when I
mentioned his ballooning, she had said it was a dangerous game.  She
had also said she had been a fool not to marry him, and she supposed
that he had grown very fond of Amabella.  Now she sat sphinx-like, with
a little smile on her lips and her hands folded on her lap.  The
Professor might have been a casual acquaintance she had met the day
before.  I longed for strength to get up and shake her.

Dimbie recognised that the Professor was in trouble.  His embarrassment
and awkwardness, not to mention silence, were only too evident.
Manlike he came to the help of man.  He plied him with questions about
the drains.  He did not understand why the Professor _should_ be
awkward and embarrassed, though vaguely he felt it had something to do
with the presence of Nanty; but whatever the cause, he knew that the
Professor required gentle assistance, and to give this assistance he
must get him on one of his own pet subjects, either drains,
over-eating, or balloons.  He selected drains.  He picked up the bamboo
to attract the Professor's attention, and asked him how long he gave us.

"Give you?" said the Professor, looking a little dazed.

"Before we are down with typhoid."  Dimbie was quite grave.

"Oh, that depends on how much or how little you flush your drains."
The Professor was equally grave.

"What do you recommend us to use?"

"Condy's fluid, or any other good disinfectant."  The Professor was now
becoming interested.

"Chloride of lime is cheapest," chipped in Amelia excitedly.  Under the
pretext of rescuing her drain-bamboo she had joined the party, and when
I tried to catch her eye to inform her that her services were not
required her eye steadily refused to be caught.

"Quite right," said the Professor, "chloride of lime _is_ the cheapest."

"Tompkinses always used it; their drains was always beautiful, that
sweet and fresh you could have eaten your dinner in 'em."

Dimbie now tried to catch her eye, but she still wouldn't be caught.

"Amelia," I said gently.

She became deaf as well as blind.

"The Tompkinses set a good example which all householders might follow
with great advantage to themselves.  It is simply suicidal"--the
Professor had now quite forgotten Nanty--"it is simply suicidal the
manner in which they neglect their drains, ignore their drains.  And
their ignorance on drains is usually colossal, only exceeded by the
ignorance and stupidity of the men who lay them.  I quite expected to
find your main drain running beneath your drawing-room.

"You almost seem disappointed that it isn't," I said.

He smiled.

"Do you know where it is?"

"No--o."

"Do you know where your gas-meter is?"

"We haven't one, we use lamps and candles."

"Ah, well, you wouldn't know if you had.  Women never know these
things."  He spoke despondently.

"I am not overwhelmed at our ignorance," I said laughing.  "I don't see
why we should know.  Surely the knowledge of gas and water is a man's
business?"

"I do not agree with you at all."  He spoke with extreme rapidity.
"Women use them as much as men, they should therefore understand
something of their working."

"Do you know where the pearl buttons for your flannel shirt are kept?"
I asked quietly.

Dimbie suppressed a chuckle.

"I didn't know I used them."

"How do you suppose your shirt remains fastened?  At the present moment
the button on your left wrist-band is cracked across the centre.  You
must replace it with a new one on your return home."

The Professor laughed good-humouredly.

"You had me there," he said.

"They always have us," quoth Dimbie.  "Haven't you found it so?"

The Professor stole a sly glance at Nanty.

"Not always," he said softly.

He was evidently recovering from his embarrassment by leaps and bounds.

A smile flickered across Nanty's lips.  She did not return the look,
but she unbent ever so little.

"What do _you_ think of women, Professor?  You have told us what you
think about drains and creeper-covered cottages, let us have your
opinion of the fair sex."  Dimbie looked wicked.  With unusual
perspicacity he smelt a rat, and now he meant to run it to earth.

"What do I think of women!  I--I--" (the Professor was now undoubtedly
flurried) "I don't think anything of them."

"That is a little rude and unkind of you," I said.

"Eh, what?"

"That you should not think anything of them.  Are they so very
unworthy?"

The poor man looked worried.

"I--I think I must go now."

"No, don't go," I pleaded.  "Do stay to supper.  We do so want to hear
your views upon women.  We so often hear them upon men" (I glanced at
Nanty) "that it will be quite refreshing to have a change."

"And--what are the views you hear upon men?"  He also looked at Nanty.

"That they are all bad."

He laughed.

"And--_I_ think women are all good," at which he bolted across the
garden, called a good-bye, raised his hat, and disappeared through the
gate.

"That is the thinnest man I have ever seen," said Nanty somewhat
unromantically.

"I don't think he gets enough to eat."

She started.

"Housekeepers are poor sort of creatures--selfish, thoughtless,
heartless," I generalised, not having known one.

Nanty looked at the sweet-peas.

"I am sure he is often hungry."

She started again, and getting up from her seat walked across the lawn
and back to me.

"Where does he live?" she asked abruptly.

"The Grey House, Esher.  Why do you want to know?"

"Oh--just curiosity."

"Perhaps you might ask him to tea?" I suggested.

"I don't ask men to tea," she said crossly, picking up a newspaper and
beginning to read.

"Visitors don't usually read."

"Humph!"

"While you read I'll think," and I fell into a reverie, weaving many
pleasant fancies, in which, strange to say, Nanty and the Professor
were always the central figures.

By and by she looked up.

"Of what are you thinking and smiling?"

"Of--marriage and love."

"A foolish thought, and you cannot put the two together."

"No?"

"_No_!" said Nanty decisively.

CHAPTER XXI

JANE FAIRBROTHER'S IMPENDING VISIT

"All's right with the world."  The long-looked-for letter from Miss
Fairbrother has arrived, and she is coming to stay with us.  I read out
the good news to Dimbie exultantly and most happily:--

"'LITTLE OLD PUPIL,--Shall I be glad to come to you?  Why my pulses
quicken at the very thought, and my heart sings when I contemplate the
quiet joy of sitting in an English garden--a little green garden under
an apple tree with Marguerite Westover.  Kipling says: "O the oont, O
the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont!"  But I cry, "O the heat, O the
heat, O the hellish, burning heat!" and I conjure up before my
sun-tired eyes a vision of wondrous golden cornfields, ripening
blackberries, leaves turning to crimson and russet, dewy, hazy mornings
and over all the soft, mellow September sunshine--for it will be
September, that sweetest of English months, when I arrive.

"'Everything I have to say to you must wait till I am at One Tree
Cottage.  Of your accident and suffering I cannot write, but you will
know--knowing me a little--what I feel for you.  But take heart.
Twelve months will not pass quickly at your age.  Time tarries only for
the young it would seem, when for the old--who would have it linger--it
flies all too quickly.  But the months _will_ pass.  Think, Marguerite,
if it had been for life!'  (This I did not read to Dimbie, I feared my
voice, for it still breaks.)  'As it is, you will get stronger each
month.  And then a day will come when I shall take you for your first
walk, if I am anywhere near you, through the stately pine trees you
loved so much as a child.  Do you still love them?  But, ah, I
forgot--Mr. Dimbie will be there to take you.  There will always be a
husband now, tiresome man!  Forgive me, but I want to step back to the
dear old days when I had my little pupil all to myself.

"Till the fifteenth of September good-bye.  I shall, on reaching
London, travel straight to Pine Tree Valley.  It is so good of you to
ask me, and much _gooder_ of your husband.

"'Always your affectionate,
  "'JANE FAIRBROTHER.'"

I smiled up at Dimbie, who was leaning over me, but there was no
response.  On his face there was an expression I had never seen before.
He avoided my eyes and walked across to the window.

"She seems a silly, sentimental woman," he pronounced curtly.  "I can't
bear people who gush."  And he marched out of the room and shut the
door with a bang.

For a moment I wondered whatever was the matter.  Then it dawned upon
me that he was jealous, and I laughed softly to myself.  "Dear Dimbie,
goose, that you should be jealous of anyone, when I'm--I'm--no use now,
makes me absurdly happy, ridiculously puffed up with pride and----"

Dimbie was back.

"Will that woman have meals with us?"

"Where else could she have them?" I asked.

"Couldn't she have them in the kitchen with Amelia?"

"With Amelia?  Miss Fairbrother is the daughter of----"

"I don't care if she is the daughter of an archbishop," he interrupted
with extreme gloom.  "I am not going to have her always messing round."

"She won't mess round.  Miss Fairbrother is not that sort of person."

"You are prejudiced.  You see her through the rose-coloured spectacles
of time.  It is eight years since you met.  Probably she has
degenerated into a prig."  He threw himself on to the bottom of the bed.

"Should I be mistaken in my estimation of Miss Fairbrother, and she
prove to be a prig, she shall leave within a week.  I promise you that."

"How are you going to get rid of her?" He spoke eagerly.

"Why, I _do_ believe you hope she will be one."

"Oh, I don't say that!"

"But you'll want her to go all the same?"

"Yes," he returned brazenly, "I shall.  She'll go and spoil everything,
I know.  I was a fool to suggest her coming; but you seemed such dead
nuts on her.  Our pleasant afternoons in the garden will be spoiled.
All our jolly talks and reading aloud and suppers under the apple tree
will be at an end----"

"But she can have talks and supper under the apple tree with us.
There'll be plenty of room for three," I interrupted.

"And that's just what there won't be.  I'll see to that," almost
shouted Dimbie in a manner very similar to Peter, I am ashamed to say.

"Are you going to be rude to Miss Fairbrother?"

"Yes, very rude."

"Very well, then, I'll cable to stop her."

"Where are you going to cable--she sailed more than a month ago--why
she'll be here this week!" springing up.

"Of course," I returned.  "Have you only just found that out?  Amelia
is already airing the best drawn-thread linen sheets."

"Then what did you mean by saying you'd cable?"

"I meant I would wire on her arrival."

"But she said she was coming straight here.  You can't wire."  He
groaned.  "Oh, Marg, Marg, what _shall_ we do?"

"Do?" I cried impatiently.  "You talk as though Miss Fairbrother were a
perfect gorgon, instead of the sweetest and best woman in the world."

"That's just it."  He wiped his forehead.  "I don't like best women; I
like 'em ordinary.  In fact, I don't like them at all--no one but you."

"That is exactly the way Peter talks."

"I don't care.  There are worse people in the world than Peter.  Look
what we're going to have planked on to us for weeks--months even."

"Hand me my desk!" I commanded in a patient voice.

"What do you want it for?"

"To write a telegram form for Amelia to take at once.  It will be given
to Miss Fairbrother on the boat when it arrives, I should imagine.
Anyway, I will try it.  She must be stopped from coming at any price."

"It's no good wiring till the boat is due."

"I don't know when it is due.  Please pass me my desk."

"We'd better go through with it."

"Hand me my desk."

"Shan't!  Let the infernal woman come and be done with it!"

With which exceedingly ungallant remark my husband again stumped out of
the room, and again I lay and laughed and kissed the ugliest photo' of
him in my possession, for which I have an unaccountable liking.

And so to-day I have lived more or less under a cloud--a cloud in the
shape of a lowering frown on Dimbie's face.  But I care not.  I know
most assuredly that it will disappear as Jane Fairbrother walks through
the gate.  He will like Miss Fairbrother, or Jane, as I always think of
her now.  He will not be able to help it.  And into our days Jane will
bring outside interests, a fresh, breezy atmosphere, new thoughts, new
ideas, which I know will be good for both of us.  Most fearful am I of
becoming a self-centred invalid, thinking of myself only, of my
ailments, of my weariness, of my sometimes suffering.

And if I am afraid for myself, still more desperately afraid am I of
the _invalid_ atmosphere for Dimbie.  "It is not natural," my heart
cries out, "that a man young and strong should be the silent witness of
everlasting helplessness and weariness."  When I am pretty well and
able to be interested in all that goes on around me, and can smile and
be happy, it matters not for him; but, oh, the days when I am too tired
to do anything but lie with my eyes closed!  And the nights, the long,
long nights, when I am too restless to do anything but keep them wide
open; when my head tosses and moves restlessly from one side of the
pillow to the other, and when I long with an unspeakable longing to be
able to move my helpless body in unison!  That is not good for Dimbie
to see; it cannot be good.  He will stretch out strong, cool hands and
gently lift me on to my side, or turn my pillow, or hold a cooling
drink to my thirsty lips.  He will speak cheerfully, he will even try
to find a joking word; but, oh, the heartache that must be his, the
weary heartache!  And some day--as yet perhaps the burden is not too
heavy, the yoke not too galling, because out of his great love for me
he has learnt a great patience; but will not the day come when the
burden _will_ be too heavy, when he will falter or faint by the
wayside?  "O God, take me before that," I whisper out of the darkness,
"take me before he gets tired of me!"

And so I look for the coming of Jane with a great thankfulness.  The
days in the garden, which I have feared will become long and monotonous
to Dimbie, will be shared by one who, as I remember her with her vivid
personality, was always engaging and interesting.  I have searched the
papers for the shipping intelligence, and for the date upon which the
good steamship _Irrawaddy_ is due.  I have looked up every possible
train by which she could come down to Pine Tree Valley.  The spare
room, Amelia tells me, is fit for the habitation of the Queen of
England.  And it _is_ a pretty room, with its Indian matting floor
coverings, soft green walls and rugs, wide, old-fashioned windows
through which a white rose peeps, and airy, silken casement curtains.
It seems a long time since I was in that room.  Some day, perhaps, if I
should get stronger, I will persuade Dimbie and Amelia to carry me
upstairs, and it will be like exploring a long-forgotten country.  That
Amelia has flattened every piece of furniture (as much as you _can_
flatten washstands and wardrobes) against the walls I feel pretty
certain.  She objects to corners and pretty angles disturbing her
visual horizon.  She likes furniture to be neat and orderly and placed
like soldiers in a row.  She looks at my bed, which I insist upon
having in the window, and sighs heavily.  I can see her fingers itching
to bang me up against the wall.  She suggests that I shall feel
draughts and get a stiff neck, be bitten by earwigs taking a walk from
the clematis which endeavours to climb through the window, be
sun-struck in the morning, moon-struck at night, and be blown out of
bed by the first gale which comes along.  To all of which I say, "I
don't care, Amelia"; and she, figuratively speaking, washes her hands
of me, as sensible people do wash their hands of silly, contrary
creatures who won't listen to reason.

