moonshine, and pausing to look at the wonderful snowy appearance of the white azaleas, the sparkling of the fountain, and the stars struggling out in the pearly sky; but John soon grew silent, and after they had passed the garden, said-
'Aunt Caroline, if you don't mind coming on a little way, I want to ask you something.'
The name, Aunt Caroline, alarmed her, but she professed her readiness to hear.
'You have always been so kind to me' (still more alarming, thought she); 'indeed,' he added, 'I may say I owe everything to you, and I should like to know that you would not object to my making medicine my profession.'
'My dear Johnny!' in an odd, muffled voice.
'Had you rather not?' he began.
'Oh, no! Oh, no, no! It is the very thing. Only when you began I was so afraid you wanted to marry some dreadful person!'
'You needn't be afraid of that. Ars Medico, will be bride enough for me till I meet another Mother Carey, and that I shan't do in a hurry.'
'You silly fellow, you aren't practising the smoothness of tongue of the popular physician.'
'Don't you think I mean it?' said John, rather hurt.
'My dear boy, you must excuse me. It is not often one gets so many compliments in a breath, besides having one of the first wishes of one's heart granted.'
'Do you mean that you really wished this?'
'So much that I am saying, 'Thank God!' in my heart all the time.'
'Well, my father and mother thought you might be wishing me to be a barrister, or something swell.'
'As if I could-as if I ever could be so glad of anything,' said she with rejoicing that surprised him. 'It is the only thing that could make up for none of my own boys taking that line. I can't tell you now how much depends on it, John, you will know some day. Tell me what put it into your head-'
He told her, as he had told his father nearly four years before, how the dim memory of his uncle had affected him, and how the bent had been decidedly given by his attendance on Jock, and his intercourse with Dr. Medlicott. At Oxford, he had availed himself of all opportunities, and had come out honourably in all examinations, including physical science, and he was now reading for his degree, meaning to go up for honours. His father, finding him steady to his purpose, had consented, and his mother endured, but still hoped his aunt would persuade him out of it. She was so far from any such intention, that a hint of the Magnum Bonum had very nearly been surprised out of her. For the first time since Belforest had come to her, did she feel in the course of carrying out her husband's injunctions; and she felt strengthened against that attack from Janet to which she looked forward with dread. She talked with John of his plans till they actually reached the lodge gate, and there found Jock, Babie, and Eleanor chattering merrily about fireflies and glowworms a little way behind, and Bobus and Esther paired together much further back. When all had met at the gate and the parting good-nights had been spoken, Bobus became his mother's companion, and talked all the way home of his great satisfaction at her wandering time being apparently over, of his delight in her coming to settle at home at last, his warm attachment to the place, and his desire to cultivate the neighbouring borough with a view to representing it in Parliament, since Allen seemed to be devoid of ambition, and so much to hate the mud and dust of public life, that he was not likely to plunge into it, unless Elvira should wish for distinction. Then Bobus expatiated on the awkward connection the Goulds would be for Allen, stigmatising the amiable Lisette, who of course by this time had married poor George Gould, as an obnoxious, presuming woman, whom it would be very difficult to keep in her right position. It was not a bad thing that Elvira should have a taste of London society, to make her less likely to fall under her influence.
'That is not a danger I should have apprehended,' said Caroline.
'The woman can fawn, and that is exactly what a haughty being like Elvira likes. She is always pining for a homage she does not get in the family.'
'Except from poor Allen.'
'Except from Allen, but that is a matter of course. He is a slave to be flouted! Did you ever see a greater contrast than that between her and our evening guests?'
'Esther and Eleanor? They have grown up into very sweet-looking girls.'
'Not that there can be any comparison between them. Essie has none of the ponderous Highness in her-only the Serenity.'
'Yes, there is a very pleasant air of innocent candour about their faces-'
'Just what it does a man good to look at. It is like going out into the country on a spring morning. And there is very real beauty too-'
'Yes, Kencroft monopolises all the good looks of the family. What a fine fellow the dear old Friar has grown.'
'If you bring out those two girls this year, you will take the shine out of all the other chaperons!'
'I wonder whether your aunt would like it.'
'She never made any objection to Jessie's going out with you.'
'No. I should like it very much; I wonder I had not thought of it before, but I had hardly realised that Essie and Ellie were older than Babie, but I remember now, they are eighteen and seventeen.'
'It would be so good for you to have something human and capable of a little consideration to go out with,' added Bobus, 'not to be tied to the tail of a will-of-the-wisp like that Elf-I should not like that for you.'
'I am not much afraid,' said Caroline. 'You know I don't stand in such awe of the little donna, and I shall have my Guardsman to take care of me when we are too frivolous for you. But it would be very nice to have those two girls, and make it pleasanter for my Infanta, who will miss Sydney a good deal.'
'I thought the Evelyns were to be in town.'
'Yes, but their house is at the other end of the park. What are Jock and the Infanta looking at?'
Jock and Babie, who were on a good way in advance in very happy and eager conversation, had come to a sudden stop, and now turned round, exclaiming 'Look, mother! Here's the original Robin Goodfellow.'
And on the walk there was a most ludicrous shadow in the moonlight, a grotesque, dancing figure, with one long ear, and a hand held up in warning. It was of course the shadow of the Midas statue, which the boys had never permitted to be restored to its pristine state. One ear had however crumbled away, but in the shadow this gave the figure the air of cocking the other, in the most indescribably comical manner, and the whole four stood gazing and laughing at it. There was a certain threatening attitude about its hand, which, Jock said, looked as if the ghost of old Barnes had come to threaten them for the wasteful expenditure of his hoards. Or, as Babie said, it was more like the ghastly notion of Bertram Risingham in Rokeby, of some phantom of a murdered slave protecting those hoards.
'I don't wonder he threatens,' said Caroline. 'I always thought he meant that audacious trick to have forfeited the hoards.'
'Very lucky he was balked,' said Bobus, 'not only for us, but for human nature in general. Fancy how insufferable that Elf would have been if she had been dancing on gold and silver.'
'Take care!' muttered Jock, under his breath. 'There's her swain coming; I see his cigar.'
'And we really shall have it Sunday morning presently,' said his mother, 'and I shall get into as great a scrape as I did in the old days of the Folly.'
It was a happy Sunday morning. The Vicar of Woodside had much improved the Church and services with as much assistance in the way of money as he chose to ask for from the lady of Belforest, though hitherto he had had nothing more; but he and his sister augured better things when the lady herself with her daughter and her two youngest sons came across the park in the freshness of the morning to the early Celebration. The sister came out with them and asked them to breakfast. Mrs. Brownlow would not desert Allen and Bobus, but she wished Armine to spare himself more walking. Moreover, Babie discovered that some desertion of teachers would render their aid at the Sunday School desirable on that morning.
This was at present her ideal of Sunday occupation, and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney's guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine's positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink from his first experience of the kind. The boys were too much impressed, by the apparition of one of the young gentlemen from Belforest, to comport themselves ill, but they would probably not have answered his questions even had they been in their own language, and they stared at him in a stolid way, while he disadvantageously contrasted
