'Most assuredly.'
'And you don't say so only because you are a minister?' asked the boy distrustfully.
'I say so because I know it. I knew that it is the Christian faith that makes all goodness, long before I was a minister.'
'But I have seen plenty of Christians that were not in the least like Felix Underwood.'
'So have I; but in proportion as they live up to their faith, they have what is best in him.'
'I should like to be like him,' mused Fernando; 'I never saw such a fellow. He, and little Lance too, seem to belong to something bright and strong, that seems inside and outside, and I can't lay hold of what it is.'
'One day you will, my dear boy,' said Mr. Audley. 'Let me try to help you.'
Fernando scarcely answered, save by half a smile, and a long sigh of relief: but when Mr. Audley put his hand over the long brown fingers, they closed upon it.
CHAPTER VII. THE CHESS-PLAYER'S BATTLE
'Dost thou believe, he said, that Grace
Itself can reach this grief?
With a feeble voice and a woeful eye-
'Lord, I believe,' was the sinner's reply,
'Help Thou mine unbelief.''
SOUTHEY.
By the beginning of the Christmas holidays, Fernando Travis was able to lie on a couch in Mr. Audley's sitting- room. His recovery was even tardier than had been expected, partly from the shock, and partly from the want of vigour of the tropical constitution: and he still seemed to be a great way from walking, though there was no reason to fear that the power would not return. His father wrote, preparing for a journey to Oregon, and seemed perfectly satisfied, and he was becoming very much at home with his host.
He was much interested in that which he was learning from Mr. Audley, and imbibing from the young Underwoods. The wandering life he had hitherto led, without any tenderness save from the poor old negro, without time to make friends, and often exposed to the perception of some of the darkest sides of human life, in the terrible lawlessness of the Mexican frontier, had hitherto made him dull, dreary, and indifferent, with little perception that there could be anything better; but first the kindness and then the faith he saw at Bexley, had awakened new perceptions and sensations. His whole soul was opening to perceive what the love of God and man might be; and the sense of a great void, and longing to have it satisfied, seemed to fill him with a constant craving for the revelation of that inner world, whose existence had just dawned upon him.
After a little hesitation, Mr. Audley decided on reading with Geraldine in his presence after he had come into the sitting-room, explaining to her how he thought it might be helpful. She did not much like it, but acquiesced: she used to hop in with her sweet smile, shy greeting, and hand extended to the invalid, who used to lie looking at her through his long eyelashes, and listening to her low voice reading or answering, as if she were no earthly creature; but the two were far too much in awe of one another to go any farther; and he got on much better with Wilmet, when she looked in on him now and then with cheery voice and good-natured care.
Then Fulbert and Robina came home; and the former was half suspicious, half jealous, of Lance's preoccupation with what he chose to denominate 'a black Yankee nigger.' He avoided the room himself, and kept Lance from it as much as was in his power; and one day Lance appeared with a black eye, of which he concealed the cause so entirely, that Felix, always afraid of his gamin tendencies, entreated Fulbert, as a friend, to ease his mind by telling him it was not given in a street row.
'I did it,' said Fulbert; 'he was so cocky about his Yankee that I could not stand it.'
'Why shouldn't he be kind to a poor sick fellow?'
'He has no business to be always bothering about Fernando here- Fernando there-Fernando for ever. I shall have him coming up to school a regular spoon, and just not know what to do with him.'
'Well, Fulbert, I think if you had a broken leg you'd wish some one to speak to you. At any rate, I can't have Lance bullied for his good nature; I was very near doing it myself once, but I was shamed out of it.'
'Were you-were you, indeed?' cried Fulbert, delighted at this confession of human nature; and Felix could not help laughing. And that laugh did much to bring him down from the don to the brother. At any rate, Fulbert ceased his persecution in aught but word.
Robina, always Lance's companion, followed him devotedly, and only hung about the stairs forlorn when he went to Fernando without her; or if admitted, she was quite content to sit serenely happy in her beloved Lance's presence, expecting neither notice nor amusement, only watching their occupation of playing at draughts. Sometimes, however, Lance would fall to playing with her, and they would roll on the floor, a tumbling mass of legs, arms, and laughter, to the intense diversion of Fernando, to whom little girls were beings of an unknown order.
So came on Christmas, with the anniversaries so sweet and so sad, and the eve of holly-dressing, when a bundle of bright sprays was left by some kind friend at No. 8, and Lance and Bobbie were vehement to introduce Fernando to English holly and English decking.
Geraldine suggested that they had better wait for either Mr. Audley or Wilmet to come in, but for this they had no patience, and ran down with their arms full of the branches, and their tongues going with the description of the night's carols, singing them with their sweet young voices as they moved about the room. Fernando knew now what Christmas meant, but the joy and exhilaration of the two children, seemed to him strange for such a bygone event. He asked them if they would have any treat.
'Oh no! except, perhaps, Mr. Audley said he should drink tea one day,' said Robina. And then she broke out again, 'Hark! the herald angels,' like a little silver bell.
Suddenly there was a cry of dismay. She had been standing on a chair over the mantelpiece, sticking holly into the ornaments, behind and under which, in true man's fashion, a good many papers and letters had accumulated. One of these papers-by some unlucky movement-fell, and by a sudden waft of air floated irrevocably into the hottest place in the fire.
'O dear! oh dear!' wailed Robina.
'That's a pretty go,' cried Lancelot.
'That comes of your open fires,' observed Fernando.
'What was it?' asked Lance.
'I don't know. I think it was a list of names! Oh! how vexed he'll be, and Wilmet; for she told me never to get on a chair over the fender, and I forgot.' Bobbie's round face was puckering for a cry.
'No, no, don't cry, Bob; I told you to get up, and I'll say so,' said Lance, smothering her in his arms after the wont of consoling brothers.
'I dare say he'll not miss it,' said Fernando good-naturedly; 'he very seldom meddles with those things.'
Bobbie's great round gray eyes came out over Lance's shoulder, and flashed amazement and wrath at him. 'I'm not going to tell stories,' she said stoutly.
'No,' said Lance, equally scandalised; 'I thought you had learnt better, Fernando.'
Robina, be it observed, was ignorant of Fernando's untaught state.
'I only said you could hold your tongue,' was of course Fernando's rejoiner.
'That's just as bad,' was the little girl's response.
'But, Lance, you held your tongue about your black eye.'
'That's my affair, and
'And Fulbert told!' added Robina.
'Will they punish you?' asked Fernando.
'I think Wilmet will, because it was disobedience! I don't think she'll let me have any butter at tea,' Bobbie nearly sobbed. 'Mr. Audley won't punish! But he'll look-' and she quite cried now.
'And do you like that better than not telling?' said Fernando, still curious.
She looked up, amazed again. 'I must! I don't like it! But I couldn't ever have a happy Christmas if I didn't tell! I wish they would come that I might have it over.'
The street door opened at the moment, and Mr. Audley and Wilmet came in together from Lady Price's
