that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor girl’s countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again. If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of a busy town, and quietly passing along their path of life, casting sanctity around them as they go—if there are two such, why not more? If God casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it henceforth.
“You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can only say, ‘God help us!’ But that time is far off. They came for several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive, with a surpassing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in virtuous moderation.
“I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o’clock it is—a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight that the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not trust my morning—my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless you.
“Yours ever,
“Edward Hope.”
It was not only Mr. Hope’s broad daylight mood which was not to be trusted with this letter. In this hour of midnight a misgiving seized upon him that it was extravagant. He became aware, when he laid down his pen, that he was agitated. The door of his room opened into the garden. He thought he would look out upon the night. It was the night of the full moon. As he stood in the doorway, the festoons of creepers that dangled from his little porch waved in the night breeze; long shadows from the shrubs lay on the grass; and in the depth of one of these shadows glimmered the green spark of a glow-worm. It was deliciously cool and serene. Mr. Hope stood leaning against the door-post, with his arms folded, and was not long in settling the question whether the letter should go.
“Frank will think that I am in love,” he considered. “He will not understand the real state of my feeling. He will think that I am in love. I should conclude so in his place. But what matters it what he infers and concludes? I have written exactly what I thought and felt at the moment, and it is not from such revelations that wrong inferences are usually drawn. What I have written is true; and truth carries safely over land and sea—more safely than confidence compounded with caution. Frank deserves the simplest and freshest confidence from me. I am glad that no hesitation occurred to me while I wrote. It shall go—every word of it.”
He returned to his desk, sealed and addressed the letter, and placed it where it was sure to be seen in the morning, and carried to the post-office before he rose.
Chapter Eight.
Child’s Play.
The afternoon arrived when the children were to have their feast in the summer-house. From the hour of dinner the little people were as busy as aldermen’s cooks, spreading their table. Sydney thought himself too old for such play. He was hard at work, filling up the pond he had dug in his garden, having tried experiments with it for several weeks, and found that it never held water but in a pouring rain. While he was occupied with his spade, his sisters and the little Rowlands were arranging their dishes, and brewing their cowslip-tea.
“Our mamma is coming,” said Fanny to Matilda: “is yours?”
“No; she says she can’t come—but papa will.”
“So will our papa. It was so funny at dinner. Mr. Paxton came in, and asked whether papa would ride with him; and papa said it was out of the question; it must be to-morrow; for he had an engagement this afternoon.”
“A very particular engagement, he said,” observed Mary: “and he smiled at me so, I could not help laughing. Fanny, do look at Matilda’s dish of strawberries! How pretty!”
“There’s somebody coming,” observed little Anna, who, being too young to help, and liable to be tempted to put her fingers into the good things, was sent to amuse herself with jumping up and down the steps.
“There now! That is always the way, is not it, Miss Young?” cried Fanny. “Who is it, George? Mr. Enderby? Oh, do not let him come in yet! Tell him he must not come this half-hour.”
Mr. Enderby chose to enter, however, and all opposition gave way before him.
“Pray don’t send me back,” said he, “till you know what I am come for. Now, who will pick my pockets?”
Little Anna was most on a level with the coat pocket. She almost buried her face in it as she dived, the whole length of her arm, to the very bottom. George attacked its fellow, while the waistcoat pockets were at the mercy of the taller children. A number of white parcels made their appearance, and the little girls screamed with delight.
“Miss Young!” cried Fanny, “do come and help us to pick Mr. Enderby’s pockets. See what I have got—the very largest of all!”
When every pocket had been thoroughly picked without Miss Young’s assistance, the table did indeed show a goodly pile of white cornucopia—that most agitating form of paper to children’s eyes. When opened, there was found such a store of sweet things as the little girls had seldom before seen out of the confectioner’s shop. Difficulties are apt to come with good fortune; and the anxious question was now asked, how all these dainties were to be dished up. Miss Young was, as usual, the friend in need. She had before lent two small china plates of her own; and she now supplied the further want. She knew how to make pretty square boxes out of writing-paper; and her nimble scissors and neat fingers now provided a sufficiency of these in a trice. Uncle Philip was called upon, as each was finished, to admire her skill; and admire he did, to the children’s entire content.
“Is this our feast, Mr. Enderby?” inquired Mary, finally, when Anna had been sent to summon the company. “May we say it is ours?”
“To be sure,” cried Fanny. “Whose else should it be?”
“It is all your own, I assure you,” said Mr. Enderby. “Now, you two should stand at the head of the table, and Matilda at the foot.”
“I think I had better take this place,” said Sydney, who had made his appearance, and who thought much better of the affair now that he saw Mr. Enderby so
