even the half would be an enormous fortune.'
'Will it be fortune or misfortune, I wonder?'
'At any rate, it puts an end to my chances of being of any service to her. Be it the half or the whole, she is equally beyond my reach.'
'As she was before.'
'Don't misinterpret me, Mary. I mean out of reach of helping her in any way. I was of little use to her before. I could not save little Armine from those brutal bullies, and never suspected the abuse that engulphed Bobus. I am not fit for a schoolmaster.'
'To tell the truth, I doubt whether you have enough high spirits or geniality.'
'That's the very thing! I can't get into the boys, or prevent their thinking me a Don. I had hoped there was improvement, but the revelations of the half-year have convinced me that I knew just nothing at all about it.'
'Have you thought what you will do?'
'As soon as I get home, I shall send in my notice of resignation at Midsummer. That will see out her last boy, if he stays even so long.'
'And then?'
'I shall go for a year to a theological college, and test my fitness to offer myself for Holy Orders.'
A look of satisfaction on his sister's part made him add, 'Perhaps you were disappointed that I was not ordained on my fellowship seven years ago.'
'Certainly I was; but I was in Russia, and I thought you knew best, so I said nothing.'
'You were right. You would only have heard what would have made you anxious. Not that there was much to alarm you, but it is not good for any one to be left so entirely without home influences as I was all the time you spent abroad. I fell among a set of daring talkers, who thought themselves daring thinkers; and though the foundations were never disturbed with me, I was not disposed to bind myself more closely to what might not bear investigation, and I did not like the aspect of clerical squabbles on minutiae. There was a tide against the life that carried me along with it, half from sound, half from unsound, motives, and I shrank from the restraint, outward and inward.'
'Very likely it was wise, and the best thing in the end. But what has brought you to it?'
'I hope not as the resource of a shelved schoolmaster.'
'Oh, no; you are not shelved. See how you have improved the school. Look at the numbers.'
'That is no test of my real influence over the boys. I teach them, I keep them in external order, but I do not get into them. The religious life is at a low ebb.'
'No wonder, with that vicar; but you have done your best.'
'Even if my attempts are a layman's best, they always get quenched by the cold water of the Rigby element. It is hard for boys to feel the reality of what is treated with such business-like indifference, and set forth so feebly, not to say absurdly.'
'I know. It is a terrible disadvantage.'
'Listening to Rigby, has, I must say, done a good deal to bring about my present intention.'
'By force of contradiction.'
'If that means of longing to be in his place and put the thing as it ought to be put.'
'It is a contradiction in which I most sincerely rejoice, David,' she said; 'one of the wishes of my heart fulfilled when I had given it up.'
'You do not know that it will be fulfilled.'
'I think it will, though you are right to take time, in case the decision should be partly due to disappointment.'
'If there can be disappointment where hope has never existed. But if a man finds he can't have his great good, it may make him look for the greater.'
Mary sighed a mute and thankful acquiescence.
'The worst of it is about you, Mary. It is throwing you over just as you were coming to make me a home.'
'Never mind, Davie. It is only deferred, and at any rate we can keep together till Midsummer. Then I can go out again for a year or two, and perhaps you will settle somewhere where the curate's sister could get a daily engagement.'
The next day they found the following letter at the post office:-
'The Folly, Jan. 3rd.
'My Dear Mary,-I suppose you may have attained the blessed realms that lie beyond the borders of Gossip, and may not have heard the nine days' wonder that Belforest had descended on the Folly, and that poor old Mr. Barnes has left his whole property to me. My dear, it would be something awful even if he had done his duty and halved it between Elvira and me, and he has ingeniously tied it up with trustees so as to make restitution impossible. As it is, my income will be not less than forty thousand pounds a year, and when divided among the children they will all be richer than perhaps is good for them.
'And now, my dear old dragon, will you come and keep me in order under the title of governess to Barbara and Elvira? For, of course, the child will go on living with us, and will have it made up to her as far as possible. You know that I shall do all manner of foolish things, but I think they will be rather fewer if you will only come and take me in hand. My trustees are the Colonel and an old solicitor, and will both look after the estate; but as for the rest, all that the Colonel can say is, that it is a frightful respons- ibility, and her Serene Highness is awe-struck. I could not have conceived that such a thing could have made so much difference in so really good a woman. Now I don't think you will be subject to gold dust in the eyes, and, I believe, you will still see the same little wild goose, or stormy petrel, that you used to bully at Bath, and will be even more willing to perform the process. As I should have begun by saying, on the very first evening Babie showed her sense by proposing you as governess, and you were unanimously elected in full and free parliament. It really was the child's own thought and proposal, and what I want is to have those two children made wiser and better than I can make them, as well as that you should be the dear comrade and friend I need more than ever. You will see more of your brother than you could otherwise, for Belforest will be our chief home, and I need not say how welcome he will always be there. It is not habitable at present, so I mean to stay on in the Folly till Easter, and then give Janet the London lectures and classes she has been raving for these two years, and take Jessie also for music lessons, if she can be spared.
I'm afraid it is a come down for a finisher like you to condescend to my little Babie, but she is really worth teaching, and I would say, make your own terms, but that I am afraid you would not ask enough. Please let it be one hundred and fifty pounds, there's a good Mary! I think you would come if you knew what a relief it would be. Ever since that terrible August, two years and a half ago, I have felt as if I were drifting in an endless mist, with all the children depending on me, and nobody to take my hand and lead me. You are one of the straws I grasp at. Not very complimentary after all, but when I thought of the strong, warm, guiding hands that are gone, I could not put it otherwise. Do, Mary, come, I do need you so.
'Your affectionate 'C. O. BROWNLOW.'
'May I see it?' asked David.
'If you will; but I don't think it will do you any good. My poor Carey!'
'Few women would have written such a letter in all the first flush of wealth.'
'No; there's great sweetness and humility and generosity in it, dear child.'
'It changes the face of affairs.'
'I'm engaged to you.'
'Nonsense! As if that would stand in the way. Besides, she will be at Kenminster till Easter. You are not hesitating, Mary?'
'I don't think I am, and yet I believe I ought to do so.'
'You are not imagining that I-'
'I was not thinking of you; but I am not certain that it would not be better for our old friendship if I did not accept the part poor Carey proposes to me. I might make myself more disagreeable than could be endured by forty thousand a year.'
'You do yourself and her equal injustice.'
'I shall settle nothing till I have seen her.'
'Then you will be fixed,' he said, in a tone of conviction.
So she expected, though believing that it would be the ruin of her pleasant old friendship. Her nineteen years of
