Yet how he wished he could! To see Challoner walking backwards over every inch of frozen puddle in order to hold both Matilda's hands and guide her steps to see him taking out his pocket-handkerchief to wipe every stile she had to cross, lest even the skirts of her dress should be touched by the powder of frost which lay crisp on the top bar, it was too ridiculous, Matilda, who did not care where she went, nor what a state her petticoats were in when she was out alone with him on a wintry scramble like this. He wished Challoner had only beheld her when she came home from Endhill, two days before. that Matilda had to wait on the bleakest point of the common while he explored a rat-hole, and why should he care whether she "thought she had lost him" or not, when he disappeared for so long behind Luke Hayfield's farm-buildings? She would be willing enough to "lose" him; and if it were not for the Applebys - and the poor fellow's heart swelled within him. Once within the Applebys' door, however, there was an improvement: here he was on his own ground, here he was always made much of; and after the privations of the way, it was something to be still some one anywhere. He had fallen from his high estate with Matilda; was it not only too probable that he had fallen forevermore? If it had only been a temporary thing, a piece of womanish nonsense, Matilda had now "Pooh! what is all the fuss about?" and again been ridiculous before, but she he protested crossly, being indeed driven had always come quickly and gladly back to his wits' end, when a slippery ditch be- to her Teddy, laughing at herself, and ing in the way -a ditch that he knew making merry at her own expense; but Matilda could have cleared like a deer had now now, and he shook his head anshe chosen she must needs be drawn grily and miserably. How easy it had delicately across with many a little cry of been to say, "You must marry again," alarm and need of encouragement and when no marrying again seemed ever support at every step. And he had him-likely to come to pass; but how detestable self her muff given him to hold, and must perforce stand by with his disgusted face, quite unobserved and uncommented upon, while all this went on! "It's a deuced pity you came," he averred at length, looking the helpless lady straight in the face; and as the color rose in her cheek, he knew he had hurt her at last. That was something, but unhappily it did not do all that it was intended; it might silence for the moment, it might cast a passing shadow, but Challoner with a lover's sympathy was soon able by a lover's wiles to soften every blow that had not been of his own giving, and all went on as before. Poor Teddy, he was very powerless; he tried to make himself disagreeable, and no one found it out; he would fain have made himself scarce, but that would have been cutting his own throat. As it was, however, he bounced out of sight whenever and wherever he could; now running across a field wherein was a pond whose ice might be superior to their own; now taking a turn round by a farm to have a word with the farmer whom he espied in the background; now hailing a laborer going past with a wagon, -anything and everything to force himself into notice, and be, if only in tormenting, of consequence. What was it to him and ominous sounded his own advice in his own ears now! His heart was sore, and had been sore for exactly four hours, ever since twelve o'clock, in short, when he and billiards had been thrown over for love and Matilda; that had opened his eyes at last, and the only wonder was, as every one will perceive, that they had not been opened long before. In Mrs. Appleby's drawing-room, however, the young visitor was urbanity itself. "I can't tell you how sorry we were," he said: "it took us quite by surprise; I assure you it did quite by surprise. We had no idea of such a thing; and when Marion's note came in, Matilda was so astonished -you can't think how astonished she was. We wondered what it was about, you know; and then we said I said, we must come and inquire at once.' "So kind," replied Mrs. Appleby, a faded prototype of what Juliet would certainly become. "Lady Matilda is always so kind. Directly the sad news came, we sent to let her know, because we felt so sure "Mr. Challoner has just come from Clinkton," said Lady Matilda sympatheti cally; "he only came yesterday." "Indeed! From Clinkton? And did you see my daughter, sir?" turning to him. "She was often in the town, I be- | Appleby. Only be good enough to stay, lieve, though our friends, the Windlasses, and I leave it entirely to you to regulate with whom she is staying and where the quietude of your mind.") she has been taken ill, poor child - live four or five miles out in the country." "I saw Miss Appleby once or twice, but she did not see me," replied he. "Clinkton is a large place, and." he drew near to Mrs. Appleby, as Lady Matilda stepped aside with Marion, "we were in different circles. She did not mention me, I suppose?" "Not that I remember. Marion," but Marion did not hear. "What a view you have from this window!" cried Challoner, "what an extent of country "Very pretty; but," said Mrs. Appleby, possessed of but one idea for the timebut you were speaking of Clinkton. Do you know Clinkton well? Do you know the Windlasses? Had you heard about the fancy ball?” Had