The Pillars of the House, V1

'Where does the uncle live? I shall telegraph to-morrow, you cruel person!'

'Hush! silly boy-goodnight,' said Wilmet, with a quivering voice, then, as she shut the door, 'Please don't go on this way, Felix-I wouldn't have had it happen for any consideration.'

'I suppose not,' said Felix, as they returned to the twilight garden; but as it has-Why, my Mettie, dear!' as she pressed close to him, and hid her face on his shoulder, with a strong craving for the help and sympathy from which the motherless girl had hitherto been debarred.

'O Felix! I wish he would not be so good and kind! I wish you would not try to make me give in!'

'My dear girl,' said Felix, with his arm round her. 'You know I would not if I did not see that you had given in.'

'No, I haven't!' she cried. 'Why should you want to persuade me? Isn't it very cruel and hard to let him give all himself to one that can't come to him? He will have to go out and live all dreary and lonely for years and years, and come home to find nothing but a stupid old worn-out drudge, with all these pretty looks gone off! Felix, be reasonable, please! Can't you see that I ought not to let things go that way?'

'Do you mean,' said Felix, 'that you would be quite content to put an end to all this-let Harewood go away believing you indifferent, and never see him again?'

'Felix, why do you-?' with tears in her eyes.

'Because I am quite sure that the consideration you want to show him would be no kindness. The pain of having his affection thrown over' (he spoke with a spasm in the throat) 'would be greater than you would like to inflict, if you were forced by truth to own you did not care for him; and if he be what I think, the carrying away security of your feeling for him will be gladness enough. And as for the looks, I have a better opinion of yours than to think they won't wear! Any way, dearest, it seems to me that you have won the heart of a good man, and that if you like him, it is your duty to give him the comfort of knowing it without thinking about to-morrows.'

'But I know so much more would come if I did just allow that much! And I might get to wish to leave you all,' she said in an appalled voice. 'And there seems to me not the slightest chance. You see Alda and Cherry never will get on together; and Cherry seems glad of an excuse to stay from home. I thought she would have cared to come back when you did.'

'Poor Cherry!' said Felix, hesitating, with a little of her own nervous awe of broaching the subject.

'You don't mean that there is anything seriously amiss!' she cried, startled.

'Wilmet, do you remember what Rugg said would be the very best thing for that poor child?'

She stood still, dismayed and angered. 'They aren't tormenting the poor little thing about that?'

'It is not their doing,'

'It can't have become necessary! Sister Constance would have told me! Felix say she is not worse!'

'No, much better. But, Wilmet, what we could not bear to think of, she thought of for herself, and begged to have it done.'

'Then I must go to her.'

'There is no occasion. She knew you could not be spared. It was done on the 10th, and she will soon walk better than she has done all these years.'

'Done! without our knowledge?'

'She wished to spare us all, but that was not allowed. I was written to, and told that her strong desire was such a favourable condition, that I had better consent, so as not to protract the strain of spirits. She made a point of no one else knowing except Clement.'

'Ah!' Wilmet spoke as if under a weight, 'that was the day Clement went down to Dearport, and came home so late! How could Sister Constance consent not to tell me?'

'You must forgive her, for it was the little one's desire! Of course we should have been fetched if anything had gone wrong; but she has done perfectly well; and there she is, very happy, and so full of fun, that the Sisters say she keeps them all alive.'

'Done? I cannot fancy it!' said Wilmet. 'Do you know, I believe it has been my bugbear for years past to think I might have to persuade her to this?'

'To tell you the truth, so it has to me.'

'Little nervous timid thing, I can't even understand her thinking of it!'

'She wanted me not to tell you, but I would not promise. She could not rest without trying not to be an obstacle to-'

Wilmet interrupted with a cry of pain.

'Isn't it a noble little thing?'

'But it is so silly!' broke out Wilmet, not choosing her words amid her tears.

'So she thinks now, poor child; she is quite ashamed of the presumptuous notion that did brace and carry her through.'

'I don't like her to be disappointed,' said Wilmet; 'but it is quite ridiculous.'

'Only comfort her a little, Mettie dear, for she is very much afraid you will think she has taken a great liberty with your property.'

'I only wish I could kiss her this moment.'

'Well, run down by the train to-morrow. They would all be delighted.'

'No, no, Felix, impossible. Think of the cost!'

'Half a crown! Sinful waste!' said Felix, in a tone of alarming levity.

'Felix, if you only knew what the housekeeping mounted up in that unhappy month that I was away! I did not like to tell you before, but-'

'Well!' at the dreadful pause.

'I had to get fifteen pounds from Mr. Froggatt's; and Alda finds, after all, that she cannot advance the money for Lance's journey.'

'So you are pinching it out by pence, my poor W. W.!'

'Nothing extra must be done till this is made up.'

'Yet it seems needful that Bernard should go to school. I wrote about-'

'No,' she resolutely interrupted. 'Bernard must wait over this year. Thirty pounds. Utterly out of the question!'

'Her tone gave Felix an unusual sense of chill penury, and brought Vale Leston before his eyes. He laughed rather bitterly, saying, 'Perhaps some day neither thirty pence nor thirty pounds may have so direful a sound!'

'I never mean to learn to waste.'

'You may have to learn to spend.'

'That's enough to set me against it!' she exclaimed, with a good deal of pain; and he found how nearly he had broken his resolution, and how her application of his words to herself had saved him. He followed the lead.

'Nay; you were glad of Alda's prosperity?'

'Oh yes; but poor Alda has been hindered from being like one of us,' she said. 'We have fought it out together. And I should not mind so much if he were poor like us, and had to wait on his own account.'

'I appreciate that,' said Felix; 'but at least you will let the poor fellow come and judge for himself?'

'If-if only, Felix, you will promise not to try to tempt me into deserting you all, when I know it would be wrong.'

'If I will promise you not to cut my own throat, eh? Come, W. W., put out of your head 'what it may lead to,' confess that you are afraid of getting connected with such a mad harum-scarum set!'

'It isn't,' broke out Wilmet. 'I never saw any one so thoughtful and considerate. They are all so kind and warm-hearted, that I grew quite ashamed of my own fidgetiness; and he-he always knew the right thing at the right time. You can't think how his look seemed to hold me up, when poor Lance was moaning and talking nonsense!'

Having thus let herself out as she had never dared, nor indeed been tempted to do, since the first dawn of the courtship, Wilmet at last relieved herself of some of the vast sense of emotion that she had been forcing back for the last month. Hitherto the mistress of the house had seemed older than the master; but now the elder brother took the place of both parents-ay, and of sister-as, all her fencing over, she poured out her heart, and let him sympathise, cheer, soothe, and encourage, more by kind tones than actual words. The harvest-moon shone over the house-tops, as a month before she had shone by the river-side; and the Pillars of the House walked up and