Hopes and Fears

said the lady, kindly, 'though they could hardly have done anything really to hurt you!'

'Frenchmen should not laugh at English girls,' cried Bertha. 'Oh, I wish my brothers were here,' and she turned round with a fierce gesture.

'Phoebe, Phoebe; I want Phoebe and Lieschen!' was Maria's cry.

'Can I help you find your party?' was the next question; and the voice had a gentle, winning tone that reassured Maria, who clung tight to her hand, exclaiming, 'Don't go away;' and though for months past the bare proposal of encountering a stranger would have made Bertha almost speechless, she felt a soothing influence that enabled her to reply with scarcely a hesitation. On comparing notes, it was discovered that the girls had wandered so far away from their sister that they could only rejoin her by re-entering the town and mounting again; and their new friend, seeing how nervous and agitated both still were, offered to escort them, only giving notice to her own party what had become of her.

She had come up with some sketching acquaintance, and not drawing herself, had, like the sisters, been exploring among the rocks, when she had suddenly come on them in the distress which had so much shaken them, that, reluctant to lose sight of their guardian, they accompanied her till she saw one of her friends, and then waited while she ran down with the announcement. 'How ridiculous it is in me,' muttered Bertha to herself, discontentedly; 'she will think us wild creatures. I wish we were not both so tall.'

And embarrassment, together with the desire to explain, deprived her so entirely of utterance, that Maria volunteered, 'Bertha always speaks so funnily since she was ill.' Rather a perplexing speech for the lady to hear; but instead of replying, she asked which was their hotel; and Bertha answering, she turned with a start of surprise and interest, as if to see their faces better, adding, 'I have not seen you at the table d'hote;' and under the strange influence of her voice and face, Bertha was able to answer, 'No. As Maria says, I have been very silly since my illness in the winter, and-and they have given way to me, and let me see no one.'

'But we shall see you; you are in our hotel,' cried Maria. 'Do come and let me show you all my Swiss costumes.'

'Thank you; if-' and she paused, perhaps a little perplexed by Maria; and Bertha added, in the most womanly voice that she could muster, 'My sister and Miss Charlecote will be very glad to see you-very much obliged to you.'

Then Maria, who was unusually demonstrative, put another question-

'Are you ill? Bertha says everybody here is ill. I hope you are not.'

'No, thank you,' was the reply. 'I am here with my uncle and aunt. It is my uncle who has been unwell.'

Bertha, afraid that Maria might blunder into a history of her malady, began to talk fast of the landscape and its beauties. The stranger seemed to understand her desire to lead away from herself, and readily responded, with a manner that gave sweetness to all she said. She was not very young-looking, and Maria's notion might be justified that she was at Hyeres on her own account, for there was hardly a tint of colour on her cheek; she was exceedingly spare and slender, and there was a wasted, worn look about the lower part of her face, and something subdued in her expression, as if some great, lasting sorrow had passed over her. Her eyes were large, brown, soft, and full of the same tender, pensive kindness as her voice and smile; and perhaps it was this air of patient suffering that above all attracted Bertha, in the soreness of her wounded spirit, just as the affectionateness gained Maria, with the instinct of a child.

However it might be, Phoebe, who had become uneasy at their absence, and only did not go to seek them from the conviction that nothing would set them so completely astray as not finding her at her post, was exceedingly amazed to be hailed by them from beneath instead of above, and to see them so amicably accompanied by a stranger. Maria went on in advance to greet the newly-recovered sister, and tell their adventure; and Bertha, as she saw Phoebe's pretty, grateful, self-possessed greeting, rejoiced that their friend should see that one of the three, at least, knew what to say, and could say it. As they all crept down together through the rugged streets, Phoebe felt the same strange attraction as her sisters, accompanied by a puzzling idea that she had seen the young lady before, or some one very like her. Phoebe was famous for seeing likenesses; and never forgetting a face she had once seen, her recognitions were rather a proverb in the family; and she felt her credit almost at stake in making out the countenance before her; but it was all in vain, and she was obliged to resign herself to discuss the Pyrenees, where it appeared that their new friend had been spending the summer.