Amelia really is no more pleased at the prospect of Jane's visit than
Dimbie, although she has so thoroughly cleansed the spare room.  She
talks to me in this strain--

"Miss Fairbrother's not going to dress you, mum?"

"Of course not."

"And she won't be wanting to order the dinners?"

"I am sure she won't.  Besides," with a sly smile, "I thought _I_
ordered the dinners."

Amelia considered this, and with the wisdom of a diplomatist said--

"Of course you do, mum."

"I thought so," I agreed.

Amelia looked at me--one of the halibut looks--and continued, "And I
won't have her messing about the kitchen."  Had she overheard Dimbie's
remark?

"Miss Fairbrother would not dream of messing about the kitchen.  Miss
Fairbrother is not used to kitchens and flue-brushes and 'sweetening'
ovens with lime."

"Oh, of course, if she's a grand lady!"  Amelia's nose tilted in the
air.

"She's not a grand lady; but her work in life has lain in channels
otherwise than kitchens.  She teaches, she used to teach me."

"Oh----!"

I took up the paper.

"She can't know much, then!"

Now I am sure Amelia had no intention of being in the least rude.

"That depends upon what you mean by much," I said.

She began to walk away.

Unaccountably I yearned to know her definition of knowledge.

"What do you think constitutes 'knowing much'?"

She looked at me without understanding.

"What do you mean by saying Miss Fairbrother won't know much?"

"Well, she won't."

"Granted that," I was becoming impatient, "but what sort of things
won't she know?"

"She'll know nothing useful."

"Amelia," I said despairingly, "if anyone can walk round and round a
circle you can."

She batted her eyes and regarded the ceiling in complete vacancy.

Once again I tried.

"Will you tell me the things you consider not useful?"

"Lessons and maps and 'broidery work."

"Maps?"

"We was made to do maps in Mile End Road."

"What sort of maps?"

"Heurope in red paint."

"Don't you mean the British possessions?"

"That was it--America and----"

"But America doesn't belong to us," I interrupted.

She closed her eyes in intense boredom, but I was not to be snubbed.

"What do you call useful?"

"Gettin' bailiffs out of a house when they thinks they's settled in."

"Oh!" I said.

"I've got two lots out."

"Was it at the Tompkinses'?" I whispered.

"Tompkinses was as respectable as you, mum," she said, mildly indignant.

"Oh, I beg your--I mean the Tompkinses' pardon."

"They had salmon--lots of it."

"The bailiffs?"  I knew I had been stupid the moment the words were
uttered, but it was too late.

"I'm speaking of Tompkinses, mum."

"Of course you are."

"Why did you say bailiffs then?"

"A slip of the tongue."

Amelia with her eyes dared me to any more "slips."

"The Tompkinses had salmon twice a week and manase once."

"Did it agree with them?"

"Of course it did.  _We_ might afford salmon a bit oftener now as we's
rich before it goes out."

"Goes out where?"

"Goes out of season, of course," and this time she left my presence
with a most distinct snort.

Human nature is very much alike.  Dimbie is cross about Miss
Fairbrother's coming because he thinks his nose with its dear crook
will be put farther out of joint.  Amelia is cross because she thinks
_her_ nose will be put out of joint.  And I am sufficiently human and
feminine to derive considerable joy and satisfaction from their anxiety
about the putting out of their said noses.

CHAPTER XXII

A LITERARY LADY HONOURS ME WITH A VISIT

On several different occasions of late has Amelia had the pleasure of
reaching out the best china to a shrill accompaniment of "Now we shan't
be long," for the few select residents of Pine Tree Valley have begun
to call.  Six months have elapsed since we came to live here.  Now it
will not look like "rushing at us."  Most of them are kindly, amiable,
well-meaning matrons, who seem sincerely sorry for me, who have sent me
books and magazines, and who take an unfeigned interest in Amelia, her
management, and her singing.  "At any rate, she has nice, respectable
shoes now," I say to myself with secret satisfaction.  And _she_ is
enjoying the callers; she feels we are getting on.  She has hinted at
an "at home" day; she says I must buy Japanese paper serviettes to lay
on the ladies' laps; and that rolled bread and butter is more correct
than flat, every-day bread and butter.

Of all my visitors only two stand out in my memory with any
distinctness: Mr. Brook, the vicar of the parish, because he was a man,
and Mrs. Winderby, because she was literary.

As Mr. Brook walked through the gate Amelia simultaneously flew out of
the front door, and put my slippers on to my feet with a smart action,
rescued the tortoise, and generally put me in order.  On reflection, I
have decided that Amelia must take up her position at the pantry window
each afternoon to lie in wait for callers.

Mr. Brook's eyes twinkled as he watched Amelia's efforts, and I liked
him for the twinkle.

I remember more of Mrs. Winderby's conversation than I do of that of
Mr. Brook, for the latter was not literary or nervous, or highly strung
or jumpy, he was just a plain clergyman.  I don't mean plain-looking,
but a man without frills or nonsense, a kindly, breezy, broad-minded
Christian gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a cultured voice.  He
was apologetic for having been so long in calling, he had been more or
less ill for some months, and his wife did not make calls without him;
she was at the seaside just now enjoying a well-earned rest.  He was
extremely sorry to hear of my illness; he hoped I should soon be
better; he had seen my husband at church; and he consumed two muffins
and four cucumber sandwiches with his tea.

Tennyson's bad and unpoetical line in which he burlesqued Wordsworth
jumped into my mind: "A Mr. Wilkinson, a clerygman."  That, I thought,
exactly described Mr. Brook; but I felt he would be a good friend to
those who were down on their luck.

I cannot dismiss Mrs. Winderby thus briefly, for she still keeps edging
into my thoughts in exactly the same way as Amelia used to edge.

Mrs. Winderby wore, as Amelia describes it, a bed-gown, and her words
were well chosen, for it _was_ a bed-gown.  The bed-gown was fashioned
of green velvet cut in a low square at the throat.  It was supposed to
hang in full, graceful folds, but it didn't do any thing of the kind,
for Mrs. Winderby was of rounded, uncorseted, somewhat stout
proportions, so the poor bed-gown was tight and strained.  Around Mrs.
Winderby's throat was a string of amber beads; and her hair, which was
red and towsly, was surmounted by a green, untidy, floppy, Liberty hat.

She sank on to the low wicker chair, and said--

"I have simply ached to know you ever since you came to Pine Tree
Valley."

"Oh!" I returned, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

"Of course, I know you have been here some time; but, you see, I am
always so _frantically_ busy."

"Are people ever busy here?" I asked.

"If they like to be," she pronounced; "it depends on the people.
People who have resources of their own are always busy.  _You_ have
resources."  She pointed her parasol at me.

"Oh, have I?" I said, surprised.

"For you have a temperament."

Now I knew I had a temperature, but I didn't exactly know what she
meant by the other thing; so I just laughed carelessly.  Had she said,
"You are of a sanguine or pessimistic temperament," I should have quite
understood; but to say in that decided manner, "You have a
temperament," simply nonplussed me.  And as she evidently knew more
about it than I, I didn't contradict her.

"I can see it in the colour of your gown, in the books on your
table--dear, darling _Omar_--in the way you dress your hair."

She trod on Jumbles as she spoke.  Involuntarily I put my hand to my
head, but it felt all right.

"And this is such a sweet garden.  You live the simple life, I suppose?"

"I live the life of an invalid," I replied; "it is bound to be simple."

"Of course, of course.  I was told that you were a sufferer--most
distressing."

She spoke hurriedly, as though anxious to get away from a painful
subject.  Did she think that I should dilate on my affliction to her?
God forbid!

"I had been so hoping that you would have been one of us."

I looked at her, puzzled.

"That you and your husband would have been kindred spirits.  I thought
I saw your husband as I came through the gate?"

"Yes, that was my husband," I said steadily.

She looked about the garden, as though Dimbie were concealed behind the
sweet-pea hedge or hidden among the rhubarb, and I had difficulty in
suppressing my laughter.

"Even if _you_ are a prisoner--poor thing--perhaps your husband would
join our little coterie.  What is his bent?  What line does he take?"

Her conversation was mysterious, but here was a plain, simple question
easily understood.

"The South-Western he used to take," I said; "but now----"

She eyed me a little coldly.

"I was not referring to railway lines," she interrupted.  "I meant in
what movement, art, thought, work, is he specially interested?"

"Oh," I said in confusion, "I beg your pardon.  I don't think there is
anything very special.  My husband is rather a lazy man.  He enjoys
walking, and, oh," I added with inspiration, "he likes gardening."

"Gardening has been overdone," she said firmly.  "Charming subject,
communing with Nature and all that sort of thing; but we have had
Elizabeth, Alfred Austin, Mrs. Earle, Dean Hole, and a host of others."

"My husband does not commune with Nature, he kills slugs," I retorted.
"Besides, none of the people you have mentioned have gardened for us.
Elizabeth may fall into ecstasies of astonishment at the unique sight
of a crocus in bloom in February, Alfred Austin may converse most
charmingly with his verbenas and lavender, but they don't know where
Dimbie has planted our celery."

She made a gesture of impatience.

"You don't seem to understand me, but I will endeavour to explain.  You
see, a few of us here have formed ourselves into a little band of----"

"Musicians," I said pleasantly.  I was listening to Amelia's rendering
of "Now we shan't be long," and had not quite followed the gist of Mrs.
Winderby's conversation.

"I was not going to say 'musicians,'" she contradicted, "though musical
people _are_ members of our club.  We are literary--_I_ am literary" (a
pause)--"artistic, scientific.  We have formed ourselves into a club,
and meet at each other's houses once a week."

"It sounds most interesting and improving," I observed.  "I know a
scientific man.  He invented an aerodrome which killed his mother, and
he goes about in a balloon, and----"

"We only have gentlemen in our club."

"But he _is_ a gentleman.  He is the great----"

She leaned forward and stared at me intently.

"What's the matter?" I asked, "an insect crawling over me?"

"More than that."

"More than that!" I cried, nervously clutching at my gown.  "Is it a
wasp?"

"Don't get excited."  she murmured, leaning still farther towards me.
"It is most interesting.  You have a cleft under your nose between your
two nostrils; it denotes extraordinary artistic sensibility."

"Oh, no," I said, "you are mistaken.  That mark is the result of
falling against a sharp-edged fender as a child.  I thought it was
practically imperceptible.  My husband calls it a dimple.  I am afraid
I am not artistic in the sense you mean.  My husband and I are not very
interesting.  We are just every-day, ordinary people."

"And you are all the happier for that," she said, lifting the hair from
her forehead as if it were too heavy.  "You ordinary people, as you
call yourselves, have the pull over us nervous, highly-strung, thinking
mortals.  Oh, the thoughts that burn in my brain!  Sometimes I lie with
my face pressed to dear mother earth--I put my lips to the grass, I
murmur to her, I become one with her, and she soothes and comforts me
as a mother soothes a tired child."

Involuntarily I pictured Mr. Winderby finding his rather portly spouse
in her green velvet bed-gown rolling on the ground, and I smiled.  I
pretended that I was smiling at Amelia, who appeared with an advance
guard of Japanese serviettes, but Mrs. Winderby detected my deceit.
She frowned and rose.

At once I felt conscience-stricken.  Mrs. Winderby was trying to
entertain me, she had taken me into her confidence, and here was I, a
supercilious invalid, laughing at her.  I felt really sorry.

"Don't go, Mrs. Winderby," I said pleadingly.  "Tea is coming, and I
should like you to meet my husband."

"Master's in the cock-loft," said Amelia, carrying the three-decker
cake-stand and placing it in front of Mrs. Winderby.

"In the where?" I asked.

"In the cock-loft."

"Wherever's that?"

"The cistern-room.  He's doin' photigraphs in the dark."

Now I felt that Dimbie was acting very basely.  He had seen Mrs.
Winderby coming through the gate.  He had rapidly taken his bearings,
and was now in hiding in a cock-loft.

"Will you tell the master tea is ready, and that I am anxious to
introduce him to Mrs. Winderby," I said to Amelia.

"Yes, mum."

Mrs. Winderby sat down again appeased.  She graciously accepted a cup
of tea, which she said must be just milk and water on account of her
nerves, and she skilfully brought round the conversation to a man with
a name which sounded like a sneeze, whom I knew nothing about.  She
talked of him, quoted him, raved about him.  "He was a dear, naughty
philosopher, and his philosophy drove him mad," she finished, and I
covertly made a note on the fly-leaf of a book which lay beside me:
"Niet or Ntiez, man who went mad."  I intended looking him up in the
encyclopædia.  Mrs. Winderby might call and talk of this sneezy
philosopher again, and I must know something about him.

She detected me in my note-making.

"What are you doing?" she inquired.

"I was only jotting something down."

"Your commonplace book? I presume.  Was it something I said?  My
friends do put down bits of my conversation ready for copy."

She smoothed out her velvet gown with a plump, white hand.

