of a muchness, and I’m not sure but it is not the best at the castle.’
‘The children are different at home,’ said Owen, quietly; ‘but,’ he added, with the same sad humility, ‘I dare say they will be much the better for the change; I know—’
But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.
Honora hoped she should not be left alone with him, but somehow it did happen. The captain went to bring the carriage into the court, and get all imaginable wraps before trusting him out in the air, and Miss Wells disappeared, probably intending kindness. Of course neither spoke, till the captain was almost come back. Then Owen rose from where he had been sitting listlessly, leaning back, and slowly said, ‘Nora, we did not think it would end thus when I put my hand to the plough. I am glad to have been here again. I had not remembered what I used to be. I do not ask you to forgive me. You are doing so, returning me good for—shall I say evil?’
Honor could not speak or look, she drooped her head, and her hair veiled her; she held out her hand as the captain came in, and felt it pressed with a feverish, eager grasp, and a murmured blessing.
Honora did not see Mr. Sandbrook again, but Captain Charteris made an incursion on her the next day to ask if she could receive the children on the ensuing morning. He had arranged to set off before daybreak, embarking for Ostend before the children were up, so as to spare the actual parting, and Honora undertook to fetch them home in the course of the day. He had hoped to avoid their knowing of the impending separation but he could only prevail so far as to extract a promise that they should not know when it was to take place. Their father had told them of their destination and his own as they sat on his bed in the morning before he rose, and apparently it had gone off better than could have been expected; little Owen did not seem to understand, and his sister was a child who never shed tears.
The day came, and Honora awoke to some awe at the responsibility, but with a yearning supplied, a vacancy filled up. For at least six months she should be as a mother, and a parent’s prayers could hardly have been more earnest.
She had not long been dressed, when a hasty peal was heard at the bell, and no sooner was the door opened than in hurried Captain Charteris, breathless, and bearing a large plaid bundle with tangled flaxen locks drooping at one end, and at the other rigid white legs, socks trodden down, one shoe wanting.
He deposited it, and there stood the eldest child, her chin buried in her neck, her fingers digging fast into their own palms, her eyes gleaming fiercely at him under the pent-house she had made of her brows.
‘There’s an introduction!’ he said, panting for breath. ‘Found her in time—the Strand—laid flat on back seat, under all the plaids and bags—her father put up his feet and found her—we drove to the lane—I ran down with her—not a moment—can’t stay, good-bye, little Cilly goose, to think she could go that figure!’
He advanced to kiss her, but she lifted up her shoulder between him and her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and he retreated.
‘Wiser not, maybe! Look here,’ as Honora hurried after him into the hall to ask after the patient; ‘if you have a bit of sticking-plaster, he had better not see this.’
Lucilla had made her little pearls of teeth meet in the fleshy part of his palm.
Honora recoiled, shocked, producing the plaster from her pocket in an instant.
‘Little vixen,’ he said, half laughing; ‘but I was thankful to her for neither kicking nor struggling!’
‘Poor child!’ said Honora, ‘perhaps it was as much agony as passion!’
He shrugged his shoulders as he held out his hand for her operations, then hastily thanking her and wishing her good-bye, rushed off again, as the astonished Miss Wells appeared on the stairs. Honor shrank from telling her what wounds had been received, she thought the gentle lady would never get over such a proceeding, and, in fact, she herself felt somewhat as if she had undertaken the charge of a little wild cat, and quite uncertain what the young lady might do next. On entering the breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the energy and life gone from the little dejected figure.
‘Poor child! Dear little thing—won’t you come to me?’ She stirred not.
Miss Wells advanced, but the child’s only motion was to shake her frock at her, as if to keep her off; Honora, really afraid of the consequences of touching her, whispered that they would leave her to herself a little. The silver kettle came in, and tea was made.
‘Lucilla, my dear, the servants are coming in to prayers.’
She did not offer to move, and still Honora let her alone, and she remained in the same attitude while the psalm was read, but afterwards there was a little approximation to kneeling in her position.
‘Lucilla, dear child, you had better come to breakfast—’ Only another defying glance.
Miss Wells, with what Honor thought defective judgment, made pointed commendations of the tea, the butter and honey, but they had no effect; Honora, though her heart ached for the wrench the poor child had undergone, thought it best to affect indifference, gave a hint of the kind, and scrupulously avoided looking round at her, till breakfast was finished. When she did so, she no longer met the wary defiant gleam of the blue eyes, they were fast shut, the head had sunk on the arms, and the long breathings of sleep heaved the little frame. ‘Poor little dear!’ as Miss Wells might well exclaim, she had kept herself wakeful the whole night that her father might not go without her knowledge. And how pretty she looked in that little black frock, so ill and hastily put on, one round white shoulder quite out of it, and the long flaxen locks showing their silky fineness as they hung dispersed and tangled, the pinky flush of sleep upon the little face pillowed on the rosy pair of arms, and with a white unstockinged leg doubled under her. Poor child, there was more of the angel than the tiger-cat in her aspect now, and they had tears in their eyes, and moved softly lest they should startle her from her rest.
But wakened she must be. Honora was afraid of displeasing her domestic vizier, and rendering him for ever unpropitious to her little guests if she deferred his removal of the breakfast things beyond a reasonable hour. How was the awaking to be managed? Fright, tears, passion, what change would come when the poor little maid must awake to her grief! Honora would never have expected so poetical a flight from her good old governess as the suggestion, ‘Play to her;’ but she took it eagerly, and going to the disused piano which stood in the room began a low, soft air. The little sleeper stirred, presently raised her head, shook her hair off her ears, and after a moment, to their surprise, her first word was ‘Mamma!’ Honora was pausing, but the child said, ‘Go on,’ and sat for a few moments as though recovering herself, then rose and came forward slowly standing at last close to Honora. There was a pause, and she said, ‘Mamma did that.’
Never was a sound more welcome! Honora dared to do what she had longed for so much, put an arm round the little creature and draw her nearer, nor did Lucilla resist, she only said, ‘Won’t you go on?’
‘I can make prettier music in the other room, my dear; we will go there, only you’ve had no breakfast. You must be very hungry.’
Lucilla turned round, saw a nice little roll cut into slices, and remembered that she was hungry; and presently she was consuming it so prosperously under Miss Wells’s superintendence that Honor ventured out to endeavour to retard Jones’s desire to ‘take away,’ by giving him orders about the