he not? He had heard of little else. "Well, she had been going to that," proceeded his hostess, reading an affirmative in his face, "and a very smart ball it was, I fancy," with the usual habit of making the most of anything at a distance; "a very smart ball, and my poor Juliet would have much enjoyed it. But only yesterday, and the ball was last night, you know "Did she go?" demanded Challoner suddenly. "Dear me! no, Mr. Challoner; how could she go when she was lying ill of the small-pox? She was taken ill only a few hours before, though I dare say we shall hear presently, when the post comes in, that "How very unlucky!" He was listening with all ears to Lady Matilda now, and Mrs. Appleby lost him from that mo ment. "You will not surely go yourself?" Lady Matilda was saying. "I shall indeed, at least I should, if only mamma would allow me. But she will not. Neither she nor papa will hear of it." "And they are quite right, Marion." And then followed reason and argument, encouragement and consolation. "And now you will just stay with a quiet mind," concluded Matilda, rising. "Promise that you will, dear." ("With a quiet mind or not," said Challoner sardonically to himself. "I do not insist on that adjunct at all, my dear Miss He had learned all he wanted to know, and nothing had been said that he did not wish to hear. Now he did not care how soon the visit came to a close. Juliet pow erless, her family ignorant, Marion prevented going, the Windlasses prevented telling, he could scarcely believe his own ears, as one thing after another dropped out, as if to strengthen his temptation, and make him more and more secure on the edge of his precipice; for so entirely had his fears of late centred on the Appleby family, or, at least, on one member of it, that, thus unexpectedly relieved, it almost seemed as if he could be assailed from no other quarter. Oh, something might, could, should yet be dared and done! Hope was again desperately rearing its unabashed front. "Mr. Challoner, you have been standing in that cold corner for ever so long," said Mrs. Appleby's languid voice from the sofa. "Do come nearer the fire; do, Marion, dear, poke up the fire. Oh, thank you," to Teddy, who seized the poker. "So good of you all to come out in such weather." "The most glorious weather, my dear Mrs. Appleby. I wish you had been with us last night," cried Matilda, coming forward; and as she did so, and then seated herself at the invalid's feet, for the few civilities preparatory to departure, her brother seized his opportunity. "Marion I say, Marion, I wish you would tell me if there is anything I can do," said he, drawing her aside confidentially. "Can't I do anything? Are you going to Clinkton? Let me go to Clinkton with you; I'll go any time like a shot. Now, mind, you ask me if you want me. You need not say anything to any of them, just send word to me," and he shook her band a dozen times. (If Challoner had only heard him!) But Challoner's attention was concentrated on Matilda, and her parting; and having at length got her safely out of the house, he was now only bent on making the most of his fresh reprieve. 66 Good-bye; I'm off to Seaburgh. I have a telegram to take for Marion," announced Teddy triumphantly. "She has intrusted it to me, and I have promised to go and send it off myself," his tone intimating, "Other people think much of me, if you do not." "Don't be astonished if I am late," he added, having invariably found that this was what Matilda minded more than any thing. Ah! Matilda hardly noticed it now. The prophesied snow, though it fell fast and thick after the light went, did not set in soon enough to hinder any one from walking as swiftly as he or she chose before then; nevertheless, when Lord Overton overtook his sister and Challoner within the park, having gone out again himself as the sky kept up, it was not soon after they had parted from their other companion; an hour or more had elapsed. They had not hurried; they had not come quite straight home. There had been time for anything, and yet there was nothing to tell. "This is rather curious," said Overton to himself. CHAPTER XXX. MRS. TUFNELL IN TROUBLE. modest contented themselves with gaining intelligence of these bolder spirits, and retailing it to those who were again indebted to them for the same. At every meeting the first question would be, "Do you know how Miss Appleby is to-day? Has she passed a better night?" or, "I trust we shall hear an improved account to-morrow. The Windlasses tell me soand so." It was something to get at the Windlasses anyhow. "I wonder how Miss Juliet Appleby is to-day," observed Mary Tufnell one morning. "I think I shall go round and ask Miss Beadel; she is sure to know." "It strikes me there is a tremendous to-do made about this Miss Juliet Appleby," struck in her father somewhat gruffly. "It is nothing but Miss Juliet Appleby from morning till night from every one now. Because the girl has got the small-pox "Sure that is enough, papa." "Enough? I did not say it wasn't. "Slips of the tongue are sometimes found very incon- Enough and to spare I dare say, for her venient by those persons who, owing to some unlucky want of correspondence between their wits and their utterance, say one thing when they mean another, or bawl out something which the slightest degree of forethought would have