"Copy books?" I murmured.

"Certainly not," she retorted snappily.  "Copy means matter for
books--anything interesting or amusing, that you hear and see.  Have
you not met any literary people?"

"No," I returned humbly.  "But Amelia--Amelia is my maid--knew a poet
in her last place; he visited the Tompkinses."

"How interesting!  I wonder if she remembers his name, and what he was
like."

"I know what he was like," I said, delighted to have interested her.
"Amelia described him to me.  He was like a garden leek that had been
boiled without soda--yellowish looking I suppose she meant.  And a
great friend of mine once knew an authoress--a fifth edition, Marie
Corelli sort of writer--whose head was like a mangel-wurzel."

I began to feel more on an equality with Mrs. Winderby.  Nanty's and
Amelia's reflected glory was raising my spirits.

"I am afraid I don't understand you," my visitor said.

"Oh, because it was so----" I stopped abruptly.

Suddenly I remembered that Mrs. Winderby was literary.

She looked at me coldly, she did not help me.  She saw my agitation,
she watched the beads rise on my forehead, and the only word I could
think of was "swelled."  I could not say swelled--it was impossible to
say swelled.  I hugged the tortoise, and my slippers fell off.

"I am afraid I don't understand.  I cannot see the connection between a
mangel-wurzel and a successful author," she repeated.

"Why because," I laughed feebly, "I--I--they----"  And Dimbie appeared
from the cock-loft and saved me.

"Because they are both so nice," he said affably, offering a hand to
Mrs. Winderby and drawing up a chair close to hers.

The situation was saved.  Dimbie was covered with cobwebs.  His hands
were dirty, but his manners were irresistible; and that Mrs. Winderby
fell in love with him straight away gave me no qualms of jealousy.

"It is so kind of you to come and call upon my wife," he was saying.
"She is delighted to see any of the residents of Pine Tree Valley."

Oh, Dimbie, Dimbie!

Mrs. Winderby gracefully crossed one velvet-clad leg over the other.
She was prepared to prolong her visit indefinitely now that Dimbie had
appeared.  Jumbles, giving her foot a wide berth, crept on to the couch
and snuggled down beside me.

"I have been telling Mrs. Westover how much I had been hoping that you
would have been one of us.  We are wanting new members."

"Oh!" said Dimbie politely.

"We call ourselves the Sesameites."

It sounded so like a tribe of Israel that I wanted to laugh, but
Dimbie's face checked me.

"We are a little club for self-improvement.  We exchange views,
opinions, thoughts.  We help each other like the----"

"Buffaloes," came a voice from the neighbourhood of the couch, but it
was certainly not mine.  It belonged to Amelia, who stood behind me
regarding Mrs. Winderby with parted lips.

"_Amelia!_" I said.

"_Amelia!_" echoed Dimbie.

"My brother's a buffalo," she said defiantly, while turning a little
red.  "I though p'r'aps he belonged to the same club as this lady, as
she says it's to help one another.  You put in so much money a week,
and then when you's ill you----"

"That will do," I said when I could get a word in.  "You can remove the
tray."

She walked unwillingly to the house, and we turned apologetically to
our guest.

"You were saying?" said Dimbie.

"I am afraid I have lost the thread," she returned gloomily.

"Perhaps it will come to you," he said hopefully.  "You were talking
about the Simeonites."

"Sesameites," she corrected.

I pinched the tortoise quietly under the sofa blanket.

"Oh, yes, a sort of debating and literary society?"

"Exactly.  _I_ started it.  It was uphill work at first, but I
persevered.  And now we have an extremely interesting number of
members.  Some of them are quite celebrities; for instance, it was I
who wrote _Winged White Moths_."

"Really?" said Dimbie.

"Yes," she said, dropping her eyelids.  "It took a great deal out of
me--I felt it all so intensely.  I was quite exhausted when I had
finished."

"How many editions?" I asked pleasantly.

She did not reply, perhaps she did not hear me, anyway she did not
reply.  She drew on her gloves and said "Good-bye."  Dimbie conducted
her to the gate.  I could hear him entreating her to come again, and
she sounded a little more cheerful as she went away.

When he came back he threw himself into a chair and frowned at me.  I
returned it with an engaging smile, but he continued to frown.

"It doesn't suit you because of your dear crooks," I said.

"We shall never have any friends, Marg, if you behave like----"

"Do you want friends like that?" I interposed.

"_I_ don't, but I'm thinking of you."

"Well, don't," I said.  "I don't want any friends like Mrs. Winderby.
I like clever, _really_ clever people, because they are usually
unaffected and quite simple, and can be interested in you and your
doings as well as in their own.  But Mrs. Winderby is artificial, and
she poses.  I don't like people who pose.  I would infinitely prefer
unclever, natural women than posy ones.  Wouldn't you?"

"She was a bit of an affected ass, certainly."

"Some of the women who have called are very nice--not violently
interesting any more than I am, but just kind and simple and
straightforward.  I like to know them, but I don't want to know Mrs.
Winderby."

"And you shan't," said Dimbie, lighting his pipe.  "The next time she
comes I'll throw her out of the gate if you like."

"Dear Dimbie," I said, "one of your most engaging qualities is that you
so often see things from my point of view.  Now some husbands would
have forced their wives to know that woman."

He laughed, then a tender expression crept into his face.

"You see, you are not like most wives."

"I am not able to run away from disagreeable people, you mean?"

"No, I did not mean that."  A shadow now superseded the tenderness.  "I
meant that you were so much more reasonable in your wishes than most
women."

I blew him a kiss.

"Dimbie, you are prejudiced.  What about my selfishness in insisting
upon remaining here when you are aching to spend your money upon some
large establishment.  You are penned in, I know.  When I think that if
we were away from here you might get some shooting, riding, golf this
autumn, I am ashamed of my own selfishness.  But--it won't be for long,
that comforts me a little.  Not for very long now."

"And then you are willing to go?" he said eagerly, kneeling at the side
of my couch.

"And then I shall be ready to go," I said gently, hiding my face on his
breast.

"Dear sweetheart!" he murmured, kissing my hair.

"Dear God," I said in my heart, "once again I thank thee for Dimbie!"

CHAPTER XXIII

I SURPRISE DOCTOR RENTON'S SECRET

Very blind, very dense, and downright stupid have I been; and being of
the gender called feminine, and presumably supposed to possess the gift
of scenting a love affair of even the most embryo growth, I am all the
more annoyed at my own density.

Besides, Dr. Renton helped me.  The scent was hot.  He mentioned India;
he said she had lived at Dorking, or am I imagining he said that?
Anyway, the trail was good, and it was only at five o'clock this
afternoon that I discovered that my medical adviser, Dr. Renton, has
been in love with my old governess, Jane Fairbrother, for over ten
years.

And my discovery was only made by accident.  Had I been staring at
Dimbie, as is my customary fashion, instead of at Dr. Renton, when I
announced from the open telegram in my hand that Jane would arrive on
the morrow, I should not have seen the red colour dye the Doctor's
bronzed cheeks, and I should still be wondering most probably who was
his long-loved and long-lost woman.

"Oh!" I said, blinded for the moment by my sudden illumination.  "Oh!"

Our eyes met.  He smiled, and I knew that he understood.

"Yes," he said, nodding quietly.

Dimbie was balancing a piece of cake on Jumble's nose.

"I'm so glad."

"Thank you," he said simply.

"What are you glad about?" asked Dimbie, looking around.

"That the sun is coming out for Jane and Dr. Renton after the long,
long gloom."

Dimbie gazed at me.

"I don't see why you should be specially glad for them.  I think we
require the sun much more than they, as we are lazy people who lie
about and do nothing.  Besides, it has only been dull for three or four
days.  You can't expect this wonderful summer to go on forever.  You've
become exacting, captious."

"It has been more or less dull for eight years," I remarked
sententiously; and Dimbie, after again staring at me, returned to
Jumbles, as though cats were easier to understand than women.

The Doctor and I smiled.

"I should wear grey flannel and a soft, grey hat--grey goes so well
with hair of the same colour," I observed.

"It's not very bad," he protested, putting his hand to his hair.

"Pretty bad," I laughed; "there's a little brown left, but it's mostly
tinged with grey."

"And my tie?" he asked, with a funny and almost resigned expression
upon his face.

I put my head on one side to consider.

"Lavender would be--too bridal.  I think grey or black and white."

"Whatever are you two talking about?" asked Dimbie.

"Colours.  We were just considering what would best suit a man with
iron-grey hair."

"But I'm not grey," said Dimbie.

"No, dear."

"Well, what do you mean?"

"I was just considering another man for the moment.  Another man's
appearance for an occasion on which he is anxious to look unusually
well and young."

"He must be a conceited ass!" quoth Dimbie, getting up and strolling
after Jumbles, who with arched back and stately tread marched away,
refusing to be turned into a common performing clown at any man's
bidding.

We laughed outright.

"May I--may I talk to you about it?" I asked.

He nodded.

"When would you like to see her?"

"To-morrow evening if you'll let me."

I considered this.

"Say the day after."

"Why?"

"Because if--if she says 'Yes' she'll cease to take any further
interest in me.  I've grown selfish, and I should so like to have her
all to myself for the first evening."

"Very well," he agreed somewhat grudgingly.

"You see, after waiting for eight years one day----"

"Will seem longer than the whole lot put together," he said
despondently.

"Well, come late to-morrow night, after supper."

"No, I'll try to hold out."  He smiled a little.  "If she--well, if she
refuses me, I shall have had all the longer blissful looking forward to
meeting her again.  And if she should say 'No' it will serve me right."

"I somehow don't think she'll refuse you, though, as you say, it would
certainly serve you right."

"Yes, I know it would."  In his eyes lay an anxious, almost wistful
look, which touched me.  His rugged face had softened to a semblance of
youth, his voice was less gruff.

"Women don't forget easily.  If she ever cared for you----" I began.

Dimbie was returning.

"Dimbie," I called, "you might climb over into the frog-pond field and
bring me some marguerites."

"Aren't they over?"

"If they are bring me some loosestrife and, scabious and anything you
can find.  I long for some wild-flowers."

Lazily he threw a leg over the fence and disappeared.

"He'll be away some time now.  Dimbie never does anything quickly; he
is slow and thorough, and he will endeavour to find the largest daisies
in the field."

"I suppose when I--if I were ever married my wife"--he stumbled over
the words--"might ask me to pick daisies for her?"

"Perhaps.  But a great deal depends upon the man.  I cannot imagine my
father picking flowers for mother; he would more likely throw them at
her."

Dr. Renton smiled.  He had known Peter as long as I.

"I wonder whether you will find Miss Fairbrother much changed?  She is
eight years older, you know."

"Of course," he said placidly.

"Women age as well as men."

"Naturally."

"You don't care?"

"How do you mean?"

"You don't mind if she looks older?"

"Certainly not.  No man _wants_ his wife to look old, but if she does
he loves her none the less.  I have not been married, but I know this
is so.  I have seen the most beautiful affection between quite old men
and women.  It is not passion, but a love that has been tried in the
fire and emerged triumphant."

I gave a sigh of relief.

"Besides, I know Jane's is a face that will have become more beautiful
with the years."

"Why?"

"You will remember that her mouth was firm, almost hard?  Her clear
eyes honest, but almost defiant?"

I shook my head.

"Well, they were.  Perhaps I studied her features more carefully than
you."

"Possibly," I said, a little dryly.

"She had had to fight her own battles.  She had had to stand up for
herself against the world.  Her childhood had been sad--an invalid
mother, a drunken father----"

"No?" I said.

"Yes.  Once she told me all about it.  We were alone, and she gave me
her confidence.  And--I was fool enough to let that moment pass, though
every bit of my being cried out to me to speak to her, tell of my love.
But I thought she wasn't ready, and then she went away.  But, as I was
saying, I know she will be more beautiful now, Hers was a large nature.
The years will have brought her a tenderness and sympathy which will
have written themselves on the lines of her face.  Some lined faces,
with their experience, are infinitely more attractive than the fresh,
smooth faces of youth.  Don't you think so?"

I nodded.  For the first time in my life I was learning that the Doctor
had another side to his character.  He had thrown aside his cloak of
reserve, his professional manner, and I feared lest a chance word of
mine might cause him to withdraw into his shell.

"In some faces you will see written the history of their owners' lives,
dispositions, characters, if you look carefully.  Note the little lines
around the eyes that star away in all directions.  They mean that the
person who possesses them has smiled much, laughed at misfortune,
helped the world to be the brighter and better for his or her presence.
I expect to see those lines around Jane's eyes, and if they are not
there I shall almost be disappointed."

He fell into a reverie, and I looked at him thoughtfully.  He would
make Jane very happy.  "Oh, I hope she'll have him, I hope she'll have
him!" I whispered again and again to myself.

Dimbie appeared over the fence.

"Will those do?" he asked, putting into my hand an enormous bunch of
wild-flowers.

I buried my face in their fresh sweetness.

"We will put them in Jane's room; she loves flowers."

"You will not put them in Jane's room," contradicted Dimbie crossly.
"I don't gather flowers for every strange woman from India, please
understand that, Marguerite."

Dr. Renton looked up in surprise.

"Yes, I have to speak like that.  Marguerite will make a perfect fool
of Miss Fairbrother if I let her have her way.  It's Miss Fairbrother
this and Miss Fairbrother that.  I'm sick of the very name of the
woman.  I'll take jolly good care that she is out of this house in less
than a fortnight.  Marguerite asked her for an _in_definite period, but
it happens to be very definite in my mind."  With which he flung
himself across the lawn and into the house.

