a head, all expenses told. Mrs. Trevelyan probably did not know that the cloud was lifted off her mind, and the load of her sorrow made light to her, by the special vigour of the air of the Moor; but she did know that she was enjoying herself, and that the world was pleasanter to her than it had been for months past.
When they had sat upon their hillocks, and eaten their sandwiches,—regretting that the basket of provisions had not been bigger,—and had drunk their sherry and water out of the little horn mug which Mrs. Crocket had lent them, Nora started off across the moorland alone. The horse had been left to be fed in Princetown, and they had walked back to a bush under which they had rashly left their basket of provender concealed. It happened, however, that on that day there was no escaped felon about to watch what they had done, and the food and the drink had been found secure. Nora had gone off, and as her sister and Priscilla sat leaning against their hillocks with their backs to the road, she could be seen standing now on one little eminence and now on another, thinking, doubtless, as she stood on the one how good it would be to be Lady Peterborough, and, as she stood on the other, how much better to be Mrs. Hugh Stanbury. Only,—before she could be Mrs. Hugh Stanbury it would be necessary that Mr. Hugh Stanbury should share her opinion,—and necessary also that he should be able to maintain a wife. “I should never do to be a very poor man’s wife,” she said to herself; and remembered as she said it, that in reference to the prospect of her being Lady Peterborough, the man who was to be Lord Peterborough was at any rate ready to make her his wife, and on that side there were none of those difficulties about house, and money, and position which stood in the way of the Hugh Stanbury side of the question. She was not, she thought, fit to be the wife of a very poor man; but she conceived of herself that she would do very well as a future Lady Peterborough in the drawing-rooms of Monkhams. She was so far vain as to fancy that she could look, and speak, and move, and have her being after the fashion which is approved for the Lady Peterboroughs of the world. It was not clear to her that Nature had not expressly intended her to be a Lady Peterborough; whereas, as far as she could see, Nature had not intended her to be a Mrs. Hugh Stanbury, with a precarious income of perhaps ten guineas a week when journalism was doing well. So she moved on to another little eminence to think of it there. It was clear to her that if she should accept Mr. Glascock she would sell herself, and not give herself away; and she had told herself scores of times before this, that a young woman should give herself away, and not sell herself;—should either give herself away, or keep herself to herself as circumstances might go. She had been quite sure that she would never sell herself. But this was a lesson which she had taught herself when she was very young, before she had come to understand the world and its hard necessities. Nothing, she now told herself, could be worse than to hang like a millstone round the neck of a poor man. It might be a very good thing to give herself away for love,—but it would not be a good thing to be the means of ruining the man she loved, even if that man were willing to be so ruined. And then she thought that she could also love that other man a little,—could love him sufficiently for comfortable domestic purposes. And it would undoubtedly be very pleasant to have all the troubles of her life settled for her. If she were Mrs. Glascock, known to the world as the future Lady Peterborough, would it not be within her power to bring her sister and her sister’s husband again together? The tribute of the Monkhams’ authority and influence to her sister’s side of the question would be most salutary. She tried to make herself believe that in this way she would be doing a good deed. Upon the whole, she thought that if Mr. Glascock should give her another chance she would accept him. And he had distinctly promised that he would give her another chance. It might be that this unfortunate quarrel in the Trevelyan family would deter him. People do not wish to ally themselves with family quarrels. But if the chance came in her way she would accept it. She had made up her mind to that, when she turned round from off the last knoll on which she had stood, to return to her sister and Priscilla Stanbury.
Nora tries to make herself believe.
They two had sat still under the shade of a thorn bush, looking at Nora as she was wandering about, and talking together more freely than they had ever done before on the circumstances that had brought them together. “How pretty she looks,” Priscilla had said, as Nora was standing with her figure clearly marked by the light.
“Yes; she is very pretty, and has been much admired. This terrible affair of mine is a cruel blow to her.”
“You mean that it is bad for her to come and live here—without society.”
“Not exactly that,—though of course it would be better for her to go out. And I don’t know how a girl is ever to get settled in the world unless she goes out. But it is always an injury to be connected in any way with a woman who is separated from her husband. It must be bad for you.”
“It won’t hurt me,” said Priscilla. “Nothing of that kind can hurt me.”
“I mean that people say such illnatured things.”
“I stand alone, and can take care of myself,” said Priscilla. “I defy the evil tongues of all the world to hurt me. My personal cares are limited to an old gown and bread and cheese. I like a pair of gloves to go to church with, but that is only the remnant of a prejudice. The world has so very little to give me, that I am pretty nearly sure that it will take nothing away.”
“And you are contented?”
“Well, no; I can’t say that I am contented. I hardly think that anybody ought to be contented. Should my mother die and Dorothy remain with my aunt, or get married, I should be utterly alone in the world. Providence, or whatever you call it, has made me a lady after a fashion, so that I can’t live with the ploughmen’s wives, and at the same time has so used me in other respects, that I can’t live with anybody else.”
“Why should not you get married, as well as Dorothy?”
“Who would have me? And if I had a husband I should want a good one,—a man with a head on his shoulders, and a heart. Even if I were young and good-looking, or rich, I doubt whether I could please myself. As it is I am as likely to be taken bodily to heaven, as to become any man’s wife.”
“I suppose most women think so of themselves at some time, and yet they are married.”
“I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men. I never in my life saw a man whom I wished even to make my intimate friend. I should think any man an idiot who began to make soft speeches to me, and I should tell him so.”
“Ah; you might find it different when he went on with it.”
“But I think,” said Priscilla, “that when a woman is married there is nothing to which she should not submit on behalf of her husband.”
“You mean that for me.”
“Of course I mean it for you. How should I not be thinking of you, living as you are under the same roof with us? And I am thinking of Louey.” Louey was the baby. “What are you to do when after a year or two his father shall send for him to have him under his own care?”
“Nothing shall separate me from my child,” said Mrs. Trevelyan eagerly.
“That is easily said; but I suppose the power of doing as he pleased would be with him.”
“Why should it be with him? I do not at all know that it would be with him. I have not left his house. It is he that has turned me out.”
“There can, I think, be very little doubt what you should do,” said Priscilla, after a pause, during which she had got up from her seat under the thorn bush.
“What should I do?” asked Mrs. Trevelyan.
