A girl and her ways
Date: 2025-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

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Title: A girl and her ways

Author: Amy Le Feuvre

Release date: January 28, 2025 [eBook #75231]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1925

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL AND HER WAYS ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

Gentian.
A Girl and Her Ways                   Frontispiece

A GIRL AND HER
WAYS

BY

AMY LE FEUVRE

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

LONDON AND MELBOURNE

MADE IN ENGLAND

Printed In Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I AN INVASION

II THE YOUNG GUEST

III THE HOUSE THAT WAS WAITING

IV JIM PAGET

V AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE

VI A FRESH PROPOSITION

VII A PRIVATE CHAUFFEUR

VIII THE DAY IN THE NEW FOREST

IX DARK CLOUDS

X LEFT ALONE

XI A VISIT TO CORNWALL

XII THOROLD'S SECRET

XIII A NEW FRIEND

XIV "I WANT YOU"

XV THEIR GOLDEN TIME

A GIRL AND HER WAYS

CHAPTER I

AN INVASION

HE sat back in his easy chair, pipe in mouth, and newspaper on his knee. The lashing wind and rain outside added to his sense of comfort. He was unassailable, he knew, from all unpleasant elements. A bright wood fire burned on the open hearth. His room was lined with books, for he was a book lover. Everything around him was for use and not for ornament. Some oil portraits hung on the walls, members of the Holt family; but there was no china, no flowers, and no signs of a woman's hand and taste in his room.

Thorold Holt was now nearer forty than thirty. He had a lean, sinewy frame, his close-cropped dark head was already streaked with grey, and at times there was a weary look about his grey eyes which belied his habitual cheeriness. People who knew him best said that his sense of humour was natural, but his cheeriness a manufactured article. He had had a hard life, and found it difficult to believe that at last his hard times were over.

An interruption came now to his solitude.

The door opened, and his one manservant appeared.

"Two ladies to see you, sir. I have shown them into the drawing-room."

"Oh these females!" muttered Thorold with real annoyance. "Even rain doesn't keep them indoors. A begging appeal, I suppose."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and rose discontentedly from his seat. He went out into a square hall, tiled in black and white stone underfoot, and crossed it, entering into a very stiff and stately-looking drawing-room, with early Victorian relics, besides some really good bits of antique furniture. Two women sat awaiting him. One he recognized as his rector's wife. He wondered she had not given her name, but he had only met her once before. She addressed him promptly.

"I must apologize for troubling you, but I think you will have to see this good woman, Miss Ward by name. She arrived yesterday evening from London, and as she came to the Rectory for advice, we gave her a bed, and after hearing her story and sifting it well, my husband and I think it only right to bring her straight to you."

Thorold stared at the two women in complete bewilderment.

"But who in the world is it?" he asked. "It isn't a long lost wife, for I have never married, and I am morally certain that I have never set eyes on Miss Ward before!"

"Miss Ward was not aware of your late cousin's death, or that you were in possession of his property," said Mrs. Gould, the rector's wife.

"Oh, then her business was with him?" queried Thorold.

Miss Ward for the first time looked up and spoke. She was a plain-featured woman dressed in black, and spoke with a slight American accent.

"The death of Mr. Charles Holt has floored me," she said; "I was counting on his help. God knows, it's badly needed."

"Well, if it is his private affair, I would rather discuss it with you privately. Come this way. Thank you, Mrs. Gould, for bringing her up. We will not keep you."

He knew he was treating his rector's wife badly; but he had already suffered from her insatiable thirst for managing every person she came across. And he did not intend that she should point out to him now wherein his duty lay.

Mrs. Gould rose from her seat with great annoyance.

"I shall be glad to know in good time if you are going to put her up here to-night; and perhaps you will be able to send down to the Rectory for her luggage. We only took her in out of kindness last night. The village inn is not a desirable place for a single woman."

"It is all such a mystery to me that I can make no promises or plans at present," said Thorold.

And then he marched the stranger into his comfortable smoking-room, and drew up a chair to the fire for her.

"Now," he said, "tell me in as few words as you can, who you are, and what your business is."

"I was a maid of Mrs. Brendon's about eleven years ago, and then I became her companion and nursed her when she died, and I loved her. She was my best friend on earth, and I promised her to stick to her child, and so I have, but all along since I came across the letter, Mr. Charles Holt has been my goal and mainstay. And it has fairly knocked me over to know he is dead and buried!"

"Will you tell me, please, who Mrs. Brendon was and what connection she was of my cousin?"

"I reckon she was a cousin like yourself; and a little more too, judging from this letter, which I'd best show you."

She produced a letter from her pocket which she handed to Thorold, and he stood leaning his back against the mantelpiece, whilst he read it.

"MY DEAR LENA,—

"I have heard that you and your little one have made your home in Capri. Well, I am glad to think of you in that sweet setting and perhaps after the stormy turbulence of your young life, you may find your widowhood a period of peace and rest. I should not think you were troubled with superfluous cash, so will you let me defray the cost of my god-daughter's education? I should like to see her one day. I am a lonely man with few kith or kin, as you know, and I want to make her acquaintance. Send her over to me if you ever want to get rid of her. If she is anything like the wild slip of girl her mother was, she will enliven my solitude, and at my death she will benefit.

"Your never-forgetting cousin,

"CHARLES HOLT."

Thorold read this through more than once. Then he looked up.

"Did Mrs. Brendon answer this letter?"

"No, she told me she was not going to part with her child; and if she responded to Mr. Holt's advances, he would expect her to marry him, and that she could never do."

"Then, having made her choice, and keeping her child, why do you come to me and produce this letter? Mr. Holt left his money elsewhere. The child has lost her chance."

The woman looked at him miserably.

"What can I do?" she asked. "I haven't the money to keep her. She's too young to keep herself. She's just a child. And I came to see Mr. Charles Holt. I did not know he was dead."

"Surely Mrs. Brendon left some money?"

"She had a pension only, which stopped at her death. Colonel Brendon saved nothing. Mrs. Brendon and I used to help out with fine sewing. The nuns at the convent used to give us some to do."

Thorold shrugged his shoulders.

"I am not a rich man. I can't spare a separate income for this young girl. Why should I? She is no relation of mine."

"A cousin's cousin," the stranger murmured. "If she had come over in Mr. Holt's lifetime, she would have been his heiress."

"Where is she now?" asked Thorold abruptly.

"Goodness only knows," was the unexpected answer. "Most likely rowing down the Thames, or going over to Paris in an airship, or wandering round Stonehenge in the dark—anywhere but where I left her, and where she ought to be—in quiet lodgings in the Euston Road. She's out to see England, she says, and she means to do it, though she's penniless."

"Then the sooner you get back to her the better. Don't look so desperate. I'll think things over, and run up to town in a few days, and see you. Give me your address. If the girl is old enough to earn her own living, we may perhaps find a job for her. Girls find it easier to work now, than in the old days."

"Thank you. If you don't help us, I don't know who will. I think I'll be getting back to the Rectory, and leave by the first train in the morning."

He let her go, but his peace of mind was gone. He paced his room restlessly, and sleep forsook him that night. The next morning he rode over to a country house about ten miles away, and walked in unannounced.

But two ladies had seen his approach from a window, and discussed him pretty freely before he arrived.

"Who is this riding up the drive, Lallie?"

"I don't know. Yes I do! It is Thorold Holt. What on earth does he want so early in the morning! You remember the Holts? Charles died six months ago. We were boys and girls together. Thorold was a great chum of mine when I was small. He used to stay over at the Manor a good deal. His father was a judge and widower. He married again, and was killed with his second wife in a railway smash in Italy. She was an extravagant girl, and left three small boys. There were so many debts that the children were in a bad way.

"Thorold was a trump. He took charge of his small stepbrothers from the time he left school. Gave up the Army as a calling on which he had set his heart, and got a post in the city in some business firm where he toiled early and late to make money for the boys' schooling. They were young scamps, and the scrapes he pulled them out of, would make your hair stand on end! He put one in the Navy, the other in the Army, and the third went out to a tea plantation in India. He only got the last of them off his hands a year ago, and they cost him a pretty penny between them I can tell you! Couldn't marry because of them—so he always says, and now he's given up the idea. I believe he was smitten once by a girl who waited two years and then married some one else. Thorold has never had a life of his own. He was three years at the War and got badly wounded, but is nearly well now. He's a cheerful philosopher, and does me good when I'm in the blues. Don't go. I want you to know him."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe, the mistress of the house, a bright, smiling young woman, turned to greet Thorold as he entered the room.

"Vera, this is Mr. Thorold Holt. He's at the Manor now, over at Crowhurst. You haven't met Vera before, Thorold. She's an old school friend of mine, and is taking pity on my loneliness while Frank is away."

Thorold made his greetings, then took up his position on the hearthrug, and looked at Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a whimsical smile.

"Whenever disaster comes my way I always say to myself, 'It is not good that man should be alone,' and haste away to you."

"What is it now? One of those boys again?"

Vera Harrington had discreetly slipped out of the room.

"A strange female was brought to me yesterday afternoon by Mrs. Gould. She's got a child—a girl who's a connection of Charles. You remember Lena Foster? a cousin on his mother's side whom he was wildly in love with all his life. It's her daughter. Lena is dead, and this good woman considers the girl should be enjoying the Manor, with its income, instead of me."

"How preposterous and absurd! Lena treated Charles shamefully. She spoilt his life. And I was glad when her husband treated her as she had treated others."

"Oh, how hard you women are!"

He proceeded to give her further details. Told her of the contents of the letter, and then with raised eyebrows, said:

"And now having fitted out three young men for life, am I to begin over again, and take in hand a young woman?"

"It's ridiculous! She has no possible claim upon you, of course."

"Not legally."

"But morally, I suppose you are going to say! Thorold, I should like to shake you. Your conscience is swelled out like a big balloon! It's too big for your body altogether. Why will you take such delight in sacrificing yourself! Wasn't it last week you were telling me you hardly know how to live at the Manor? You've put down half the staff and economized in every way. How can you afford to adopt a penniless girl? Besides it wouldn't be proper. What's her age?"

"Haven't an idea—something between fifteen and twenty, I suppose. She would have to go to school."

"Not if she's over twenty. What a Don Quixote you are! Hadn't her father any relations?"

"This female says she's penniless and friendless."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked at him perplexedly and he laughed.

"We are sent into the world to help each other, aren't we?" he said. "I'm going to inspect her to-morrow. Shall run up to town for a couple of days. But I'm scared of young women. Wouldn't you like to come with me?"

"Now, Thorold, what on earth can you do with her? You go straight home and smoke your pipe. I will go up, and inspect her and report to you."

He shook his head.

"Can't trust you. I assure you I won't fall in love with her, or marry her."

"But don't you see that you can't provide for her? That sort of thing isn't done. She's either a designing minx or an innocent babe. Either way, she's dangerous to a simple—"

"Fool," put in Thorold.

"Well, I think you are a bit of one sometimes."

"We'll go up together by the ten express," said Thorold firmly, "and if she's old enough and strong enough to earn her own living, we'll find something for her."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe laughed at him.

"You sound so wise; but it's not so easy, my dear Thorold, to find work for young women nowadays. Remember the thousands of unemployed men. And I hold with giving them the first chance."

"Will you meet me at the station to-morrow?"

"I suppose I shall. You mustn't go up to town alone."

And so it came to pass that the following day found them both in the Paddington express. They reached the dingy lodging-house in the Euston Road, and were told by a good-natured, stout landlady, that Miss Ward was out, and the young lady in.

They were shown upstairs into a shabby sitting-room with folding doors. Nobody was there, but upon the round table was an exquisite bunch of white narcissus and pink hyacinths, the fragrance of which scented the room. A moment later, and the folding doors opened.

A young girl stood gravely regarding them, one hand resting on the door handle, the other half extended to greet them. Mrs. Wharnecliffe caught her breath as she looked at her. She understood at once Miss Ward's anxiety concerning her. A slender slip of a girl she was, dressed in a rich blue woollen gown, which matched her eyes in intensity of colour. A string of turquoise beads hung round her neck nearly reaching her waist. She had a pale oval face with rather a pointed chin, and delicate features. Soft, reddish-brown hair fell softly over her broad low brow, and was gathered in a loose knot behind. Her blue eyes were fringed with very dark curling lashes, her mouth had sad curves at the corners. She was a picture of pathetic appealing youth, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe whispered under her breath:

"What a darling child!"

For an instant no one spoke, then the girl broke the silence.

"How kind of you to come. I guess you are relations of Mr. Holt's. Miss Ward has told me of her fruitless journey to his house. Please sit down."

Nothing could have exceeded the gravity of her manner. She seated herself lightly on the arm of an old horsehair couch opposite them, and slightly swung one slender foot to and fro. Mrs. Wharnecliffe began to feel less at ease than the girl herself.

"I have come up to talk things over with you," said Thorold, clearing his throat.

"What kind of things?" asked the girl softly.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked sharply across at her.

The grave intense blue eyes were now quivering with mirth. The woman of the world intervened quickly. She was not going to sit silent, and see her quixotic friend baited for a girl's amusement.

"Mr. Holt has very kindly come up to see if he can help you in any way to make plans for the future. We hear you are very badly off, and your friend was bitterly disappointed to find that the one she relied upon to help you is dead. Both Mr. Holt and I knew your mother long ago, and we want to befriend her daughter."

A faint rose colour came to the pale cheeks of the girl. She drew up her small head in a very haughty fashion, and all mirth died away.

"Miss Ward brought the disappointment upon herself alone. It was against my wish she went to beg. I am making my own plans for the future and require no help from strangers, however kind."

Thorold was about to speak, when Mrs. Wharnecliffe forestalled him.

"That is good from your point of view. I wonder what you intend to do?"

The girl did not appear to resent this question; she stopped swinging her foot, and clasping her hands lightly in front of her looked dreamily out of the window opposite her, across the chimney tops into the grey murky sky.

"It is a choice between two investments," she said in her still grave tone. "I should prefer to live my life above the world. But an aeroplane might not be so paying as a car. And I know less about it. I have driven a car in Italy. Yesterday I had a lesson in driving through the city, but my instructor practically told me that I had little to learn. You see, my nerves are strong and steady, and I have no fear in me. I never had. I should think a livelihood could be got easily in any big town by motoring passengers to and from stations, and taking them on any tour round. Miss Ward does not want me to sink all the capital I have in a venture. But I am perfectly certain in my own mind as to the success of it."

"It's a ridiculous, preposterous idea!" spluttered out Thorold impulsively. "No wonder Miss Ward does not approve of it."

The sparkle came back to the girl's eyes, and her lips smiled.

"I was told I would find English men and women working shoulder to shoulder and doing the same jobs everywhere. Is it not so? Are there still some of the old-fashioned sort left? Are you one of them? Why is it so preposterous and ridiculous?"

And then Thorold gave one of his hearty laughs, and for an instant the girl looked at him with quickened interest.

"Because you know nothing of life, my dear child, and very little of men and women, I should say. How old are you? You do not look more than sixteen."

"I am two-and-twenty, and Italy is not a cannibal island. I have met English people out there by scores, as well as Americans and every nationality under the sun. I left school nearly five years ago. In five years one grows fast and learns much."

"Have you any friends in England?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"Ask Miss Ward. Here she is to speak for herself."

The door opened and Miss Ward appeared.

Thorold rose to his feet and introduced her to Mrs. Wharnecliffe, who said at once:

"We came up to town to see if we could befriend Miss Brendon; but she will have none of us!"

"Oh Gentian!"

"Oh Waddy!" mimicked the girl pulling down her lips, and bringing a piteous look into her blue eyes. "Now sit down and declare on whose side you are! Mine, or theirs."

Miss Ward seated herself irresolutely upon the edge of the old couch.

"I am afraid we have come on a fruitless errand," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "It seems that your young charge here has mapped out her future to her own satisfaction, and wants no interference."

"Her future!" exclaimed Miss Ward miserably. "It will be the workhouse."

"Oh no," retorted Gentian quickly; "there is unemployment pay, you know; but that will be unnecessary as long as my hands and feet and nerve are sound."

"Oh, I beseech you," said Miss Ward, turning suddenly to Thorold, who was sitting back looking on with amused eyes, "don't forsake us. If you will be a friend to us, I will be everlastingly grateful."

"Well, how can I serve you best?" he asked gravely and earnestly.

"By having a long talk with me," she said promptly.

And then Gentian rose to her feet, and put one slim hand on Mrs. Wharnecliffe's arm.

"Let us leave them," she said; "will you come this way?"

CHAPTER II

THE YOUNG GUEST

SHE led her into the back room which, to Mrs. Wharnecliffe's surprise, was as dainty and pretty a room as the other was dingy. The bed in the corner was covered with a striped silk rug, and great blue satin cushions were piled upon it. A piano was in a corner of the room, and open music was on it. Pretty watercolour sketches were pinned upon the walls, a Persian rug was underfoot, and flowers seemed to be everywhere.

"Yes, this is my room, where I live," said Gentian.

Her tones were soft now; she placed Mrs. Wharnecliffe in an easy chair; then took a stool near her, and looked up at her with a pathetic smile.

"Now I can talk. That grim-faced man with his critical eyes is away. You are a stranger, but you have a heart. I see it in your eyes. What is it you want me to do? I cannot and will not accept charity from strangers. Anything but that I will do my best to comply with. You see, do you not, that I must earn money, and earn it quickly before we come to starvation?"

Mrs. Wharnecliffe's eyes strayed to the piano.

"You love music?" she asked.

Gentian's blue eyes almost flashed fire.

"I adore it! I have wept cauldrons because I cannot sing; but at the convent school I played the big organ in the chapel, and was at peace."

"And what else can you do?"

"Drive cars."

Mischief lurked in the blue eyes again.

"Yes, dear, but that would be a perilous and uncertain occupation, whereas music has many delightful possibilities. Will you play to me?"

"Oh, I don't know that I'm in the mood for music now."

But she moved across to the piano, for a moment gazing into space, then dropping her fingers upon the keys, began playing. Her music was so soft, so weird, so unutterably sad, that after listening for nearly ten minutes, Mrs. Wharnecliffe begged her to stop.

"You will make me so depressed that you will soon reduce me to tears. What a strange child you are."

Gentian twisted herself round on the music-stool, and faced her visitor with grave, earnest eyes.

"Well, I ought to be sad," she said; "I am alone in a strange country without a relation in the world—and my only friend goes to beg from strangers for me, and they come to try to darken the only gleam of light in my horizon. Not a cheerful outlook is it?"

"But what is your gleam of light?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe, puzzled at this girl's quick change of mood.

"Raking in pound notes by the score from driving my taxi!" replied Gentian with a laugh so sunny and infectious that Mrs. Wharnecliffe smiled.

"You have a wonderful gift for music," she said; "you show it in your touch."

"But music is too sacred a subject with me to be bartered for sordid money," said Gentian growing grave once more. "Oh, I know I must have money to live. Waddy has saved, and can keep herself. I must learn to do the same. There was £500 in the bank after mother left me—her savings—the only thing she could leave me. I am getting through the first hundred now. You see, it is necessary for me to start working at once."

"And where do you mean to live?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe, humouring her.

"Not in London; I want to live away from houses and people—and yet I must be in touch with them. And I want to see and know England from end to end, as I know Italy."

"Will you come and stay with me till your plans are settled? I live in the country—in such a pretty part, and we are only an hour from town—very little more."

Gentian did not answer for a moment, then she said, "Do you live with Mr. Holt? Are you a relation of his?"

"Oh dear no, we are like brother and sister, we have known each other all our lives; but I live with my husband, who is a busy Member of Parliament. And we are hardly ever in town; we both prefer the country."

"Thank you very much. I will talk to Waddy about it. I think I should like to stay with you, if you will promise not to try to manage me—I think we had better go back to the others. I do not know what plots they may be hatching."

She stepped lightly across the room and opened the door. Mrs. Wharnecliffe followed her, wondering at the impulse that had made her offer this strange girl a temporary home.

Miss Ward and Thorold were still talking. The latter got up from his chair with rather a satisfied smile upon his face. Mrs. Wharnecliffe at once repeated her invitation, including Miss Ward, but that good lady shook her head.

"I should like to see a married sister of mine in Wiltshire. If you could have Gentian for a week or so, I should be very glad."

Gentian laughed gleefully, and her laughter was that of a happy irresponsible child.

"And that means, Waddy, that you hope a week or so in a grave, well-ordered, conventional English house, with some kind and sound common-sense drilled into me every day, will send me back to you in an amenable frame of mind. But you are very rash in resigning your precious charge into the hands of utter strangers. Why do you believe in them more than you believe in me?"

"I suppose," said Thorold dryly, "it is our grey hairs. I have a good many. It's an extraordinary thing, but when you get a few years older, you will actually place more reliance in the wisdom of the experienced than in the very young."

Gentian looked at him for the first time with interest.

"I should like to have a talk with you," she said; "I have had one with your friend, and Waddy has had her innings with you. It is my turn now."

Thorold turned to Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"Don't you think we might go out to lunch somewhere? then we could become further acquainted with Miss Brendon."

There was some discussion. Finally Miss Ward elected to remain at home and Gentian accompanied her new friends to a quiet and comfortable little restaurant not very far away. She slipped into a fur coat, with a smart little blue velvet toque, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe again assured herself that she was dangerously attractive.

"I am a kind of cousin," said Thorold as he walked by her side. "I think it would be better and easier for us all if you were to consider me as such."

"And what do cousins do?" she asked mischievously. "I suppose they call each other by their Christian names. You can call me Gentian, what shall I call you?"

"Cousin Thorold," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe quietly.

Gentian's blue eyes turned to her.

"You are afraid that Thorold will be too familiar? I must put the cousin before it to show my respect and veneration."

"Oh, that is all immaterial," said Thorold, a slight impatience in his tone. "But being cousins, I am a relation, and so bound to look after you a little. And as I understand from Miss Ward the peculiarity of your circumstances, I shall do as she wants me to do, and regard you as a trust handed on by your godfather with all his other earthly goods and chattels."

Gentian's blue eyes opened their widest.

"So I'm a chattel, like his tables and chairs and books? Oh, thank you so very much. I should like to know what you intend to do with me."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe left Gentian's other side, to administer a quiet pinch to Thorold. As they were crossing a wide thoroughfare it was not noticed, though Thorold rubbed his arm a little ruefully. He understood the signal, and knew he was not to proceed quite so quickly.

"Oh," he responded carelessly, "I mean to take a fatherly interest in you. I can spread out certain plans for your future, for your refusal or acceptance. And you can use me as a buffer when occasion requires. A cousin in the background of a certain standing and respectability, is an important asset sometimes."

Gentian was silent, then as they came to the restaurant, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe led the way, she turned back towards Thorold.

"I might use you," she said slowly and thoughtfully, "till Mr. Paget—comes to England."

"And who is he?"

"The man who wants to marry me."

Then she followed Mrs. Wharnecliffe in without another word.

And Thorold did not know whether he felt relieved by her announcement or not. Relieved, he decided after a few minutes' reflection, for his guardianship might prove to be of very short duration.

Gentian now turned her attention to other things. She was full of interest in her surroundings; commented on the people around her, and asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe a hundred questions about London and its pleasures.

"I am tired of people and cities myself," she said; "but if you have to earn your livelihood as I mean to earn mine, you are dependent on them to support you. If I come to stay with you for a week or two, may I bring my car down? Have you one of your own?"

"We have, but you do not mean to say that you have bought one already?"

She nodded.

"I did it yesterday. At least I made up my mind which one I would have, and I am taking a few trial trips with it. They send an experienced man with you, so there is no fear. It is not a Ford, but one of these new American ones. The Americans are more up-to-date and less expensive than the British. I want Waddy to come with me to-morrow. I am going to run down to Richmond and back. I have never seen Richmond Park."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked at Thorold in a helpless fashion.

"Has Miss Ward seen this purchase of yours?" he asked.

"No. She's not much good in choosing cars."

"And may we ask the cost of it?" Mrs. Wharnecliffe asked.

"It will clear me out," she replied frankly; "but then, you see, it's like purchasing a business. I shall make the price of it over and over again. It's an investment. I know a lot about investments. I have heard men talk and I've made them explain it to me. I reckon this will return me 10 per cent. for my money. That's all right, isn't it?"

She looked so childish as she talked, that Mrs. Wharnecliffe could only smile at her. But Thorold seemed bent on asserting his authority.

"I should like to have a look at it," he said. "I know something about cars. Shall we go and see it now after lunch? We shall have time."

For a moment a frown settled over Gentian's bright face. Then she said with dignity:

"You may come and see it, if you say nothing. I don't want you to be countermanding my order, but you would not be so discourteous as that."

So after lunch, they took a taxi to the city, and when Thorold saw the contemplated purchase, he found to his surprise that he could find no fault with it. He had a talk with the head of the firm, and then they all returned to the Gower Street lodgings. But on the way there, he said gravely to Gentian:

"This is a very risky venture of yours. We don't want to throw water on your hopes, or prevent you from earning your livelihood, but will you let the final decision about it be postponed for a month from this date? Come down into the country and see what English country is like—Mrs. Wharnecliffe has invited you to be her guest."

"If my car doesn't come with me, I don't come," said Gentian with great determination.

"Then have it on trial. It may not prove a good one."

"I might do that."

And so a compromise was made, and an hour later Mrs. Wharnecliffe and Thorold were in the train for home, almost too bewildered by Gentian's personality to discuss her.

