ever calling her mother, and looking to her for help.
They stayed for a few minutes to see the children sleep, with their rosy little faces on the same pillow, and then, with their arms around each other, Sage and Rue, happy girls at heart once more, descended to the dining-room, where their aunt was telling Doctor Vinnicombe about her troubles with her garden, while their uncle’s face was full of good-humoured crinkles as she spoke.
“Here, girls,” he said, putting down his pipe, “come and comfort me while I’m being flogged.”
“I’m not flogging you, Joseph,” said Mrs. Portlock, speaking in a serious, half-plaintive way; “but it will soon be time for Dicky to be doing up my garden again, and I do say that it is a shame that in my own ground you will be always planting seeds and things that have no business there.”
“Never put in anything that isn’t useful,” chuckled the Churchwarden, with his arms round his nieces’ waists as they stood by his side.
“Useful, yes; but you ought not to sow carrot-seed amongst my mignonette, and plant potato-cuttings in amongst my tulips and hearts-ease. I declare, doctor, if my verbena-bed was not full of cabbage plants one day, and when I pulled them up he had them set again, and often and often I’ve allowed swedes, and mangolds, and rape to get ever so big in the garden before I’ve known what they were.”
“He’s a terrible rascal, Mrs. Portlock, that he is; and if I were you I’d have a divorce,” said the doctor.
“Ah, do, old lady,” chuckled the Churchwarden, but he became serious directly as his wife rose from her seat and went and stood behind his chair, with her hands upon his shoulders.
“A divorce?” she said, smiling. “Thirty years we’ve been man and wife, Joseph;” and he leaned back his head and said softly—
“Ay, dear, and I worked five years till I was well enough off to give you a good home, and please God we’ll have thirty more years together—here, or in the better world.”
Luke Ross felt that the words were meant for him, and he tried to catch Sage’s eye, but she would not raise her face, and he sat thinking that after all the farmer was right.
There was a dead silence in the room for some minutes, and then Dr. Vinnicombe exclaimed—
“Come, Churchwarden, here are Michael Ross and I famishing for a game at whist.”
“To be sure,” cried the Churchwarden. “Now, girls, let’s have the card-table. My word, what a night! It’s a nipper indeed. Let’s have another log on, old lady, and—What the dickens is the matter with those dogs?”
For just then, as the flames and sparks were roaring up the chimney, the two dogs in the yard set up a furious barking, growing so excited, and tearing so at their chains, that the Churchwarden went out to the door, opened it, and a rush of cold, searching wind roared into the room as he shouted—
“Down, Don! Quiet, Rover! Who’s there?”
“Port—lock, ahoy!” came in reply, and Rue turned pale, uttered a low moan, and clung to her sister, who trembled in turn as another voice shouted—
“Call off the dogs, Mr. Portlock; it is only I.”
“Sage,” whispered Rue, with her face close to her sister’s ear, “let us go away.”
“Why, it must be Mr. Frank Mallow,” cried Mrs. Portlock, excitedly, and she glanced in a frightened way at her nieces.
“Yes, that it is,” she said, beneath her breath, as a tall, dark man with a heavy beard entered the room, closely followed by Cyril Mallow.
“Beg pardon,” he said, in a curious, half-cynical way. “Didn’t expect to see me, I suppose. Only got back this afternoon; thought I should like to see all old friends.”
“Hearty glad to see you back again,” said the Churchwarden, frankly. “Sit down, Mr. Cyril,” he continued, as the new-comer shook hands. “Take a chair, Mr. Frank. It’s like old times to see you here again.”
“Hah! yes. How well you look, farmer, and you too, Mrs. Portlock. Miss Sage, I presume? Why, what a change! Grown from a slip of a girl to a charming woman. And how is Miss Rue Portlock?” he said, with mock deference, as he fixed the pale, shrinking face with his dark eyes.
“I am quite well, Mr. Frank,” said Rue, making an effort to be composed, but not taking the visitor’s extended hand. “John, dear,” she continued, turning to her husband, “this is Mr. Frank Mallow, of whom you have heard me speak.”
“Ah! to be sure,” said John Berry. “Glad to know my little wife’s friends. How are you, sir—how are you?”
Frank Mallow’s eyes closed slightly, and he gazed in a half-curious, contemptuous way at John Berry as he shook hands, and then turned to Luke Ross.
“And is this Miss Sage’s husband?” he said, laughingly, but in a sarcastic way that turned Sage cold.
“Well, no; I am not Miss Portlock’s husband, Mr. Mallow,” said Luke, smiling, and taking the extended hand, his tone saying plainly enough that he hoped soon to be.
“Ah, well, we all get married some time or other,” said the visitor, in a careless, unpleasant way.
“Have you got married then, my lad?” said the Churchwarden, reaching a cigar-box from the fireplace cupboard.
“No, not yet,” he replied, “not yet. Cyril and I are particular, eh, Cil, old man? I’ve come over to fetch myself a wife perhaps. Cigar? Yes; thanks. Take one, Cil? Hah! how cosy this old room seems! I’ve spent some pleasant hours here.”
“Ay, you’ve smoked many a pipe with me, Mr. Frank. That was when you were in your farming days.”
“Farming days?”
“Ay,” chuckled the Churchwarden, “sowing thy wild oats, my lad.”
“Ha, ha, ha! Why, Portlock, you’re as fond of a joke as ever. Ladies, I hope you won’t mind so much smoking,” he said, puffing away vigorously all the same, while Luke Ross gazed uneasily from one brother to the other, till he caught Cyril looking at him in a haughty, offended manner, when in spite of himself his eyes fell.
“Old folks surprised to see you, eh, sir?” said the Churchwarden, to break the blank in the conversation.
“Yes, preciously,” was the short reply.
“Humph!”
Frank Mallow, who was staring at Rue, while his brother was trying to catch her sister’s eye, turned at this loud grunt and smiled.
“Oh, you’re there!” he exclaimed. “And how is Doctor Vinnicombe?”
“Doctor Vinnicombe is in very good health, and in the best of spirits,” said the doctor, sarcastically, “for one of his old patients has come back, evidently to pay a heavy bill that his father refused to acknowledge.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Frank Mallow.
“And