The Doctor opened his mouth.

"Don't take any notice," I said quickly, for I knew Dimbie was watching
us through the drawing-room window, "it's only jealousy, nothing more;
he'll be all right when she comes."

"I'll marry her at once," the Doctor pronounced, getting up from his
chair.

"You forget that she may not accept you."

He blushed a little.

"Good-bye," he said gruffly.

"Good-bye," I laughed; "but you might tell me before you go whether you
think I am any better or worse.  You'll remember you came over to see
me--perhaps?"

He couldn't help laughing too.

"I'm awfully sorry.  You see, the telegram came just after my arrival."

"You needn't be, there's nothing fresh to report."

"Still tired?" he asked very gently.

"Still tired and waiting for a fresh breeze to blow.  I think I shall
be better then, Doctor."

"God grant that it may be so."  He raised my hand to his lips.  "You
are a staunch friend, Marguerite."

"Take care," I said, my eyes suddenly filling, "Dimbie is watching, and
he is in a bit of a temper.  You will be coming on Thursday, and good
luck to you."

When he had driven away Dimbie sauntered across the grass.

"What is that man kissing you for?"

"Dimbie," I said, "you are too comical for words, and I will return
your question with another.  What is the matter with you?"

"I don't know."  He lay down on the grass and leaned his head against
my couch.  "I'm cross, I think, Marg."

"Yes," I returned, running my fingers through his wavy hair, "you're
very cross.  How long do you think you will continue to be so?"

"Till Miss Fairbrother has gone.  Marg, I don't want to be a surly
beast, but, oh, I do wish I had never consented to that Indian woman's
coming."

"If I tell you something will you promise to keep it secret--either
till the day after to-morrow, Thursday, or forever?"

"There's rather a wide difference between the two periods of time."

"Yes, but there is a reason for it.  Will you promise?"

"All right."

"I mean a faithful promise.  You have a rather trying habit of slipping
things out.  This must be an on-my-oath promise."

"On-my-oath, world-without-end promise," repeated Dimbie.

"Dr. Renton wishes to marry Jane Fairbrother."

"The deuce he does!"

"Yes," I said, enjoying his astonishment.

"But he doesn't know her."

"He has known her for years.  He knew her when she lived with us, but
she went to India before he could make up his mind to speak to her.
Now he is coming on Thursday."

"And he will take her away just when she is going to be useful to us,
selfish beast!"

I smiled behind my hand.

"Dear Dimbie," I said, "I always thought men the most _contrary_
creatures, having lived under Peter's roof for some years, but never
_quite_ so contrary as I now find them to be."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that here you have been making yourself extremely disagreeable
about Miss Fairbrother's visit, and the moment someone comes along and
says he will remove the incubus you turn equally nasty."

"I don't want _you_ to be disappointed.  For myself, I am only too
jolly thankful that she won't be here long."

"But she may.  I am not sure that she will accept Dr. Renton."

"I am."

"Why?"

"Most women accept the first man who asks 'em."

I swelled with indignation, and I rang the tortoise to emphasise my
righteous anger.

"The conversation is finished," I said.

"No, it isn't," contradicted Dimbie.

"I repeat that it is."  I shut my eyes.

"You've beautiful eyelashes--look like a fringe on your cheeks, and
they all curl up at the ends, Marg."

An interval of silence.

"I didn't say _you_ would rush at a man.  I meant most women."

More silence.

"Don't you think I'm right?"

"Your ignorance of women is only equalled by your colossal conceit.
The conversation, I again repeat, is at an end."

"And once again I assert that it isn't.  I wish to discuss the
matrimonial prospects of Dr. Renton and Miss Fairbrother."

"You must discuss them with yourself."

"Can't."

"You must take back what you said."

"Shan't."

I closed my eyes tightly.

"I shall go and talk about them to Amelia."

He got up.

"You dare!"

"I shall."

"You promised.  You can't break your word."

"It would be quite easy."

"Dimbie, I never thought you _could_ descend to such meanness."

"You see how little you knew me."

"Women are always deceived."

"It's funny how they rush at marriage."

"Oh," I cried, "you are too dreadful!  Go away at once."

He laughed and croodled closer to the couch.

"This is our last afternoon," he said ingratiatingly, looking up into
my face.

"What do you mean?"

"Before the she-dragon comes.  Be nice to me, wife."

I looked away.  It is hard to resist the plead in Dimbie's eyes and the
crook of his mouth.  His hand stole into mine.  I took no notice.  The
other hand stroked my hair the wrong way, and--then, after the manner
of fond, foolish woman, I forgave him and was nice.

CHAPTER XXIV

MUSINGS ON AUTUMN AND THE ARRIVAL OF JANE

One of those September days is with us in which the world, like Rip Van
Winkle, is very fast asleep.  A great stillness broods o'er our little
garden.  No blade of grass or leaf of tree moves or rustles to disturb
the silence.  Jumbles lies curled upon the warm front doorstep; Dimbie
lies asleep in a low hammock chair.  The birds and insects, and even
the ants, have joined in the general siesta; and I, generally having
more time than the others in which to indulge in flights to the land of
Nod, am keeping awake to take care of all my friends of the garden.  I
have to keep removing a fly from Dimbie's nose; to see that Jumbles
doesn't wake up suddenly and pounce upon a drowsy, unwary bird in the
neighbourhood of the broom bush; and to turn an eye upon a butterfly
which appears to have fallen asleep in the heart of a single dahlia.

Over all broods a haze, gossamer and fairy-light, but still a haze
which ever follows in the footsteps of sweet September--September so
quiet, so peaceful, so mellow and rounded.  September is to May as
mature and still beautiful womanhood is to the freshness of girlhood,
not so radiant, but so complete, so satisfyingly lovely.  Spring
somehow, I know not why, gives me an ache at the heart, creates within
me a yearning for something.  Autumn does not affect me thus.  There
may be a regret, a glance of retrospection at the months which are
gone--the beautiful, bountiful summer months--but the ache has
vanished, the yearning has departed.

Is it that September, herself the most peaceful of all the months,
bears in her arms a gift for Nature's truly loving and understanding
children--the gift of peace, a peace which passeth all understanding?
Lately it has come to me, this peace, and I smile happily, hugging it
to my heart.  All the anguish of the last weeks--the bitter tears, the
pining for movement, the unutterable yearning to be out in the wind, by
the sea, on the mountains--has left me.  I am content to lie in my
little garden, to be still, to commune with myself, and to know that
Dimbie is there.

And--I am reading a Book, one that I read as a child, as a girl, and
now as a woman.  I am a woman now, for I know the meaning of the word
suffering.  In the old days I read this Book as one reads a
lesson--dull, uninteresting, I thought it.  I chafed at the chapter
which Miss Fairbrother obliged me to read each day.  Some parts struck
me as being duller than others.  There was the tiresome description of
the building of the temple, and the bells and
pomegranates--pomygranates I used to call them--and the fourscore cubit
this and the fourscore cubit that.  Miss Fairbrother would endeavour to
make it interesting, but I was unmistakably bored.  But now---it seems
curious that I should have ever thought it dull.  I read it with deep
intensity.  I know as I turn the pages what is coming, but yet it is
all new to me, a new meaning falls upon my understanding.  And there
are three words from this Book which of late have continually danced
before my eyes.  I have seen them written on the sky, on the grass, on
the pages of my book.  I have heard the wind whisper them, the flowers
repeat them, the leaves pass on the refrain to the waving corn, and yet
I alone have been unable to say or believe them.  The words have stuck
in my throat, my dry lips have refused to form them.  And then a night
came when I saw them written on Dimbie's face.  He had been depressed,
and had taken his sorrow to the pine woods, and when he returned a
gladness irradiated his countenance, and on his forehead, as it seemed
to me, were the words, written in letters of gold, "God is Love!  God
is Love!"  I repeated them mechanically to myself over and over again;
and suddenly the mists cleared away, the fog dispersed, and I too
cried, with a great sincerity and gladness, "God is Love!"

Jane came softly down the walk and with finger to lip bade me be silent.

"I want to love and kiss you, little old pupil, without any jealous eye
to mar my happiness.  And I also want to have a good look at your
husband."

Dimbie lay with head thrown back, giving to the garden a music that was
not of the sweetest.

"He is not at his best," I whispered; "his mouth isn't always like
that."

Jane made a comical little _moue_ and kissed me again.  "The same old
Marguerite," and she framed my face in her hands.

"With a difference," I said quietly.

"With a beautiful difference.  I don't wonder at your husband's
falling----"

"Hush!" I said, "I am going to wake him."

Jane sat down and watched with interest.

"Dimbie!  Dimbie, dear, would you mind waking up?"

"He doesn't always sleep quite so heavily as this," I explained
apologetically.  "It has been such a warm, enervating day."

"_Dimbie_, will you stop snoring."

Still no answer.

Loudly I rang the tortoise, and he was on his feet in an instant,
blinkingly staring at Jane.

"It's not a fire or an accident," I said; "it's Miss Fairbrother."

With the first of Jane's wholesome, heartsome smiles I knew that his
conquest had begun.  They shook hands, and he apologised for being
caught in such an attitude.

"It enabled me to have a good look at Marguerite's husband, of whom I
have heard so much," said Jane frankly.

"And what do you think of him?" Dimbie asked with a twinkle.

"I must reserve my judgment till later.  It may be a case of cruelty,
desertion, and wife beating.  Appearances are so deceitful.  And no
faith should be placed in a young wife's estimate of her husband."

He pushed his hammock chair towards her.

"Won't you take this; it is more comfortable.  And were Marg's letters
very tiresome?"

"Well, she didn't say much about you."  Jane wore an air of "May God
forgive me!"  "But what little she did write of you was mostly to the
good."

Dimbie laughed, and began to enjoy himself.

"Before you begin to talk," I said, "would you like a wash or have tea
first?"

"Tea, please."

I rang the bell.

"I'm quite anxious to see the young person with the tea-rose slippers,"
observed Jane, removing her hat and running her fingers through her
soft, luxuriant hair, which was parted on one side.

"She doesn't wear them now.  We have had a lot of money left us," I
said, studying the expressive face in front of me, which had changed so
little.

"Does she run about barefoot?"

"Oh, no!  What I mean is that we can afford now to give her nice, kid
slippers."  I struggled to keep my mind on Amelia, and not on Jane's
pretty, cool, grey linen gown which was inset with beautiful, Irish
crochet lace.

"It isn't mercerised cotton," I thought aloud.

"It's one of my best frocks," said Jane, following my eyes.  "Do you
think it suitable for my years, Marguerite?"

"I should wear it to-morrow," I said impulsively, and then stopped
awkwardly.

"Why to-morrow?" she asked in surprise.  "Are you having a party?"

"Only Marg's medical m----"

"Dimbie," I shouted, "will you go and see if tea is ready?  I can't
think what Amelia can be doing."  I looked at him feverishly.  He sat
open-mouthed for a moment, and then he remembered, nodded his head, and
set off to the house with a run.  I could see from Jane's expression
that she thought we were very odd people.

"What--what do you think of the sunflowers?" I asked jerkily.

"I think they appear to be very handsome, self-respecting sunflowers,"
she replied.

There was an interval of silence.

"What's the matter, Marguerite?" she asked at length.  "The atmosphere
is charged with a mysterious something which I cannot understand."

"I will tell you on Thursday."

"On Thursday?"

"Yes.  Oh, here is Amelia with tea!  This is Amelia."

Jane gave her a smile, showing her even, white teeth.  This was
returned by a look of hostility.  Amelia was not to be won by any
smile.  She was not a weak man, and she prided herself on her even
balance.

"Good afternoon," said Jane.

"Good afternoon," said Amelia in a tone of "Go to perdition with you!"

But Jane had no intention of doing so, at any rate, till she had had
some tea.  She handed some money to Amelia.

"Will you be good enough to give this to the man who is bringing my
trunks along?"

"Were there no cabs?  Most people takes cabs."  Now she was being
distinctly impertinent.  I felt very angry with her.

"Please do as you are told," I said wrathfully, "and without comment."

She was, for the first time since she had been in my service, impressed
by my anger, and at once she changed her tactics.

"The day would be hot I was thinkin' for Miss Fairbrother to walk."

"You were thinking nothing of the kind.  Stick to the truth."  And to
my consternation she immediately did as she was told and stuck to it.

"I don't want no visitors."

"_Amelia!_"

Jane laughed unconcernedly.

"I shouldn't either," she said, looking at Amelia in a most friendly
manner.  "I quite sympathise with you.  You think I am going to meddle
and interfere?"

"Yes."

"You think I am going to poke into the kitchen and do things for your
mistress that you have been in the habit of doing?"

"Yes," said Amelia, surprised at Jane's intuition.

"Well, you may make your mind quite easy on that score.  To begin with,
I am far too lazy to interfere.  I like people to work for me if they
will.  And I think it would be a mean thing to do when you have served
Mrs. Westover so faithfully and lovingly.  I shall not usurp your
place."  Jane's voice was most gentle now, full of sympathy and
kindliness.  "But if you will allow me, I will help you with my bed and
dust my room.  I shall make a little extra work, of course, and I am
sure you must have a great deal to do."

Amelia wavered, rocked about with indecision for a moment, and was won.

"Thank you, miss, it's very good of you," was all she seemed able to
say.  And as a relief to her feelings she slapped the tortoise, picked
up Jane's gloves from the ground and returned to her kitchen.

"Tea is going cold," said Dimbie.  "First game of the rubber to Miss
Fairbrother."

"You don't say the rubber, I notice," observed Jane.