They felt that they and any others would be only ciphers in her life.

And Thorold said with a little laugh when he parted from Mrs. Wharnecliffe:

"She seems to have come into our life like a whirlwind and taken root at once. You know that neither of us need have anything to do with her."

"I foresee trouble ahead for you," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a smile and a little sigh; "because you will make other people's business your own. You always have."

"The prospective husband will come along."

"Oh, I don't believe in him—Miss Ward would have mentioned him had there been anything in it."

"Miss Ward is kept in the dark a good deal."

"Yes—well—the girl is coming to me next week, and I'll see what I can do with her. I'm really enjoying the prospect. She's so ridiculously young and fresh, and so world-old in her own opinion."

Gentian arrived at Oakberry Hall towards the end of a bright April afternoon. The gardens in front of the house were a blaze of colour. Daffodils, hyacinths, narcissus, and tulips were all in their prime. Mrs. Wharnecliffe had had a wire in the middle of the day to say that Gentian was coming down by road. And about five o'clock, a light, fawn-coloured car rolled up the drive. Gentian was driving it, and was absolutely alone. Two neat suitcases and a hat-box were in the tonneau behind. She wore a close-fitting little brown-leather cap, and a leather coat, which she shed in the hall, and she stepped into the drawing-room looking as fresh and dainty as if she had only just dressed for her journey.

"She's a little beauty. We've had no hitch, and I only went a couple of miles out of my way. You've very good roads from town. I've christened her 'Mousie.' I chose that colour because she doesn't show the dust. Have you a chauffeur? Will he look after her?"

"Yes, he will do all that's necessary. Come and have some tea. I'm alone to-day. My husband will be very late home from town. So we'll have a tête-à-tête dinner."

"And Cousin Thorold—I don't forget the 'cousin' you see—will not be here. I'm so glad. He's a little too interfering—means well, I dare say. I passed Winderball coming here, your nearest town, isn't it? I liked the look of it. It's quite big. I wonder if I could find an opening there. I should not mind settling near you, if you would leave me alone—I like you—no one could help liking you—you're so—so motherly."

She was sitting on a low chair close to Mrs. Wharnecliffe, and just for a moment she laid a slender hand on that lady's arm.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe's eyes grew misty. She thought of two small graves in the country churchyard close by. She had only had five years of motherliness, and then boy and girl had both left her in a virulent attack of scarlet fever.

Gentian went on talking:

"Waddy has gone off to her sister. Isn't it strange how perfectly she trusts you? Before we came home, I had five or six different invitations in Italy, and she would let me accept none of them. There was the old Contessa De Nienti, she wanted me to stay with her, but Waddy said her only friends were men of doubtful reputation, and her house was not a fit one for a young girl. And one or two of my men friends wanted me to go and stay with their people, and there was a Mother Superior in the convent near. She wanted me as a guest, but Waddy would have none of them. I suppose it is because you're so English, and your home is an English one, like the story-books! Oh, it is sweet to-day! I think I shall be very happy here."

She paused, then added with twinkling eyes:

"I and Mousie—we shall enjoy ourselves. But you will not spoil me. I mean to be a working woman, a hard-working woman, and I must train for it. Out in all weathers—they say you have torrents of rain perpetually—and up early and many hours without food. I have thought it all out."

"You are not fit to rough it," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, glancing at the slim, delicate-looking girl with perplexed eyes. "If you had an accident to your car, on a lonely road, what could you do?"

"A good deal. If it was a burst tyre, I could replace it; if the engine was too hot, I would cool it. If there were any strain or breakage of any part of the engine or valves, I would make for the nearest garage. I understand the making of the car. And I'm wiry and strong as iron—ask Waddy. I love machinery. If I had been a boy, I should have been a civil engineer."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe let her talk on all about herself. She wanted to get at the girl's mind. Every now and then she astonished her.

After tea she went out to the garage to speak to the chauffeur about her car, then she was taken to her room by her hostess, and she stayed there enjoying the dainty comfort of her surroundings till the dinner gong sounded.

There was no lack of conversation during the meal. Gentian talked amusingly about her first arrival in England and Mrs. Wharnecliffe proved herself a sympathetic listener. When it was over they went back to the drawing-room and at her hostess' request the girl went to the piano and began playing so softly and sweetly in the dusky twilight, that Mrs. Wharnecliffe was charmed.

"Oh," she said, "you ought to do something with your music. I should like you to come over one day to a blind friend of mine. He is a great musician and has an organ in his hall which he plays himself. I should like you to know him. Anyone can drive a car, but it is not every one who can play as you do."

"The Mother Superior wanted me to be their organist. They had such a lovely organ in their chapel, but though I went to a convent school, I never became a Roman Catholic. It does not appeal to me. Waddy says I have too modern a mind. I don't like anybody between me and God."

She spoke in a hushed voice.

"My little mother was not religious," she went on in that low voice; "not till she grew ill, and then she became frightened, and thought she had better turn, and have a priest. But I said 'No,' there was comfort and direction to be got out of the Bible, Waddy had always told me so, so I got it, and hunted about, and found out the most beautiful passages! They made me long to be on my sick-bed getting near the Gates of Paradise. And I read and read, and then I went to church to pray for her, and then I came back and found I could pray in her room, and we read and prayed, and prayed and read, till she was quite happy. She asked me to put over her grave:

"'Unto Him Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood.'

"That was how she went to Paradise with those words upon her lips. I think no Roman Catholic could have died more happily."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked at her with soft sympathetic eyes.

"You'll be a happy girl, if you have a happy religion. I believe Christianity is meant to be so."

Then Gentian gave her soft little laugh.

"Waddy says it is not good to be always happy; there is a side of us which remains uncultivated—a waste bit of ground, but when one loses one's mother, one goes through enough anguish to last a lifetime. I think if I may, I will go to bed now. I am rather tired."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe accompanied her upstairs, saw that she had every comfort for the night, then came down and sat in deep thought before the blazing fire awaiting her husband's return.

He rallied her a little upon her extreme quietness.

"Your new charge's responsibility has a depressing effect perhaps?" he queried after he had come in and told her all his news.

"No—not depressing," was the quick reply; "but I'm wondering if trouble has been to my advantage or otherwise. I've lived very carelessly, Frank. Gentian has a deeper nature than I imagined. I'm intensely interested in her."

Then she relapsed into her usual gay tone, and did not mention Gentian again that night.

CHAPTER III

THE HOUSE THAT WAS WAITING

GENTIAN came to the breakfast table the next morning looking the embodiment of spring. She showed her enjoyment of her surroundings in a very fresh and unconventional fashion.

"English people are so sociable," she said; "my mother often told me so. They do not eat their breakfast alone in their rooms, and think over their mistakes, and sins of yesterday, but they come together and plan their day out as we are doing now. Oh, it is all delicious. This is how I should like to live, but it takes money to do it, does it not? These lovely flowers and the garden of flowers up to the windows, and the glass and the silver, and the well-laid table. Waddy and I could never have this, never, never!"

"I thought you were going to make your fortune," said Mr. Wharnecliffe with a good-natured smile.

"Yes, I hope I am. Will you let me drive you to the station this morning in my car? You will see then that I am an experienced driver. And I want you to test my car, and tell me if you think it is a comfortable one."

For an instant husband's and wife's eyes met across the table, then Mrs. Wharnecliffe said:

"Let her do it, Frank. We'll tell Munn he will not be needed."

Gentian was delighted. She drove her host to the station an hour later, and he found no fault with her driving, or with her car. Yet he, as well as his wife, expressed disapproval of her taking it up as a profession.

"I would not let a daughter of my own do it on any consideration," he told her.

"But if you and your wife were taken to the other world, and your daughter left alone with no money and no home, would not that alter the case?"

"No, I should never rest in my grave if I knew that a young girl was being exposed to such a difficult and dangerous life."

Gentian was silent. She did not come straight home after she had left the station. She picked up two old women trudging along the dusty road with heavy baskets of eggs which they were carrying to market in Winderball, and she drove them to their destination; then she explored the country on the farther side of the town, and coming back, bought a motor map of the county.

When she arrived at the Hall, she found Mrs. Wharnecliffe in the garden giving directions to her gardener. They walked through the garden together, Gentian giving an account of her drive.

"I am going to take you to have tea with Thorold this afternoon," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe presently. "He has invited us."

Gentian looked at her with laughing eyes but with screwed-up lips.

"He must leave me alone whilst I am your guest," she said; "I feel he will try to manage me, if I get to know him well. I suppose men can't help that assertive manner in dealing with women."

"Thorold is a dear," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe quickly; "you must not abuse him to me. He is one of the most unselfish men on the face of the earth, and it is only lately that he has had any leisure or comfort. He has toiled early and late to support three young stepbrothers, and he was very badly off before his cousin died."

"Then if he has known poverty, he ought to sympathize with me."

"Does he not?"

Gentian turned aside to pick up a fallen rose, for Mrs. Wharnecliffe was gathering some roses as she talked.

"He looks a good man," the girl said after a short silence. "I won't discuss him any more."

She was full of interest when they motored over to Crowhurst Manor, comparing the English country with Italy and telling Mrs. Wharnecliffe many of her experiences there.

When they drove up the chestnut avenue that led to the Manor, and stopped before the old grey house with its ancient tiled roof and mullioned windows, Gentian expressed her admiration. She looked curiously about her as they entered the old square hall, and were ushered into the smoking-room and library where Thorold usually sat. Tea was spread on an oval table by the fire, which was an open one, and the blazing logs shed a bright glow on the silver tea service. Thorold came forward to greet them.

"And this was my cousin's home," were Gentian's first words. Her face was grave as she spoke. Thorold looked at her.

"Are you sorry you did not come here in his life time?" he asked her.

"Certainly not. He was a stranger to me. Why should I leave my mother to go to a stranger?"

"Now, Gentian," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe lightly: "we are here to enjoy ourselves, so we won't rake up the past. Shall I pour out tea for you, Thorold? I generally do, don't I?"

She sat down to the table and made light conversation; for she did not want any sparring matches just now. Gentian relapsed into rather a pensive mood, but after tea she wandered up to the bookshelves.

"Would you like to borrow a book?" asked Thorold. "I have all sorts and conditions as you see. Some of them are the best friends I have."

Gentian's eyes glistened as she took one and another out of their shelves to look at. With a little nod of approval she said:

"Ah yes, when I am very miserable, very lonely; when I have made Waddy weep, and feel it's an empty world I live in, I creep inside a book, and stay there till I'm happy again. I would like this life of a hunter in the Himalayas; may I take it?"

"Yes, do, only don't wait till you are miserable to read it. And now I want to show you my garden, and then I'm going to take you into the small church close by. It's a little gem of the fifteenth century and has a most wonderful screen."

They wandered out into an old-fashioned sunk garden laid out in rather the Dutch style. Gentian did not like it, and frankly said so.

"Poor little bulbs, what freedom and individuality have they? All in rows and circles, the red together and then the yellows and then the blues! How sick they must get of each other! How they must long to get away alone and grow their own lives as they like. When I get rich—and I mean to one day—I shall have a garden where each flower will feel it is an individual personality. I won't have masses of the same sort all together—so monotonous and tame it must be for them! Ah! This is better."

She was standing in the rock garden, and in every cleft of the rocks different plants were blooming.

"You're a rebel by nature," said Thorold pleasantly; "that's the way with a good many nowadays. Every one wants to grow as he likes."

"No, no. But we can have a corner to ourselves and not have every idea quenched."

They walked across the old lawn under some ancient cedars, and then went down a path in a shrubbery until they reached the road by a private gate. Only a few steps down the road brought them to the little church. It lay in the midst of trees, the churchyard was beautifully kept and borders of spring flowers were on each side of the path, which led up to the church door. The door was not locked, and they went in quietly.

Gentian caught her breath as she looked about her, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe saw her blue eyes get soft and dreamy. All her quick independent bearing seemed to forsake her; and she listened to Thorold's account of the old carved screen, and the beautiful mellow coloured windows, with quiet, pensive face.

"Would you like to try the organ?" he asked her. "I will blow for you."

For a moment she hesitated.

"It's a very beautiful one, though small," he said; "your cousin Charles had a great affection for this little church; he spent a good bit of money on it. Everything is of the best in it, as you see."

She moved towards the organ without another word. Mrs. Wharnecliffe sat down just inside the porch and waited. She knew she was going to have a treat, and when once Gentian's hands were upon the keys, she was not in a hurry to take them off. Her music absorbed her; she played without notes, and Thorold heard in wonder; he did not know she was such a musician. She played from memory; a medley; bits of Mozart, Chopin, and Bach. Then very softly and sweetly she began to improvise, and time and surroundings faded right away from her. She started when at last Mrs. Wharnecliffe touched her elbow.

"Your blower will be getting tired. You have been playing for over half an hour."

"Oh, it has been heavenly."

Her cheeks were flushed and eyes bright, but she slipped off the organ stool at once, and thanked Thorold very prettily when he joined them again.

"It's a good instrument," he said.

"Yes, almost as good as the convent one."

"And now I want you to come along the road a little farther," Thorold said.

He and Mrs. Wharnecliffe walked out of the church together, but Gentian lingered behind, and when he turned he saw her kneeling in the aisle, her head buried in her hands.

She caught them up a few minutes later. Her face was perfectly radiant.

"I like your organ and your church better than your house and your books," she said.

He smiled at her.

"It's safer," he said.

She hardly heard him.

"What a darling sweet little house," she said, stopping suddenly before a small green wooden gate, and looking up a tiled path edged by box borders, to a quaint low grey stone house with broad windows, red japonica and yellow jasmine climbing up its walls.

"This used to be the Vicarage," he said, "and was in your cousin's gift; but since his death, Crowhurst has been joined to the next parish where our rector lives, and I let this furnished. We lost our tenants a couple of months ago. Would you like to come inside? I have the key."

"I think it's one of the cosiest houses I've ever seen," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe enthusiastically; "and it has an oak staircase nearly two hundred years old, Gentian. Come along in. I always envy the inmates of this house."

They walked up the path, and Gentian was like a child in her ecstatic admiration over the low, quaint, old-fashioned room, with roomy cupboards in the thick walls, and oak beams across the ceilings. There were two sitting-rooms and a large kitchen downstairs and four sunny bedrooms above with a long attic in the roof.

The furniture was in keeping with the house, the walls were all coloured a pale apple green, the doors and wainscotting dark oak.

Gentian stood at one window overlooking a small garden and an apple orchard at the back.

"There are English cottages and houses left like one reads of in books," she said; "how pretty I could make this!"

"Would you like to try?" Thorold asked. He was sitting on the edge of an oak table, and looking at Mrs. Wharnecliffe, and not at Gentian as he spoke.

"What do you mean?" the girl asked quickly.

"Well, it seems waiting for some one, and Miss Ward thought it might suit you and her for a short time, until your plans were settled, or for longer if it suited you!"

"And what may be the rent?" demanded Gentian, looking at him with surprise, pleasure, but also with a little defiance in her gaze.

"We are in need of an organist," Thorold said slowly; "the present one has to ride over here every Sunday from the next parish, and he's an old man and he wants to give it up. If we could get hold of an organist, who would take the house in lieu of a salary, it would suit us down to the ground."

"I hope you'll get one," was Gentian's cheerful response; "Waddy and I would not care to take a house and make it pretty, only to be turned out for some one else shortly."

"But why shouldn't you be the organist?" said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, who had been keeping silent with some difficulty up to now.

Gentian turned to her with laughing eyes.

"And this is the plot which Cousin Thorold began to hatch with Waddy in London, and which put her in such a good temper. Do tell me the whole of it. Of course I was brought to see my gilded cage to-day. It really is a darling little cage, but I'm afraid it's too out of the way for my car. And it's—it's too near my thoughtful cousin."

"Oh, don't think about me," said Thorold dryly, "I like to live my life alone I should not expect you to be running in and out. You might borrow a book occasionally, perhaps."

"How kind!" said Gentian. "But you see I must earn money to buy clothes and food. This house won't provide that—and who would want to employ my car out here? I might drive into Winderball every day, certainly. I must think about it and let you know."

A shadow of sadness came into her eyes.

"It's strange how kindness brings one a sense of loneliness. I have to settle my life apart from you two, for your one idea is to give, and I am a bad taker; Waddy tells me I am. I will not take from you, Cousin Thorold."

"But this is not a gift. It is an exchange for your services. And remember it belonged to your cousin Charles, and do you know I am a little afraid of ghosts?"

"Are you? How interesting! I think I'm rather fond of them. At least I should be if I saw any. It would be so uplifting and mystical. Whose ghost do you fear?"

"Your cousin Charles. He might be very angry if I did not act towards you as he would have done."

"Oh, he's an unknown person to me."

Gentian was standing in the doorway as she talked.

"Hush!" she said suddenly, putting her finger on her lip.

A pert little robin hopping about the tiled path flew past her into the house. He perched himself on an oak chest in the tiny hall and lifting up his voice burst into ecstatic song.

Gentian's pathetic face was instantly illumined with sunshine.

"The darling! That settles it. I'll be your organist, Cousin Thorold, and come here to-morrow, if you like. Waddy will have to find the money to live here. I shan't want much in the way of food if I have music and robins and flowers to feed me, and I shall try to earn money at once. I shall have my car, and I'll take it to the station at Winderball every morning on the chance of picking up passengers."

"That's settled then. St. Anselm's Vicarage is to be your new home."

There was relief in Thorold's tone, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe smiled.

"You will be near enough, dear, for me to see you very often," she said affectionately.

"And I shall be still nearer Cousin Thorold," said Gentian with a doubtful look at him, "but he has assured me he never wants to see me."

"I shall be close at hand if you get into difficulties," said Thorold quickly.

They were out in the garden now. Gentian was on her knees in a moment, picking some daffodils from a bed under the window, and sticking them in her belt.

"It's a darling little sunny home," she said.

And then she relapsed into silence until they had walked up the road and reached the Manor. Here Mrs. Wharnecliffe's car was waiting for them.

"Well," said Thorold, smiling at Gentian, "you must write to Miss Ward and tell her that you like the idea of living in the Vicarage. And you can settle in as soon as you like."

"Yes," said Gentian, putting a hand on his coat sleeve and speaking very earnestly, "Waddy and I will be very happy here, if you will promise to leave us alone. It sounds rude, but I dread being managed by a man, and being pestered by his ideas of propriety and convention. I must live my life apart from your protection and care. I thank you with all my heart for giving Waddy and me this home. But your kindness and generosity must stop here. Let me feel that I am free in that house. Do not make it into a cage. Good-bye."

She stepped lightly into the car with a wave of the hand. Thorold went into his house shaking his head.

"All very well, my young lady. But you have dropped into my life like a thunderbolt, and I believe you have come to stay. Boys are a serious charge, but a girl is a stupendous one!"

Driving home, Gentian chattered away to Mrs. Wharnecliffe as gaily as a bird.

"I like the little house, and the organ almost next door will make life a perfect joy. But I shall have to earn my living, and the question is, will this county produce enough customers—fares—for me? I imagine most people who have big houses like you, have their own cars, and the country people in their sweet little cottages have no money to hire cars—they walk along the roads carrying their baskets like those dear old dames I took up in my car the other day. The class I want are city men going to town, and sightseers—Americans, who want to see the English country. I have a thought! Thomas Cook, who runs cars in town himself, might help me. I will tell him I am only forty minutes from town, and will take parties to do the English country."

"My dear child," interrupted Mrs. Wharnecliffe, "you are not running a char-à-banc! Your car only holds four besides the driver."

"Five. No, I will only take private parties."

She relapsed into silence, looking very pensive, for a few minutes, then her face cleared, and seemed flooded with sunshine.

"I will just live day by day, and I am going to fill myself with joy and peace, getting into that anchorage of bliss, that darling nest of a vicarage. May I give it another name, do you think?"

"No, I should not alter it, for the country round know it by that name. St. Anselm's Vicarage, Crowhurst, is a pretty address, I think."

When they arrived home, Gentian found a packet of letters awaiting her. She went off to her room with them, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe did not see her till dinner time.

She was rather silent through the meal. Afterwards, when Mr. Wharnecliffe had retired to his smoking-room for a perusal of the evening papers, she said to her hostess as they sat over the drawing-room fire:

"I heard from Mr. Paget to-day."

"Is he your English friend?"

"Yes, the only Englishman I have ever liked. Many of them came out to Italy with arrogant voices, and found fault with everything, and others seemed to be always busy making or losing money at the Casino. Jim Paget loved Italy, he does not like his country. He is in London now."

"But you are not really engaged to him, Gentian, are you?"

She gazed into the fire dreamily without speaking for a few minutes; then her blue eyes looked at Mrs. Wharnecliffe very quietly and directly.

"I am still thinking about it."

"Tell me a little more about him, dear. Describe him to me."

"He is tall and fair, but his eyes are quick and restless, not like Cousin Thorold's. His are still and steadfast, but they break up sometimes into pools of laughter. I like him then, even when I know he is quietly laughing at me—Jim would never laugh at me, never! But he is magnetic and he pulls me after him sometimes against my will. He is very quick and enthusiastic, and lives his life breathlessly, and he would drag me after him anywhere and everywhere if I married him; and mind and body are so strong, I cannot keep pace with him! I should never have repose, and though I love doing and seeing everything, I like when I have done it all to sit down and rest and think about it. Jim never rests; he can think as he's rushing on. But oh, he is so full of life, that he keeps me full too!"

"Has he any parents living?"

"Yes, in Northumberland. That is the far north of England, is it not?"

A grave look came into her eyes, then she shook her head in a pretty careless way.

"We have discussed him enough. He is in England, so you may meet him and see what he is like. Now tell me, shall we go over to-morrow to the Vicarage and open its cupboards, and get out all the curtains, and see how pretty we can make it?"

"Yes, I think we can; we will go in the morning. In the afternoon I want to take you to see my blind friend, Sir Gilbert Winnington."

"I am going to have a charming time here," said Gentian, smiling up at her hostess like a pleased child. "I feel it was a happy day when we made each other's acquaintance."

"Indeed it was," responded Mrs. Wharnecliffe warmly.

And when Gentian had gone to bed, she said to her husband: "I feel increasing responsibility over this child. She is the last sort of girl to be out in the world alone, and I don't think Miss Ward is strong enough in character to deal with her. I wish she would give up this motor business."

"Perhaps it will give her up," responded her husband cheerfully.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe shook her head doubtfully.

CHAPTER IV

JIM PAGET

THE next morning Mrs. Wharnecliffe took Gentian over to St. Anselm's Vicarage. Thorold's old housekeeper was already there. They spent a very happy two hours in the house, for Mrs. Wharnecliffe was never happier than when arranging and beautifying rooms; and Gentian was like a joyous child, dancing in and out, and singing gay little Italian songs under her breath.

By the time they were obliged to return home, chintz curtains were hanging in the windows, pretty rugs were underfoot upon the stained floors, and the whole house wore a habitable aspect.

As they were walking away from the door, Thorold passed down the road. Mrs. Wharnecliffe called to him.

"I hope everything is all right?" he asked.

"Yes," responded Gentian, turning towards him her glowing radiant face. "It's the dearest little house in the world, and I've discovered that there are swallows building under the eaves. Does not that bring us luck? I am longing for Waddy to see it."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe turned to speak to her chauffeur, and Gentian's eyes suddenly became soft and grave.

"I want to speak to you alone," she said to Thorold.

"We will walk down the road," he said. "I hope you have no fresh difficulties about the house?"

She shook her head.

"No, no. It is this. I have taken advantage of your kindness. I have claimed cousinship with you in a letter to a friend, and I thought I had better tell you."

"That is what I hoped you would do," said Thorold.

She clasped and reclasped her hands rather nervously. "It is Mr. Paget who has made it necessary. He is too rapid, too dictatorial, he sweeps me off my feet, and he wrote to me as if I were quite alone and forlorn in the world, and he said he wanted me to meet his parents, that they were very anxious to make my acquaintance, that they were staying in London and he was much disappointed that I had left town so soon. He expected me to come up at once and see him—to-morrow—and then he hoped I would come and stay with them in the North, but though he did not say it, I felt his parents would not invite me on a visit, unless they saw me and liked me; and I am not accustomed to that sort of thing. It is not for me to go to them for inspection, I prefer they come to me, and I do not want to be bothered with his parents at present. I am very happy here, and I shall be too busy earning my living soon to be paying visits in the North. So I wrote and said I might not be visiting London again for a long while; that I had a cousin down here, and that I was making my home here for the time. Do you mind? I hope not. I shall be using you as a buffer when occasion requires."

Thorold smiled.

"Ah, yes! I told you that, did I not? Very wise of you. I think I had better make acquaintance with this young fellow, and let him see that you must be treated with respect."

"Oh," said Gentian airily; "that is not necessary. I can keep him in his place. I would be friends with no one who did not show me respect."

Her little head rose a good inch higher as she spoke.

"Mrs. Wharnecliffe must invite him down," Thorold said in his quiet determined manner. "I forget whether you are formally engaged to him or not?"

"You cannot forget, for you have never been told," flashed forth Gentian; and then she made him a little graceful foreign bow, and turned back to the car.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe saw from Thorold's amused eyes and the girl's heightened colour, that there had been a few words between them, and Gentian soon enlightened her.