kept unsaid." SOUTHEY. EVERYBODY at Clinkton was now thinking about Juliet Appleby. The insignificant Juliet who, a few days before, had been of less than no consequence to the world in general, and who had simply gained a superficial importance in the eyes of one or two people by peculiar circumstances, was now a personage to be thought about and spoken about, and inquired after, was, in fact, next to the fancy ball, if not actually before it, in point of interest in many houses, whose inmates had not until within the past twenty-four hours known of the young lady's existence. A little goes a long way with the gossips of a country town; and much as the poor girl's unfortunate illness might be to her own people, and much also in a lesser degree to their friends and neighbors at Överton Hall, it was undoubtedly still more the topic of the day to those upon the spot, to the hosts who were to be sympathized with, and to the circle who could condole, and pity, and wonder, and have daily and hourly bulletins. To them, as was natural, the subject was all-engrossing. Showers of cards were left daily. People who had not previously been on visiting terms with the Windlasses seized the opportunity for driving up to the Court, while the more and those about her; but what is that to us? What the mischief have we to do with Miss Juliet Appleby, small-pox or no small-pox? She is nothing to us, and we are nothing to her." "Oh, the poor thing, I am so sorry for her! I am sure I never was so sorry for any one in my life," said Mary, with the easy, healthy sorrow that comes natural to a fine girl, and does not in any wise impair her digestion. "It is so hard upon her, and "Well, of course; and hard upon the folks she is with too; and of course I am sorry myself for that matter, and wish 'em well through with it, but I don't see how it need concern us. We are not the Applebys nor the Windlasses; we have nothing to do with them or their set, any more than we have with Jones the butcher, or Japhet the turnpike-keeper, -not so much, for we know those two a deal better than we know the others, yet I'll be hanged if I should hear all this fuss made if poor Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Japhet was taken sick." "La! I am sure I should be very vexed to hear anything was the matter with either," said his wife, entering in time to catch the last remark. "What put such a thing into your head, my dear? Now was not that papa all over?" to her daugh ter. "Papa thinks we have no right to take an interest in our neighbors "Precious little interest they have ever taken in us!" "No, no; no, you don't; not a bit of you. We all know papa, Mary; but really," in some alarm, "really I would not have any one else - Miss Beadel, or the Dobbs, or any one-hear him for the world; for he is so severe," - her gentle tones might have mollified an ogre. Tufnell, however, was in a bad humor. "They may hear me for half a groat," he said obstinately; "they may hear every word I say, and I mean every word I say. It is more than a man can stand, the folly of these gossips of yours; in and out all day long, with Pray have you heard how Miss Juliet Appleby is within the last five minutes?' or, How many dozen times have you inquired to-day?' The girl is not dying, or there might be some sense in it. I do not wish her to die "Papa! "Well, 'Papa!'-I say I don't wish her to die. But, upon my word, I should not cry my eyes out if she had a few marks left upon her face. It would take some of the conceit out of her, coming down here, and fancying she was going to turn the heads of all the young men at our ball at her ball, as you choose to call it, ma'am," to his wife; "forcing her self in on purpose to cut out our daughters-country bumpkins as I dare say she thinks them; wish she might not be glad to have some of the country bumpkins' skins and color once she comes out of her small-pox, that's all!" "Oh, now you are vindictive, my dear. You would not surely have the poor girl all over pock-marks? Oh Lor'! I could not have believed it of you, Tufnell. The very idea gives me a turn. Mary, my dear-oh, you are writing." "What is it, mamma? "Just could you step down to the Hales' before you take off your bonnet, or maybe I'll go myself," - pondering. "What for?" "I dare say I'll go myself. It will do in the afternoon. I thought I would just like to hear," speaking aloud her thoughts "I would just like to hear how Miss Juliet Appleby. "Damn Miss Juliet Appleby!" roared her husband, bouncing to his feet and banging from the room. "There is no cutting out a woman's tongue! I thought I had The rest was lost. "Dear me! papa is in a way," observed Mrs. Tufnell placidly. "Well, I was a noodle to slip it out, but I had clean forgot and who would have believed it of papa? Something has disagreed with his stomach this morning, I'll be bound. He has been cross ever since he got up, poor man. Well now, Mary, he won't like me to go, you see; so if you don't mind, just you run down and get the last news. is all very well for papa to be so hardhearted, but I know I feel just as if she was one of my own, and It "Never!" exclaimed her mother reproachfully. "You never say so! I would not take you away for millions then " "Oh, never mind; he won't," said Mary laughing. "We agreed at the first that we were not to be bothered with many