"I know Amelia."

"I fancy though, without any undue conceit, that I shall win.  I like
that girl."

"So do we, but that doesn't give us the power of managing her."

"I don't want to manage her.  My simple desire is that she shouldn't
manage me, and will permit me to remain with you for a short time."

"You shall certainly do that," said Dimbie.  "Marg has been counting
the days to your coming."

"And you?" she asked slyly.

"I--I have been doing likewise," said my husband brazenly.

She laughed, a merry, incredulous laugh.

"And yet I fancied I had two rubbers to play and hoped to win."

"Really?" said Dimbie.  "Only one as far as I know, and the first game
is already yours."

"You are very kind," she said simply.  "I understand, and am grateful.
I did so want to see Marguerite again."

"You could not be more grateful than I am for your coming," he returned
earnestly.  "The thanks are on our side."  And I knew he meant it.

"A rubber and a half for Jane," I whispered to the tortoise.  And I
stretched out a hand and held Dimbie's closely in mine.

CHAPTER XXV

AN ENGAGEMENT, AND I TELL JANE MY STORY

The two of them came down the garden path hand in hand.  The sun
caressed Jane's small, dark head.  She wore the pretty, cool, grey
gown, and in her belt was tucked a red rose no redder than her cheeks.
They stopped in front of the couch, and I held out my hands to them.

"I know," I said.  "You needn't tell me.  I'm so glad.  You two dear
things.  It is beautiful, and--I like your suit, Dr. Renton; my
sartorial instinct is good, I think."

"I don't think it was the suit--altogether, but perhaps I'm vain."  He
looked gravely at Jane.

She was a little mystified.

"I was telling Dr. Renton the other day that I considered grey flannel
was very becoming to men with grey hair."

"Oh," she said, "I didn't notice what he was wearing."

"There!" said the Doctor.

"I don't feel abashed.  Unconsciously she would take in the general
effect."

Jane wandered to the sweet-pea hedge and hummed a little tune.

"I don't like a conversation conducted in asides," she called.  "When
you two have finished tell me."

Dr. Renton regarded her with pride and love written on every line of
his face.

"You see, she has grown beautiful!" he said.

"Do you think so?"

"Certainly.  Don't you?"

"Well, no.  I haven't thought so; but I will look more closely.  Are
the lines there?"

"A few, but not so many as----"

"You had expected?"

"As I had hoped," he finished with a smile.

"Jane," I called, "the Doctor is disappointed not to find you wrinkled."

"Did he wish me to keep him in countenance?"

"Jane, you must learn to be respectful.  The Doctor is older than you."

"I cannot learn such a lesson at my time of life.  My pupils have
respected _me_."

"I shall be your master, not your pupil."

"These are early days to adopt such a tone, sir."

"You might both be in your teens," I observed.  And they laughed as
happily as though they were.

A hammering at the drawing-room window attracted our attention.

"It's Dimbie," I explained.  "You see, he is a little cross.  He went
to look up something for me in the encyclopædia, and I told Amelia to
lock him in.  I was afraid he might worry you, and perhaps follow you
about."

"Do you mean to say he knew----" Jane broke off, turning a vivid
scarlet.

What was I to say?  Here was a pretty dilemma.

"I let it out the other day," said the Doctor bravely.

"Did you know when you invited me here?"  Her eyes were full of fire,
but her voice was quiet.

"No," I said triumphantly, "not a word.  And Dr. Renton didn't exactly
tell me; I found out.  He was here when your telegram came."

"Mr. Westover will certainly break the window," she said, somewhat
inconsequently.

He was waving and war-whooping like an Indian.  Amelia came to the door.

"Shall I let him out now, mum?" she asked.

"At _once_."

When he appeared I said--

"Dimbie, you should try to be more controlled."

"Well, of all the cheek----"

"It wasn't cheek, but common sense," I interposed gently.  "I told
Amelia to do it."

"But why?  You may be the mistress of One Tree Cottage, but _I_----"

"Come here, and I will whisper to you."  I pulled his sunburnt face
down to mine.

"Your hair tickles!"  He was still a little cross.  I pushed it back.

"I was afraid you might follow those two about and stare at them, and I
wanted them to get engaged and----"

Dimbie raised his head.  (Jane, followed by the Doctor, had strolled
away.)  Light broke across his face.

"And they've done it?"

"It is not an elegant way of putting it."

"They've been jolly sharp."

"Dr. Renton has been here over half an hour."

"And where have I been?"

"Studying the encyclopædia.  Don't you remember I asked you to find me
the sneezy man?  Who was he?"

"Nietzsche, a bally German who didn't know what he wanted."

He crossed the lawn, and I noticed that the grip he gave the Doctor's
hand was pretty severe.  To Jane I heard him say: "It's made Marg
awfully happy.  Her eyes are shining, and she thinks she has brought it
all about--a regular match-maker!"

I could not catch Jane's reply, but presently they returned to me.

"You will be wanting to walk and wander down the lanes, as Dimbie
and--as all lovers want to wander, and you shall go at once.  The
evening is lovely.  There is a cornfield in the lane after you have
passed the four cross-roads.  Dimbie has told me of it.  The sun is
setting--sun on a golden cornfield is a thing of beauty--and later
there will be a moon.  Please remember that supper is at eight o'clock."

They laughed, and Jane without any more ado put on her hat.

"It seems to me," observed Dimbie, as our eyes followed them round the
broom bush and through the gate, "that they are a little old for the
game."

"That is so like a man who never knows or understands anything."

"Oh!"  He settled himself in a deck-chair and lighted his pipe.

"You see, the hearts of Jane and the Doctor are still quite fresh and
young."

"Indeed?"

"Yes," I said, "love has kept them so.  As they walk down the lane they
are back in their 'twenties.'  The years have slipped away.  What
matters if their faces are tired, if some of the brightness has gone
out of their eyes, if some of the freshness has left their voices?
They are beautiful to each other, that is sufficient."

"You sound very wise, little wife."

I nodded.

"I am wiser than you in a few things because I am a girl.  Only women
understand that which pertaineth to love.  Men are very ignorant."

Dimbie smiled and smoked for a while in silence, while I thought of the
happiness of Jane.  We had had a long and intimate talk the previous
evening.  Dimbie had left us and gone to the fields in search of
mushrooms at my special request.  Mushrooms, I had felt, were the one
thing needed to complete our evening in the garden, for we were to sup
under the apple tree; and Dimbie on his return was to hang out our
Chinese lanterns and dot fairy lights about the lawn.

"You only want to get rid of me," he had laughed.  "I am convinced that
there will not be a single mushroom in Surrey after the long, dry
summer."

"If I want to get rid of you," I returned, "it will be for the very
first and last time in my life; but I want to talk to Jane for a little
while--just by ourselves."

He looked at me for a moment jealously and suspiciously.

"You don't mind just for once, dear."

"No, not very much, though I don't approve of secrets between women."

"Good-bye," I said, patting his cheek, "and bring plenty of mushrooms."

Jane sat on a low chair with her arms pillowed behind her head.

"Now," she said, "tell me all, tell me your story from the very
beginning.  You have suffered much, I can see it in your face, but you
are happy.  Tell me where you met your husband.  I may say at once that
I like him tremendously."

"Jane," I said, "my heart goes out to you at your words.  To like
Dimbie shows that you possess a fine discrimination."

She smiled and said, "I am waiting."

And so in the gentle hush of evening, in the fading light, in the sweet
fragrance of the garden, I told her all.  Of Dimbie's and my first
meeting, of our engagement, of our marriage, of my great happiness--I
lingered on that.  The pain which had been mine when I recalled those
radiant days had gone.  I could speak of them now calmly and without
any break in my voice.  Those were days pulsating with joy, these were
days of a great peace.  Then briefly I touched upon my accident and
suffering, of our hopes only to be dashed to the ground, of my
subsequent despair, of my doubts as to the steadfastness of Dimbie's
love, followed by the radiance of complete faith and understanding.  I
told her of Aunt Letitia's money, of my desire to remain at our cottage
till the end of the year because----  Should I tell her why?  Should I
tell her that which I had even withheld from Dimbie?  Jane was so
sensible, so----  And out of the gathering darkness it came to me that
she was crying silently, despairingly.

"Why, Jane," I whispered, "you are crying.  You must not do that,
Dimbie might come, and it would distress him.  Listen, I am not unhappy
now.  Do not think I am sorry for myself, for--perhaps I cannot make it
clear to you, words are so futile, but--one morning just lately, one
wonderful dawn when God Himself took out His palette and brush and
touched the clouds with softest grey and pearl, and pink and rose, when
the first note of a still sleepy bird broke the silence, when the
flowers shook the dew from their fresh morning faces, something came to
my room on footsteps light as thistledown, something came to my bed on
which I had spent a long, weary, sleepless night, and laid a gentle,
healing hand on my aching brow, and sorrow and pain and the fear of
death fell from me, and I was comforted.  You will say I was fanciful,
imaginative, that my mind was overwrought from fatigue; but no, I was
calm and clear-eyed, and I knew that it was Peace that had come to me.
I opened my arms wide and held it closely, never to let go.  'Dear
Comforter,' I whispered, 'you shall never leave me, for now I know a
happiness which is not of this world, but is of a life which is
eternal.'

"I lay very still thinking about it.  I must tell you that during my
weeks of suffering I had lost my faith, I had lost God.  I felt that He
had treated me too cruelly.  'He is not a God of love,' I had cried.
'I cannot believe that.  I have done with Him.'  So as I lay watching
the dawn, waiting for the sun, I wondered and wondered again: 'Has God
forgiven me--forgiven my rebellion, taken pity on my loneliness?'  For
when Dimbie has said his prayers at night with his hand in mine, and
entered into His presence, I have felt so lonely and cried in my heart,
'Lord, let me find Thee again, for where Dimbie is there I want to be.'

"'Perhaps He has forgiven me, and wants me--_even_ me,' I said to
myself.  With my eyes on the glowing east I waited and watched for the
sun.  At last he appeared, and, as though looking for me, sent a warm
shaft of light across my body.  And from me came the words, 'God is
good!  Allah is great!'  And I laughed aloud, and Dimbie stirred and
woke.  'What is it, girl?' he asked.  'Have you had a good night?'

"'A bad, bad night, but such a dawn.  Look!  Here from my corner I can
see all the beauty of the world--shell-pink softness, the red glory of
sunrise, a distant cornfield touched with gold, dewdrops on gossamer
web.

  "'O world as God has made it, all is beauty;
  And knowing this is love, and love is duty.
  What further may be sought for----'

And Dimbie put a gentle arm around me and drew my head on to his
shoulder.  'And have you no further need to ask for, sweetheart?' he
inquired.

"'Not one,' I whispered.  'I am beginning to understand things--just a
little, and I am at peace.'"

I stopped.  Night had fallen, my story was finished.  Jane got up--I
could not see her face--and she walked across the lawn to the sweet-pea
hedge.  No sound broke the stillness of the garden.

Presently she returned and knelt in front of me.

"Little old pupil."

"Yes," I said.

"I want to say something to you.  Most people say things when it is too
late.  I don't want to be too late.  I want to tell you, now, that you
have given me all the happiness I have had for the last eight years.
An Indian station is a dreary place for a plain, unattached, working
woman.  I should have become hard, dull, apathetic but for your love,
little Marguerite, but for your admiration of my poor qualities.  Your
bright, loving letters came each month as a draught of fresh water to a
tired, thirsty traveller.  Your faithfulness cheered me on my way.
Your symp----"

"I don't want to hear any more, Jane," I broke in.

"And but for you I should never have returned to England."

"And you would have missed happiness, the crown of your life."

She paused and looked up into my face.

"Happiness!" she said a little bitterly, "the crown of my life!  I
don't know what you mean.  I only know that you suffer; I have just
heard your story."

"Ah, don't speak of that!  There are other things.  There is love."

"Love and I passed each other long years ago," she said.  "Love mocked
me, laughed at me, left me alone."

"But he may return."

"It is unlikely.  I am not young.  But I don't want to talk of myself.
I want only to speak of you.  A little while back you said--you said
that the fear of death fell from you.  What did you mean?"

"Just what I said," and I bent my head and kissed her.  "I think I hear
Dimbie."

He came down the lane whistling, through the white gate--a dark,
mysterious figure.

"Three mushrooms!" he called gaily.  "One for each of us.  Now I must
light up.  You are all in the dark."

"We are all in the dark," said Jane hopelessly.

"And the light is coming," said I.

CHAPTER XXVI

DIMBIE TAKES PETER AND AMELIA IN HAND

Peter and mother are here again, and Jane has been transferred to the
bachelor's room.

Peter is gouty, irritable, chilly--for October is with us and giving us
sharp little frosts--and sulphurous in his language.

Amelia wears a patient, stand-by-me-O-Lord air; and Dimbie is crossly
resigned to the inevitable.

He came to me this morning.

"I am going to kick Peter."

"Yes," I agreed, drawing my blue nightingale, which mother has made me,
more closely round my shoulders.

"I am going to pitch him out of the front door."

I nodded.

"You have no objection?"

"Well, choose a flower-bed for his descent."

"But I want to hurt him."

"I quite sympathise with you in your desire, which is most reasonable.
But were he to alight on the gravel path he might break his leg, and
then we should be obliged to have him here for weeks."

"Then I shall certainly not choose the path," said Dimbie decisively.

"That is right.  What has he been doing?"

"Everything he shouldn't do.  Your mother is reduced to tears, and
Amelia is flinging the saucepans and kettles at the kitchen-range."

