'Just so! They always are turning me off with 'This won't be of any use to you.' I hate use-'
'Like Ridley, who says he reads a book with double pleasure if he is not going to review it.'
'That Mr. Ridley who came in last evening?'
'Even so. Why that opening of eyes?'
'I thought a critic was a most formidable person.'
'You expected to see a mess of salt and vinegar prepared for his diet?'
'I should prepare something quite different-milk and sweetbreads, I think.'
'To soften him? Do you hear, mother? Take advice.'
Caroline-or Carey, as she had begged to be called-blushed, and drew back half-alarmed, as she always was when the Doctor caught up any of the little bits of fun that fell so shyly and demurely from her, as they were evoked by the more congenial atmosphere.
It was a great pleasure to him and to his mother to show her some of the many things she had never seen, watch her enjoyment, and elicit whether the reality agreed with her previous imaginations. Mr. Brownlow used to make time to take the two ladies out, or to drop in on them at some exhibition, checking the flow of half-droll, half- intelligent remarks for a moment, and then encouraging it again, while both enjoyed that most amusing thing, the fresh simplicity of a grown-up, clever child.
'How will you ever bear to go back again?' said Carey's school- friend, Clara Cartwright, now a governess, whom Mrs. Brownlow had, with some suppressed growls from her son, invited to share their one day's country- outing under the horse-chestnut trees of Richmond.
'Oh! I shall have it all to take back with me,' was the answer, as Carey toyed with the burnished celandine stars in her lap.
'I should never dare to think of it! I should dread the contrast!'
'Oh no!' said Carey. 'It is like a blind person who has once seen, you know. It will be always warm about my heart to know there are such people.'
Mrs. Brownlow happened to overhear this little colloquy while her son was gone to look for the carriage, and there was something in the bright unrepining tone that filled her eyes with tears, more especially as the little creature still looked very fragile-even at the end of a month. She was so tired out with her day of almost rapturous enjoyment that Mrs. Brownlow would not let her come down stairs again, but made her go at once to bed, in spite of a feeble protest against losing one evening.
'And I am afraid that is a recall,' said Mrs. Brownlow, seeing a letter directed to Miss Allen on the side-table. 'I will not give it to her to-night, poor little dear; I really don't know how to send her back.'
'Exactly what I was thinking,' said the Doctor, leaning over the fire, which he was vigorously stirring.
'You don't think her strong enough? If so, I am very glad,' said the mother, in a delighted voice. 'Eh, Joe?' as there was a pause; and as he replaced the poker, he looked up to her with a colour scarcely to be accounted for by the fire, and she ended in an odd, startled, yet not displeased tone, 'It is that-is it?'
'Yes, mother, it is that,' said Joe, laughing a little, in his relief that the plunge was made. 'I don't see that we could do better for your happiness or mine.'
'Don't put mine first' (half-crying).
'I didn't know I did. It all comes to the same thing.'
'My dear Joe, I only wish you could do it to-morrow, and have no fuss about it! What will Robert do?'
'Accept the provision for his friend's daughter,' said Joe, gravely; and then they both burst out laughing. In the midst came the announcement of dinner, during which meal they refrained themselves, and tried to discuss other things, though not so successfully but that it was reported in the kitchen that something was up.
Joseph was just old enough for his mother, who had always dreaded his marriage, to have begun to wish for it, though she had never yet seen her ideal daughter-in-law, and the enforced silence during the meal only made her more eager, so that she began at once as soon as they were alone.
'When did you begin to think of this, Joe?'
'Not when I asked you to invite her-that would have been treacherous. No, but when I began to realise what it would be to send her back to her treadmill; though the beauty of it is that she never seems to realise that it is a treadmill.'
'She might now, though I tried so hard not to spoil her. It is that content with such a life which makes me think that in her you may have something more worth than the portion, which-which I suppose I ought to regret and say you will miss.'
'I shall get all that plentifully from Robert, mother.'
'I am afraid it does entail harder work on you, and later on in life, than if you had chosen a person with something of her own.'
'Something of her own? Her own, indeed! Mother, she has that of her own which is the very thing to help and inspire me to make a name, and work out an idea, worth far more than any pounds, shillings, and pence, or even houses or lands I might get with a serene and solemn dame, even with clear notions as to those same L. s. d.!'
'For shame, Joe! You may be as much in love as you please, but don't be wicked.'
For this description was applicable to the bride whom Robert had presented to them about a year ago, on retiring with a Colonel's rank.
'So I may be as much in love as I please? Thank you. I always knew you were the very best mother in the world:' and he came and kissed her.
'I wonder what she will say, the dear child!'
'May be that she has no taste for such an old fellow. Hush, mother. Seriously, my chief scruple is whether it be fair to ask a girl to marry a man twice her age, when she has absolutely seen nothing of his kind but the German master!'
'Trust her,' said Mrs. Brownlow. 'Nay, she never could have a freer choice than now, when she is too young and simple to be weighted with a sense of being looked down on. It is possible that she may be startled at first, but I think it will be only at life opening on her; so don't be daunted, and imagine it is your old age and infirmity,' said the mother, smoothing back the locks which certainly were not the clustering curls of youth.
How the mother watched all the next morning, while the unconscious Carey first marvelled at her nervousness and silence, and then grew almost infected by it. It was very strange, she thought, that Mrs. Brownlow, always so kind, should say nothing but 'humph' on being told that Miss Heath's workmen had finished, and that she must return next Monday morning. It was the Doctor's day to be early at the hospital, and he had had a summons to see some one on the way, so that he was gone before breakfast, when Carey's attempts to discuss her happy day in the country met with such odd, fitful answers; for, in fact, Mrs. Brownlow could not trust herself to talk, and had no sooner done breakfast than she went off to her housekeeping affairs and others, which she managed unusually to prolong.
Carey was trying to draw some flowers in a glass before her-a little purple, green-winged orchis, a cowslip, and a quivering dark-brown tuft of quaking grass. He came and stood behind her, saying-
'You've got the character of those.'
'They are very difficult,' sighed Carey; 'I never tried flowers before, but I wanted to take them with me.'
'To take them with you?' he repeated, rather dreamily.
'Yes, back to another sort of Heath,' she said, with a little laugh; 'don't you know I go next Monday?'
'If you go, I hope it will only be to come back.'
'Oh! if Mrs. Brownlow is so good as to let me come again in the holidays!' and she was all one flush of joy, looking round, and up in his face, to see whether it could be true.
'Not only for holidays-for work days,' he said, and his voice shook.
'But Mrs. Brownlow can't want a companion?'
'But I do. Caroline, will you come back to us to make home doubly sweet to a busy man, who will do his best to make you happy?'
The little creature looked up in his face bewildered, and then said shyly, the colour surging into her face-
'Please, what did you say?'
'I asked if you would stay with us, and make this place bright for us, as my wife,' he said, taking both the little brown hands into his own, and looking into the widely-opened wondering eyes; while she answered, 'if I may,'-the very words, almost the very tone, in which she had replied to his invitation to come to recover at his house.