"My cousin Thorold is a little too inquisitive," she said presently. "He thinks he has a right to know all my friends. And I see no reason for it. But I would like you to know Jim Paget, he is an Englishman and has a home I think something like yours. And he wants to see me, but it is not comme il faut for me to fly to him. He must fly to me. Would it be presuming on your kindness to ask you to receive him one day? And I could fetch him from the station in my car."

"No, I would not like that. Certainly, dear, we will ask him down, but I will send our car for him. I was going to suggest having him here if you want to see him."

"Thank you very much. I will write to him at once."

In the afternoon Mrs. Wharnecliffe drove her over to see her old blind friend, Sir Gilbert Winnington.

Gentian looked with interest at the old Tudor house as they approached it. The green leaves and shrubberies surrounding it with the spring flowers again evoked her admiration.

"You have not the colour we have in Italy, but you are cool and green and shady and your trees are so big and old, that they look as if they've been here for hundreds of years."

"And so they have," replied Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "And this house is five hundred years old."

"Has your friend always been blind?"

"No, only about seven years. He lives quite alone with a secretary who is devoted to him. But he often has nieces staying with him, and he is the most cheery contented being in the world."

They were shown into a long low room which struck Gentian as one of the most comfortable she had seen in England. Books and pictures abounded; the easy chairs and couches were, all covered with soft blue leather, blue velvet curtains hung from the tall narrow windows, and thick Persian rugs were under foot.

At a table near an open window sat Sir Gilbert and his young secretary. Gentian was introduced to them both, and then Mr. George Damers slipped away, and Sir Gilbert made his visitors comfortable beside him.

"I am so glad you have brought your young friend to see me," Sir Gilbert said in a cheerful tone; "I always do like to have young people round me."

"How do you know I am young?" asked Gentian.

"By your voice," was the quick reply. "And you are quicksilvery by nature, and a little impatient."

"You are a wizard! Waddy is always telling me the same."

Then Gentian criticized her host. He was a tall, good-looking man, with a short grey beard, and rather delicately cut features. But there was a wonderfully peaceful look upon his face; he reminded Gentian of some of the saints in the pictures she had seen abroad. He and Mrs. Wharnecliffe talked together for some time and then he turned to Gentian.

"I hear you play the organ. Come and see mine. It is in the hall."

He led the way without a falter in his step, and it was not difficult to persuade him to play. Gentian sat back in an old carved chair in a dark corner of the hall, and as she listened, her whole soul was moved within her.

Sir Gilbert played as she had heard few play before. The sweetness of the notes thrilled her through and through. Mrs. Wharnecliffe listened for some time, and then slipped away. She wanted to speak to Mr. Damers, and also wanted to leave Gentian alone with Sir Gilbert.

When he at last ceased playing Gentian was at his elbow, and tears were in her voice.

"Oh, it is beautiful! How can you play so! You touch my heart. It is like the angels must play in Paradise. Some people move to laughter and gaiety with their music, and some awe one, and some move to tears, but you draw one up and away to God himself. How do you do it?"

He turned round on the organ stool and smiled at her.

"Ah!" he said. "You respond to music, you love it. And do you love God, little one?"

"When I am in church I do, and when I listen to music; and sometimes when I make it myself."

"And never when you are quiet and still? Or do you never give yourself time to be quiet?"

"Oh, I am quiet when I see a beautiful sky, or the moonlight over a lake, or the afterglow of the sunset on the snow mountains."

He placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Thank God every day of your life that you can see these things. He has given you much. What have you given Him? When we love we give."

Gentian looked up at him with a wistful gleam in her blue eyes.

"Oh, I don't love like that. I give a little money in church sometimes."

Sir Gilbert smiled.

"It isn't your pocket God wants, but your soul, the little soul that is still fresh and young and full of life and energy."

Gentian was silent. She laid her hand on his sleeve and after a minute she said:

"I like people to talk to me like that. No one ever has. And I want to get near Heaven. How can I give God my soul when I am alive? I hope He will take it when I die. When I think of Our Lord on the Cross I love Him, but I do not think often enough. I forget! There is so very much to interest me in the world. I want to see all I can, and know all I can, and do all I can. It does not give me time for thinking much."

"Will you spare half an hour every evening before you go to sleep, to think about these things?"

"I will try," was Gentian's sober reply.

"If you live your life in touch with God, you will make a success of it. If not, you are one of this world's failures."

"I do not like being a failure, but I love to be happy. I could not go into a convent and stay there as so many good women do."

"God forbid. He wants you to enjoy life abundantly, but to enjoy it with Him, and in His service."

"Play again to me, it helps me to think."

So the blind man turned to his organ, and soon Handel's beautiful "Comfort ye my people" was pealing through the silent hall.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe slipped back to listen to it.

When it was over Gentian's eyes were full of tears. But when they moved into another room to have tea, she exerted herself to talk. George Damers came back; he was a tall grave-looking youth, with something of Sir Gilbert's sweet expression about his face. He was very attentive to Sir Gilbert's wants, but when the meal was over Sir Gilbert asked him to show Gentian the conservatory. The brilliancy and variety of flowers there delighted her.

"What a pity Sir Gilbert can't see his flowers. Why does he have them?"

"He can smell them. He loves flowers. His life has not narrowed since he became blind. I think, on the contrary, it has widened."

"You are very fond of him, are you not?"

"He is a man in a thousand," was the quick reply. "I have reason to be grateful to him, for I was at my wits' end—I was one of those discharged soldiers after the war—incapable of continuing in the army, and I could do nothing else. He heard of me by chance, and took me in straight away. And every day the post is the medium of bringing relief to hundreds of others like myself, and every one he helps, he takes into his life. His purpose in it all is a great one, but he never talks about it."

"I think," said Gentian slowly, "that he makes every one he knows better, doesn't he? He makes them good, like himself."

"He tries to, at all events," the young secretary said.

Gentian rejoined Sir Gilbert in a thoughtful frame of mind. He talked with her about her music, made her a present of a volume of short organ voluntaries, and wanted her to try his organ, but this she declined to do.

"I could not play this afternoon," she said. "I have been listening to you, and your music and your talk is filling all my thoughts."

On their way home she told Mrs. Wharnecliffe that she was sure that Sir Gilbert would not live very long.

"He is too good to live," she asserted. "I have seen women who are good, but not men. Men leave religion to women—unless they are monks or clergymen. Sir Gilbert spends his days in pleasing God. People in the world don't do that unless they are going to die."

"Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, smiling; "sometimes I wonder if you are six or sixty. Sir Gilbert is a very ordinary English gentleman. People call him a philanthropist, for he is very interested in all things that help and benefit young people. And he has a wonderful personal influence over them. There are many good men in the world, I'm glad to say, though you may not have met them. Goodness is not confined to dying men."

Gentian was silent. She was very quiet for the rest of that day, but the next morning seemed quite to have recovered her usual high spirits.

Two days afterwards, Jim arrived. Mrs. Wharnecliffe liked the look of him. She was amused at the determination on his part to be a big unit in Gentian's life, and at her proud aloofness and determination that he should keep his distance, and only have what she chose to give him.

He swept away at once all idea of Gentian assuming the profession of chauffeur.

"It is ridiculous, and impossible, and out of the question. You must come and stay with us, and my mother will show you why it is the last calling in the world for you."

"But I do not know your mother," said Gentian slowly, "and her views and mine might be very far apart."

Jim was a tall, muscular young fellow. Be towered over Gentian now, like some great Saxon giant.

"You alone in a car driving strange men about! Do you think your mother would have allowed it! I've seen three women chauffeurs. Thank goodness, they're of a different sort and make to you! And if you get hung up, with a burst tyre or a puncture or get run into by one of these char-à-bancs, where are you then? It's preposterous, absurd, not to be thought of! If you have a craze for motoring, you must come to us, and I'll tour you round for a bit. We'll take a run over the border into Scotland. You want to see everything and you must see that. When will you come? My people will be in town for the next fortnight, but they'll be home the end of the month. Can you come to us the first week in June?"

"I think not," said Gentian. "I am going to move into my new house with Waddy that week. I am very much occupied just now. In England we do not live the life of Italy. There the sun and the flowers help to keep you lazy. It is just a life of pleasure, of taking your ease. Here every one who is not rich works, do they not, Mrs. Wharnecliffe? Girls as well as men. We have to earn our daily bread. My car and my music and my house will take up all my time. My cousin has placed this house at my disposal, he lives near—"

"But do you mean that you will not pay us a visit?" Jim Paget's face showed great discomposure. "Your cousin, you say—you did not know he existed a few months ago. What has he to say to it? We are old friends—we are more than old friends—we—"

He glanced at Mrs. Wharnecliffe impatiently, wishing her out of the room, but she did not take the hint.

Gentian was perfectly serene and composed.

"I am very glad to see you, Jim. We are old friends, as you say, and perhaps some time later in the summer I may like to come and see your mother. But not just now. Have you a rock garden in your home? Mrs. Wharnecliffe has a beautiful one; would you like to come and see it?"

Jim Paget got up with a sigh of relief, and Wharnecliffe wisely let the two young people wander out into the garden by themselves. They were there a long time. Sitting in her drawing-room by the open window, Mrs. Wharnecliffe was at last aware by the sound of their voices that they were returning to the house.

Jim's voice was raised in indignant protest. "Are you going to keep me hanging about till you see some one you may like better?"

"No, dear Jim. I will not do that, take your dismissal at once. I mean it. I will not be bullied. Every one thinks he can browbeat and manage a girl that is alone. And I have a soul and mind as well as my body, and it is my soul you do not understand. It will not lie down to be trampled upon. If I married you, it would not be my own at all; you would have it in your hands, refusing to let it breathe and slowly squeezing it to death."

"Oh, Gentian, don't be so ridiculous!"

Jim's face was hot, and his tone not too gentle.

And then Gentian came with flying steps into the drawing-room through the open French windows. She stopped short for an instant when she saw Mrs. Wharnecliffe, then she slipped into an easy chair with a little sigh.

"It is very warm in the garden. We have seen your rock garden, Mrs. Wharnecliffe, and I believe Jim has gone to his room to pack up his things."

"But he is staying with us another night, is he not?"

"I don't think he will. Urgent business will summon him to town."

There was a hint of laughter in Gentian's wonderful blue eyes. Mrs. Wharnecliffe wondered if she were heartless.

But Jim was not easily crushed. He came down to dinner that night and talked politics hard with Mr. Wharnecliffe, showing himself a keen student of his country's constitution. He almost ignored Gentian, who was very quiet and pensive, and after dinner went off to the smoking-room with his host.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe did not press for Gentian's confidence and the girl retired early to bed. Jim said nothing about leaving, but came into the drawing-room just as Mrs. Wharnecliffe was about to leave it.

"May I speak to you?" he said very earnestly.

"Come along and sit down," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe cheerfully; "Gentian has gone to bed. She was tired."

"Oh, I would not have troubled her with my company to-night," he said a little bitterly.

"I am afraid you young people have been rubbing each other up," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "Can I help towards smoothing matters out? First of all, I should like to know how things are between you."

"We are virtually engaged," said Jim quickly. "At least, I thought we were. Gentian has never been practical about it, she always says we don't know each other well enough to be sure whether we shall suit each other. And I—I'm desperately in love with her. I've been so for five years. You don't know her as I do. She's the sweetest-natured girl in the world, but elusive, and she lives in a dream world of her own, and thinks every one a saint, and her moods are as many as the stars in the heavens. She's angry with me now, but in the morning she'll be sorry—she always is. I cannot stand her taking up this car business. Is she fit for it? Do you consider she is?"

"Most certainly not, but though I don't know her as well as you, I know she must be persuaded and not driven, and I am going slowly. I don't think it will come to anything."

"Oh, I don't know. She has such a daring adventurous streak in her. I want you to be my friend, Mrs. Wharnecliffe. I can afford to marry. I am in business in the city, and it's doing well. I can give her a comfortable home, and at my father's death, I come into the family property. I'm the only son. Gentian has no need to earn her living. I am ready and waiting to give her a happy home. Do talk to her, and let something definite come of this visit of mine. I'm so glad to find her amongst people of her own. You're a kind of cousin, aren't you? Do, for her sake, if not mine, persuade her to be properly engaged to me, and then we'll get married as soon as possible."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe was touched by the young man's impetuosity.

"Do you think you would be really able to make her happy?" she said slowly. "You see, I place Gentian first. She is almost like a daughter to me already, and I am certain that if Gentian married where she did not really love, a very unhappy future would be in store for herself and her husband. She is a very wilful little person. I think you are the same. Would you expect her to give way to you always?"

Jim looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Oh, if she belonged to me, I would make her happy," he said; "it's the uncertainty that irritates me at times."

"Do you want me to talk to Gentian and plead your cause?"

"If you will. She's missed her mother so, and old Waddy is no good at all. You're a woman of the world, and you can make her see that we can't go on in this indefinite way any longer. It's good for neither of us."

"And you'll take your dismissal courageously and quietly, if she wishes it?"

Jim's face fell.

"Oh, she can't dismiss me after all these years. I won't think it possible."

They talked together for some little time, and finally Mrs. Wharnecliffe promised to speak to Gentian the next morning.

CHAPTER V

AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE

THE young people met at breakfast as if nothing had happened between them. Gentian was her bright happy self again; she wanted to drive Jim to the town in her car, but he made the excuse that he was going to write business letters in the library and would prefer not to go out till the afternoon.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe was just going to speak to Gentian when Thorold arrived over. He had come to ask Gentian if she could possibly take the organ the following Sunday.

"Could I do it?" she questioned half-diffidently, half-eagerly.

"If you come to the practice to-night at six o'clock, our organist would be there, and would put you in the way of it; but he has to go away to see a sick relation to-morrow, and will not be back till Monday."

"I'll come. Mr. Paget is here; would you like to see him?"

"I shall be very glad to make his acquaintance. Does he know of the buffer's existence?"

"I've dragged you into every other sentence. I think he thinks you and Mrs. Wharnecliffe are brother and sister, and you mustn't undeceive him."

Then she looked at him sternly.

"I remember now, you told me you wished to see my friend, and the organ is just an excuse. You came on purpose to see him."

"Perhaps I did," said Thorold dryly.

"He is in the library, writing letters. I don't think he wishes to be disturbed."

"Oh, I will fetch him," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, who had no qualms about interrupting her visitor's occupation.

She was not surprised to find him smoking a cigarette and moodily sitting by the window doing nothing.

"I want you to make acquaintance with Gentian's cousin, Mr. Holt," she said cheerfully. "May I bring him in here?"

"This is your house," the young fellow said, rising hastily from his seat in some confusion; "of course I shall be very glad to see him."

So Thorold was brought in and introduced; and then Mrs. Wharnecliffe went back to Gentian, who did not look very pleased. "Cousin Thorold is very obstinate in doing his own will," she said; "why does he come over to see Jim Paget? Does he want to see if he is a fit friend for me? If he was a gorilla, I should stick up for him if I wanted to. Cousin Thorold couldn't well prevent me."

"Now, Gentian, my dear child, I want you to be frank with me. This Mr. Paget considers you are virtually engaged to him. Is this so? He evidently wants matters to be settled. Is it that you cannot make up your mind? Do you really like him? I want to help you if I can. He says he has known and loved you for five years. You cannot keep a man waiting too long, though I own you are full young yet to marry. He seems to me a nice straightforward man with means of his own and he is very fond of you."

"He has been getting hold of you. I told you the other day what I feel about him. He is too strong-willed for me. I don't know which is worst, he or Cousin Thorold. Of course Cousin Thorold is more reliable, and a little kinder. I saw him pick up a village child and kiss it the other day when it had fallen and hurt itself. Jim would never do that, he would push it out of his way. Jim is going through the world elbowing people right and left—clearing his way, and knocking down everybody and everything that stops his progress. Cousin Thorold looks out for those he can help, but he likes to manage those he helps, and that's where they are alike. Jim likes to manage too. No, it's no good, Mrs. Wharnecliffe, if Jim wants his answer now, I'll give it to him, but I shall be awfully sorry if he goes away in a huff and never sees me again; because I shall have no friend left then; and he has always been as good as a brother to me."

"It is only fair to him that it should be one thing or the other," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe; "if you don't want to marry him, you must not keep him hanging round you."

Gentian was silent. Then she said in an animated tone: "Now I wonder what those two are talking about? May I go and see?"

"I think you had better wait. They will come to us when they want us."

And in a very few minutes Thorold came in. He addressed himself to Gentian.

"The interview has been very satisfactory. I like your friend."

"How kind of you!"

Gentian's tone was non-committal. It might have been sarcasm, or an expression of pleasure.

"But I have told him that you are settling down here for the present, and he must not worry you to go away, if you want to stay here."

"No one will worry me to do anything that I do not want to do," said Gentian calmly.

"Then why the little creases on your brow at present?"

Gentian looked up at him and laughed.

"You make the creases; I always feel my bristles rising when you come near. You think you've got to take care of me and guide my steps, and you want to lock me up in a glass case and keep me there."

"As a precious ornament," said Thorold; "you ought to be flattered. It is only treasures that require guarding."

Then he altered his tone.

"I don't want to make any more creases. They do not suit you, so I'll leave you. If Mr. Paget would like to see the Vicarage this afternoon, my housekeeper will have the keys. I shall be out."

"Thank you. I daresay we may stroll down there."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe walked down the drive with Thorold.

"I really don't understand her one bit," she confided to him; "I am pretty certain she is not in love with this boy, but what she intends to do is past my comprehension. He wants to be definitely engaged to her. I have told her it must be one thing or the other. They have been going on like this for nearly five years. It's my belief she clings to him as to an old friend, and does not want to lose his friendship. She said as much to me."

"He means to settle it to-day," said Thorold. "If she sends him away, we shall have the responsibility of her altogether. I was wishing the other day that she were my daughter. Now I don't know. Girls are difficult to manage."

"Miss Ward will have the charge of her very soon," said Thorold easily; "and I dare say she and this young fellow will settle it up together. He's very fond of her."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe gave a little sigh.

After lunch Jim Paget and Gentian set off for the Vicarage. They were gone nearly three hours, and then Jim returned alone with a very rueful face.

"Where is Gentian?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe when she saw him.

"Oh, she's staying on for the organ practice. Mr. Holt's housekeeper is giving her tea. I've been dismissed for good and all, and I think I'll go back to town to-night, if you'll excuse my doing so. There's the 7.30 express."

"I am sorry," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, and her heart ached for the young fellow, whose face looked haggard and drawn.

"I didn't look for it, and that's a fact!" he said. "After all these years too! I don't believe she knows what she's doing. She's enamoured with her new surroundings here. I wish—if I may say so—that you had never discovered her. If she and Waddy had been alone in London lodgings, she would have turned to me with joy. But she's crazed about this car of hers, and the little house and the organ. She'll find me wanting soon. I shan't give up hope. I shall be utterly silent to her, and perhaps after a time, she'll want to hear of me. I never shall marry anyone else, I know that."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe tried to comfort him. She ordered the car to take him to the station, and felt a little vexed with Gentian; but at the same time her instinct told her that the girl was right, for her heart was not Jim's. It still remained untouched.

When Gentian came in, it was to find that Jim had gone. She looked rather blank when Mrs. Wharnecliffe gave her the news.

"What an awful hurry he was in! I quite meant to wish him good-bye properly and to part friends. But perhaps it is best as it is."

"How did the practice go off?"

"Oh, it was lovely! The organ is a gem, and I found it quite easy to play, and the small boys were such dears, and there's quite an old man who comes with them and sings the deepest bass, and keeps saying: 'We b'aint in 'armony!'"

She gave an animated account of her doings, and seemed to forget Jim. But she was very quiet and pensive at dinner, and went to the piano afterwards, and played such dreary dirges, that at last Mrs. Wharnecliffe begged her to stop.

"It's to mark the burial of my friendship with Jim, and all his hopes and mine. I really feel as if he has died. It is like it to me. He says he will never see me again unless I send for him, and I shall never do that."

"I hope you do not regret having sent him away."

"Of course I do!" she said passionately. "You can't give up a friend without feeling it. You have made me do it. You and he together. I could not marry him, but lots of girls have men friends, and I call him selfish to leave me for ever like this."

"I think you are selfish to accept his love and attentions when you know you do not mean to make him happy."

"I am very, very selfish," said Gentian in a humble tone; "I always have been. But if he was unselfish, he would not wish to force me against my liking to marry him. Shut up with Jim all my life! Oh, I couldn't live! I should die. It would be dreadful!"

Then she slipped her arm through Mrs. Wharnecliffe's with a wistful smile up at her.

"Oh, do love me and be kind to me I have forsaken Jim, for you and Cousin Thorold. Perhaps you would rather I had married him, so as to get rid of me. I feel sure that Cousin Thorold wanted me to do it. But I won't burden you with the care of me. When I get Waddy again, I shall be quite independent, and so busy that I shall have no time to come and see you."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe kissed her.

"My dear Gentian," she said, "I am very glad we are not going to lose you. And I mean to see a great deal of you in the future. I am old-fashioned enough to believe in love matches, and if you don't love a man, don't marry him. That is my advice. I have seen disaster again and again come upon young people, because they married in haste for expediency."

So Jim Paget departed out of Gentian's life, and at the end of a few days, she seemed as if she had forgotten all about him. She was getting quite absorbed in her small house, and when the day came for her to move into it, and Miss Ward was expected to arrive, she was as excited as a child.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe felt a blank in the house when she left her. Gentian made her presence and personality felt wherever she went.

About a week after she moved in, Thorold, taking a morning walk past the house, was confronted by a large white notice board in its front garden facing the road.

"Car for hire. Apply within."

He was standing looking up at it with disapproval stamped upon his face, when Gentian's voice over the hedge surprised him.

"Well, and what do you think of it? I am afraid we are too out of the way for people to see it."

"I don't like it at all," said Thorold gravely.

"What a pity! I am proud of it. I have had two fares already. Every morning I drive into Winderball and go slowly up and down the high street with my notice 'for hire' staring every one in the face. They won't let me stand in the station yard, so that is all I can do, but I took a gentleman to the station yesterday, and the day before I drove a young couple to see an empty house about eight miles out. That was a good stroke of business. I shall get on in spite of your disapproval. I could not stay here if I did not. Don't you want to go and see Mrs. Wharnecliffe and ask her opinion about my notice board? I will run you out this afternoon if you like. The journey there and back will be twenty-two shillings. I cannot take tips, as it is my own car."

"I am afraid you do not tempt me," said Thorold, smiling in spite of himself. "Having a motor-bike and a horse, I am independent of cars."

"Oh, of course, you are what they call complete in yourself. Now, dear Cousin Thorold—"

She changed her tone and began to coax:

"Don't fight me about this board. It means a livelihood for me, and I do not like cross faces and expostulations. All yesterday Miss Ward was telling me you would not like it. And I said to her:

"'Cousin Thorold is a sensible broad-minded man, and very kind at heart!'

"Are you not? We'll say no more about it. Now can you tell me if this is the time to plant roses? I want some badly, and there is a woman called Mrs. Guddings in the village who has a moss rose, and tells me she will give me a root of it."

Thorold succumbed, and the talk veered to roses. The board remained up, and only two days afterwards it brought Gentian business.

She was gardening very busily, and Miss Ward was having her afternoon siesta, when a middle-aged lady appeared at her gate. She seemed in some haste and agitation.

"We've had a breakdown at the bottom of the road, and I want to get to town urgently to see a sister who is ill. We heard from a cottage that there was a car for hire here. Can you lend it to us? I conclude there is a driver."

"I drive my car myself," Gentian said with her greatest dignity. "I will come with you at once."

The lady looked at her in a surprised fashion.

"Can you take a small amount of luggage? I have a niece with me, but we shall be obliged to send our chauffeur back to the town with the car. You look very young. I know girls do drive cars in these days, but have you had much experience?"

"I have done the journey from town here with perfect ease, and know the road well. Would you like to see the car?"

Without waiting for an answer, Gentian led the way to her garage.

The lady looked at the car critically, but appeared satisfied. She asked if Gentian could start at once.

"In five minutes," said Gentian.

"Then I will go back and relieve my niece's mind. It is her mother who is ill, and we have missed the train to town."

Gentian slipped quietly up to her room and got into her motor kit, being careful not to disturb Miss Ward, for she was doubtful as to what that lady would say to this expedition, as it was already late in the afternoon. She left a message with the servant for her, and then drove her car rapidly down the road.

She found the two ladies anxiously awaiting her. Their car was in the ditch, and their chauffeur hard at work trying to get it back into the road.

It was only the work of a few minutes to get her passengers and luggage arranged for the journey, and then Gentian with glowing eyes and cheeks, and a proud consciousness of her own powers, drove steadily along the London road.

The run was made very successfully. Gentian was offered some refreshment at the London house, but she declined, as she was anxious to get back. It was a very sultry evening, and there was every appearance of a storm brewing. She had got well out of London, and was in a very lonely part of the country when the storm burst full upon her. Vivid lightning and peals of thunder rather shook her nerve. It was with a sense of relief that she came to a wayside inn which possessed a garage, and very soon she and her car were taking advantage of the shelter.

The storm was a heavy one, and lasted nearly an hour. Gentian had a dish of eggs and bacon and a cup of tea in the inn parlour, but there were some rough-looking farmers who tramped in and out, and she felt uncomfortable when they persisted in talking to her. One of them asked her to give him a lift. She refused, as she saw he had been drinking freely, and she was very glad when she was able to start again, and get away from them all.