"She is certainly making a noise."

Dimbie sat down on the bed and knit his brows.

"I am sorry, dear," I said sympathetically.  "I couldn't help his
coming; I didn't invite him."

"I know.  Naturally your mother wanted to see you."

"Yes.  Poor mother!  To live for three months without any respite upon
the edge of a crater subject at any moment to volcanic eruptions is
naturally wearing, and she must have an occasional change in order to
keep her reason."

Dimbie nursed his leg, and his mouth was a little more crooked than
usual.  I lay and watched him.  How unselfish and forbearing he was!
He put up with Peter for mother's sake, he put up with mother for my
sake, he put up with Jane for her own and the Doctor's sake.  Here he
was yearning to be alone, to be by ourselves; and the house was full up
with parents, friends, and doctors.  And I, to add to his worries, have
been obliged to keep my room for the last week owing to a feverish cold
and general poorliness.

"But they will all go soon," I said, trying to comfort him.  "Peter and
mother are returning home after the wedding, and Jane is to be married
next month."

"November is an idiotic month for a wedding," he said irritably.

"Why?"

"She mightn't have been in such a deuce of a hurry."

"But it isn't she, it's the Doctor."

"Then he ought to have learnt patience at his age."

I smiled.

"You've grown fond of Jane?"

"Oh, I like her all right, but it's you I'm thinking of.  She seems to
know how to look after you and make you comfortable.  I'm rough and
Amelia's stupid, and it's amazing how she knows exactly what you want.
And Amelia has taken to her, she's a perfect lamb in her presence."

"I wish Peter would be a lamb, too.  How are they getting on at meals?"

And Dimbie gave me a most vivid description of how they _were_ getting
on at meals, which left me weak with laughter.

"And really, sweet," he concluded, "I am rather glad you are fast here,
though the drawing-room without you seems like a barren wilderness.
Your old corner looks lonely and empty."

"I'll soon be there to fill it," I said.

"Do you think you are better?"  He furrowed his brow.

"I wonder how many times a day you ask me that, dear one.  Don't I look
better?"  He regarded me anxiously.  "When we get to our new house----"

"Ah, yes!" he said, brightening at once.  "It is change you want.  As
soon as ever we have cleared out this rabbit warren we'll begin our
plans.  We'll be our own architects--master builders, eh?"

"Do you mean by the rabbit warren mother and Peter?"

"Yes," he laughed.  "And when the endless discussion of frocks and
Jane's wedding is over we'll set to work hard.  I want the house to be
ready by the summer."

A little pain settled at my heart.  He was so bent upon building this
new home for us--a home after our own hearts, a house with south-west
windows to catch every bit of sunshine for me, with a verandah in which
I could lie, with an old-world garden--we must find a plot of land with
well-grown, stately trees--with extensive views, with distant,
pine-clad hills, and smiling, fertile valleys.  Perhaps a river might
be included too, a babbling stream which would cheer me with its happy
laughter.  His eyes glisten as he paints his picture, develops his
foreground, sketches in his distances.

"They must be blue distances," he said to-day.

"They might be grey, swept by clouds, wrapped in mist."

"Even then they would be beautiful," he argued.

"Yes," I agreed, "most distances are beautiful; look at the frog-pond."

He laughed.

"Still attached to our little home?"

"Oh, so attached!  I love it more each day.  It is so cosy, and we are
so comfortable.  Now that Amelia has permitted us to have daily help
there is nothing we want, is there?"

A cloud passed over his face.

"I am sorry that you still do not wish to leave, Marg.  I know it would
be so much better for you, and Renton insists upon it.  He says in
bracing air you will be so much stronger, and--I am disappointed that
you are not interested."

"He does not know----" the words broke from me.  And then, "I _am_
interested.  I want to do what you want.  Your picture is entrancing.
Let us begin at once.  I will draw a plan of the garden, and you shall
draw a plan of the house, and then we'll compare notes."

I spoke rapidly.  Why should we not begin, as he was so eager?  It
would give him occupation during the long days.  It would make him
happy, feeling that it was being done for me and my comfort.

He brightened at once.

"Where shall we have it?" I went on.  "Shall it be on the top of Leith
Hill, or at Hind Head, Farndon, Frensham, or Dorking?"

"It must be where there are pine trees and heather for you, and in the
neighbourhood of shooting for me.  It must be high up, and yet not too
cold, and we must pitch the house southwest for the sun."

"And there must be a river," I continued gravely, "and blue distances,
a wide, extensive view, grand forest trees in our own garden, and lawns
that have been rolled and 'mowd' for a thousand years.  And God will
specially create it all for us."

"Now you are being impertinent."  He smiled happily.  "I will fetch
paper and pencils."  But he didn't, for Peter arrived at the moment and
forced an entrance.  His nose was a trifle blue, and his eyes glistened
as a warrior's who has recently tasted blood.  He pecked me on the
forehead and asked me how I was.  I informed him that I was only very
middling, and Dimbie added that rest and quiet were most essential for
my well-being.

Peter ignored Dimbie and seated himself in front of the fire, to which
he held out a gouty leg, and remarked that Amelia was a brazen minx.
Dimbie and I not replying, he repeated it again.  Dimbie and I admired
the view from the window, and Peter for the third time repeated the
same uninteresting remark, but this time with a yell.  Dimbie said
politely and firmly that if the yell was repeated Peter must leave the
room, as my nerves were not in a state to stand cat-calls.  Peter
glared but didn't repeat the yell, at which I marvelled.

Mother popped her head in at the door, and seeing Peter, popped it out
with extreme activity.

Jane did the same.

Amelia popped hers in, but kept it there, and then advanced.  She sort
of arched her back as she looked at Peter, and bristled and
figuratively spat.

"What is it, Amelia?" I asked, before they got at each other.

"The butcher, mum."

"How often the butcher seems to call," I said wearily.  "Does he live
very near to us?"

"He lives in the village, mum, and he's killed a home-fed pig."

"Poor thing!  Just when there's an abundance of acorns."

Amelia ignored my sympathy.

"A nice loin of pork with sage and onion stuffing would be a change,
mum."

"I don't eat sage and onion," growled Peter.

"A nice loin of pork with sage and onion stuffing would be a change,"
repeated Amelia steadily.  "And I've got oysters and a partridge for
you, mum."

"I don't want both.  General Macintosh could have the partridge," I
said pacifically.

"There'll be soup, pork, Charlotte _Ruce_, and savoury eggs for the
dining-room."  When Amelia adopted that tone it was unwise to argue.

"Do _you_ know how to make Charlotte Russe?"

Amelia creaked, and a bone snapped, the result of an extraordinary
veracity.

"I have an idea how it's made, but Miss Fairbrother does the sweets
now.  She's gettin' her hand in before she's married.  She's goin' to
spoil the Doctor.  Most ladies spoils their husbands."  She fixed a
baleful eye upon Dimbie and Peter.

Peter seized the poker and thumped the fire into a blaze.  I was glad,
for the room was chilly.

"Is that all, Amelia?"

"No, mum.  I wants to speak about the bathroom.  It's fair swimmin'
with water.  You could float the canoe in it."

"Dear me, has the cistern overflowed?" asked Dimbie.

"No, sir, it's General Macintosh.  When he takes his bath in the
mornin' he thinks he's suddenly turned into an alligator.  The
splashin's dreadful, and when he's tired of that he just bales the
water on to the floor.  It's like the Bay of Biscay when I go in, and I
shall be glad if you'll kindly speak to him about it, sir."

Peter put his gouty leg carefully and firmly on to the floor, and, as
golfers say, got a good stance.  Then he opened his mouth, but before
he could utter a word Dimbie had gently but forcibly taken him by the
shoulders and put him out of the room.  Amelia was triumph personified,
but her victory was short lived, for when Dimbie returned he was very
angry with her.

"Understand now, Amelia, that no such tales are brought to the
mistress.  I will _not_ have her worried with trivial household
matters.  I thought you were capable and clever enough to manage for
yourself; you keep telling us that you are, and the first thing that
goes wrong you fly to her.  Understand too that your manner of speaking
to General Macintosh is little short of downright impertinence, and if
it should occur again, if there are any more scenes, not only he goes
out of the house, but you also.  Yes, _you_ go, understand that.  You
are a good girl, but there are plenty of other good girls in the world.
Your mistress is poorly, weak and nervous, and she is _not_ to be
worried.  Now go!  Not a word.  _Go!_"

Dimbie stopped for breath, and weeping, humiliated, and very unhappy,
Amelia went.  Whether she straightway fisted Peter, whether she
peppered him from every point of vantage, we have not inquired; but
during the last six hours there has been a marked improvement in the
behaviour of both.  Peter is not bearing Dimbie any grudge for his
ejectment, which seems to me remarkable, but which Dimbie says isn't.
"Bully a bully and he becomes an angel."

"He is hardly that yet," I objected.

"He passed the hot buttered toast to us at tea and didn't have any
himself."

"Hot buttered toast doesn't agree with him," I said.  "It has always
lain heavily upon his stomach."

Dimbie laughed, and Peter entered in the middle of it.

"Your mother and I are going for a stroll.  Do you want anything from
the village?"

My stare was rude, I fear.  It was certainly the first time I had ever
heard Peter ask if anybody wanted anything.

"Thank you," I began, "it is very good of you."  I cast round in my
mind for some requirement--soap, candles, Shinio, oatmeal, pearl
barley, gelatine, potatoes, all the various things Amelia spent her
life in requiring--but we were not "out" of any of them.  Peter was
waiting; his kindly intention must not be nipped in the bud at any
cost.  "Chips!" I cried with illumination.

"Chips?"

"Firewood.  Hudson's Dry Soap boxes."

Peter clutched at his understanding.

"Amelia chops them up," I explained.

"He can't carry soap boxes home," whispered Dimbie.  "Couldn't you want
darning wool?"

Of course, darning wool was one of the most useful things in the world.

"Please bring me two cards of darning wool," I said aloud.  "You will
get them at the candle shop."

Peter rubbed his head.

"Wool at a candle shop?"

"Yes, it keeps everything--sweets, oil, candles and haberdashery."

He went out of the room.

"Well, I'm blessed!" ejaculated Dimbie.

"So am I.  He looked quite docile, and he's really wonderfully handsome
for a man of his age."

Peter was back.

"What colour your mother wishes to know?"

"Colour?  Oh, anything!"

"Brown," said Dimbie hastily, turning a reproachful eye upon me.

"You really are stupid, Marg," he said when Peter had gone.

"I admit it," I said ruefully, "and we haven't a brown thing in the
house.  Why couldn't you have said black while you were about it?"

And Dimbie didn't know why he hadn't said black.  But it is sufficient
for me to know that Peter is trying to be good, and that Amelia has
ceased to throw saucepans about the house, as the noise was a little
trying.  Peter may yet go to heaven.

CHAPTER XXVII

A DISCUSSION ABOUT A WEDDING-GOWN

The discussion about Jane's wedding-gown began in that pleasant hour
between tea and dinner on the soft edge of the dusk, when the
refreshing influence of tea still pervades one, when the fire seems to
burn its brightest, when the clock ticks its softest, when the little
shadows begin to creep into the corners of the room, and the familiar
furniture and ornaments become a soft, rounded blur.

Nanty had been persuaded into staying for a real long evening; and John
had been persuaded, against his better judgment, into putting up his
horses at the "Ring o' Bells," and was in the kitchen saying pleasant
and pacifying things to Amelia, no doubt.

"We shall be held up by highwaymen.  John will be gagged and thrown
into a ditch, and my pockets will be rifled and my jewellery stolen."

Nanty said this resignedly, nay almost cheerfully, as though a change
from the ordinary routine of life would not be unacceptable to her.
And mother gazed at her in fearful admiration.  Heroism in any form
appeals strongly to mother, though she herself is the bravest of the
brave.  To have lived with Peter for twenty-five years denotes some
courage.

Nanty's pleasure on hearing of Jane's engagement was cloaked by a
pretence at surprise and pity; but of course we all know Nanty.  She
had been very kind to Jane when she lived with us.  "Above the ruck of
ordinary governesses," she had pronounced.  "Not always on the look-out
for slights and snubs; a most sensible young person!"  Now the sensible
young person was anxious to tell her herself of the happiness which had
come into her life, and had requested mother and me to keep silent on
the subject "if we _could_."  She had, however, conceded to our earnest
request that the announcement should be made in our presence after the
men had gone out.  We knew that Nanty's observations would be amusing,
and we looked forward to a pleasant half-hour.  When tea had been
removed Peter seemed inclined to linger, notwithstanding the
unnecessary number of women around him.  The arm-chair which he had
annexed--(Dimbie's)--was luxurious, the fire was warm, his temper was
mild.  Dimbie seemed still more inclined to linger.  The rug on which
he was stretched was curly and soft, his hand sought mine, he liked and
was always entertained by Nanty.  Mother and I looked at one another
and looked at Jane, and curbed our impatience.  Mother glanced at Peter
and opened her mouth and shut it again.  The courage of Horatius was
not within her this day.  I did the same at Dimbie.

"What is it, dear?" he asked.  "Aren't you comfy?  Shall I alter your
pillow?"

I assured him that I was perfectly comfortable, and at the same time
ventured to suggest that it was a lovely evening on which to take a
walk.  Jane's approaching marriage could not be discussed before two
men when one of them was Peter; for Nanty was never talkative before
Peter, she said he always roused her temper to such a pitch that she
could scarcely get her breath.

Dimbie agreed with my view of the evening's attractiveness, and
stretched his legs luxuriously towards the fire.

