she had touched the true chord of anxiety.
The morning brought a cheering account of Margaret; and Mrs. Arnott was to see her directly after breakfast. In the meantime, the firm limbs, blue eyes, and rosy face of Gertrude seemed a fair representation of the little bride's-maid, whom she remembered.
A very different niece did she find upstairs, though the smiling, overflowing eyes, and the fond, eager look of recognition, as if asking to be taken to her bosom, had in them all the familiarity of old tenderness. 'Auntie! dear auntie! that you should have come back to me again!'
Mrs. Arnott fondly caressed her, but could not speak at first, for even her conversation with Ethel had not prepared her for so wasted and broken an appearance. Dr. May spoke briskly of Margaret's having behaved very well and slept like a good child, told Margaret where he had to go that morning, and pointed out to Mrs. Arnott some relics of herself still remaining; but the nervous tremulousness of manner did not much comfort her, although Margaret answered cheerfully. Nothing was so effectual in composing the aunt as Aubrey's coming headlong in to announce the gig, and to explain to Margaret his last design for a cathedral--drawing plans being just now his favourite sport.
'Architecture is all our rage at present,' said Margaret, as her father hurried away.
'I am so glad to have come in time for the consecration!' said Mrs. Arnott, following her niece's lead. 'Is that a model of the church?'
'Oh, yes!' cried Margaret, lighting up. 'Richard made it for me.'
'May I show it to Aunt Flora?' said Aubrey.
'Bring it here, if you can lift it,' said Margaret; and, Aunt Flora helping, the great cumbersome thing was placed beside her, whilst she smiled and welcomed it like a child, and began an eager exhibition. Was it not a beautiful little pierced spire?--that was an extravagance of Dr. Spencer's own. Papa said he could not ask Captain Gordon to sanction it--the model did it no justice, but it was so very beautiful in the rich creamy stone rising up on the moor, and the blue sky looking through, and it caught the sunset lights so beautifully. So animated was her description, that Mrs. Arnott could not help asking, 'Why, my dear, when have you seen it?'
'Never,' said Margaret, with her sweet smile. 'I have never seen Cocksmoor; but Dr. Spencer and Meta are always sketching it for me, and Ethel would not let an effect pass without telling me. I shall hear how it strikes you next.'
'I hope to see it by and by. What a comfortable deep porch! If we could build such churches in the colonies, Margaret!'
'See what little Meta will do for you! Yes, we had the porch deep for a shelter--that is copied from the west door of the minster, and is it not a fine high-pitched roof? John Taylor, who is to be clerk, could not understand its being open; he said, when he saw the timbers, that a man and his family might live up among them. They are noble oak beams; we would not have any sham--here, Aubrey, take off the roof, and auntie will see the shape.'
'Like the ribs of a ship,' explained Aubrey, unconscious that the meaning was deeper than his sister could express, and he continued: 'Such fine oak beams! I rode with Dr. Spencer one day last year to choose them. It is a two-aisled church, you see, that a third may be added.'
Ethel came up as Aubrey began to absorb the conversation. 'Lessons, Aubrey,' she said. 'So, Margaret, you are over your dear model?'
'Not forestalling you too much I hope, Ethel dear,' said Margaret; 'as you will show her the church itself.'
'You have the best right,' said Ethel; 'but come, Aubrey, we must not dawdle.'
'I will show you the stones I laid myself, Aunt Flora,' said Aubrey, running off without much reluctance.
'Ethel has him in excellent order,' said Mrs. Arnott.
'That she has; she brings him on beautifully, and makes him enjoy it. She teaches him arithmetic in some wonderful scientific way that nobody can understand but Norman, and he not the details; but he says it is all coming right, and will make him a capital mathematical scholar, though he cannot add up pounds, shillings, and pence.'
'I expected to be struck with Ethel,' said Mrs. Arnott; 'and--'
'Well,' said Margaret, waiting.