It seemed as if misfortune dogged her steps. She had got a little more than half-way, when suddenly one of her tyres burst. It was now just dark. She was on a road bordered by thick pine woods on each side, and there was not a house within sight. She got out and with the light of her lamp commenced to remedy matters. She had a spare tyre and had been taught how to put one on, but a man had helped her, and she did not seem to have the strength to screw the jack up, to get the tyre off the ground. She exerted all her strength, but the wheel refused to lift. Time went by. She was perilously near tears, and the feeling of helplessness and inability to remedy matters, made her furious with herself.

At last she determined that she must leave her car where it was, and walk on till she could get help from some one. It was at this juncture that she saw a light approaching her. The noise told her that it was a motor-cycle, and she plucked up courage to shout for help. Her surprise was intense to find, the next moment, that the cycle rider was Thorold.

"Oh," she cried. "I am glad to see you!"

He got off his cycle at once, asked what was the matter, and very soon had the burst tyre removed and the new one in its place.

"I thought something must have happened, as you did not turn up, so I came to meet you," he said simply.

There was no word of reproach or "I told you so," and Gentian felt subdued and very grateful. She started her car again, and he drove by her side, till she reached the Vicarage, then he helped her to put her car by, wished her good night, and disappeared, but Gentian felt that she had not heard the last of this late run to town.

Miss Ward with an anxious troubled face met her at the door. Her reproaches and remonstrances continued during Gentian's late supper. She got impatient at last.

"I am tired, Waddy. You should never kick a person when she's down. Good night."

And abruptly she left her and went to bed.

CHAPTER VI

A FRESH PROPOSITION

IT was a very quiet Gentian who came into the small drawing-room the next afternoon, when she was told by Miss Ward that Thorold had called and wished to see her. She shook hands with him in silence, and seated herself on the low cushioned window seat.

"I really meant to have asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe to speak to you about this," said Thorold coming to the point at once; "but I rather believe in doing disagreeable things oneself. I suppose you see for yourself how impossible it is for you to be a public chauffeur."

"I am sure," said Gentian pathetically, "I have had enough expostulation and scolding and threatening from Miss Ward, but I am ready to have it over again. Please get it over as quickly as you can."

"Supposing I had not been able to meet you, what would you have done?" asked Thorold rather brusquely.

"I should have waited till some one came by."

"And who would that have been? Just after we started do you remember a cart of drunken men who almost overtook us?"

"Yes," said Gentian unguardedly; "I had already seen them at the inn."

"Would you have liked their help?"

"I should not have asked for it."

"But they would have offered it, of course."

"Well, I can look after myself. Girls have to do so nowadays."

"They never will if I have anything to do with them." Thorold spoke sharply, and very determinedly. "Yesterday you were mercifully kept from harm, but did not your experience show you that you were absolutely unfitted to run a car as a man could?"

"No," flashed forth Gentian; "it didn't. Difficulties make me long to overcome them. I won't be crushed by them. I think the jack must have been rusty. I shall practice using it till I can do it quite easily."

"It must be stopped, Gentian. We will find something else for you to do. You cannot run a car for the benefit of the public."

Gentian looked out of the window. When she turned round tears were trembling on the tips of her eyelashes.

"You have no right to dictate to me," she said, trying to maintain her dignity.

"Cheer up," Thorold said. "I don't want to take your car from you. But you must promise me that you'll never take any long journey so late in the day. And I'll see if we can't find something better for you to do."

"If your car is for hire, you can't dictate to people the time you go."

"Well, we'll trust you won't be asked to go off to London so late in the day again. And if it did happen that you were asked to take a night journey, you must absolutely refuse."

Gentian said nothing.

"I'm in dead earnest," Thorold said, looking at her.

"Oh," said Gentian passionately, "I haven't a friend in the world except Waddy. Jim has left me, and you're determined to refuse me my liberty and shut me up here, and take away from me the only hope of earning my living and being independent."

"Oh no. I will help you to be independent if I can. We won't quarrel. It's only because I want you to be shielded from unpleasantness and harm that I object to this car business. Forgive me, and let us part friends."

He smiled upon her, and when Thorold smiled he was irresistible.

Gentian put her hand into his.

"Interfering with the object of doing others good, is your besetting sin, I think, Cousin Thorold. Good-bye. I was very glad to see you last night. Those woods on each side of me frightened me. I promise you I won't do night journeys again. I don't like them."

She had recovered her spirits, but the next morning when she found that Thorold had quietly removed her notice board she was ruffled again.

"Was there ever a more arbitrary, meddlesome, managing man than Cousin Thorold!" she said to Miss Ward.

"I think he is one of the kindest, truest friends that any girl could wish to have," was Miss Ward's fervent response.

And Gentian, seeing she would get no sympathy from her, said no more.

She took her car into Winderball nearly every day, and it was astonishing how many fares she got.

About a week later, she went out as usual one morning and did not return till six o'clock.

Miss Ward asked her where she had been.

"Out into the country a long way, and they made me take them a long round. They were looking at houses. Most of my good fares are people house-hunting."

"Did you have any lunch?"

"Yes, we stopped at an inn."

She said no more, but all the evening was strangely silent and preoccupied. The next morning she did not take her car out, but told Miss Ward she was going to practise in the church. She had found a lame boy who was always ready to blow for her, when her usual blower was at school.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe appeared about twelve o'clock, and hearing the sound of the organ as she passed the church, stopped her car and went in.

She could tell at once from Gentian's playing that all was not well with her. But she did not interrupt her, she took a back seat in the little church and waited.

The music ceased at last. Gentian dismissed the lame boy; she had no idea that anyone was in the church but herself, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe felt a little uncomfortable when she saw her leave her organ stool and, slipping into one of the front seats, kneel down and bury her face in her hands.

When Gentian rose at last, the church was empty; but she found Mrs. Wharnecliffe walking up and down the churchyard.

They greeted each other affectionately; then Gentian turned rather eagerly to her.

"Dear Mrs. Wharnecliffe. I think I'm going to make you happy. Certainly Cousin Thorold will be, but my future is very dark. I'm giving up my car. I shall never use it for the public, and I shan't be able to afford the oil for it, so I suppose I shall have to sell it."

"Since when have you decided this, dear?" Mrs. Wharnecliffe asked gently.

"Oh, I've lost all zest for it, for some days. And yesterday I said to myself 'never again.' I was driving four very common men about the country. And I didn't like them at all. And it isn't pleasant to be a girl sometimes, Mrs. Wharnecliffe. And I'd rather be a road-mender on the road, than everybody's and anybody's chauffeur."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe was much astonished, but could not hide her approval, and Gentian's eyes were keen and far-seeing.

"Ah!" she said, throwing out her hands in her foreign gesture of despair. "I shall have no sympathy from anyone. I must learn to go my way through life without it. You are pleased when I am sad—you are sad when I am pleased."

"My dear child, I cannot help feeling pleased when you show such wisdom. I wish you would tell me a little more. I am afraid you have experienced some unpleasantness. It was what we feared would happen. But I am sorry, very sorry for you."

"It is past."

Gentian drew herself up to her full height. There was pride and a little aloofness in her voice.

"I will not talk about it, Mrs. Wharnecliffe. But I am hardly happy to-day. I cannot be—I wish—"

Here her tone became impassioned and vicious.

"I wish I was an old hag with a bald head and hairs about my chin, and a nutcracker mouth, and a hump on my back, and then I would drive my car anywhere, everywhere, by day, and by night, and enjoy myself!"

"Oh Gentian, what a child you are!"

Gentian joined Mrs. Wharnecliffe in her laughter.

"I feel better now. Come and see Waddy. I have been as cross as two sticks to her all the morning. And I'll leave you to tell her of my decision, and she and you will sing a song of thanksgiving together, while I go for a solitary walk."

"No, no, wait! I think I have some good news for you. I came along to tell it to you. It has come at the right time."

Gentian smiled.

"I'm sure it's another job you have found me. Let me guess. Is it to teach in the infants' school?"

"No. Yesterday I was visiting some old friends of mine who live about five miles away. They are sisters, two elderly women. One is very strong—has never been ill in her life she says, and she still rides and hunts. The other is delicate, and lives too much indoors. Her doctor wants her to have air, and has suggested her having some motor-drives. She used to have a carriage, but was upset one day by a drunken coachman, and has never taken a drive since. She sold the carriage and horses and dismissed her coachman. I got her to drive with me the other day in my car, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I suggested your taking her for regular drives every day, and she is delighted at the thought of it. She may eventually buy a car of her own, but at present she would like to consider yours at her disposal whenever she wants it. And she will give you anything you like to ask. She understands that if you keep your car for her, you will be unable to use it for anyone else."

Gentian's face was a study. The brilliant colour came back to her cheeks and the light to her eyes. She seemed as if she could not speak for a few minutes; then her eyes grew misty and tears trembled on the edges of her eyelashes.

"And so while I was praying," she said in a whisper, "the answer was coming along the road to meet me. Mrs. Wharnecliffe, if only you weren't an English woman I would throw my arms round your neck and hug you! Do consider it done, will you. How lucky I am to have such a friend! Am I to start to-morrow? Will she want me in the morning or the afternoon, or both?"

"Not quite so fast. They would like to see you and talk it over. So I said I would bring you to-morrow, or rather that you would bring me in your car, so that they could see it."

"Oh, do go and tell Waddy. She will be so glad!"

But Gentian did not go in with Mrs. Wharnecliffe. She sped up the road to a certain small pine wood which she had discovered, and which served her as a delightful retreat when she wanted to be alone and think.

She did not come away from it for a full hour. And then on the way home she met Thorold.

"Well," he said; "have you had a good day at your trade?"

"Have you not met Mrs. Wharnecliffe?"

"No, I have been over the hill to one of my tenant farmers. Has she been in these parts to-day?"

"Oh yes, indeed she has."

Gentian leant against a gate in the hedge, and looked up at Thorold with a reflective light in her blue eyes.

"I'm considering," she said, with a mischievous curl to her lips, "whether I shall keep back part of the truth from you. I think I will. You are not my Father Confessor. I am thinking of being a kind of private chauffeur to an invalid lady, a friend of Mrs. Wharnecliffe."

"Capital!"

"If she makes it worth my while, it will be less fatiguing than ordinary hire work."

Thorold's face, like Mrs. Wharnecliffe's, showed relief and satisfaction.

Gentian frowned.

"So now when you pass me in the road, you needn't screw up your eyes to see whom I'm driving, and you needn't have your motor-cycle at hand ready to dash out and meet me if I am rather late in getting home. In fact you will be able to dismiss me entirely from your thoughts and observation. And forget that I exist."

"I wonder if I shall," said Thorold in rather a drawling voice.

"I shall be too busy to give you a thought," said Gentian with a little snap in her tone.

And then Thorold laughed.

"I was just going to ask you to come to a tea-party at my house the day after to-morrow. I have some farmers' wives coming—six of them—we're going to talk over the dairy stall at the flower-show in Winderball next month, and I want some one to pour out tea for them. I thought perhaps Miss Ward would come too—"

In a moment Gentian's face cleared.

"I shall love to come," she said enthusiastically; "I adore pouring out tea! And farmers' wives are great fun, I'm sure!"

"They will be very serious, for it's a committee meeting, and if you've had no experience of them, you will be astonished at the gravity of the situation."

"Oh, I won't let them be grave. I can always make people laugh if I want to. It's a pity you're so grave, Cousin Thorold. Perhaps when you realize that the burden and cares of my livelihood are no more necessary, you will take a brighter view of things."

"It's a wonderful thing—the different point of view that people take. Now Mrs. Wharnecliffe always complains that I am frivolous!"

"Oh, I know what she means. You never seem in earnest, or care about anything very much. That's why you annoy me so. You always seem laughing at me up your sleeve!"

"Then I do know how to laugh sometimes?"

Gentian made an impatient movement, as if she were about to walk on, then she turned towards him again.

"You're a solid bit of rock, and I'm just a bubble! That's what I feel when I talk to you. And I feel more bubbly than ever now that I have a fresh start in front of me. Ah! I forgot! I can make no engagement for the day after to-morrow. My old lady may want me—"

"She'll be enjoying tea under her mulberry tree at the time I want you—"

"Well, don't be surprised if I fail to turn up. She may be going to a tea-party. Perhaps she may come to yours. But she isn't a farmer's wife."

"I have one lady coming to me. She is a Miss Horatia Buchan."

"Then she can pour out tea if I don't turn up. Good-bye."

She nodded to him and walked on.

Thorold went on his way, but he muttered to himself:

"Now I wonder what has upset the child and caused this revolution. Wild horses would not have dragged her to this old lady a week ago!"

Gentian went straight to her garage and pulled out her car. For half an hour she cleaned and oiled it, then she walked into the house and had her lunch.

Miss Ward was of course beaming.

"It seems the very thing for you, dear. How kind Mrs. Wharnecliffe is! I feel I shall not be anxious now about you, for I shall know that you are in good company."

"I'm going to run over and see Sir Gilbert after lunch," said Gentian; "would you like to come? It's a pretty drive—"

"No thank you. I'm not fond of motoring, as you know."

It was not the first time Gentian had been to see the blind man. She and he had struck up a great friendship. And he was pretty certain to see her if she was in any difficulty or trouble. But to-day she arrived over in the best of spirits. It was a very warm afternoon and she found him on the lawn under an old cedar.

His secretary was reading to him, but he closed the book when he saw Gentian and slipped away, for he knew the two liked to be together for a tête-à-tête talk.

"Sir Gilbert, it is true, quite true what you told me the other day. I put it to the test. You said if we took a right step, we should not suffer for it, that God always gave better than we could give ourselves. I decided this morning early that I would be a public chauffeur no longer. I think I have been driven to it. But it cost me a lot to give it up, only I knew it was the right step, and I was in such trouble about it that I went into church to comfort myself with the organ. And you know, for you play yourself, how the organ makes you think of Paradise, and of God, so I left the organ and got down on my knees and prayed that God would give me something better than what I was giving up. And the answer came directly. Mrs. Wharnecliffe came up and told me an old lady wanted the monopoly of my car, and I was to be her chauffeur. Isn't it splendid! I'm going to see her to-morrow."

Sir Gilbert smiled.

"It's good news for all your friends," he said; "none of us have liked your occupation."

"No—and it shows how wicked I am at heart, for the thought of Cousin Thorold's satisfaction, and of Mrs. Wharnecliffe's relief, and Waddy's thankfulness, makes me just long to go back to it. They've all proved so annoyingly right in their fears and surmises."

"You feel that the young ought to prove more wise in their judgments than the old? Well, we all have done that in our time, and as we grow older our heads are bowed lower down. Age teaches humility."

"I feel humbled to the dust, but I'm very grateful for my answered prayer. And it makes me want more than ever to be good, really good like you. Do you think I shall ever be so? Don't say you aren't good."

"None of us are really good, my child. But you will learn to love more, and then your service will be easier."

Gentian's face was very sweet and grave. She clasped her hands round her old friend's arm and looked up into his face very earnestly.

"I have felt uncomfortable for weeks. I knew that I was doing every day what you all disapproved of! Now to-morrow I am making a fresh start. And I will learn to love more, and trust more. Now will you play to me?"

Sir Gilbert gladly acquiesced; he went to his organ and Gentian settled herself in a comfortable chair to listen.

Sir Gilbert had said to Mrs. Wharnecliffe:

"Your little friend has a dual nature: she is by turns a wayward, gay little soul, and a very sweet and earnest aspirant after holy things."

And certainly now, Gentian, with her wistful eyes and rapt grave face, was very different from the mischievous laughing girl which most outsiders knew and admired.

When the music ceased Gentian rose to go.

"One day I shall compose," she said slowly and thoughtfully; "and my first composition will be a soul's flight to Paradise. We often get to the gates before we die. We go up like the skylark and then we drop as swiftly as he does to earth again. I get so close to the gates when you play to me! And when you stop, I drop like a stone to the ground."

"Then my music is of no use to you," Sir Gilbert said a little sadly.

"But yes, it is," she said, seizing his hand and keeping it between both of hers. "We can't live above the earth always; but it makes me long and long for the Unseen Land. And I am praying and trying to live as I should, till I reach it."

"May God bless you, my child," was the blind man's quick response.

And then Gentian bent her head and pressed her lips to his wrinkled hand.

"I have come to you in my bad moments," she said; "and to-day I thought I must give you my good news. Au revoir."

She left him and arrived home with a happy, smiling face.

"Waddy, you did a good thing when you came down here on my account. I think we're going to have a rattling good time, don't you?"

Miss Ward smiled.

"Well, yes, my dear, we have certainly fallen on our feet. There are very few men so generous and kind as your cousin has been to us."

"Oh, Cousin Thorold. I wasn't thinking of him. He's a very good buffer, as he said, and he's useful at times, but there are other friends round about us, and I hope I shall make fresh friends to-morrow. I'm longing to see my new employer."

CHAPTER VII

A PRIVATE CHAUFFEUR

"MRS. WHARNECLIFFE and Miss Brendon," announced an elderly maidservant, opening the door of the big drawing-room at the Mount.

The two occupants of the room looked at Gentian rather critically as she approached them. She wore her close-fitting motor-cap, and a long white linen coat fell down to her slim ankles. She might have been a stripling of a boy, so neat, and taut, and severe was her attire.

The eldest Miss Buchan spoke to her first, and Gentian's expressive face kindled under her friendly look. Miss Anne Buchan was a handsome old woman with dark eyes and white hair, and an extreme air of fragility. She looked like some hothouse flower that had never been exposed to any fresh breezes or pure air. She was slight in build and rather tall, and stooped as she walked. Miss Horatia was younger, with a rugged tanned face and big blue eyes, and a humorous mouth. She was standing in the window mending a hunting crop and whistling as she did so. Whilst Miss Anne was clothed in rich satin gown with priceless lace about her neck, Miss Horatia was in a white shirt and rough tweed skirt, with two big pockets, which held contents that schoolboys would have envied.

"And so this is my lady chauffeur," said Miss Anne pleasantly, as she shook hands with Gentian. "You seem very young for the post, but youth is to the fore now. It is we old people who are needed no longer."

"Not to give us advice, and remind us of the good old days which have gone for ever?" said Gentian with her mischievous smile.

"Ah, I wonder if you will take advice from anyone!" Miss Anne responded.

Miss Horatia looked sharply up from her employment.

"How d'ye do?" she said brusquely. "What's your name?"

"Gentian Brendon."

"Oh, these new-fangled names; who chose that for you?"

"Do you mean Gentian? My mother. When I was a baby. I had eyes that reminded her of the flower."

"And they're the same now," said gentle Miss Anne. "Sit down, child. Now, Lallie, how are you?"

For the next few minutes Gentian sat and listened to the conversation which followed, and in which she felt she had no part. Miss Horatia said very little; occasionally she put in a word. Presently she turned to Gentian and said suddenly:

"Do you realize that you and I are representatives of two centuries?"

"But you are not very old?"

"I am old in my habits, in my love for God's creatures instead of men's. Don't expect me to set foot in your snorting bit of machinery. When my horse and I part company, my life will be done. And when I'm too old to sit in a saddle, I shall go straight to bed and stop there—"

"I should like to ride," said Gentian a little wistfully; "but cars are cheaper than horses, and swifter."

Miss Horatia said no more. Mrs. Wharnecliffe did not make a long stay. Miss Anne discussed everything with Gentian. She told her she would like her to come every afternoon and take her out, Sundays excepted, and the salary she mentioned more than satisfied Gentian. She came away in the highest spirits and thanked Mrs. Wharnecliffe very warmly for having obtained the post for her.

"I shall be enjoying myself hugely every afternoon, and earning my living, and be doing quite the proper thing. Nobody, not even Cousin Thorold, can say it is not nice for me to be driving an old lady out every day! Why!—Now I come to think of it, Cousin Thorold said he expected a Miss Horatia Buchan to a tea-party at his house to-morrow. Can it be the same? She's very sporting looking; not at all his style."

"Horatia and Thorold have been friends for a long time," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "Once upon a time I hoped they would marry."

"Oh, but they'd never suit each other," said Gentian in a startled tone. "They're both so managing and masterful, and she must be years older than he is."

"They're just the same age, I believe—"

"Miss Horatia looks as if she could be a great-grandmother—"

"When you come to her age, you won't feel so ancient as that."

Gentian laughed, and said no more.

She drove Miss Anne out the next afternoon from two to four, but came home to Miss Ward with a very doleful face.

"She won't let me go faster than a horse. Says she likes quiet motion, so that she can enjoy the air without being blown about. Isn't it a humiliation and degradation for my dear Mousie! We got no distance, and when I left her, I scorched along the road for all I was worth. Mousie and I were panting to do it. It's too horrible for words! I shall never have the patience to keep the job. Aren't you sorry for me, Waddy? Say you are!"

"No, I won't, but you can put on speed now, and change your dress, for we are going to Mr. Holt's to tea. I can't think why the present generation want such rapid motion. It's very bad for their brains!"

Thorold's tea-party and meeting were a great success. Miss Horatia was there, and looked on at Gentian tea-making with an amused eye.

"What do you think of that child?" she asked Thorold bluntly. "Does she think our old world, revolves on its axis entirely and wholly for her?"

"She's very young," said Thorold apologetically. "But life will teach her what it has taught us."

"We don't all learn the same lessons. Some can't be taught, and some won't be. I don't think I'm at all an apt learner. But when I was her age, I was more malleable, I fancy—"

Thorold shook his head at her.

"Never!" he said, and then he went off to talk to some one else.

Gentian chattered away to all the farmers' wives as if she had known them all her life. When the meeting was over, and they were dispersing, one of them, a Mrs. Homer, said to Gentian pleasantly:

"Come along one afternoon, miss, and have a cup of tea with me. I've always held up for you, though there be many which say you be too light-fingered on the organ for 'em on Sundays. There be almost a merriment in your pieces afore and after church; they say it be not seemly in church—"

"Don't you feel happy on Sundays? I always do," returned Gentian. "Why shouldn't we be bright and cheerful in church?"

"Mrs. Crake—but I'll allow she's had a chapel bringin' up—she's only conformed to church of late—she said las' Sunday her girl Ada passed the remark that 'twould be easy to dance to your pieces."

"What a dreadful thing to say!" said Gentian with sparkling eyes. "I'll give you the creeps next Sunday if I can—a proper solemn dirge. Thank you for asking me to tea. I shall love to come."

Miss Horatia, was the last one to leave, and then Thorold walked home with Miss Ward and Gentian.

"I haven't had time to hear how you like this last venture of yours," he said.

Gentian laughed.

"Oh, I shan't give myself away. I have only had one day. It is oppressively slow, but when I think of how many people I have pleased by taking the job, I feel I shan't live in vain! Miss Anne is an old dear. I love old ladies. I am so tired—so disgusted—so out of friends with men."

"Are we such a bad lot?" asked Thorold quietly.

Gentian looked at him with a pretty shake of her head.

"I don't know about you. I'm in and out of friends with you so often! Waddy is always singing your praises, so of course I do the opposite. If you took me more seriously, I would like you better. Sir Gilbert is the only man about here who speaks naturally and earnestly to me—"

"My dear Gentian, your tongue runs away with you—" Miss Ward's tone was shocked.

"Oh Waddy, I never choose my words with Cousin Thorold. And I'm only speaking the truth."

They had reached the Cottage. Miss Ward went indoors, but Gentian lingered at the gate with Thorold.

"I'm sorry I don't take you seriously," Thorold said; "we'll have some grave talks whenever you like."

"Then we'll have one now," said Gentian impetuously; "come to the bottom of the garden and sit on the seat with me, where I watch the sun setting."

Thorold followed her without a word. He sat down on one end of the seat, she took the other.

She was looking distractingly pretty, in a white embroidered linen gown, and a shady white hat with a wreath of periwinkles round it which matched the colour of her eyes. Now she leant forward, elbow on knees, and her chin in the palm of her hand.

"I want to do something with my life," she said with earnest solemnity. "I am doing absolutely nothing now. I have been stuck down in this dear little corner of England, and all of you are drawing fences round me to keep me in. They are getting nearer and nearer, and my space is getting smaller and smaller. Waddy and you and Mrs. Wharnecliffe think I ought to be quite happy in my little cottage, watering the garden, and helping Waddy to housekeep and then driving out an old lady at a snail's pace every day. You say,—

"'Now she's protected—now she's safe!'

"And then you ask me out to tea to keep me from feeling dull, and Waddy says what a pleasant thing it is to have my organ and choir practice as a recreation. And you quite expect me to go on living like this for years! It's just stagnation of soul and body, that's what it is. And God in heaven looks down, and wonders when I'm going to begin to live!"

Thorold was not shocked at this outburst. He was surprised, but he concealed that, and said in his slow voice:

"And what is your idea of life? You have mentioned God Almighty's name, and I know you have not used it in mockery. Is it your idea to carry out His will or your own?"

"Oh, I don't know, but He has made me, I do believe, for something better than this. What a big world it is! And how much there is to do. Sir Gilbert talks to me about Heaven's purposes, and the earth's failures. I have brains, and strength, and leisure, and I can't sit about in armchairs and just be comfortable—I'm too young for it. And I have an uncomfortable feeling that I'm living on Waddy's savings. She always tells me there's plenty of money for our needs. But where does it come from? I don't earn enough to keep the house going. Miss Anne is very generous, and I shall be able to support myself on what she gives me, but I shan't be able to save much. And my life is too easy, and empty, and narrow. There now! That's the gist of the matter! I shall break away soon—I must. It's the Bubble's efforts to soar, before it bursts!"