I mentioned that the birch trees in the spinny would be at their best,
dressed out in all their autumn glory.

He again agreed with me, and remarked that their grey boles was what
peculiarly appealed to him--grey with the vivid splashes of orange and
red leaves above.

The others began to look bored.

I mentioned that the squirrels would be busy gathering and storing
acorns for the winter.

He said he thought it was within the range of possibility, and he put
more coal on the fire.

Mother folded her hands and looked resigned, and Jane took some
needlework from her basket.

"Why don't you say what you want?" said Nanty suddenly.  "Men don't
understand hints and beating about the bush.  They are simple-minded
creatures--some of them.  Do you want your husband to fetch you some
chocolate from the village?"

Dimbie looked at me inquiringly.

"I want you to go for a walk for an hour, and take father with you and
show him the beauties of the spinny.  And you might take a basket and
get some blackberries."

Mother's startled and amazed countenance at the idea of Peter's going
blackberrying made me laugh, and Dimbie's reproachful face moved me to
pity.

"Well, Peter might go blackberrying alone and you to see the
squirrels," I said confusedly.

And now Nanty laughed outright, and mother sat horror-stricken, gazing
at Peter.  But he by a merciful dispensation of Providence, was dozing
which was a lucky thing for me.

Dimbie got up slowly and stretched himself.

"Come on, General Macintosh," he said resignedly, but Peter dozed on.
Dimbie patted his leg, unfortunately the gouty one, and Peter started
up swearing loudly.

"We've got to go for a walk," said Dimbie apologetically.

"Who's got to go for a walk?" demanded Peter fiercely.

"You and I.  We have to go blackberrying and see the squirrels."

The look which Peter gave to Dimbie obliged me to press my mouth
against the tortoise's back to keep from screaming.

Peter sat down heavily.

"I don't know whether you think you are being funny, sir, but I don't.
To wake a man up from a much-needed sleep to talk about da--ahem,
squirrels and blackberries seems to me to be about the most deucedly
idiotic thing--"

"Hsh, father!" I said.  "Dimbie wants you to go for a walk with him to
the spinny.  It's a lovely evening, and you might just happen to come
across some squirrels and blackberries."

"But I don't _want_ to see any squirrels or bl----"

Dimbie took him by the arm and began gently to drag him towards the
door.  "Come on," he said coaxingly, "we've got to go somewhere,
General.  They want to get rid of us.  Women are----" and Peter was so
interested in hearing what Dimbie thought of the senseless creatures,
that he actually followed him into the hall, allowed himself to be put
into his top coat, and led through the door, down the path and out of
the gate.

"You can take a breath, mother, dear," I said, "or you will suffocate.
And now, Jane, tell your news, they won't be back under an hour."

She drew a thread from the linen tea-cloth she was making with
unswerving fingers, but the colour crept into her cheeks.

"She looks as though she were making bottom drawer things," remarked
Nanty dryly.

"And that's exactly what she is doing."

"Oh!  For herself?"

"Well, she'd hardly bother to make them for other people."

"I disagree with you.  Miss Fairbrother is exactly the sort of kind
person who would like to see a friend's drawer filled with a lot of
feminine frippery."

"This is for her own," I returned.  "Go on, Jane."

She put down her work.

"You seem to be telling, so you had better finish, Marguerite."

"You mean you are too shy.  Well, Nanty, Jane is to be married next
month.  Guess to whom.  You shall have three tries."

Nanty sniffed superciliously.

"I should have thought she would have had more sense.  To an Indian
rajah who lives in a gilded palace?"

"Wrong."

"To a man in the Service with a small pension, an enlarged liver,
residing at Brighton and requiring a kind nurse?"

"Wrong again."

"To a widower--perhaps the father of the two sticky children you
mentioned to me?"

"The mother is alive and extremely healthy," said Jane.

Nanty leaned back in her chair.

"I only hope the man is as nice as can be expected or hoped for.  Miss
Fairbrother has the appearance of a woman who would throw herself away
upon a rake, hoping to reform his morals and save his soul."

Jane smiled.

"Do you think that Dr. Renton's soul is in danger?"

Nanty checked a gasp of surprise.

"I have always felt that he was a man with a hidden--something.  I have
wondered about it," she said, recovering herself.

"Most women wonder at single men, and they wonder still more when they
are married," said mother.

"Who," I asked, laughing, "the women or the men?"

"Oh, the women!"

She spoke with an earnestness that recalled Peter and his blackberrying
to my mind, and I laughed again.

"Men," said Nanty, "are necessary for the continuation of the race.  I
cannot see that they are of any other use in the world."

"Now I am waiting for your opinion, Marguerite," said Jane with a
twinkle.  "I should like to have no illusions about man before I marry
him."

"I am not to be drawn," I returned.  "There are men and men.  The two
looking for squirrels at the moment are extreme types.  Perhaps there
is something half-way between, and you may be fairly fortunate."

Jane smiled with a satisfied air.

"You have not congratulated me," she said to Nanty.  "It is usual, I
think."

"I don't congratulate people on marriage."

"You are a cynic."

"No, but my eyes are open; there was a time when they were closed like
yours."

"It is a pity," said Jane softly.  "I hope mine will always remain
shut."

"Let us hope so," returned Nanty a little bitterly.

"I thought we were to discuss Jane's wedding gown," said mother
plaintively, bringing us back to actualities.

She fetched two big bundles of patterns from a side-table and handed
them to Jane.

"Before we begin," said the latter, turning again to Nanty, "won't you
change your mind and congratulate me?"

"I'll congratulate Dr. Renton, if that will satisfy you."

"But it won't.  I think I am quite as much, if not more, to be
congratulated than he."

"Now you are being humble," said Nanty whimsically, "and I don't like
humility in a woman.  A woman should always remember that she is quite
good enough for any man living."  And with that Jane had to be
satisfied.

And what a discussion followed as to the gown Jane should wear on the
great day.  We might have been schoolgirls.  And the trouble was that
no two of us agreed on any single point--colour, material, or fashion
of making.  When mother had soared away to silver gauze posed on
chiffon, Jane said--

"Kindly remember my age, and that I am going to a wedding and not to a
ball."

When Nanty even, roused to enthusiasm, had completed a dream of a
princess gown of softest pastel-blue, chiffon velvet, Jane said--

"Kindly remember that I am small and dumpy."

And when I extolled the virtue of palest mauve taffeta, Jane simply
laughed outright and asked me to look at her colouring.

"I'm looking," I said.  "You've brown hair and bright red cheeks."

But she ignored all our suggestions.

"I shall be married in silver-grey poplin," she pronounced.

"Exactly like a servant."  Nanty closed her eyes.  "They always wear
silver-grey.  I had three parlour-maids in succession who had selected
it for their wedding-gowns."

"But alpaca, surely!  Mine will be silk poplin of a good quality."

But Nanty and mother refused to take any further interest in the
subject, and Nanty picked up a paper.

"What about grey cloth, then--pale dove-grey?"  Jane waived the silver
poplin with an apparent effort.

Nanty put down the paper.

"Grey cloth with chinchilla is rather nice," she admitted grudgingly.

"I did not mention chinchilla," said Jane meekly.

"_I_ will give the chinchilla as a wedding present if you don't mind.
Grey cloth alone would be most uninteresting."

"The coat must be a bolero," said mother firmly, "lined with white
satin."

"You are all evidently going to run me into a lot of money.  I am not
accustomed to satin linings.  I thought of having Italian cloth."

"What?" shouted mother and Nanty.

"Italian cloth," repeated Jane firmly.  "I hope to do the whole thing
for about five pounds."

"_Impossible!_" said Nanty.  "Fifteen would be mean and skimpy."

Jane set her mouth good-humouredly.

"Then I can't get married."

"No, you evidently can't," agreed Nanty.  "It would be unfair to the
man."

"It's a pity," observed Jane, "because I rather wanted to."

"A foolish desire on your part which should be checked at once."

Mother began to look worried.  With a desire to cheer her up I casually
inquired of Nanty if she had seen anything more of Professor Leighrail.
I was unprepared for her dropping the patterns about like chaff in a
wind.

"Professor Leighrail!" said mother, with widely-open eyes.
"Anastasia's old lover?"

"Exactly," I replied.  "He's a friend of ours, and Nanty met him here
the other day.  Have you seen him again?" I asked.

She did not reply.

"It is a pity when deafness overtakes people--the first sign of old
age."

"She is not deaf," said mother, "and is only fifty-one."

I laughed.

"Kiss me, mother, dear," I said, "you are so practical at times.  And
yet some people of your age are quite romantic and sentimental."

"La, la, la, la!" sang Nanty.  She leaned over my couch.  "Marguerite,"
she said, "I should slap you if you were strong and well."

"But I'm not," I said, "so kiss me."  And she did so, while whispering
that the Professor _had_ been to tea with her.  "It's not proper," I
said, and Nanty laughed.

CHAPTER XXVIII

PREPARATIONS FOR A WEDDING

The house is very quiet.  Jane and Dimbie are out in the woods
gathering sprays of red-tinted brambles, briony, traveller's joy,
bracken, which though fading is of that golden tinge which is almost
more beautiful than the green, hips and haws shining and scarlet, and
clusters of berries of the mountain-ash.  This collection of autumnal
loveliness is for the decoration of the cottage, for is not Jane to be
married to-morrow?  Mother and Peter have gone for a stroll as Peter
calls it, or for a gallop as mother terms it, for Peter can get up as
much speed, in spite of his gouty leg, as Amelia can with my Ilkley
couch.

Amelia has "run" to the village for innumerable things forgotten this
morning when the grocer's boy clamoured for orders.  And the Help I
should imagine, from the quiet of the house, has fallen asleep over the
kitchen fire.  The Help, from what Amelia tells me, is very stupid and
is no help at all.  She puts the blacking on the scullery floor instead
of on the boots.  She never screws the stopper on to the Shinio bottle
after use, and the contents are therefore spilled all over the place.
She allows the handles of the knives to lie in water.  "Does she take
them off the blades?" I asked, and I received one of Amelia's halibut
looks.  She forgets to sprinkle tea-leaves on the carpets before
brushing them, though the tea-leaves are put all ready for her in a
nice clean saucer.  And yet, in spite of all these enormities, Amelia
permits her to remain and not help.

Before "running" to the village just now she wondered whether anything
would go wrong during her temporary absence and what the Help would be
up to.

"She's worse than her at Tompkinses'."

"The one who wore half a pound of tea as a bustle when she left at
night?"

Amelia seemed pleased at my memory, and she then went on to explain why
this Help was worse than the other.  It appeared that deceit was her
besetting sin.  The other one openly, so to speak, wore tea as a
bustle; this one you could never catch.  She would leave of an evening
with a face like the Song of Solomon--I did not see the connection, but
did not like to interrupt--and yet butter, bacon, and tea disappeared
miraculously.  Amelia would search her hand-bag when the Help was
washing up; she would look under the lining of her crêpe bonnet.
"Crêpe!" I said.  "Is she a widow?"

But Amelia said she wasn't, that the bonnet had been given to her by a
late employer, and the crêpe was of the best quality.  I felt remiss in
not having a crêpe bonnet too to present to the Help, and asked Amelia
if she thought my old yellow satin dancing frock would be of any use to
her, and Amelia has gone off without replying.  Perhaps she would like
the frock for herself.  I know she can dance, for have I not seen her
executing the cakewalk in Dimbie's tea-rose slippers?

The Help is to wear a cap and collar and cuffs for to-morrow's
festivities.  Amelia is making her do this; and I am a little sorry for
the poor Help, for she may dislike a cap very much, having a husband
and four nearly grown-up children.

Amelia says that she and the Help will be able to manage the guests
quite easily, and I believe her.  I know that she alone would be quite
equal to forty, and we are only expecting ten besides the house-party.
A younger brother of Dr. Renton is to be best man; and then there will
be Nanty; a Miss Rebecca Sharp, a Suffragist, and cousin to Jane; Dr.
Renton's married sister and her husband; his housekeeper, who has
served him faithfully like a housekeeper in a book for nearly twenty
years; a Mrs. Wilbraham, an old patient, who has invited herself; and
Professor Leighrail.  Dimbie suggested inviting the last, and I jumped
at him.

"He will entertain Nanty," I said.

"You don't want to marry them?" said Dimbie in alarm.

"Dimbie, dear," I returned, "you must try to break yourself of the
habit of assuming that I am perpetually trying to marry people."

"What about Jane and the Doctor?"

"I was a girl in the schoolroom when they fell in love with one
another."

"You brought them together."

"I did nothing of the kind.  Jane's visit was arranged long before I
knew."

He was only half convinced.

"I don't want another wedding from here," he said a little gloomily.
"One is all right.  I like Jane, and it has been fun and amusement for
you.  But if Nanty and more pattern-books arrive I shall clear off."

"Were I stronger," I said, "I should shake you."

"Would you?"  He laughed, holding his face to mine.

"I hope you are going to be very good to-morrow, and give Jane away
nicely.  You mustn't give her a push, you must hand her over gracefully
to the Doctor."

Dimbie screwed up his face.

"I don't fancy the job.  I wish you could be there, Marg, to give me a
wink at the right moment."

"Oh, don't!" I whispered, in a momentary fit of passionate longing.
"Don't remind me that I can't be there.  Dimbie, I am _so_ disappointed
that I shall not see Jane married!  I do so love Jane.  It is--hard to
bear."

As the words were uttered I would have given a kingdom to recall them.
When should I learn control?  Pain flitted across my dear one's face,
pity and sorrow.