'Yes, she does exceed my expectations. There is something curiously winning in that quaint, quick, decisive manner of hers. There is so much soul in the least thing she does, as if she could not be indifferent for a moment.'
'Exactly--exactly so,' said Margaret, delighted. 'It is really doing everything with all her might. Little, simple, everyday matters did not come naturally to her as to other people, and the having had to make them duties has taught her to do them with that earnest manner, as if there were a right and a wrong to her in each little mechanical household office.'
'Harry described her to me thus,' said Mrs. Arnott, smiling: ''As to Ethel, she is an odd fish; but Cocksmoor will make a woman of her after all.''
'Quite true!' cried Margaret. 'I should not have thought Harry had so much discernment in those days. Cocksmoor gave the stimulus, and made Ethel what she is. Look there--over the mantelpiece, are the designs for the painted glass, all gifts, except the east window. That one of St. Andrew introducing the lad with the loaves and fishes is Ethel's window. It is the produce of the hoard she began this time seven years, when she had but one sovereign in the world. She kept steadily on with it, spending nothing on herself that she could avoid, always intending it for the church, and it was just enough to pay for this window.'
'Most suitable,' said Mrs. Arnott.
'Yes; Mr. Wilmot and I persuaded her into it; but I do not think she would have allowed it, if she had seen the application we made of it- -the gift of her girlhood blessed and extended. Dear King Etheldred, it is the only time I ever cheated her.'
'This is a beautiful east window. And this little one--St. Margaret I see.'
'Ah! papa would not be denied choosing that for his subject. We reproached him with legendary saints, and overwhelmed him with antiquarianism, to show that the Margaret of the dragon was not the Margaret of the daisy; but he would have it; and said we might thank him for not setting his heart on St. Etheldreda.'
'This one?'
'That is mine,' said Margaret, very low; and her aunt abstained from remark, though unable to look, without tears, at the ship of the Apostles, the calming of the storm, and the scroll, with the verse:
He bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
Beneath were the initials, 'A. H. E.,' and the date of the year, the only memorials of the founder.
Margaret next drew attention to St. Andrew with his cross--Meta's gift. 'And, besides,' she said, 'George Rivers made us a beautiful present, which Meta hunted up. Old Mr. Rivers, knowing no better, once bought all the beautiful carved fittings of a chapel in France, meaning to fit up a library with them; but, happily, he never did, and a happy notion came into Meta's head, so she found them out, and Dr. Spencer has adapted them, and set them all to rights; and they are most exquisite. You never saw such foliage.'
Thus Margaret proceeded with the description of everything in the church, and all the little adventures of the building, as if she could not turn away from the subject; and her aunt listened and wondered, and, when called away, that Margaret might rest before nurse came to dress her, she expressed her wonder to Meta.
'Yes,' was the answer; 'it is her chief occupation and interest. I do not mean that she has not always her own dear full sympathy for every one's concerns, but Cocksmoor is her concern, almost more than even Ethel's. I think she could chronicle every stage in the building better than Dr. Spencer himself, and it is her daily delight to hear his histories of his progress. And not only with the church but the people; she knows all about every family; Richard and Ethel tell her all their news; she talks over the school with the mistress every Sunday, and you cannot think what a feeling there is for her at Cocksmoor. A kind message from Miss May has an effect that the active workers cannot always produce.'
Mrs. Arnott saw that Meta was right, when, in the afternoon, she walked with her nieces to see Cocksmoor. It was not a desolate sight as in old times, for the fair edifice, rising on the slope, gave an air of protection to the cottages, which seemed now to have a centre of unity, instead of lying forlorn and scattered. Nor were they as wretched in themselves, for the impulse of civilisation had caused windows to be mended and railings to be tidied, and Richard promoted, to the utmost, cottage gardening, so that, though there was an air of poverty, there was no longer an appearance of reckless destitution and hopeless neglect.
In the cottages, Mrs. Taylor had not entirely ceased to speak with a piteous voice, even though she told of the