"But you have had one effort to break away, haven't you? And it wasn't altogether a success."

"I knew that would come. I have failed. I own it. It is your nasty English people that have made me fail. But there are other vocations besides driving motors."

"I fear you are tired of it by now."

Laughter came into her eyes.

"Oh, I'm an awful creature, I know I am. Two days ago I was enchanted with this fresh job. I am cross to-day because I must make my car's speed match a horse's. But, all the same, deep down, I know my soul is meant to do something bigger. And I want to find out the biggest and best thing to do, and then DO it!"

"There are different estimates of size, I fancy," said Thorold. "We are like the children who think an orange in their hand much bigger than the brightest planet in the heavens. Our big things are so infinitesimal in God's eyes, and His big things are paltry and small in our estimation."

"That doesn't comfort or guide me in the least," said Gentian, looking at him thoughtfully.

"If you want to fulfil God's purpose for you, it will be shown you. Pray, and the answer will come."

Gentian drew in a long breath.

"I never thought that you were quite so good, Cousin Thorold," she said in a light and airy voice. "Thank you so much for having taken me seriously for once. I've had enough—"

He smiled at her.

"I'll say no more then—"

He got up from the seat. Gentian accompanied him as far as the gate.

"I have one of my young brothers coming home on leave," Thorold said as he wished her good-bye. "He's in the navy; he comes to me next Thursday. I think you'll like him. Godwin is a sunny-hearted youngster."

Gentian rounded her lips into a small ball.

"Boys are so boring," she said; "they always think such a lot of themselves."

"I have known girls who do the same," said Thorold, and with this parting shot, he left her.

Gentian went indoors to Miss Ward.

"Do you know I was within an ace of liking Cousin Thorold," she said; "and then he lapsed into his annoying way of talking, and I feel as if I never want to see him again!"

"My dear Gentian, you are never of the same mind about anything or anybody for two minutes together. I often wonder why you put up with me as you do."

"Waddy dear, you knew and loved my little mother. I have no one in the wide world left to love me but you, and I think you do just a little—"

Miss Ward looked at her affectionately, but she was not a demonstrative woman, and it wasn't till Gentian stole up softly to her and put her arms round her neck, looking into her eyes with such wistful longing, that she gave her the warm kiss she was expecting.

"Plenty of people will come along and love you, child, if you let them. I am getting an old woman, and my life will soon be over, but yours is all in front of you—and you'll never have to complain of being unloved, I am sure!"

"Do I think a lot of myself, Waddy?"

"Yes, I think you do."

Gentian hugged her.

"You are a dear old truth-teller. You see, I really have no one to think about but myself. And it is astonishing how fond all people are of themselves. I believe you are, but you don't show it. Of course I have to think about myself, because my future is in my own hands, I suppose. I can make or mar it, can't I? And I want to get the best out of life. I must—I will. And it's my will that must be kept up to the mark—

"'The souls of women are so small
That some believe they've none at all.
Or if they have, like cripples still,
They've but one faculty, the WILL!'

"Some nasty man wrote that. Oh, Waddy dear, you're quite right. I'm one thing one day, and another the next. My small soul is like a bag of scraps, crammed full of rubbish, bits of good material mixed with the bad, and never properly sorted out. Now I'm going to water the garden. Good-bye."

She flashed out of the room and into the garden.

Miss Ward heard her breaking into song as she wielded her watering-pot, and she sighed heavily.

"I wish I did not love her so much," she murmured; "she needs a firmer hand, and some one to teach her discipline and self-control."

It was not very long before Gentian met young Godwin Holt. He arrived like a fresh sea-breeze, and made friends at once with Miss Ward and Gentian. He was a fair, curly-haired young lieutenant, with fresh complexion and mischievous blue eyes. He was very susceptible to all women's influences, and fell headlong in love with Gentian at first sight.

She treated him as if he were a schoolboy on holiday. Thorold watched their intimacy with quiet amusement.

One morning Godwin arrived at the Cottage at breakfast time.

"Look here," he said breathlessly; "can you 'phone to your old lady, Miss Brendon, to spare you to-day? We'll take a car—not yours—because it's my affair, and go down to the New Forest. You've never been there? Thought not. We'll lunch at one of the inns in the Forest. I'm going to drag Thor away from his books and writing. Miss Ward, you'll come too. Must have an even number. It's a shame to let this topping weather go by without doing something. I see so little green at sea that I revel in forests. And you ought to know what England produces in that way!"

"I can't spring it on Miss Buchan so late in the day," said Gentian, her eyes sparkling at the thought of such an outing. "Won't to-morrow do? I'm rather afraid she won't like it."

"You can easily get a substitute to take your place. I'll find one for you in an hour—"

"I'll try," said Gentian, "but we've no 'phone—"

"Thor has. Come on over."

He dragged her off with him.

The 'phone was in Thorold's study.

Gentian looked at him pleadingly.

"Don't tell me I'm a shirker. I've driven her for ten days now at a snail's pace. And she might give me one day off."

"You'd better ask for Miss Horatia. The old lady will never use the 'phone."

So Miss Horatia was called up.

She received Gentian's suggestion with great coldness.

"My sister does not like to be deprived of her afternoon drive, and I know she won't hear of a substitute. That is out of the question. She is far too nervous of cars at present to have a strange driver. Besides, she has arranged to go and see an old friend of hers this afternoon."

"Could I have to-morrow off then?"

"I will see—"

"Oh, chuck them," cried Godwin. "You aren't a slavey."

"I'm earning my daily bread," said Gentian in a dignified tone; "and I'm in her employ."

They waited rather impatiently. Miss Horatia returned in about ten minutes' time.

"My sister has agreed to forgo her drive to-morrow."

"A thousand thanks. I will be round at the usual time this afternoon."

"Won't to-morrow do as well?" asked Thorold, looking at his young brother's disappointed face.

"Oh, I hate to-morrows—always have—"

"So have I," said Gentian, "but we'll make the best of it. I shall love to see the New Forest. But do let us take my car, and let me drive. That will be half the fun."

"Do you want me to hire you?" asked Godwin. "For I mean to stand the treat."

"You can pay for the oil we use, if you like, nothing more."

Godwin frowned.

"I hate the independence of girls nowadays. You ought not to know how to drive!"

Gentian laughed.

"That is the style of the old-fashioned English gentlemen. Of course you take after your brother!"

"No man, if he's a decent sort, likes to see girls roughing it."

"You would like me in a white muslin gown lying back amongst the cushions of the car sighing plaintively: 'Please not quite so fast, driver, the wind is too strong upon my face, the motion shakes me—' That's what my old lady says to me, and I long to scorch for all I'm worth."

"What time shall we start?" said Godwin, wisely turning the subject. "I vote for eight o'clock. It will be a long run."

"I think," said Thorold slowly, looking at Gentian as he spoke, "that we'll have our own car, Godwin. It will give Gentian a rest. She shall lie back on comfortable cushions for once in her life, and then we shan't see those tired lines about her eyes that so often come there."

"You are very rude, Cousin Thorold."

"Miss Brendon couldn't look fitter than she does, but all the same, I'm with you, Thor. It will be my treat and my car, and I'll choose a capable driver."

Gentian laughed. Her laughter had such an infectious and delightful ripple in it, that both brothers smiled at her.

"As I'm to be your guest," she said, "I have nothing to say but a very grateful 'thank you.' And, if we rumbled along in a donkey-cart, I should enjoy myself. I love a jaunt of any sort, it reminds me of Italy. Waddy and I are too poor to take many in England."

CHAPTER VIII

THE DAY IN THE NEW FOREST

THE day for the New Forest dawned very brightly. Gentian was radiantly happy, and she and Godwin were like two children in their whole-hearted enjoyment of every hour. There was no lack of conversation during the run. She and Godwin chattered away together, Thorold occasionally joining in. Miss Ward for the most part took her pleasure in silence.

It was a perfect day for seeing the Forest. A gentle breeze kept the air cool. The green glades under the magnificent old oaks and beeches seemed like an enchanted country to Gentian. They had lunch at a picturesque old inn, and then she and Godwin wandered off to find the tree under which William Rufus was killed.

"I wish I was a gipsy," sighed Gentian; "I am sure a nomad wandering life would suit me. Women ought not to have such a dull time as they do. Look at you, now! You go over the seas and round the world and see a little of everything; and I am told I ought to be content to stay in my small corner for life."

"You'd long to find a corner to stick in if you were a sailor. I'm looking forward to a snug little home of my own one day."

"With a wife shut up in it all the year round," said Gentian, mischief in her eyes. "I know what a sailor's wife is. I knew two in Italy. One had come out there by doctor's orders. She said the loneliness of her home when her husband was at sea was more than she could stand."

"Oh," said Godwin, "I would have my wife meet me at different ports. I'd keep her lively. You bet I would. Don't disparage sailors, Miss Brendon. You'll send me into the blues if you do—"

They were sitting down in the bracken at the foot of an old oak. Gentian leant her back against the gnarled trunk and looked up dreamily into the green foliage above.

"A bird must be so happy," she observed. "It has command of the earth and air, and no one can prevent it soaring away from disagreeables when it chooses."

"You ought to have no disagreeables in your life," said Godwin. "You want a husband to shoulder all difficulties, and keep you safe and happy."

"I don't think men are fond of shouldering women's burdens," said Gentian reflectively; "when I go about in the village, and see how all the strain and work falls on the poor wife, who is on her feet from early morning to late at night, mending and making and cooking for her lord and master, as well as her children, it makes me feel that the man's lot in life is the comfortable one."

"Yes, but in our class things are slightly different. Do you think I would let my wife slave for me? Never—"

Then he put his hand softly over hers.

"I would always joyfully shoulder your burdens for you. Don't you know that?"

"But I haven't any," said Gentian, laughing as she quietly slipped her hand away. "Oh, look, isn't that a squirrel above us? The little darling! He has an acorn, I believe, in his paws."

"I expect he has a nest up there. I'll just see."

The squirrel had disappeared under a big branch. Godwin felt that the moment had not come for him, so he was willing to change the subject. In an instant he had thrown off his coat and sprung up on a low-lying branch. The old tree would have been easy for a child to climb, but he was quite unprepared to have Gentian following him. She was as agile as he, and when they failed to trace the squirrel's home, they sat astride a big branch and laughed at each other.

"I haven't climbed trees for years," she said; "what fun it is. And how shocked Waddy would be if she were to see me!"

"She's deep in 'The Times.' Thor has ungallantly left her—he's mooning round on his own—collecting beetles, I expect. He was always great on natural history."

"Isn't it delicious to be off the ground? It's the nearest approach to a bird, sitting up here out of sight."

A sudden gale of wind sprang up. Gentian's hat was off her head. In reaching out to catch it, she overbalanced herself and fell with a heavy thud upon the grass below. Godwin was down from the tree in a moment.

"Are you hurt? Darling Gentian, speak!"

"You needn't call me darling," murmured Gentian; "I am not dead yet."

She sat up. No bones were broken, but she had a cut one side of her forehead, against a projecting bit of root in the ground, and it was bleeding profusely. Godwin was in an awful state of mind. He took out his handkerchief, and was in the act of binding it up when Thorold suddenly appeared.

"I heard a crash," he said; "and thought there must be an accident."

Gentian turned impatiently from Godwin towards him.

"You do it," she said, "I would rather you did."

Godwin looked hurt, but taking a flask out of his pocket, Thorold bade him fetch some water from a stream near. In a few minutes the bleeding was staunched, and her head neatly bound up, but Gentian felt dizzy and faint. She persisted in walking back to the car, and Thorold's arm was taken, not Godwin's. Miss Ward, who was sitting in it under the shade of a chestnut tree, made her comfortable at once, and then they decided to go to the nearest town, and get a doctor to look at it.

"It shan't spoil our day," said Gentian. "I'm feeling all right again."

"What were you doing, dear?"

"Trying to imagine myself a bird, Waddy. Pride must have a fall."

"You might have been killed," said Godwin.

He looked white and shaken. His brother glanced at him curiously, but made no remark.

At the very entrance to the next village they were fortunate enough to come to a doctor's house. The brass plate on the gate told its tale. They were still more fortunate to find the doctor at home, and he very soon plastered up the cut, and reassured Miss Ward about it.

"It's only a surface wound," he said; "and her head is a little bruised. She is lucky to have escaped so easily."

"My accident mustn't shorten our day out," said Gentian, when they were in the car again. "I'm quite well. Do please let us do more of the Forest."

So they turned once again into the Forest, and drove through it to the place they had arranged to have tea. But Godwin's spirits had visibly declined; his eyes never left Gentian's face, and she noticed and resented the change in him.

"Why do you make such big eyes at me!" she exclaimed at last. "You needn't be glum and cross, because I made a fool of myself."

They had just left the car when she made this remark. Thorold and Miss Ward had gone into the hotel to order tea.

"Oh," he cried, "you don't realize what it meant to me—seeing you fall like that—you might have been killed on the spot! And I'm afraid even now that you are more hurt than you make out. You must be! I expect you'll feel it to-morrow."

"Thank you for your cheerful comfort! You sound like an old lady talking!"

A red flush mounted in Godwin's fair cheeks.

"No man would dare to say that to me," he said quickly.

Gentian gave one of her rippling laughs.

"That's how I like to see you. I wanted to get a rise out of you. It's very nice of you to be so interested in me, but I'd much rather you forgot all about me and told me some more of your sea yarns."

"Interested in you!" Godwin exclaimed. "I—I love you, Gentian—I wouldn't have any hurt happen to your little finger if I could help it. I feel I could die for you, and yet you wouldn't let me touch you when you were so hurt! You turned to Thor instead!"

They were standing on a balcony outside the hotel. In the distance the golden sun slanted across the old forest trees. It was only five o'clock, but there seemed already that preliminary hush before evening, when the active birds retire, wearied, to their beds, in the thick leafy trees, and the butterflies and bees creep to their respective lairs, giving place to the countless midges and mosquitos which haunt the evening air.

"I always turn to Cousin Thorold when I'm in trouble," Gentian said in a quiet dignified tone. The pink colour was coming into her cheeks.

Godwin pressed closer to her, and took possession of her hands.

"I don't want you to turn to any one except me when I am by your side," he said in a low passionate tone. "Gentian, tell me you care for me a little. I can't expect you to love ice as I love you. There's nothing in me to attract you, I daresay. You're an enchanting, adorable angel. But I've an honest heart to offer you. And your happiness will be always my first thought."

"Oh, please stop—"

Gentian's voice was troubled now.

"I like you very much as a friend, but nothing more. No, you could never be anything more. You're too young. I feel I know as much as you do. I've lived as long as you have, you know. We're just about the same age, aren't we? We won't talk any more about it. And if you only knew the real me, you'd find me a restless, discontented, selfish creature. And Waddy says I'm hopeless about housekeeping. I burnt a cake yesterday which she had made. I shouldn't be an enchanting wife. Anybody who married me would be bitterly, bitterly disappointed in me. Don't look so miserable."

Poor Godwin tried to smile. The softness of Gentian's voice, the kindness in her eyes, and the pretty little shake of her head as she mentioned her disabilities as a wife, only aggravated his disappointment. She had hurt him in his tenderest part, when she had alluded to his youth. But he choked back his feelings and tried to speak manfully. In his effort, he adopted rather a truculent tone.

"As far as my youth goes, that will mend itself. I will wait. I will come back from my next voyage, and then you may listen to me more patiently. A man who has seen the world as I have, and who has seen women and beautiful women, too, of all nationalities, is not to be easily moved, when once he has made his choice. You won't prevent my continuing to love you. And sometimes pertinacity conquers! Oh, blow them! Why can't they keep away!"

This last spluttering ejaculation was made as Thorold and Miss Ward appeared. And then Gentian added insult to injury by laughing outright. She checked herself at once and turned to Miss Ward.

"Is tea ready? We've been admiring the view—at least, I have. How many trees do you think are in the Forest? A million?"

She was the one who talked now. Through tea her tongue never faltered.

Thorold laughed and teased her as was his wont; Godwin was the only one who sat silent.

The drive home was not quite such a success. Gentian was rather relieved than otherwise when the Cottage was reached.

She slipped her hand into Godwin's with a little comforting pressure.

"Cheer up," she whispered to him. "I really am not worth what you think I am, and it is ungrateful of me to have spoiled the delicious day you have given us. I shall dream of those old Forest glades. Ever so many thanks."

"I am going to cheer up," said Godwin, setting his lips determinedly. "You are too young to know your own mind. You are still a child—"

This was a Roland for her Oliver.

Gentian looked at him with laughing tender eyes.

"I'm going to keep you as a friend," she said; and then she turned to Thorold. "Be very nice to your brother to-night, because we've had a difference of opinion."

Then she followed Miss Ward into the Cottage, and her smile disappeared.

"Oh, Waddy dear, I feel as if I've been beaten all over, and my head aches so I'll go straight to bed. I don't want any supper."

Miss Ward was full of anxiety and tenderness at once. She hovered over her till she was safely in bed. As she stooped over to give her a good night kiss, Gentian put her arms round her neck and hugged her.

"You're the only real friend I have, Waddy! The others are only friends for a time. Directly I won't marry them, they cut up rusty."

And though Miss Ward was told no more, she knew that Godwin had received his congé. She sighed as she stroked the curly head on the pillow.

"I hope the right man will come one day, dear. Now go to sleep, and that poor head of yours will be better in the morning."

Meanwhile Thorold and his young brother reached home, Godwin being unusually silent and subdued.

Later on, when they sat over the smoking-room fire, and smoked their pipes, Godwin gave his brother his confidence.

"I did think she might listen to me; she almost laughed it off. And having such a short time here is awfully rotten! But I'm in downright earnest and she'll find it out. I wish you'd sound her a bit, Thor—she might listen to you. She dismissed me too lightly. I don't believe she knows her own mind. I've never seen any one like her. It isn't mere beauty—it's the light and sparkling fire which seem to be covered over and hidden most of the time. Oh, she's adorable—bewitching—don't laugh at me—Don't you think she may relent? I'd give my life for her!"

Thorold did not smile. There was a tender, almost pitying look in his eyes, as he looked at the earnest boy beside him.

"I have known others, Godwin, who were going to make you desperate by not listening to you."

"Oh, calf love!" said Godwin hastily. "Don't remind me of those schoolgirls."

"One was a young widow—"

"You're very unpleasant!"

"Forgive me, my boy—I'm only wondering if Gentian Brendon would hold your heart for a lifetime. You sailors come and go, and you're apt to be extra susceptible on shore. She's a girl, I fancy, who will demand a good deal. You're as restless and emotional as she is. Will you suit each other? I'm only looking the thing fair and square in the face. I could wish for a different type of wife for your happiness. Two impatient, aspiring, eager young souls do not always go happily together in harness!"

"That's just clap-trap! I don't put her in the scales and weigh every mood and attribute that she possesses—I'm in love with her. I'll never marry anyone else! Never!"

A silence fell between them, which Thorold broke.

"She is not unaccustomed to having young fellows in love with her. I gather from Miss Ward that she has had several proposals already, and I interviewed one lover who was badly hit. I am only telling you this to prepare you for the worst. She's a very determined young lady, and will not easily change her mind."

"She's a child—a baby—she has no mind to change."

But Godwin's heart sank within him. He said no more, and retired early to bed, though not to sleep.

Thorold, looking across the breakfast table at him the next morning, felt very sympathetic towards him.

"I'll have a talk with Gentian, my boy—and tell you the result."

"If she won't have anything to do with me, I'll go up to town. I can't stay on here. The Cliffords want me to stay with them."

Godwin spoke quietly, but he looked quite miserable.

About twelve o'clock, Thorold went off down the road. He heard the sound of the organ in the little church, and slipped inside to listen. He was very fond of music, and Gentian was playing so exquisitely that he sat down just inside the door and lost himself in a dream. When she had finished, he waited for her in the churchyard. She came down the path talking to an old man who had been blowing for her. When she saw Thorold, she smiled and waved her hand to him.

"Have you come to make tender inquiries after my poor head?"

"I hope you are none the worse for the accident?" Thorold said gravely.

"Just a little," replied Gentian. "I'm in a nervy, irritable state of mind to-day. Waddy annoyed me at breakfast and I was rude to her, so I came into church to get good again."

"I want to have a little talk with you," said Thorold.

"Waddy has gone into the town to shop. Come along in."

She led the way to the Vicarage. The little room was full of fragrant roses in china bowls. The low windows were wide open, and the scent of mignonette and heliotrope came in from the beds outside.

Gentian took up her position with her back to the fireplace. She motioned to Thorold to take a seat, but he declined.

"Not while you stand."

"Oh, how old-fashioned you are! I never get a chance of looking down upon you. If I did, it would help me enormously."

She sat down on the couch, and Thorold took a seat opposite her. Then he cleared his throat and began:

"It's a rather delicate subject, but I have really come to you on Godwin's behalf. He is very unhappy, and is buoyed up with the hope that possibly you will reconsider your decision."

Gentian's blue eyes began to sparkle.

"Well now, honestly, Cousin Thorold, do you advise me to marry such a boy?"

There was a little silence.

"Godwin is a frank, straightforward, good-living lad," said Thorold slowly and a little heavily. "I don't think he is from a worldly point of view a good match. But he'll have some money at my death, and—"

A low ripple of laughter came from Gentian's lips.

"Please excuse me," she said checking herself. "Do you think my marriage with your brother will relieve you of a rather tiresome neighbour? It might for a time, but if you are really interested in your brother, I wouldn't advise you to urge it. I am positively certain I should run away from him before I had been married to him a twelvemonth. And I'm sure you wouldn't like that. It would worry you a lot."

"Do not think for a moment that I want to get rid of you."

Thorold's tone was earnest.

"Frankly, I have told Godwin that I consider you both too young for marriage. Not in years, perhaps, but in temperament. Still, I promised to speak to you. He is under the impression that you may alter your mind."

"Now, Cousin Thorold, look me straight in the face and tell me if you really and truly from the bottom of your heart think that I should make your brother a good wife? You know I shouldn't. Waddy says I think a lot of myself. But I know my limitations. It would take much more of a man than Godwin to have the patience necessary to bear with me. I think I'm only half-fledged. I'm not sufficiently developed to be a satisfactory wife for any one. And he hasn't the character to attract or inspire me. You've done your best, but you're too truthful by nature to be a good advocate in this case. Tell him you found me a veritable block of marble, and that nothing in this world would make me ever think of him in the light of a husband. I'm awfully sorry for you both. I don't think I'm a marrying sort. I'm sure I shall go on living here and get old and grey. You won't get rid of me in a hurry."

Then a dawning look came into her eyes. She clasped her hands round her knees and gazed out of the window.

"If I were to marry, the man must be like a rock for steadiness and reliability; he must never fail me, never deceive me, never disappoint me. And his soul must be the strongest part of him just as it is the weakest part of me. It would be rather a one-sided bargain, wouldn't it?"

She jumped up from her seat suddenly.

"And now we have done with the subject, haven't we? Do come out and eat a few strawberries with me. We have such stunning ones just now."

But Thorold shook his head, and went thoughtfully back to his young brother.

Why was he so devoutly thankful that Gentian did not want to be his sister-in-law?

Godwin listened to his brother's account of the interview with a moody face.

"I still believe she doesn't know her own mind, but I'm not one to be begging for snubs on my knees. I'll go up to town to-morrow and—and forget her if I can."

"I think that's the best thing you can do," said Thorold gravely.

So Godwin disappeared, and Gentian seemed perfectly indifferent as to his existence. She never asked for him, or mentioned his visit.

And Miss Ward wisely respected her silence, and kept clear of any reference to that day in the New Forest.

CHAPTER IX

DARK CLOUDS

GENTIAN did not see Thorold for some time after this. He went away into Cornwall to visit an old friend, and though he only meant his visit to last a week or ten days, it prolonged itself into a month. She missed him more than she had thought it possible she could. Miss Ward looked at her in an amused fashion when one day she said rather impatiently that he ought to be back.

"Surely you like to be free from any kind of surveillance or influence, my dear? You are always telling me that Mr. Holt presumes upon his assumed cousinship."

"So he does, Waddy, but I do enjoy a scrap sometimes. It's so dull when no one opposes me. You are much too gentle, you know. It isn't much fun to fight a feather!"

"Is that what I am?"

"Oh, don't look hurt! You're an angel."

"I don't fancy," Miss Ward said slowly, "that Mr. Holt will always stay here. He has said several times to me lately that he is feeling lazy and self-indulgent, and that he is not old enough to live the life he is doing."

"Why, what other life could he live?" Gentian looked startled. "He's on ever so many philanthropic councils and committees, and always busy. How could he go away from his house? It's his own, and every one says he deserves the rest he is having. He has earned it they say."

"I suppose he does seem old to you—but he doesn't to me. I rather agree with him. He is a man of exceptional ability, and there is very little real work to occupy him here."

"Oh, Waddy, what stuff you are talking! People don't want work when they have money."

"You are very young, my child. Money supplies the needs of the body, not of the mind and soul."