"Never mind!" I cried, striving to heal the wound.  "I shall see her
dressed.  She is going to don her wedding-gown in my room, and I am to
put all the finishing touches.  She will kneel in front of me, and I am
to pull a lock of hair out here, pat one in there, persuade a curl to
wander across her forehead, tilt her hat to a more fashionable angle,
and altogether make her the most beautiful Jane in the world."

But Dimbie was not to be comforted.  He has gone to the woods with
black care hovering very close at hand, and every effort must I strain
this evening to bring back the smile to his lips.  There must be no sad
faces to-morrow.  Jane has had a somewhat hard and lonely life, and she
must embark upon her new voyage without a shadow of unhappiness.  The
Doctor will be good to her, I know--gentle and chivalrous.  One knows
instinctively when a man will be good to the woman he has married; it
is in his voice, his manner, in the very way he looks at her.  What
Dimbie is to me he will be to her.  Why should Jane and I be of the
elect among women?  We deserve it no more than mother and Nanty.  But
they will have their compensation, I verily believe.  God in His
goodness will reserve for all the tired, disillusioned wives of the
world a little peaceful niche where they may rest from their husbands,
which is another word for labours.  And the husbands!  I do not think
that theirs is always the blame, the fault.  There must be many too who
would like to find a peaceful haven where they may smoke and read, and
put their feet upon the chairs, and rest from the perpetual nagging and
fault-finding of their wives.

Amelia is back and has roused the Help, for her voice was borne to me
loudly indignant.  "And there is no kettle boiling for tea!"  Poor
Help, or sensible Help?  Did she realise that if she waited long enough
Amelia would put on the kettle?  There are usually plenty of Amelias to
put on kettles and scold Helps and tidy up the universe.  And so also
are there many Helps who realise this, and therefore sit with folded
hands doing nothing so long as the Amelias will permit them.  I don't
know to whom my sympathy goes the most, the Amelias or Helps.

Peter and mother are back too, and are removing their outdoor wraps.
Peter, blowing and snorting like the alligator to which Amelia likened
him, has informed me that it is a beastly cold day with an east wind,
that the roads in Surrey are the worst in Europe, and that mother is
the slowest woman in God's universe.  Mother has tip-toed back to tell
me what she thinks of Peter.  That his limp was so fast and furious
that you might just as well try to keep up with a fire-engine, that she
has made up her mind that this will be her last walk with him (mother
has been saying this for many years), and that he has _forbidden_ her
to wear her new bonnet on the morrow, as--she looks a fright in it.

I have soothed her as best I can.  I have told her that Dimbie shall
stand by and see that she does wear the new bonnet, and that if Peter
is in any way untractable he shall be locked up for the day in the shed
with his own canoe, which has caused her to steal away in a state of
fearful joy.

I see Jane and Dimbie coming through the gate.  Jane is wellnigh lost
in a tangled wealth of glorious autumn treasures, and Dimbie trails
behind him an immense bough of pine.  It is for me to smell, I know--to
inhale the delicious, resinous scent fresh from the woods.  A bit
broken off is less than nothing, you must have a branch straight from
the heart of the trunk.  When I have felt it and held it, and smelled
it and loved it, it shall stand by the grandfather clock in the hall,
and it will make a beautiful decoration for to-morrow's festivities.

I must cease scribbling.  They are all assembling for the last family
tea.  The Doctor has just arrived.  Jane has a bunch of mountain-ash
berries tucked into her belt.  Here comes Amelia with the tea and
toast, and resignation under suffering written on her brow!  What has
the Help been doing now?

CHAPTER XXIX

JANE'S WEDDING

Nanty described it as a calm, gracious sort of wedding.  There was no
blare of trumpets when Jane and the Doctor plighted their troth.

"Just as it should be," said Nanty.  "A wedding at all times is to me a
depressing spectacle; and when accompanied by a sound of brass and
tinkling of cymbals, and shawms, and ringing of bells, and thumping of
wedding marches, it simply becomes ridiculous, not to mention that the
making of such noises is a relic of barbarism."

Mother said a bright ray of sunshine found Jane out, and lit up and
illumined her face just as she was repeating the beautiful and solemn
words, "Till death us do part."

"She looked--she looked----"  Mother paused for suitable words.

"As though she had been sunstruck," interposed Nanty.

Mother was mildly indignant.

"She looked like an angel, Anastasia."

Nanty gave a little grunt.

"An angel in a Paris hat, eh?  But I must admit she looked rather nice.
She's certainly far too good for the Doctor."

"Of course, Jane is getting on," said mother doubtfully.

"If she were sixty she would be too good for any man," pronounced Nanty
decisively, and when she adopted that tone mother ceased to argue.

I was glad that the wedding morning dawned serenely beautiful.  I had
feared lowering skies, heavy, white mists, a dripping, gloomy,
sad-faced world, but November was on her best behaviour.  The sun sent
mild, warm rays across the garden, and the few leaves which still clung
to the trees across the fence were as splashes of gold against the
brown branches and quiet, blue sky.

They bade me remain in bed till late on in the morning, so that I might
be well and strong for the reception, which was a grand name to give to
a gathering of a dozen or more people.

I lay and laughed at the various sounds of the household, which were
carried to me through my open door--at Amelia's shrill expostulations
with the Help, who seemed to be bent upon doing the wrong thing at the
wrong time; at Peter's explosions as he was chivied about from pillar
to post by "tiresome women who would go putting silly decorations all
over the confounded place"; and at Dimbie's perpetual wailing at the
disappearance of the corkscrew.  "Tie it round your neck on a ribbon,
Dumbarton," I could hear Peter growl; and Dimbie said it was a most
excellent suggestion on the part of his father-in-law, and he would
carry it out at once.

"Would you mind moving once again, General Macintosh, we must arrange
the refreshments now," came Jane's voice pleading and ingratiating.

"Well, I'm not preventing you."

"But we want the table, please."  And he straightway burst into my room
to tell me what he thought of the institution of marriage.

"Not so much as a hole left for a cat to creep into," he said angrily.

"Jumbles is here; _you_ can stay if you like.  The easy chair by the
fire is very comfortable."

He dropped into it a little ungraciously.

"So you don't like weddings?" I said with a smile.

"Like weddings!"

"Why did you come?"

"Your mother insisted.  When your mother gets an idea into her head you
might as well talk to a mule."

"But _you_ needn't have come," I said gently.

He put some coal on the fire with unnecessary energy.

"What is mother doing?"

"Getting in everybody's way."

"I thought it was you who were doing that."

He vouchsafed no reply, and buried himself behind _The Times_,
thinking, I suppose, like the ostrich, that if he covered up his head
his body would not be detected.

But Jane soon routed him out.

"I have come to dress Marguerite," she announced.  "Amelia is
permitting it."

There was no movement from behind the paper.

"General Macintosh, I am sorry to disturb you, but the time is getting
on."

"I thought Marguerite was dressed, she looks very grand."

"It is the ribbons of my nightingale which have deceived you, I have
only that and my nightdress on.  I can hardly appear in so scanty an
attire."

"Give 'em something to talk about."

"Father," I said, "_will_ you go."  And growling and grumbling he went
in search of mother, presumably to have a row.

The sunshine streamed into the room, the tits chattered, and a robin
blithely showed what could be done with a range of eight notes: tweet,
tweet, ta ra ra tweet, tre la, tre la, ta ra ra tweet.

"Listen, Jane," I said, "it is singing to you.  Isn't it a lovely day!
I'm so glad the sun is shining.  Are you happy, Jane?"

"Yes," she said simply, dropping a kiss on to my hair, which she was
gently brushing.  "I'm too happy to talk about it; and I must hurry,
Dimbie will be here in a minute, he has got something for you."

And there he was, peeping through the door with Amelia close behind
him.  In his arms was a large cardboard box.

"It's a new tea-gown straight from Paris, mum," said Amelia, excitedly,
as Dimbie removed the lid.  "There were twenty to choose from," added
Jane, "and _we_ were over an hour in settlin' on it," completed Amelia.

Very carefully Dimbie removed all the folds of soft, white paper, and
shook out the gown--a lovely mass of pearly satin, soft as the petals
of a rose, and marvellous old lace of cobweb transparency and texture.

"It is too beautiful!" I whispered to him, folding my arms around his
neck.

"And there is a rose for your neck, sweetheart, just the colour of your
hair.  Isn't he a beauty?"

I held the fragrant, yellow softness to my face, for the tears were
coming, and Jane and Amelia stole softly away and left us by ourselves
for ten minutes--ten minutes which would alone make the saddest life
worth living, and mine was not sad because I had Dimbie.

Presently Jane came back.

"You must go, sir," she commanded, "or your wife will not be ready."
And Dimbie went.

Deftly and quickly she arranged my hair, got me into the lovely gown,
and fastened the rose at my breast.  And while she worked she talked.
She made me laugh at her description of the Help, who was sitting dazed
and "amoithered" in the middle of the kitchen, drinking the strongest
black tea, and regarding every onslaught of Amelia with the utmost
indifference and apathy.  And Amelia!  She, of course, was working like
a traction engine in the refreshment-room, shaking her fist at the
creams and jellies, some of which refused to stand up, and persuading
trails of briony to stick to their proper position on the cake and not
wander away to the dishes of oyster pâtés.

"And now you are ready, and you look--well, Dimbie will tell you how
you look.  I will call him."

"Don't," I said, "he will stay so long, and then you will go to another
room to dress, and I do so want to watch you.  I shall be awfully
particular about your hair."

"You won't suggest a hair-frame?"

"God forbid!  You are not the type of woman for a frame.  But you drag
your hair too much off your temples at times, and although your
forehead is low and broad and all that a forehead ought to be, I fancy
a few tendrils straying across it would look sweet under your
chinchilla toque, and you must humour my fancy, Jane."

Obediently she knelt down and let me do what I would with her.

"Be very careful getting into your skirt," I commanded.  "Don't ruffle
your hair whatever you do."

She made a comical face.

"What a fuss!" she said.

"If you don't fuss on your wedding-day you never will.  And men don't
like dowdy women.  Come here and I will fasten your bodice.  I can if
you will kneel very close to me."

For a moment I rested my cheek against the soft, beautiful fur which
trimmed the bolero-bodice--Nanty had indeed been generous.

"Jane, dear," I said, "I _am_ glad you are going to be married, and
that you will have no more sticky children to teach.  I should like to
have seen the Doctor as a bridegroom.  I feel sure that he will use
profane language in the stress of his emotions.  Now put on your hat
and walk across the room with stately mien so that I may have a good
look at you."  I nodded approval.  "You'll do.  You look sweet--a study
in grey.  And you are quite tall and slight in that elegant frock.  I
believe even Nanty will be satisfied."

She came and knelt again by my couch.  How strong and yet gentle was
her face! I thought.  How steady and clear were her eyes!  How sweet
and expressive the large, sensitive mouth!

"I want to say good-bye to you alone--not before the others.  I want to
thank you, little, patient Marguerite, for all your goodness to me----"

"Jane," I said, "if you utter another word I shall weep, and then my
eyes will be red.  Be merciful to me."

"God bless you and keep you!" she murmured with a great earnestness,
and then she bowed her head for a moment, and I knew that she was
praying.

Mother forced an entrance.

"Peter has hidden my bonnet"--her air was tragic--"and I can't find
him, he has hidden himself as well."

"He was under the pine tree in the hall when I last saw him," said
Jane.  "He may have slipped behind the clock."

"I'll go and see," said mother breathlessly, "I shall never be ready in
time.  The carriages are due now."  Mother and Peter were to have one
to themselves, and Dimbie was to take Jane.

She was back in a moment.

"I've got it.  Amelia found it.  He says he never touched it, and that
it was the Help."

And now Dimbie came banging at the door.

"Time's up," he shouted.  "How much longer are you going to prink,
Jane?"  Then popping his head in, "Peter will be smashing the wedding
presents if you don't all hurry up."

"I'm ready.  What do you think of your wife, sir?" said Jane.

I covered my face with my hands at the look in his eyes.

"Wheel me to the drawing-room," I whispered to him, "you don't go so
fast as Amelia; and put me right in the window, so that I may see you
all coming down the path."

"What a lovely Marguerite!" he murmured, shutting the door.  "I must
kiss my little wife.  Why, even your cushions are gold!  You look like
a golden lily."

"The carriages are waiting," I said.

"I shall come home the very minute I have given Jane away; I shan't
wait to the end.  You will be lonely."

And Dimbie little knew how earnestly during the next quarter of an hour
I longed for the loneliness he had predicted.  Never had I more
fervently yearned to be by myself, for as soon as ever Jane and Dimbie
had driven away the Help appeared.  She came slowly and deliberately
into the room and seated herself on a chair opposite to the couch.  She
wore the black crêpe bonnet, a black dress, black kid gloves, and she
carried a black parasol and a prayer-book.

"Good afternoon," I said politely.

"Good afternoon," she returned.

"Are you going--to a funeral?"

She stared at me with hard, black eyes.

"I've come to the reception."

"Oh!" I said.

"Master said me and 'Melia could hear their health drunk--the bride and
bridegroom's."

"But they are not here yet."

"No," she said, still staring at me unwaveringly.

"Where's Amelia?"  The Help alarmed me.

"'Melia's gone to the wedding, and then she's going to run 'ome before
the others to make the tea and coffee."

"Couldn't you make it?" I cried with sudden relief.

"No, 'Melia's going to make it.  She said I was to look after you and
see that you wanted for nothin'."

"I don't require anything, thank you; if I do, I will ring."

She did not move.