At the inn-door they parted, she going along a corridor to her aunt's rooms, and the three Fulmorts hurrying simultaneously to Miss Charlecote to narrate their adventure. She was as eager as they to know the name of their rescuer, and to go to thank her; and ringing for the courier, sent him to make inquiries. 'Major and Mrs. Holmby, and their niece,' was the result; and the next measure was Miss Charlecote's setting forth to call on them in their apartments, and all the three young ladies wishing to accompany her-even Bertha! What could this encounter have done to her? Phoebe withdrew her claim at once, and persuaded Maria to remain, with the promise that her new friend should be invited to enjoy the exhibition of the book of Swiss costumes; and very soon she was admiring them, after having received an explanation sufficient to show her how to deal with Maria's peculiarities. Mrs. Holmby, a commonplace, good-natured woman, evidently knew who all the other party were, and readily made acquaintance with Miss Charlecote, who had, on her side, the same strange impression of knowing the name as Phoebe had of knowing the face.

Bertha, who slept in the same room with Phoebe, awoke her in the morning with the question, 'What do you think is Miss Holmby's name?'

'I did not hear it mentioned.'

'No, but you ought to guess. Do you not see how names impress their own individuality? You need not laugh; I know they do. Could you possibly have been called Augusta, and did not Katherine quite pervade Miss Fennimore?'

'Well, according to your theory, what is her name?'

'It is either Eleanor or Cecily.'

'Indeed!' cried Phoebe; 'what put that into your head?'

'Her expression-no, her entire Wesen. Something homely, simple, a little old- fashioned, and yet refined.'

'It is odd,' said Phoebe, pausing.

'What is odd?'

'You have explained the likeness I could not make out. I once saw a photograph of a Cecily, with exactly the character you mention. It was that of which she reminded me.'

'Cecily? Who could it have been?'

'One of the Raymond cousinhood. What o'clock is it?'

'Oh, don't get up yet, Phoebe; I want to tell you Miss Holmby's history, as I make it out. She said she was not ill, but I am convinced that her uncle and aunt took her abroad to give her change, not after illness, but sorrow.'

'Yes, I am sure she has known trouble.'

'And,' said Bertha, stifling her voice, so that her sister could hardly hear, 'that sorrow could have been only of one kind. Patient waiting is stamped on her brow. She is trying to lift up her head after cruel disappointment. Oh, I hope he is dead!'

And, to Phoebe's surprise and alarm, the poor little fortune-teller burst into tears, and sobbed violently. There could be no doubt that her own disappointment, rather than that which she ascribed to a stranger, prompted this gush of feeling; but it was strange, for in all the past months the poor child's sorrow and shame had been coldly, hardly, silently borne. The new scenes had thrust it into abeyance, and spirits and strength had forced trouble aside, but this was the only allusion to it since her conversation with Miss Charlecote on her sick bed, and the first sign of softening. Phoebe durst not enter into the subject, but soothed and composed her by caresses and cheerfulness; but either the tears, or perhaps their original cause-the fatigue and terror of the previous day-had entirely unhinged her, and she was in such a nervous, trembling state, and had so severe a headache, that she was left lying down, under Lieschen's charge, when the others went to the English chapel. Her urgent entreaty was that they would bring Miss Holmby to her on their return. She had conceived almost a passion for this young lady. Secluded as she had been, no intercourse beyond her own family had made known to her the pleasure of a friendship; and her mind, in its revival from its long exhaustion, was full of ardour, in the enthusiasm of a girl's adoration of a full-grown woman. The new and softening sensation was infinite gain, even by merely lessening her horror of society; and when the three churchgoers joined the Holmby party on their way back from the chapel, they