"I'm not going to argue the point," said Gentian laughing; "you do love to put me in my place, Waddy, just under your feet, where if I do attempt a rise, you give me a firm pat down again. I know this much, that you and I could do with more money. My mind needs books, and intellectual entertainment, and a more crowded atmosphere to make it work properly. I think Cousin Thorold is the only one who stimulates me to think, and if he went away, I believe I should march after him! Don't look so horrified! I disliked him intensely when we first came here, but he has a way of impressing himself—his individuality you would say—upon you, which makes his absence quite a blank. Don't let us talk any more about him. I'm pretty certain he doesn't want to uproot himself from here—"

Gentian had perplexed and puzzled Miss Ward all her life, but perhaps never more than now. She seemed to have fits of preoccupation and moodiness, alternated with reckless gaiety and irresponsibility.

Miss Ward was more relieved than otherwise when Gentian came home one day and announced with glee that she was going to take the Miss Buchans up to Scotland in the car.

"We shall be gone three weeks or a month; they'll pay all my expenses. Isn't it too enchanting! We've been looking out a tour—up the Caledonian Canal. I've seen pictures of it—a perfect dream, through Braemar, and we shall end in the Trossachs—taking Edinburgh and Perth by the way. Oh, Waddy, if ever I shall have a good time, it will be now!"

"I wonder they trust themselves to you—I hope you'll do it by easy stages. It will be too much for you otherwise. I don't know that I altogether approve. But I suppose they will look after you."

Gentian laughed and scoffed at this last idea.

"I am going to look after them. It is a triumph for me. Miss Horatia said when I first went to them that she would never go in a car as long as she had a horse, but she's actually coming with us. Can't trust me with Miss Anne; she pretends she's making herself into a martyr, but I believe she'll enjoy it as much as I shall. The Scotch all seem to think their country is the most wonderful in the world, and they want to go and see the part to which they belong. Miss Anne is quite keen to go. She's always talking about the Scotch air in the Highlands. I laugh when I think that Miss Anne was so nervous when I began, that she wouldn't let me drive through the high street on market day! How delighted you will be to get rid of me, Waddy! It will be a peaceful holiday for you."

Miss Ward shook her head.

"I shall be anxious till I get you back again under my wing. I never have confidence in these cars." But she made no more objection, saw that Gentian had plenty of warm clothes for the tour, and packed all her belongings with her own hands.

The house was certainly very quiet when she had gone. Her letters were Miss Ward's greatest comfort. She wrote in the highest spirits, and beyond one or two slight mishaps, the tour seemed a great success.

Thorold was back before Gentian was, but he seemed strangely absorbed when Miss Ward met him, and did not come to the house as often as was his custom.

The days were closing in before Gentian returned. She sent a wire the day she expected to arrive, and turned up at the Cottage about seven o'clock one evening. Miss Ward was relieved to see her looking fit and well, though she thought her thinner—and Gentian took it as a compliment when she said so.

"I do dislike to be plump," she said; "and I can assure you I've kept them on the go the whole time. But they've thoroughly enjoyed it, and so have I. Only they say they've had enough of the car for the present, and have given me a fortnight's holiday. What shall we do, Waddy? Is Cousin Thor home? Wasn't it queer? We ran up against a daughter of the man he is staying with! She had just arrived in Edinburgh when we were leaving. Her father is a rector down in Cornwall. Such a handsome girl! But we didn't cotton to each other. She talked of Cousin Thor in a patronizing, appropriative kind of way. Said he was a thorough good sort, and that she and he had a lot in common, and it was nice to think of having him as a possible neighbour soon. Now what did she mean by that? I didn't let her see I was curious, but I am most dreadfully and painfully so. Are you in his confidence? Before I went away you spoke as if he might be leaving us."

"It was only conjecture, my dear. I know nothing, and have hardly seen him to speak to since he came back."

"Oh, well, I'll ask him straight out. He'll tell me. Men can never keep a secret."

And the very next afternoon Thorold appeared and found Gentian comfortably settled by the fire with a book. Miss Ward was out in the village doing a little shopping at the general shop there.

"Well," he said; "you're back again. Had a good time?"

"A heavenly one! And you?"

Thorold drew up a chair to the fire, and rubbed his hands together, looking reflectively into the glowing coals.

"I'm very glad I went down, very. I've come to rather a momentous decision. We've sometimes had talks together about work in life, haven't we? You rubbed it in one day when you talked of wanting to do something with your life."

"Yes," said Gentian, twinkling her eyes as she looked at him, "but you discouraged me. I must always be content to stay where I am and do what I'm bid—I am too young to strike out a new line for myself."

He smiled. "I think you are at present. But it's a different case with me. Dick Muir, my friend in Cornwall, opened a door to me. You know I'm a bit of a Socialist. I believe in sharing good things with those who are without them, and the people all round him are in an awfully bad way. No work—no money—no hope for better times. As their parson, he feels it—and he can do so little to help. The long and short is—I'm going to open up a mine there to provide work. I have the money to do it, for an investment I made some time ago has proved very remunerative. What's the good of living in idleness and luxury when others are starving? It isn't the life anyone but the helpless and aged ought to live. And I've strength and brain for a long time yet, I'm hoping."

Gentian's blue eyes were big with interest and concern.

"I don't know anything about mines," she said, "except that they're down in the earth. Will you be a miner? You don't live in idleness, Cousin Thorold. Mr. Wharnecliffe says you're taking the first rest you've had in your life!"

"Oh, I've had my rest right enough. The mines have been closed down—the owners found them a losing concern, but they got into difficulties through want of capital."

"Then you may lose, too, if you put your money in it, and then what would you do?"

"It wouldn't hurt me if I did. I have no one dependent on me now. But I don't think I shall lose. Anyway, I'm going to take the risk. I've been talking to an expert down there. The mines were not developed far enough. They stopped short when they ought to have gone on. It would give work to hundreds. That's worth thinking about in these days."

"Well, they'll only want your money, not yourself," said Gentian serenely. "You'll go on living here, won't you?"

Thorold shook his head.

"No, I want to be part and parcel of the concern; my own manager by and by. I shall sell up here and live in quite a small way down there at first. But I want to start it personally and get in touch with those I employ."

Gentian was silent.

Thorold looked at her with his kind, thoughtful eyes.

"It won't make any difference to you and Miss Ward," he said; "you'll go on living here just the same. I shan't sell the Vicarage. And you will be freed from my unwarranted interference in your doings!"

He smiled as he spoke, but Gentian did not smile.

"You've made such a substantial background to our life here, that I don't know what we shall feel like without you."

"A background can very easily be dispensed with," he said lightly.

"I am afraid I am very rude to call you a background," said Gentian, looking at him contritely. "And I don't think it quite describes you. You are too aggressive for that!"

"I'm generally considered a very mild-mannered man."

Gentian laughed, and her face cleared.

"I like you better than I did," she said; "and if I get very dull here having no one to contradict me, I shall drag Waddy off to Cornwall and take some lodgings just over your mines, and watch you trying to turn yourself into a miner or mine-owner. Do you know I have been to Scotland; and in Edinburgh I met a Miss Frances Muir, a great friend of yours?"

"Did you meet her? How strange! She's a nice girl. I'm her godfather."

Miss Ward came back at this moment, and she had to be told the news. She took it quietly, but she had a strange sinking of heart when she realized that she would no longer be able to appeal to Thorold for advice. She had certainly leant upon him more than she had ever done upon anyone before.

Thorold's news soon spread. Mrs. Wharnecliffe had known all about it from the beginning, and she highly disapproved of the step.

"He will lose his money, and his health, and die in the workhouse," she told her husband. "Why is it that some people will never take their rest in this world? I almost wish he had not come into money. I might have known it would never do him any lasting good!"

"I think it's a fine thing of him to do," said her husband. "I wish a few more moneyed folk would open up some Cornish mines. I've been told the land is rich with untold wealth below the surface, and anyone who gives employment, to our honest poor in these days is a benefactor."

Before the winter came, Thorold's house was for sale, and he was saying good-bye to his friends.

"You can't have got your mines ready yet to work," said Gentian, when he paid his farewell visit to her.

"No, but I want to know my manager and the people round, and every detail of the work if I can."

"You'll work yourself to death." She looked up at him with troubled eyes.

Thorold would not meet those blue eyes. He seemed nervous and ill at ease.

"If anything goes wrong here," he said, suddenly turning to Miss Ward, "be sure to let me know."

"What could go wrong?" said Gentian, giving a funny little laugh. "I shall only drive my car, and play my organ, and worry Waddy to death! Life is very monotonous. I shall try hard and make it hum if I can, but I'm getting rather tired of this part of the world. If only I could make a little more money, we might go back to Italy."

"That is out of the question," Miss Ward said sharply.

"We won't consider this a long farewell," said Thorold in a cheerful tone.

He took Gentian's hand in his.

She gave him a quick little grip, then pulled her hand away and whisked round to the window.

"It's raining," she said. "Even the sky is weeping at the thought of losing you."

But when Thorold went out at the hall door, there was a moist drop on his hand which had not fallen from the skies. And his lips compressed themselves together as he strode out into the wet.

"She hasn't had her chance yet. I'm an old fool—much, much too dull and old, to think of such a thing. But I'm glad the child likes me a little. I never thought she would."

He had not been in Cornwall many days before he got a letter from Gentian.

"My DEAR COUSIN THOROLD,—

"Cousins can write to each other, can't they? And I want some safety valve—else I shall have spontaneous combustion. You told us to let you know if anything is wrong, and something is very wrong with me. I really don't think I can go on living here. Mrs. Wharnecliffe has shut up her house and gone to London. Sir Gilbert has gone off to Cannes. Miss Horatia is hunting and thinks and talks of nothing else. I wander up and down the road and look at your empty house. We hear some one has bought it—a single woman, they say, but she hasn't yet appeared. Your English winters are loathsome. Rain and mud, mud and rain—black skies, dead trees and hedges, and cold as the North Pole. How can you expect us to thrive without any sun? Miss Anne is in for the winter—at least, she is in unless we get a mild, sunny day. Instead of driving her out, I go over and read to her. That's the only nice time in my day. She gets books down from Mudie's and I live in them from three to four every afternoon. Do write and say what you're doing and where you are living, and if Miss Frances Muir has taken possession of you. And do, do find out a big piece of work—real work for me to do, with a very big W.

"Women can do anything nowadays—but there seems nothing that just suits me. I'm getting almost tired of my car, and I want to do something big—and worth living for. I'm praying for something to be sent to me. I know you believe in prayer. I wish I could lead a Crusade, or something of that sort. I want to do something that will call out all my powers of soul as well as of my body. You see how the poor Bubble wants to soar! And Waddy is trying to fasten me down with string to the earth. String composed of Convention and Caution and Contentment, three C's that I snap and break in fury.

"Write me a long letter and cheer me up.

"YOUR POOR DISTRACTED BUBBLE."

But before Thorold could reply to this, Gentian's prayers were answered in a way that she little expected.

It was a cold grey afternoon in December. Gentian was returning in her car from the Mount where she had been reading to Miss Anne. As she neared the Vicarage she saw a car with lights standing outside the gate.

Jumping out of her own car, she met the doctor who lived near coming down the path.

"Dr. Wild, what is the matter?" she cried out.

He looked at her gravely as he pulled on his gloves.

"It's your friend—Miss Ward. I fortunately happened to be passing when your small maid called me in. I'll come back into the house with you. I think you'll have to have a nurse."

"Oh," cried Gentian, "tell me quickly. Is it an accident?"

"No—it's a seizure, and a bad one. Your maid found her unconscious, and she's unconscious still. Was she quite well when you saw her last?"

But Gentian had dashed upstairs. She could hardly believe it to be true, and flung herself on the bed by Miss Ward's unconscious figure.

"Waddy, dearest Waddy, speak to me, speak! Oh, what can have happened to you!"

She was so unused to illness, and the shock was so sudden, that she was almost beside herself.

Dr. Wild got her out of the room and talked to her quietly downstairs, and in a short time she had regained her self-control.

"She was quite well when I left her this afternoon. She had been complaining of her head these last few days, but I thought it was only one of her ordinary headaches. We can't afford a nurse. I'll nurse her myself. She's all the world to me!"

So Gentian talked, but the doctor meant to have his way about a nurse.

"Have her for a week, and we shall then see how things are going. Has she ever had an attack like this before?"

"Never, that I know of. It's awful! What shall we do?"

"You'll get through all right," he said reassuringly. "I must go now as I've other patients to see, but I'll look in again this evening and bring back a nurse with me."

It seemed like some black dream to poor Gentian. She had never realized how dependent she was on Miss Ward till now, nor how deep was her affection for her.

Dr. Wild was able to bring back a nice capable nurse, and Gentian was persuaded to go to bed leaving her in charge. But she did not sleep.

Life, which had seemed so easy before, now presented horrible possibilities. She felt her own inexperience and irresponsibility. What would she do without her faithful friend beside her? She had no experience of housekeeping or money matters. Miss Ward had kept the house going economically, but comfortably. She would appear the first thing every morning at Gentian's bedside with a cup of tea and some daintily cut bread and butter. She tidied her room and drawers, she cooked, or supervised their village maid, she dusted the rooms and kept flowers fresh and clean, and mended Gentian's clothes; even darned her stockings.

All this the girl had taken as a matter of course. It had been done during her mother's lifetime. Miss Ward had been nurse, and maid, and companion, and friend, and chaperon, in turn to her. Now she was lying unconscious, stricken down in one moment, and the doctor seemed to think seriously of the case.

"O God," Gentian prayed, "have pity on me. I can't live without her! Make her well again, I beseech Thee to do it. I am quite helpless without her. I have been a selfish pig. I promise Thee I'll try to do better, and think more of her and less of myself if Thou sparest her!"

She tossed to and fro on her bed, and rose the next morning unrefreshed by her night's rest. Kate, the little maid, brought her a cup of tea with scared eyes.

"She ain't no better, miss. I've seen nurse. She be just the same, breathing so loud and hard, it fair frightens me!"

"Send nurse to me—"

And so the nurse came, but could give her little comfort. Gentian dressed and came downstairs, then set to work to keep things going as usual in the small household. She sent a note to Miss Buchan telling her what had happened. And then she waited patiently for the doctor's visit, hoping vainly that he would give her better news.

CHAPTER X

LEFT ALONE

IT was a sunny morning towards the end of February. The garden was gay with spring bulbs, and Gentian stood looking out of the window upon the bright scene in front of her with wistful lips and sad eyes. Her bright colour had faded, her face was white and rather strained. She seemed to be years older, and yet it was barely two months since Miss Ward had been first taken ill. For those two months Gentian and a nurse had hardly left the invalid's room.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe had been in and out, and wanted Gentian to come and stay with her for a little rest, but she firmly refused to leave the house even for one evening, and every one was surprised to see the merry, volatile girl, turn into the thoughtful, patient nurse. Gentian made many mistakes at first, and was rather rebellious and impatient when she found her earnest prayers for her dear Waddy were not going to be answered in the way she wished.

For a few weeks it seemed that Miss Ward would recover; then she had another seizure, and gradually became unconscious again.

It was a terrible time for poor Gentian when she was told by the doctor that there was no longer any hope of recovery. But she remained steadfastly at her post, tried not to think of the future, and gave up her whole heart and strength to minister to her friend's needs.

Just before Miss Ward passed away, she seemed to have a phase of consciousness. Gentian bent over her lovingly.

"Waddy, darling, I'm here."

The sick woman smiled, pointed upwards, and said, with a little effort, "Home!" Then her eyes closed, and a few moments after, her spirit had left her tired body and had reached its "Home."

Gentian was at first like one stunned. Mrs. Wharnecliffe swept down upon her again, but she would not leave the little house till her friend was laid to rest in the peaceful churchyard close by, and she insisted upon presiding at the organ and playing the "Dead March" when all was over.

Then Mrs. Wharnecliffe was allowed to have her way, and Gentian accompanied her home and stayed there for a few days. But she seemed as if she could not rest.

"I would rather go home," she told her hostess; "there is a good deal I must do."

"My dear child, you cannot continue to live there alone. I wish Thorold was here; it is most unfortunate that he should be abroad. I have written to him, and I know he will come as soon as his young brother is quite convalescent. He always has been the slave of those boys."

"Godwin has been very ill," said Gentian rebukingly; "when his ship left him at the hospital in Gibraltar, they did not think he would live."

"You know all about it," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a smile.

"Of course I do. Cousin Thor and I write to each other continually."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked at the girl, but said nothing. She was puzzled herself as to what had better be done with Gentian, now that her natural protector had left her.

"If you really want to live on in your present home," she said presently, "it will be quite easy to find you some nice person as companion—or somebody of that class to live with you."

"Thank you," said Gentian, with a little fire in her eye—"I shall not need anyone to supplant dear Waddy."

She had refused to discuss the subject further. She seemed to Mrs. Wharnecliffe to have suddenly developed into a very remote and self-reliant young woman. But then Mrs. Wharnecliffe had not seen her last letter to Thorold, a letter that was causing him to wrinkle his brows with much perplexity of soul.

"Oh, Cousin Thor, do you know what has happened? The skies have fallen on me, my world has gone to pieces, and I am crushed to atoms. My darling Waddy has left me. I hoped, as you know, that she was going to get well. But she had another seizure, and she left me without a word, excepting that she pointed upwards and murmured 'Home.' What does a girl do when her comforter, and mentor, and prop, and refuge is taken from her? Waddy filled my mother's place, she was my safety valve, she circled me with attentions and ministrations and love. I thought I was independent and self-reliant. Just as much as a limpet is independent of its rock! And I am rebellious, and desolate, and absolutely at the end of everything. What am I to do? How am I to live? I don't promise to do a single thing you say, but you must write to me at once—sheets, please! And inspire me with a desire to live, and imbue me with some fraction of courage—and tell me what I ought to be thinking, and saying, and doing. I am so frightfully unprepared for this awful blow. You are never unprepared for anything. But all the same I don't believe you can say anything that will bring me the least ray of light or comfort.

"I'm trying to be self-controlled. I say to myself—'I'll eat my breakfast, I'll take a walk—I'll order dinner and eat it. I'll darn my stockings and mend the household linen, and do all the things I most dislike, until tea comes, and then I'll take another walk, and then I'll eat my supper; and then I'll go to bed, and I'll go round and round this treadmill till I die, but never shall I feel happy and gay and young again.'

"There's one thing I can't do. I can't go into church and play my beloved organ. I did it for her funeral, but I shudder at the thought of touching it again. And I think my nerves have gone to pieces. I feel if I took 'Mousie' out, I would drive myself into eternity. I daren't trust myself at her wheel. I daren't go over to the Miss Buchans yet. I daren't start driving Miss Anne out. So all my favourite pursuits are gone.

"This is all about myself, but now I have nobody in the world to love, or who loves me, so that I shall grow more selfish and egotistical than ever. Who wouldn't? I'm glad your brother is on the way to recovery.

"I may say that my religion has all gone to pieces as well as everything else. God seems nowhere. He hasn't listened to me. I feel He hasn't cared. He wanted Waddy and He took her, and He doesn't take the slightest notice of me, or cares for me at all—I have agonized my soul in prayer to no purpose at all. This is all I have to say.

"The Bubble at last has burst—

"YOUR POOR BURST BUBBLE.

"Are you going to turn me out of the little Vicarage now that Waddy has gone?"

It was rather a relief than otherwise to Mrs. Wharnecliffe when Gentian had left her and returned to the Vicarage. She was concerned about the girl, but could not comfort her. She marvelled at her still icy composure, but she was a woman of experience and guessed that underneath was a depth of grief which she could hardly fathom.

She had been touched by the faithful love and adoration shown by Miss Ward to her charge, but she had not realized how much it was returned by the merry light-hearted girl.

And now Gentian was home again in the empty house, and was gazing out upon her flower-beds, wishing that winter would return and be more in unison with her feelings.

Kate the little maid had gone to the village on an errand. When the latch of the gate was lifted, Gentian thought it might be her returning.

Then a short quick rap on the door made her start, and flush with sudden excitement. Surely no one but Thorold Holt knocked like that!

In a moment she was out in the hall and at the door.

"Oh, Cousin Thor!" was her only exclamation, but seizing him by both hands she dragged him into the sitting-room.

He smiled at her as he relieved himself of his light overcoat, then he seated himself in the big arm-chair by the fire.

"I wonder if I can do you any good by coming," he said. "I am on my way back to Cornwall. I arrived last night. The Wharnecliffes are putting me up."

Gentian was struggling now for self-control. To her horror, tears were rising to her eyes.

In her impulsive fashion she exclaimed:

"If I cry, take no notice—I feel I would like to lie down on the hearthrug and sob myself to death."

Then she drew her hand lightly across her eyes.

"It is only the sight of you, just the same as ever, sitting there looking at me—that breaks me down. There! I'm better. It's waste of time crying whilst you're here. I suppose you have a flying half-hour to spend with me?"

"No—I am in no hurry. Can you give me lunch?"

Gentian flew out of the room. She returned after a short consultation with Kate in the kitchen. A ray of brightness was in her face.

Then she sobered down. For some minutes she talked of Miss Ward's last hours.

"I wrote to you, but there's nothing like talking," she said, with a long-drawn breath, when she had told him all.

"That's what I thought," said Thorold dryly. "I resolved to answer your letter in person. Shall I begin?"

"Oh, do—what am I to do? Is there any hope? It all seems so dark."

"It is a pity you did not live in the Early Christian times," said Thorold slowly. "What is such a misery to you was such a joy to them! Have you never, in your life abroad, visited the Catacombs in Rome?"

"Yes, I did once, but I thought it gruesome."

"Did you not notice the triumphant joy that was the keynote to all the inscriptions there?"

"I noticed nothing. I came out of it as soon as I could. What have the Catacombs to do with me?"

"Only that those early Christians took the right course as regards death. It was a joyful event to all of them, and so ought it to be to us, and if we love persons very much, we should rejoice in their joy and not think about ourselves."

"Ah, now you're coming down from heaven to earth. I knew you would call me selfish, my letter was a wail of self-misery, but it's just how I felt! Of course, I hope darling Waddy is happy, but that doesn't alter my misery—I thought I could live alone, but I find I can't."

"I quite agree with you."

"Oh, don't be fixing up some starched old woman to live with me who will look upon me as an unpleasant duty. After darling Waddy, who really loved me, anyone, however suitable in your sight, would be a torture to me."

There was silence. Then Gentian said appealingly:

"I know I'm pig-headed and unreasonable. Forgive me, I don't know what I'm saying, or what I want. I really would like—"

She paused, and a little bright mischief came into her eye.

"I would like to come down to Cornwall and keep house for you. You've made yourself into a kind of guardian of mine. Can't a ward live with her guardian? That reminds me, I am exceedingly annoyed about something and I had better have it out with you at once. I have been looking into our business affairs—my business affairs, I shall have to say now, and I find that in the banking account which is held jointly in Waddy's name and mine, there is a certain big quarterly sum which seems to come from you. What is the meaning of it? I just left all money matters to Waddy and the dear thing has left a written paper in which she bequeaths all her hard-earned savings to me. Have you been supplementing our income ever since we came to live here?"

"It was an arrangement I made with Miss Ward," said Thorold, fidgeting in his seat, and looking rather uncomfortable, "we talked it over. I considered that some of your cousin's money rightfully belonged to you, and I hope you will let the arrangement stand as it is."

"I shall do nothing of the sort. I am not going to receive charity from you."

Gentian's eyes flashed as she spoke. She looked really angry, then with her quick silvery moods, she dissolved into a tearful smile.

"Oh, forgive me! It's more than generous and good of you, but don't you see my pride or self-respect won't let me take it from you? Unless—unless—you would let me be your housekeeper in a business capacity and give me a salary. I really have become quite good at cooking and keeping house."

"My dear child," said Thorold hastily, "I don't yet possess a house in Cornwall. I am living at the Rectory, and I have no housekeeper at present."

"But you won't be always at the Rectory?

"No. I am thinking of taking a small house a couple of miles out of the village, but I may not do that. It is all uncertain. I am waiting to see how the mine develops."

"Well, what is to become of me?" said Gentian, the gloom returning to her face again. "I think I shall go back to Italy and try to earn a living there. Nobody wants me, or cares for me in this grey old England, and I have sunshine in Italy. I expect you'll say I must leave this little Vicarage, where I have been so happy. I shall have to earn my living in some way."

"Have you seen or heard anything of the Miss Buchans?"

"They wrote their sympathy and asked me to come over and see them. Miss Horatia called one day, but I was crying my eyes out and I wouldn't see her. I'm not ready to see people yet. I'm not controlled enough; at least, it's a strain to be so. I was at Mrs. Wharnecliffe's for a few days, and was quite glad to get back here again, where I can cry in peace, and go without my meals if I choose!"

"Well, I must tell you that Miss Anne Buchan told Mrs. Wharnecliffe yesterday that she would very much like you to go to her altogether as a companion as well as a chauffeur. She is one person who is fond of you. You like her, do you not? You would have a comfortable home with them."

Gentian looked at him with grave eyes.

"So dull, so commonplace," she murmured. "I know you will fix up some dreary groove for me. And I warn you I shall not stay in it—I suppose I ought not to care. I ought to be grateful for a roof over my head, and food to eat, and fires to warm me. I know what your winters are like, and of course it is good to be sheltered; I suppose it won't matter where I am or what I do, for I shall be too miserable to care. And I've lost my faith in God, that's the worst of all."

"That would be the worst fate of all, if you had," said Thorold gravely. "But you're in a fog at present and don't realize that the sun is the other side and will soon shine through."