letters. I hate writing, and so does Jem; you see he has not sent me a line yet, either." "Ah, but he has had nothing to write about, poor thing. It is you who have had all the pleasure, and of course he will want to hear about it. I never like any one I care for to feel about me that 'out of sight is out of mind,'" said Mrs. Tufnell, shaking her benevolent head. "Poor Jem! I was kind of afraid from the first that something would happen to take off the edge of that ball. It seemed as if we were all too much taken up about it. I am sure I for one had it a great deal more in my mind than I should have had; I dare say," with compunction "I dare say even Mrs. Dobb, who had the whole thing on her shoulders, did not think more about it than I did, but there, even papa was in a fuss over his pantaloons; and as for you girls - but you had your disappointment, poor Mary "Oh, as to that, as Jem did not care himself, no more did I - much," said Mary. "I think it will do just as well to "The Hales'? I have just come up from the Hales'," said a new voice in the doorway. "Was Mary going? Well, you needn't, then; they are all out: I caught them just going out. I thought I would go in to ask after Miss Juliet Appleby-" "And how is she?" "Oh, much the same. No better, anyway. The Hales are going out to inquire in the afternoon. I went in after cathedral "Oh, but it won't; not after this week and next," said Bertha reassuringly; "and no doubt, once they are married, we shall hear no more of it. Now, do listen to me. I have had quite an adventure this morning; I have had an introduction, and made a new friend. It was at the Hales'. There was such a lovely young man at the Hales'. And Mary, I have the honor to inform you," with a flourish, "that the lovely young man is a friend of your lovely young man. Mind, Mary, one good turn deserves another. I have always aided and abetted you with Jem Challoner, and now I shall claim return in kind from you. I have an idea that Jem's friend and I are kindred spirits. He appeared about as "Poor dear, I hope she will not have to friendly a youth as I have ever had the go through that always," observed their luck to meet. And he was, oh, a very, mother, somewhat anxiously. "I do think very long way better-looking than -no poor Emmy has rather a hard time of offence, Mary than either Jem or Herit in that respect. Herbert, well, they bert. Jem does not set up to be a beauty. say a lover may be as exacting as he He has l'air distingué, and that sort of pleases; but really, morning and after-thing-the je ne sais quoi, and all the rest of it. Herbert is pretty, I own, but my man "Oh, you have been at cathedral?" "Oh, I have been at cathedral - very much at cathedral. Well, somebody had to go," said Bertha, in her natural voice; we could not let poor Emmy go always alone, and these Christmas services are such a point with Herbert noon too "Sh! Take care. I will tell you what I think," said Bertha slily. "Herbert is like the fox with his tail cut off; having to go himself, he would like to let us all in for it too, if he could." "How you do run on, child!" said her sister, with a shrug of the shoulder "your man!" 66 Ay, my dear, my man; surely I may call him mine until he is claimed by somebody else. My man has a nose oh, such a nose! Grecian to a degree, that's to say if it's not Roman," in parenthesis. "I'm not altogether clear about the two in my own mind, but at any rate it is a nose of the first water - a nose to put any other nose I have ever seen, in Clinkton or elsewhere, out of joint forever and aye; and he has curly locks and a moustache, and — and everything. I made my best bow, and he talked to me the whole time I was there; he did, indeed. I do like making a new acquaintance; I wish I had heard his name "Well, dear me, let us remember what we are talking about; don't let us be profane, whatever we are," Mrs. Tufnell reminded them; "but the truth is, I was never brought up to church going except on Sundays, and it does not come natural to me now. I don't say there is any harm in it; I would never go the length of saying that; but I know this, I get no good of Emily at all nowadays; she can never go with me anywhere of an afternoon without being all upon thorns as four o'clock comes on. If I have her for a drive and she used to be the only one of you that I could ever get to set a foot in the carriage she is looking at her watch all the time, and I'm kept in a state myself for fear we should be late; and then I have always to come back that "He heard mine; that was enough; he way, round by the Close, you know, heard, and he made good use of his hear and as sure as fate, if Emily is with me, ing. He called me Miss Tufnell' several it happens that I would like to come back times, and inquired whether it was 1 or the other way. Well, between it all, the my sister, I heard him distinctly ask hurry and the fidget, and the feeling that Louisa Hale whether it was I or my sister Emily, poor thing, thinks it not quite kind who was going to be married to his friend of me to come on home and let her go in Mr. Challoner? When Louisa said it was by herself, I must own I do feel more put you, he spoke to me myself about it." about than I'd like her to know. Often "What did he say?" "You did not even hear his name! And you call that making a new acquaintance!" |