"Now, let us leave my fate, and future alone for a bit, and you talk to me about my soul," said Gentian, crossing her hands in her lap like a little child, and looking up at him with wistful expectancy. "I know you're a good man from things you've said to me, but you bottle it all up inside and won't let yourself go. Be like Sir Gilbert. He talks to me like an angel. He is not like a stiff, reserved Englishman."

"Is that what you find me?"

"No, not when you find fault with me, you're quick enough and sharp enough then, but you don't let me know what you feel about Paradise, and God, and the Heavenly Things."

There was a little silence, then Thorold said suddenly:

"When I went down to Cornwall I got a new waterproof coat. I was not sure whether it was as genuine as the shopkeeper stated, I wanted a storm-proof garment, not a shower-proof one, and I told him so. There are wild storms round the Cornish coast, and I was soon out in one. My coat kept me dry, but it needed the storm for me to test it. It wouldn't have been any good to me if it had only kept the showers off."

"Now, what on earth are you driving at?"

"Don't you see that the storms in life ought not to shake our faith in God? They are test times and sent to us for the purpose. Your religion is a very flimsy fabric if it will not stand you when trouble comes. A man learns to know the value of his fireproof safe if a fire takes place, in a way that he would never know otherwise. What do you think has happened to your Heavenly Father? Is not He above, ordering all things still? If He thinks fit to send you trouble and loneliness and the loss of your friend, ought you not to accept it at His hand? Think of Job in the first overwhelming moments of his trouble:

"'What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?'

"Surely your faith is robust enough, and your love sincere enough, to trust in the One Who has you in His keeping! I heard some one say once—'A knife does not only cut to wound but to beautify.' He was speaking of the gardener's ruthless pruning at times, but go into any Cathedral and see the effect of the knife and the chisel on the walls and roofs, making it a building of delight and joy to all who are in it. You have been touched by the knife now. Is it not going to beautify your character? Teach you patience and submission, and courage to endure?"

"Oh, you are severe! You make me feel so wicked! But I do believe I am, and it is myself that is all wrong, and God Who is all right!"

Gentian gazed before her with dreamy thoughtful eyes. Then she got up from her seat.

"I don't like long sermons, though I asked you to give me one, but I've had more than enough. Enough to think over and act up to, and perhaps one day thank you for! Isn't it like you, not to give me one little word of pity or of kindness, only stringent, pungent words bracing me to endure?"

Thorold had risen from his seat at the same time she had, now he turned abruptly to the window. His heart was hammering against his side, his whole soul was longing to take the girl into his arms and keep her there. He did not know when or how she had stolen her way to his heart, but she was enshrined there now, and he, in his old-fashioned, self-sacrificing way was daily trying to persuade himself that he was too old and dull a personage to mate with such a fresh young flower of youth.

When he could gain command of his feelings, he turned back and faced Gentian, who was regarding him with wistful, puzzled eyes.

"I do feel for you very much," he said, but his words fell coldly on the ears of the warmhearted girl. "I hurried off to you as soon as I could leave my young brother. I am only so sorry that I could not have been with you sooner."

"Are you going back to him?"

"No; he is coming down to me, as soon as he leaves hospital."

"To the Rectory?"

"No, I have taken rooms near. He asked to be remembered to you."

"Thank you."

"I was to tell you how he sympathizes with you, and that his mind and heart is as it was. He has not changed."

Gentian smiled, then impulsively she laid her hand on Thorold's coat sleeve.

"Do be nice and ask me down to Cornwall before he comes. I want to see your mine, and the Rectory, and—and Miss Frances Muir, your goddaughter, and the house you think of living in."

"I should like you to see it all," said Thorold heartily; "and as Mrs. Wharnecliffe wants to do so too, I'll ask her to bring you with her. If I take the house, I want her advice about the interior decorations. It has been owned by an old man who let it go to pieces, and it needs a lot of repairs."

Kate, the little maid, here interrupted them by saying that lunch was ready, and Gentian was soon presiding over some mutton chops and apple tart. She could eat little herself, but she seemed brighter and more like her old self, and Thorold tried to interest her in Gibraltar, and told her about the friends Godwin had there. He did not stay long. When the meal was over, he got up to go and asked her as he was leaving if she would not go to the Miss Buchans for a time.

"It is not only for your benefit, but for theirs; you could make Miss Anne's life much happier and brighter by being with her. There is nothing like interest in others for easing heart-ache."

"Oh, I'll go. I suppose I must. And is this dear little house to be empty again?"

"Shut it up! Consider it still yours, and leave all your belongings in it. Come to it when you want to rummage about."

"Thank you for that small mercy. And the quarterly cheque to the bank must stop. I only go to Miss Anne on that condition."

"Very well."

Then, as he held out his hand to her in farewell greeting, he said:

"Do you remember saying to me in a letter that you wanted to do something that would call out all the powers of your soul as well as of your body? Don't you think the illness and loss of your friend has done this?"

"Ah no, indeed! It hasn't. I have failed, entirely failed."

Tears came to her eyes with a rush. She let them brim over.

"But I'll try. I'll remember all you've said. The Catacombs, and the knife, and the waterproof. I'll go over and over them till I've impressed my subconscious self with them, and they remain with me for ever. Good-bye, Cousin Thor, and I'm coming down to Cornwall very soon. Tell Mrs. Wharnecliffe to let me know when she goes. And think of me sorting out Miss Anne's wools, and getting her footstools and reading out very goody and improving books; and in the evening, playing backgammon and card games, and hiding my yawns and my weariness behind a very smiling countenance."

"I shall think of you at the piano transporting a weary woman to the realms of light and beauty—and driving her out, with the spring awaking all around you. There is much happiness still in store for you—good-bye."

He was gone, and Gentian turned back into the empty house with a feeling of warmth and comfort in her heart that she had not experienced since Miss Ward had left her.

CHAPTER XI

A VISIT TO CORNWALL

LIFE at the moment with the Miss Buchans was at first rather irksome, but Gentian's nature had its compensation. If she suffered intensely, she enjoyed intensely, and the little things of life laid hold of her with an absorbing interest. Miss Horatia's horses and a couple of young terriers were a perpetual joy to her. One morning Miss Horatia saw Gentian mounted on one of her hunters which the groom was exercising. The audacity of it amused her, but when she came to breakfast she took the girl to task for her rashness.

"If you want to learn to ride, practise on old Sophy, the grey mare. I don't want you to break your neck. Rufus is not fit for a novice."

"I only walked him up and down the avenue. I was out playing with the dogs, and I couldn't resist mounting when he came by with an empty saddle on him. Green says I've a born seat on horseback. Do you mind? I ought to have asked your permission."

"I won't have you ride my hunters," said Miss Horatia good-naturedly; "but you can ride out on Sophy if you like."

Gentian flushed with pleasure. Every morning before breakfast she accompanied the groom when he exercised the horses. There was a burst of warm weather, and the hunting had stopped. After breakfast she went up to Miss Anne's room and read and worked with her, writing some of her letters, and occasionally going to the town to pay her bills, or to shop for her. In the afternoon the car was taken out.

And after tea Gentian was allowed a couple of hours to herself. They dined at half-past seven, and music and games were the order of most evenings. Gentian would fly over and pay Mrs. Wharnecliffe a visit sometimes, and when Sir Gilbert was home again, she went over to him. Once a week she had her organ practices, for she resumed her organist's duties on Sundays at the little church, and always put fresh flowers on the new grave in the little churchyard.

Very slowly peace was returning to her heart. A long talk with Sir Gilbert had completed what Thorold had commenced. Gentian could look up now and take courage. A sharp attack of gout, which laid Mr. Wharnecliffe up, prevented his wife from going to Cornwall as soon as she had intended. Gentian was disappointed, but she had learnt to control her feelings.

The Miss Buchans were kind, and treated her quite as one of the family, but their surprised faces when Gentian at first burst into one of her tirades, showed her that she must put a curb upon her tongue. It was discipline to which she was not accustomed. She relieved her feelings by writing long letters to Thorold.

"I don't care whether you answer me or not, and I give you leave to tear my letters up directly you have read them, but I have no Waddy now, and I simply must pour out my heart to some one. You would not know me. So meek, so quiet, so gentle of tongue am I, so serene and unaware of all vexations and annoyances! That is the outside me. But the inside! Ah! It is a boiling cauldron, and a mass of contradictions, whims and whamsies.

"I am learning to ride; it is kind of Miss Horatia to let me. I work off a good many tempers and moods when I am jogging along the roads with Green, the groom. But when we get to a bit of grass we have a good canter, and away fly all my black shadows and rebellious feelings! I come back to the house ready for anything!"

And then one morning Mrs. Wharnecliffe arrived at the Mount asking the Miss Buchans if they would allow Gentian to come with her the next day to Cornwall.

"We shall only be away the week-end. I am going to put up at the small inn at Perrancombe. And I shall go down in the car; the trains are so tedious."

Miss Anne said she would be willing to spare Gentian, and so it was settled and the girl went about the house with such a radiant face that Miss Horatia chaffed her about it.

"I thought you and Thorold Holt were always sparring with one another. You have told me that you did not like his interference. Is it a case of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'?"

"It isn't altogether him," said Gentian confusedly; "it's the sea, and the mines, and the Cornish people I want to see. Besides, it's a trip to an unknown place, and I always love that!"

Then she added with her natural truthfulness:

"I feel differently about Cousin Thor now; he's a link with the past—the only link I have; every one has been swept away from me. He's always a kind of buffer to me, and I miss him. And he has been very kind to me, hasn't he? I came to England a stranger. Now dear Waddy has gone, I feel stranger than ever. There isn't a person in the whole wide world who really belongs to me. How would you feel if you were I?"

"You'll be able to remedy that one day," said Miss Horatia.

Miss Anne looked horrified at the insinuation, and Gentian laughed her merry laugh.

"I'm not in a hurry to belong to a stranger," she said.

The next day came, and proved ideal for motoring. A bright blue sky, and very little wind. Mrs. Wharnecliffe called for Gentian at ten o'clock. They sped swiftly along and were both rather silent at first. Then Gentian began to talk.

"Do you think it would be impossible for me to live with Cousin Thor and keep his house for him? He would look after me so very well. You don't seem to like the idea of my living alone, and I do want a home. I've always had one. It's all very well being with the Miss Buchans for a time, but I shan't be able to keep on doing it for ever. I cry over it when I'm in bed at night. I never felt lonely when Waddy was alive. I knew she would never leave me, but I'm desperately lonely now."

"My poor child!" said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, laying her hand softly on the girl's arm. "I was hoping you were settling down happily. You have your riding to interest you, and it is a busy, useful life for you."

"Tell me, if Cousin Thor takes this house, couldn't I live with him in it? I should love to look after him; he never looks after himself."

"No; I don't think that plan would work at all," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe decidedly. "He has never expressed a wish to have you, has he?"

"Oh, no. I would go like a shot if he did."

Gentian gave a sigh, then brightened up.

"Shall I sound him on the subject, or will you?"

"Thorold has been too long a bachelor to like a woman in his house. She would embarrass him and be in his way. I tried for a long time to get him a lady housekeeper, but he would not have it."

"I dare say," said Gentian gloomily, "that this Miss Muir will marry him. I don't think he is a bit too old to be married. And a wife would soon get him out of his old-fashioned bachelor ways."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe could not help laughing. Gentian still talked at times like a child. She turned the conversation to other subjects, and Thorold was not mentioned again.

They arrived at Launceston about two o'clock, and had lunch at an hotel there. It was between four and five when they reached their destination. Gentian was charmed with the village in a wooded valley that ran down to the sea. They heard the thunder and roar of the surf breaking over the rocks before they came in sight of it. The church was perched on a hill, and they turned, up a steep lane to get to the Rectory which was close to it. Just as they came up to a big iron gate set in the middle of two granite walls, Thorold himself appeared.

"I've been looking for you for the last hour," he said: "have you had lunch?"

"Yes, at Launceston. We've seen no sign of the inn, so came on to ask you where it was."

"It isn't in the village, which is good, for you will be quieter away from the fisher-folk. It is five minutes' drive from here on the high road which leads across the moor."

"Come in, and we'll drive on together."

Thorold slipped into the front seat by the chauffeur, then he looked back at Gentian and smiled at her.

"How do you like Cornwall?"

"It's rather bare and wind-swept," said Gentian, "but the sun on the sea reminds me of Italy."

"If we follow this line along, we shall come to the house I want you to look at, but we'll find the inn first."

It was a very small place when they reached it—but it looked clean, and there were flowers in the small garden behind it, which delighted Gentian's heart.

They put up the car, then sat down and had tea together. Thorold told them that his friend the Rector had hoped to give them tea—but Mrs. Wharnecliffe was tired and wanted a rest. Motoring was not the exhilarating experience to her that it was to Gentian.

But in an hour's time she declared she was ready for a walk, and they sauntered through a sheltered lane which twisted and turned continually till Gentian said it made her quite giddy. Thorold was able to give them a good deal of information about his mine. Work was beginning, and he was very hopeful of the result.

"Is it tin or copper?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"Tin," said Thorold.

"No radium about it?"

He laughed.

"No, that is only obtainable in the china clay. I am not going to make my fortune over this, Lallie."

"If you did, you would only give it away twenty-four hours after you had got it," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

Gentian was rather silent, listening to the talk but not joining in it. Presently they came in sight of a clump of pines, then a white gate was seen, and Thorold told them that this was the little house he wished them to see. They glided down a drive bordered by high tamarisk hedges, then came to a fair-sized shrubbery of rhododendrons and azaleas, with a background of trees, and then swept round to the front of the house.

"What a little darling!" exclaimed Gentian.

It was a solid granite house with a slate roof, but it was covered from end to end with creepers. Jasmine and rose, and the sweet-smelling stentonia, and a big magnolia hid the grey walls from view. There was a neglected lawn in front of it, with an old sundial in the middle, but when Gentian jumped out of the car and stood on the doorstep, she gave an exclamation of surprise and delight.

The lawn sloped down to green cornfields, and at the bottom of them lay the blue, shining sea. No trees hid the ocean from their eyes. The Cornish coast-line stretched away on the right. To the left against the sky-line was Rame Head, and nearer Tregantle Fort could be dimly seen.

The house was small and very old. There were casement windows, and the square stone hall was dark. An old staircase, with solid oak stairs, went up in the middle of it.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked about her, then opened a door at the back of the hall and found it led out into a square paved court.

"Oh," she said, "you must have glass panels in this door to let the light in, Thorold, and turn this little courtyard into a conservatory. What is the aspect?"

"East," said Thorold. "Frances Muir suggested a Dutch garden here."

"Oh," said Gentian quickly; "then she's been over the house with you?"

"She's known this house all her life," Thorold responded.

Gentian said no more, but her quick eyes were taking everything in. She liked the old-fashioned kitchen and dairies; there were two rooms on each side of the front door, and a third sitting-room in a side wing. Upstairs there were five good-sized bedrooms and some attics. Gentian danced in and out of the empty rooms in her light-hearted fashion; she loved the oak panelling in the dining-room, and the deep window recesses. Mrs. Wharnecliffe signified her approval of the house as a whole.

"A man won't find it lonely," she said, "but if you were bringing a wife here, I shouldn't be so content, for I think she would get the blues. Have you no neighbours?"

"Oh yes, within driving distance. Do you think it gloomy?"

He turned to Gentian.

"Now it is empty it is, but it won't be when it is furnished," said Gentian, looking about her with dreamy eyes. "I can see it with wood fires and thick curtains, and music, and books, and flowers."

Then she laughed.

"And you in it, Cousin Thor, moving about in your serene, cheerful way, never ruffled if the soot fell down the chimney and the water-pipes leaked and the fires smoked. Are you going to keep a car?"

"No, I'm thinking of a horse."

"And a man and his wife to look after you," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "Thorold, I am afraid you will be buried alive here."

He smiled and shook his head.

"I have too many people to consider and to help."

"Now let us come to your repairs," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "Of course, you must cut down your creepers, and one or two trees that are too close to the house, and the shrubberies want cutting back. I should put a south window in the biggest sitting-room which faces west, then you'll get plenty of sunshine."

She went through the rooms again, discussing many possible improvements. Gentian left them and wandered round the neglected garden. She followed a little path through the shrubbery which led her to a rising knoll on which was a seat looking seawards. She sat down and lapsed into day dreams.

"I must be getting very old," she mused; "I feel as if I want to settle down somewhere and stay there. I don't want to career about the world any more. How peaceful it is here!"

A thrush was singing in the bushes close to her; there was a sweet scent of syringa which was not far away; and as she raised her head she heard a lark singing in the cornfields. A moment after steps approached her. It was Thorold.

"I have tracked you at last," he said. "Mrs. Wharnecliffe is on her way back to the inn; I told her we would follow. What do you think of the view from here?"

"I think it is heavenly."

He sat down on the seat beside her.

"To-morrow you must come and see the mine. I am in two minds about taking this house. Dick Muir and his daughter advised me against it. They want me to remain on with them indefinitely, or else build on a site which Dick can let me have, but I don't care about doing that. I would rather take rooms in the village where Godwin was. I don't feel like starting another house just yet. The mine is a speculation. I may lose all my money over it."

"And then you would be a pauper like me," said Gentian cheerfully; "I wonder how you would like that."

"I have gone through poverty, child."

"Yes, I forgot. Forgive me. And I hope with all my heart that your mine will succeed. I think I would take the house, Cousin Thor, and then you could invite Mrs. Wharnecliffe and me down to visit you. I would like to come alone best, but Mrs. Wharnecliffe won't let me hint at such a thing! I can't fancy you in lodgings; you've always had a nice home. I only wish I could get the chance of having one."

Then she stole a look at him through her long eyelashes.

"I heard from Jim Paget the other day. He's been over the Rocky Mountains and now is on his way home. He would give me a home, any day. I might do worse than have him, but I'm afraid we should fight like cat and dog. Still, I would have a house of my own, and I should love furnishing it and arranging rooms."

"Don't marry for a home," said Thorold gravely. "The man must come first. You would have a miserable life if you did not care for your husband."

"Do you think so? It's a funny world. Things happen so contrary. He likes me, and I don't like him, and yet I may meet somebody else whom I shall like and he won't like me. I somehow feel as if I shall never have just what I want. And I think I'm getting dull and old, and I shan't be at all likeable when my teeth and hair fall out."

Thorold threw his head back with his quick laugh, as he did when she amused him.

"Cheer up, you are not so very ancient yet."

"Tell me truthfully, do you think I shall make any man a bad wife?"

Thorold turned to her. Something in his eyes made Gentian catch her breath. He was about to speak, when round the corner of the shrubbery path appeared Miss Frances Muir.

She greeted them delightedly.

"Here you are! I've been scouring the village for you, for I heard Mrs. Wharnecliffe, your friend, had returned to the inn. How do you do, Miss Brendon? We met in Edinburgh, didn't we? How are your old ladies? I thought them so quaint, especially the horsey one."

"They are quite well, thank you."

Gentian's tone was stiff; she resented the Miss Buchans being criticized.

"Now, Mr. Holt, you must come home at once. Your manager is at our house waiting to see you. It's something about the mine, some of the machinery has gone wrong."

"Ah!" said Thorold, with a concerned face. "Then my fears are realized. Gentian, I'm afraid I must leave you. Explain it to Mrs. Wharnecliffe. I hope to take you over the mine to-morrow, but I must go off with Dormer at once."

"I'll take Miss Brendon to the church," said Frances Muir, "that is, if she is not in a hurry to return to her friend. What do you think of this little house?"

"I like it," said Gentian. "I'm in no hurry at all, and should like to see the church. Has it a nice organ?"

Thorold smiled.

"It has a wheezy old harmonium, that is all," he said.

"It is awful, isn't it?" said Miss Muir. "But I'm not musical, I don't know one note from another. Our little schoolmistress plays it."

They were walking along the lane at a good brisk pace, then Thorold turned up one road and they took another. Gentian was quiet and grave, as she usually was when she did not feel sure of a person.

Miss Muir did most of the talking.

"Dad is so delighted to have Mr. Holt down here. It's making him quite young again, but we don't approve of that house for him. It's too desolate and lonely. I'm not going to let him take it if I can help it. And he would be better the other side of the village near his mine."

"If I had a mine, I wouldn't want it just outside my windows," said Gentian, "and Cousin Thor is accustomed to a nice house and has always lived alone. There aren't any other empty houses about are there?"

"Oh, he could build. I love planning houses; I always think I should have made a good architect. He and I spend our evenings in drawing out plans. I have a lovely one just completed, that would suit all his requirements."

"I hate new houses," said Gentian shortly, "they have no tradition or atmosphere."

"But you won't be asked to live in it," said Miss Muir laughing.

Gentian spoke with real temper now:

"Can't one like or dislike things for one's friends without being involved in them personally? I don't think I'll go to the church now, thank you. I'll wait till Cousin Thor can take me. Here's the inn, good-bye."

She flashed away from Miss Muir like a bright meteor, and burst in upon Mrs. Wharnecliffe in impetuous fashion.

"I dislike Miss Muir very much; I think I hate her," she announced, flinging her gloves down on the table, and facing her friend with hard, defiant eyes.

"What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a smile.

"Oh, she's what people call 'catty.' She gives herself airs, and thinks she's going to frame Cousin Thor to her liking."

"Perhaps she will," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe slowly; "perhaps Thorold has met his fate in this little Cornish village."

"I wish him a better fate than that conceited girl," snapped out Gentian. "I don't believe he likes her a bit. I shall ask him. Fancy! She doesn't know one note of music from another and doesn't care! Boasts of it! A person without any love for music is a person without a soul!"

"My dear Gentian, don't get so hot over her."

"But, Mrs. Wharnecliffe, why should she take possession of him as she's doing? He never knew her before he came here, she's not going to let him take that house, she says. She wants to build him one of her own planning."

"Thorold is not a weak boy, my dear Gentian. He will please himself. He is a man who has decided opinions of his own, and is not easily influenced by others, as I have found to my cost."

"No," said Gentian, suddenly becoming quiet and rather despondent, "he's like a granite wall, and if you beat your head against him, you'll only break it, and not hurt him. Sometimes I think Cousin Thor has no feeling at all! Just once—now and then—very seldom, his eyes betray him!"

She stopped herself and relapsed into silence. What did that look of his mean? And what was he going to say when Miss Muir had so inopportunely interrupted them?

Mrs. Wharnecliffe glanced at her anxiously. She never could understand the girl, but she was fond of her. Her contradictions moods and irrelevant talk bewildered her. What a creature of impulse she was! Even her late sorrow had not steadied her, and yet how nobly she had stood by her sick friend in her last illness! How wonderfully patient and capable she had become!

"I think, my dear, you had better go and change your dress. Dinner is at the early hour of seven here. Thorold was to dine with us. Where has he gone?"

"Off to his old mine. There's something gone wrong."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe sighed. "I always feel he will ruin himself over this project. It is such a risk!"

Gentian left the room, murmuring to herself: "If she hadn't interrupted us! Oh, if she only hadn't!"

CHAPTER XII

THOROLD'S SECRET

THOROLD appeared just in time for dinner, which was served in a quaint coffee-room overlooking the garden.

Gentian, in a filmy black gown which accentuated the fairness of her neck and arms, began the meal in a quiet, pensive mood. She let Mrs. Wharnecliffe and Thorold do most of the conversation, and listened to Thorold's account of some of the difficulties which now beset him.

"I think we shall get over the present difficulty," he said. "We have been trying to adapt some of the old machinery; it means a good bit of extra expense to have new, but we must do so. I have been wondering whether I have brought you down on a fool's errand, for I doubt if it will be wise for me at present to take that house. I must go slowly."

"You must live somewhere," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"A single man doesn't need so much accommodation."

"Miss Muir doesn't want you to go there," struck in Gentian with rather a sharp tone in her voice; "she wants you to build one close to the Rectory and the mine."

"Yes," said Thorold, with a smile; "Frances thinks I should be too far away from my work."

"As if you're going to work in the mine!" said Gentian a little scornfully. Then the dimples came into her cheeks and she gave a little laugh.

"You are becoming like me, Cousin Thor. You're a wobbler. You actually can't make up your mind. I never knew you had it in you to hesitate or to change."

"Oh, I hesitate about lots of things," Thorold replied promptly; "it's only when we're very young that we're very sure."

"Well, that isn't a hit at me, for I'm never sure of anything, except what I want to do at the moment. But I'd like to know what kind of things you wobble about."

Thorold looked at her with his whimsical smile.

"I have considerable hesitation about you and your welfare very often," he said.

Gentian looked dumbfounded.

"Do you think about me very much, Cousin Thor?" she asked demurely.

"Really, Gentian," expostulated Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "We've wandered away from our subject of the house. Suppose we get back to that. Where do you propose living, Thorold? I hope you won't build."

"No, a new house is perfectly hateful," said Gentian; "I told Miss Muir so. I should be sorry to live in a house of her planning. She has no sense of beauty."

"She's a very clever girl," said Thorold. "Aren't you judging her rather hastily? About the house: I have the first refusal of it, and I think in two or three months' time, I shall know how the mine is going and be better able to judge what I can afford. I shall take rooms in the village."

"Yes," said Gentian quickly; "if you stay on at the Rectory you'll lose all independence. Miss Muir will manage you and all your affairs completely."

Thorold shook his head.

"A good many people have tried to manage me in my life. We'll except the present company! But it is an experience to which I am well accustomed, and it doesn't trouble me in the least."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe laughed.

"We need not have an uneasy thought about him, Gentian. As I told you he is well able to look after himself. Now don't you think we could have a walk as it is such a lovely evening? Is the tide in or out? Let us go down to the sea."

"It is out, I think," said Thorold.

"Run and put a warm wrap on, Gentian," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "I have a much thicker gown than you. We will wait for you in the verandah."

As the girl disappeared, Mrs. Wharnecliffe took hold of Thorold by the arm.

"Now come along, I want to talk to you. I am anxious about this child. Your Rector wants the little Vicarage house for a new-married curate who is going to be in charge of the church. I haven't told Gentian, for I know the outcry she will make. She cannot live there alone, and you must let the Rector have it. It will be a way out of the difficulty. I have some empty attics where she can store her boxes and things. It is very difficult to know what to do with her. I don't believe she'll go on living with the Miss Buchans year in and year out, she'll be too dull there. And she's not the sort of girl to be knocking about the world on her own."

"It will be a blow to her," said Thorold, looking grave. "She tells me that young fellow Jim Paget is on her track again. Coming back, isn't he? He may induce her to listen to him this time."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe shook her head.

"I wish I could think so, but I'm sure she won't have him. She ought to marry. I think she might develop into a good little wife."

There was silence between them for a moment or two. Then Mrs. Wharnecliffe said slowly:

"Thorold, have you ever thought that she may be caring for you?"

Thorold was just lighting his pipe. He let it slip through his fingers, and fall with a clatter on the ground.

"Caring for me," he said, stooping down to pick up his pipe; "what nonsense! I think she may like me better than she did, but she looks upon me as her elderly guardian—offered to come and keep house for me!"

His face was a dull red as he raised himself, but Mrs. Wharnecliffe's quick eyes noted his confusion.

"There's not much disparity in your ages. You are not elderly, Thorold. You are in the prime of life. I may be wrong. She is childishly jealous of Frances Muir, but, of course, that may be because she likes to come first with you."

"It would be wicked," muttered Thorold, "to tie her up to an old fogy like me."

"Gentian would not do anything she did not want to do."

"But she's in a dangerous state now. She wants a home. She might do anything to get one. I would not take advantage of a child like that for all the world."

"Thorold!"

Mrs. Wharnecliffe pressed his arm. "You love her!"

"I adore her!" he said, with a quick-caught breath, and then he tried to relight his pipe with nervous, trembling fingers.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe drew a long sigh.

"Well, it has come to you at last," she said; "now don't spoil your life and hers by stupid bashfulness and false modesty. You have a great deal to offer her. A clear, upright, honourable record, a comfortable home, and a love—well, I won't say more on that point, but any girl would be lucky with you for a husband, Thorold. I don't say she is good enough for you, but she's a fascinating little soul, and where she loves, she'll love to distraction. You won't have a dull moment with her, I know that, and I believe she'll develop into something grand and good, by and by."

"You've forced my confidence," Thorold said; "respect it and say no more. I'm not in a position to offer anyone a home until I see how the mine is going. And I can't believe, and I don't believe, that she would listen to me for a moment."

"Who won't listen to you?" asked a gay voice behind them.

It was Gentian, of course. She did not wait for an answer but slipped her arm into Mrs. Wharnecliffe's.

"Now let us sally forth," she said, "to see the wonders of the ocean shore."

There was no lack of conversation between the three of them, though Thorold was the one who spoke least. Mrs. Wharnecliffe talked eagerly, almost feverishly, and Gentian was her own gay chattering little self. It was a good walk from the inn to the fishing village, which was most picturesque. Like many of the Cornish fishing villages, the houses were placed at all angles, one above the other, with quaint cobbled paths twisting and turning in every direction, and rough stone steps up and down to the beach and cliffs. They came down to a stone bridge across the river, and here in the middle they turned their backs to the sea and looked along the wooded valley with the shining river winding its way at the bottom.

The sun was getting low, and sending its golden rays across the water. Gentian leant her arms on the stone wall and gazed dreamily in front of her.

"This is sweet," she murmured. "I don't think England's beauty spots are distributed fairly. River and woods are enough without the sea."

They turned round and walked on, past a row of old-fashioned shops facing the river, and then eventually found themselves on the sea front. Fishermen lounged about smoking their pipes, or tinkering at their boats. The tide was out. Across the short strip of sand in front of them and the grey rocks that stretched away to the cliff the golden sunshine was sending its long slanting rays. Away on the horizon were the fishing smacks starting for their night's fishing. Gentian looked at it all with interest and delight.

Then she slipped her hand into Thorold's arm.

"Let's walk down to the sea," she said, "it's too far off from us here."

"I think I shall sit down here," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, sinking on one of the wooden seats near her; "don't be too long, for when the sun sets, it will be chilly."

Thorold and Gentian walked across the sand until they came to the ocean. Only rippling waves disturbed the silence.

"I like this," Gentian said contentedly. "I should like to live by the sea. It always brings peace to me. It reminds me of the sea in Italy. How far is the mine from here?"

"Quite five miles. It is inland. The Rectory is a good mile and a half from us here."

"And do your miners live in these dear little houses?"

"Oh, no. This is entirely a fisher population. There is a small hamlet near the mine where they will congregate; but a good many come by the train along the light railway from other villages. Every day I have applicants from all parts. It's extraordinary how news flies. I hope I shall be able to give them all work."

"I wish you could give me work," said Gentian, turning a face that was a mixture of wistfulness and mischief up to his. "I shall soon be unemployed again, I feel it in my bones. And I am not a very satisfactory companion to an indoors lady. Fancy! The other day I was saying how much I should love to hunt next winter, and Miss Horatia laughed and didn't seem against the idea, when Miss Anne drew herself up as if I had quite shocked her,—

"'That is hardly one of the duties of a lady's companion,' she said.

"So I was angry, of course, and I said quickly: 'I am only a temporary companion. I may end it any day,'

"And then Miss Anne said very sweetly: 'I think it would be your loss, if you did so.'

"Now do you think that quite nice of her? She tries to keep me in my place; but somehow bubble up away from it—and any day may bring a crisis."

"I agree with Miss Anne," said Thorold gravely; "that it will be your loss if you lose such a comfortable home."

"Now, Cousin Thor, do you think it is a home to me? How can it be? I have lost my home, and I have lost the love and care that went with it. I am hedged about with convention and duties and restrictions. I must be punctual and tidy and meek, and always must be at the beck and call of a very kind mistress certainly, but a very old-fashioned, punctilious lady."

"Do you want to go through life only pleasing yourself, and satisfying your own desires?"

"Now you're getting into the stern old martinet you were when I first knew you! You have been much kinder lately. I don't always want to please myself. There are some people that I would like to do anything for—I think I might be willing to die for them!"

Thorold's eyes twinkled as he looked at her.

"We'll hope that won't be necessary at your time of life," he said.

She was standing very close to him as she spoke; now she moved away with a dignified air.

"You like to laugh at me," she said. "You never take me in earnest, you treat me like a child, and now Waddy has left me I feel a hundred years old, as if my whole future life is my own responsibility, and I get frightened. I have no money at my back, and very few friends. I don't think you or Mrs. Wharnecliffe would let me starve, but then if I went away from you, you might not know. I sometimes wonder if I could earn my living in London by my music. I'll talk to Jim Paget about it when he comes over. He knows a lot of people in London."

Thorold's brows grew rather threatening.

"No," he said quickly; "don't do that. When you feel you must have a change of employment, tell me. I promise I will help you."

"I don't feel very sure of you down here," said Gentian, looking at him with earnest eyes. "I'm so afraid you will marry Miss Frances Muir! There! I know I ought not to say so, but somehow with you I must unburden myself. And if you marry her, you won't care about me any more. You'll forget all about me—and she—Miss Muir—will keep you from having anything to do with me—I know her kind. I don't like her and she doesn't like me. We are natural—what is the word? Not enemies—antagonists. Why are you laughing?"

"I can't help being amused at your matchmaking propensities. Am I so very susceptible to female charm? Haven't you always considered me a thorough old bachelor? We are talking nonsense, let us come back to Mrs. Wharnecliffe."

He turned; then, as Gentian seemed reduced to silence, he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Your future is not in your hands, child. A loving God is caring for you. Leave it to Him, He makes no mistakes. That is one of the facts that strengthen with years."

She did not speak. Her eyes filled with tears. She was very silent for the rest of the evening. Thorold left them as soon as he had taken them back to the hotel, promising to be with them again at ten o'clock the next morning, when Mrs. Wharnecliffe's car would take them to the mine.

And the next day dawned brilliantly. Blue sky, and no wind, the sea lay calm and still as a mill pond. They caught the glimpses of it as they sped up and down hill through the Cornish lanes.

Gentian was her bright self again, and keenly interested in all the working of the mine. She was very disappointed that she was not allowed to go down into it. She talked to the manager, and to every miner that she came across, and bewildered them by her questions and inquiries.

Later on, Thorold took them to see a row of cottages which were just being built. Gentian did not think much of the hamlet, but loved its quaint name, which was Menabockle. She spoke to a woman who stood at a cottage door.

"Aren't you very happy to have the mine working again?"

"'Twill give work to many," said the woman with a smile.

"Yes, and you're lucky to have Mr. Holt owning it. If you're in trouble, he'll get you out of it by hook or crook. He was born to do that, I believe."

She nodded and smiled and passed on. Only the woman caught her words. Thorold was busy talking to Mrs. Wharnecliffe. He was bent on reassuring her about his venture.

"It is a risk, of course, but all here know that tin is to be found; and the mine stopped working through want of capital to carry it on. Be patient, and you'll see that I have not wasted my money."

"Why need you be on the spot always?" asked Gentian. "When it's once started, can't your manager carry it on?"

"If the owners had lived on the spot before, it would have been better for their mines. Managers are not infallible. Besides, I want to know the people. I am going to start a small institute or club for the young men and boys. I am full of ideas from which I want practical results."

"And what about the house?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"Just for the present, we'll leave it. As I said before, I have the first refusal of it. But I'm thankful for your suggestions and advice."

He returned to the inn with them and they had lunch together. They had hardly finished the meal before Thorold's friend, the Rector of the parish, and his daughter appeared.

Mr. Muir was a tall, stalwart man, with a cheerful face and breezy manner. He was very disappointed to hear that Mrs. Wharnecliffe was returning home immediately.

"We quite hoped you would dine with us to-night, or at least, come up and have a 'dish o' tay,' as our Cornish folk say. Do you approve of this Cornish benefactor?" He laid his hand on Thorold's shoulder as he spoke.

"It's a doubtful experiment," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe gravely; "but Thorold knows his own business best, and if his heart is in it, I can but wish him good luck. I hope he will succeed where others have failed."

"It's going to be a huge success," said Frances enthusiastically. "Mr. Holt always succeeds in everything he puts his hand to, now does he not?"

Mrs. Wharnecliffe smiled.

"He gets his own way with people as a rule."

Thorold looked across at Gentian with his humorous smile.

"Do you endorse that?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Yes, because you are so doggedly determined and persevering," she said.

"Well," said Frances, "we all want him to have his own way down here. There's no opposition from anyone. How could there be? We are most keenly interested in what he is doing. And as for the people round, they're wild with delight that the mines are going to be restarted."

"The only thing that I don't like about them," said Gentian, "is the mess they make of the country. They spoil the landscape, and foul the air with blacks and dust."

Frances' smile had a twinge of pity in it.

"That is rather a narrow outlook," she said; "when you put against a few acres of waste ground the employment and prosperity of hundreds of living souls."

Gentian was silent. She was glad when the car was announced, but vexed that she and Mrs. Wharnecliffe should drive off leaving Thorold by the side of the girl to whom she had taken such a hearty dislike.

CHAPTER XIII

A NEW FRIEND

IT was not long after Gentian's return to the Miss Buchans that the blow fell upon her about St. Anselm's Vicarage. Thorold wrote to her himself about it, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe had her over for the day to discuss plans. To her astonishment, Gentian took it very quietly.

"I am not surprised. I have no right to a house. I have no money to live there. I am alone in this grey old England. Cousin Thor gave it more to Waddy than to me, and now she is gone I have no right to expect that Cousin Thor should provide me with a house to keep my possessions in. He did tell me that I could have it for a time, but now this curate with his family wants it, and they will take possession of the darling organ. It has all gone from me. I shall only have memories of it now."

"You must look upon my house as your pied-à-terre, I won't say home, for you have become such an independent young lady that you resent the thought of any one taking care of you. But you know, dear, that you will be always welcome, and that I am ready to help you in every way possible."

"You are very kind," said Gentian, looking at her with a deep gravity in her blue starry eyes; "but I am learning to stand alone. I shall have to do it, and the sooner I begin the better. I shall be very grateful if you will store a few boxes for me. I haven't very many worldly goods, have I? Only just some mementoes from my darling Italy, and a few of my mother's treasures. I will write this evening and tell Cousin Thor that I will clear out my things to-morrow."

Thorold got her letter, and for some hours after receiving it, felt distracted and disturbed.

"DEAR CORNISH BENEFACTOR,—

"You have broken your news very softly. But I am ready to quit, as the Americans would say, and shall march out with my head up, and my tears locked down into a pool at the bottom of my heart. You have a right to let your own house to anyone. I was only a charity pauper whilst there. This isn't bitterness but fact, and never was a poor orphan more kindly housed than I was. I knew when I turned the key in the door and went off to the Miss Buchans that I should never go back again. I felt it in my bones. Mrs. Wharnecliffe impressed upon me that I could not live there alone. I knew that I had not enough money of my own to feed myself and a chaperone, to say nothing of paying her to dance attendance on me. So there we are. I feel I am growing wise and old. That sunny chapter of my life is over. The clouds began to appear when you took your departure, and when Waddy left me for good, the sun disappeared altogether.

"But, and this is a big But. I will print it in large letters, BUT, I have I believe got my storm-proof and mackintosh on, and I'm assuring myself over and over, that this fresh storm may beat about my feelings and passions and hopes and desires, but can't reach my soul. I don't forget your little sermon, you see. I've discovered one of the Bible's secrets, that blessedness—that's happiness, is it not?—comes to those who believe when they can't see. And then after I have thought over that a good while, I give myself a pat on the shoulder and say, 'Your future is not in your hands, child.' Only I can't give it quite the nice kind of pat that you did.

"Anyhow, I want you to be assured that I accept my fate with placidity, and am still pursuing my daily rounds of duty combined with some small bits of pleasure. I am getting quite a good rider. Now I know and share Miss Horatia's feelings about cars. They're good to get to places, but for enjoying the country they're not in it with a horse. She has taken me for several long rides through lanes and woods where cars cannot go, and if ever I become a rich woman, I will buy a horse and keep it till I die.

"I suppose Jim Paget would give me a horse if I married him. He has written to-day to say he wants to see me, but I've put him off. I can't see him here. It would be awkward, and Miss Anne told me to-day that she's expecting a nephew of theirs from abroad to come and stay with them. He is arriving to-morrow. Do you know him? His name is Vernon Buchan. He is a great violinist and gives recitals in London. I am anxious and excited to meet him. I do love anyone who loves music, don t you? Miss Horatia rather sniffs when his name is mentioned. I don't think she approves of him. She said straight out yesterday when Miss Anne said how long it was since they had seen him:

"'He is in want of something, my dear Anne, or he would not ask us to have him.'

"Miss Anne shook her head and looked at me. I pretended, of course, to be engrossed in Miss Anne's knitting.

"This evening Miss Anne asked me if I would like a few days' holiday. I don't think she wants me to meet her nephew. Why? I have seen too many men and musicians abroad to be unduly impressed by them. But of course I said I could go to Mrs. Wharnecliffe. I think she will have me. I did not know about it this afternoon when I was over there. And I can't go to her to-morrow, so I shall have a glimpse of the nephew before I disappear.

"Oh, Cousin Thor, I am scribbling away like this to take my thoughts off my unfortunate existence. Does anyone in the whole wide world really want me, I wonder? I don't mean foolish creatures like Jim and your Godwin who like the outside of me, and have no more ideas of my real self than a cat has of a polar bear. Miss Anne, you see, can dispense with my services very easily when she likes.

"How is that darling little fishing village? I should like to own a boat and turn myself into a fisher girl and sail away into the sunset sky every evening, drawing my fishing net through the rippling water, and watch the stars come out one by one and twinkle in a thousand lights on the moonlit waves! I would be quite happy in one of those queer little whitewashed houses with my chimney touching my neighbour's doorstep above.

"Good-bye, Guardian, Mentor, and Granite Tor.

"Your lonely, bewildered, but not utterly beaten—

"BUBBLE."

The Miss Buchans were at tea in the big drawing-room when their nephew arrived.

Gentian was with them. She wore a simple white gown. The only colour about her was that of the arresting blue of her eyes. But as Vernon Buchan came swiftly forward to greet his aunts, his eyes only took in one picture, that of the slim white girlish figure with the piquant oval face, the sunny cloud of hair and the wonderful eyes.

She was introduced to him, and for a moment he wondered how she came there. Miss Anne quietly enlightened him.

"Miss Brendon looks after me, and drives me out in the afternoon. In these days we have lady chauffeurs. It was some time before I became accustomed to the idea."

Gentian said to herself with mutinous lips: "And now I am put in my place and must stay there."

But Vernon was so talkative, and his conversation was so interesting, that she could not stay mute for long, and when she heard that he had only just arrived from Italy and had been to Capri three days before leaving, she clasped her hands in eager delight.

"Oh, tell me! It was my home for so many years. Tell me how it looks. Where did you stay? I know every one. And is Luigi still the first to come and offer to take you and your luggage to the Engleesh-speaking hotel?"

He laughed gaily. Miss Anne could as soon stop the current of a river towards the sea as the animated talk which followed between the two young people.

Before dinner time came, Vernon was well acquainted with Gentian's history, but he did not devote himself entirely to her; he only took good care to include her in conversation with his two aunts.

It was a lovely summer evening. In the big drawing-room later on, Gentian went to the piano. It was her custom to play to Miss Anne for half an hour every night. Vernon sat by the open window, and listened with his heart in his eyes.

"But your music is divine!" he exclaimed. "You have the soul of a true artist. I have my violin. I never go anywhere without it. Will you accompany me?"

"I don't know that I can," said Gentian simply, "but I will try."

Horatia smiled grimly when she saw them settle themselves at the piano for the rest of the evening.

Gentian was quick at reading at sight. Her touch and her execution entranced Vernon.

At last Miss Anne intervened.

"Please let us enjoy your society, Vernon. I think you had better practise in the mornings. Too much music makes my head ache. Oh, don't apologize, but it is nearly ten o'clock and I want to hear a great deal from you. How is your sister, and where is she?"

"Oh, she has a flat in town."

Vernon put by his violin with reluctance.

"I'm staying with her. I had to hurry back, for I have one or two recitals coming off before the season closes."

"Is her husband with her?"

"My dear aunt, is he ever with her? He's hunting big game in Ceylon at present. Emmie and I are always happy together. But just now I'm a harassed wretch. I felt I must have a couple of nights with you, and I've really come down here to look up a certain Miss Lascelles who is in your neighbourhood. My accompanist is ill, he's had to go off to Davos—lung trouble—and Miss Lascelles took his place once before. She lives in Winderball. Isn't that your nearest town?"

"Yes," said Miss Horatia. "I know whom you mean. Miss Lascelles is the daughter of a doctor there. She makes a living by her music, does she not, but some one told me only last week that she had gone abroad—to Austria, I think. She has obtained some musical post over there."

Vernon ran his hand nervously up and down through his hair.

"Disaster stares me in the face! I shall have to pelt back to town to-morrow to arrange something."

But when the next day came he did not go. Instead, he kept Gentian at the piano every moment of her spare time, and at five o'clock tea he sprang his bomb.

"I have been directed down here," he said solemnly; "by my good fairy. I have found my accompanist. Aunt Anne, will you spare Miss Brendon for a week or two? Emmie will gladly put her up. With her, my success in town will be assured. She's a born accompanist."

Miss Anne was simply speechless. Nothing more had been said about Gentian's proposed holiday. Miss Horatia had told her sister gruffly that it was too late in the day to save the situation.

"He is bowled over, as I knew he would be, by her pretty grace and her music. But it will be one of his passing emotions. Vernon is too fond of his own ease and comfort to mean anything serious."

Now Miss Horatia, if feeling startled, did not show it. She smiled at her nephew a little provokingly.

"Anything more?" she asked. "Would you like our good cook, and my hunter? Not that I class Miss Brendon with them, but she is here for a purpose and cannot be spared."

He waved his hand airily.

"She must be spared. You have got on without her for a good many years, and a month at the outside will see me through my recitals. Town will be getting empty very soon. This is my chance, and I am not going to lose it. It would be a sin and shame to keep her down here, whilst I am rushing all over the country and tearing my hair to find somebody who will do for me."

"There are hundreds of people in town who will jump at the job," said Miss Horatia, "and any Concert Directoire would find one for you."

Vernon got up from his seat.

"I mean to have Miss Brendon," he said emphatically. "I shall run away with her, abduct her. It's so easy in these days with a car. She may be going on an errand to the village, a car slows down, a shawl is flung over her head, and it's done. She's dropped in the bottom of the car a helpless heap, and away we go—in London before she is even missed!"

"Don't be so ridiculous, Vernon!"

"And improper," murmured Miss Anne.

Gentian began to laugh. Her happy infectious laugh made every one join in it.

"I am the person to be consulted," she said, "and I could not possibly leave my present situation, sir." Here she gave a little bow to Vernon.

"Oh, indeed you can. Aunt Anne and Aunt Horatia can come up to town with you if they like, if they won't trust Emmie to look after you. I mean you to come—and I'm a bit of a hypnotist; you'll find yourself doing it before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"

"I am going upstairs to have a rest in my room before dinner," announced Miss Anne quietly. "Gentian, come with me, please."

Gentian offered her her arm at once and they left the room together.

Vernon settled down in his chair again. He meant to have it out with his Aunt Horatia.

A determined man can get the better of two women if they happen to be fond of him. Miss Anne and Miss Horatia did not approve of their nephew's ways. He was too Bohemian, too unconventional, and too improvident to please them. But they loved him, and had given him a home when his parents were abroad and he was a small schoolboy.

Before another day had elapsed, Gentian found herself ready to agree to his proposal. Secretly she was elated at the thought of it. She went over to Mrs. Wharnecliffe and coaxed her round to give her permission, but to Thorold she did not write till everything was settled and she was in the train with Vernon for Town.

The ensuing weeks seemed unreal to her. She was by turn delighted and wearied with the wild rush of life that was now her lot. Mrs. St. Lucas, Vernon's sister, was a bright happy-go-lucky little lady, who was as eager in her protestations of friendship for Gentian, as she was in getting rid of all responsibility concerning her.

The practices for the Recitals kept Gentian busy, but she was not at the piano the whole day, and Vernon was only too ready to take her out to lunch and dinner and then to the theatre afterwards. Mrs. St. Lucas was generally with them, but not always—and as time went on, Vernon began to assume airs of proprietorship which Gentian opposed with quiet dignity. She would laugh and talk with him about a hundred different things, but let personality be brought into prominence, then she stiffened immediately.

The first Recital was a great success—Gentian wrote a full account of it to Thorold.

"You see," she concluded, "that I am now being shown that the talent which has been given to me must be used. You have no idea of the flattering things that have been said to me. The Managing Director told me that if I stayed in London, he could give me continual work, and the pay he would offer me staggers me. It would be foolish, dear Cousin Thor, would it not, to go back to the Miss Buchans and wind wool and read magazine articles and drive a car when I could earn double here, and have such a lovely time? It is so exquisite, feeling I have a right and a duty to spend hours at the piano. I have always dreamt of playing to an audience, and they seem to think that I could manage a solo or two of my own later on. Mr. Buchan amuses me so much—he thinks he has a right to choose the dress I am to wear when I play for him. I have to buy new gowns up here. Mrs. St. Lucas has taken me to her dressmaker, and it seems to me that my first earnings will be swallowed up with frocks. He insisted upon my wearing a kind of moonlight blue when I made my first appearance in public. And then he wanted me to be in white and gold. But I stuck at that. It was not retiring enough for an accompanist.

"Oh, Cousin Thor, how he plays! He pours his whole soul out! I think his violin comes first in the world with him. He makes me thrill and quiver when he plays, and I could weep from sheer ecstasy.

"I must tell you, that the other day I met Jim in Bond Street. Mr. Buchan and I were going to the Academy. It was a surprise. Jim came with us, but it was uncomfortable being three, and they glared at each other like angry dogs over a bone. I needn't tell you I was the bone. And the poor bone wished herself miles away from them both.

"Then Jim came to see me yesterday, and Mrs. St. Lucas welcomed him sweetly, but when we were alone, he trotted out the old story, and I thought hard, of the home he would give me, and the fun, and the affection. And the managing. But he told me in the midst of it all, that the musical world was a rotten environment for any girl, and that he would never let any one he knew play in public! I thanked him and dismissed him, and cried when he had gone.

"Why do you all try to manage me? Mr. Buchan does—but I am in his pay, so he is my master. I think you are better than you used to be. Perhaps it is that you are rather tired of me and do not feel it worth while. I thought you might be angry when you heard I was here, but your letters say so little. They're as mild as toast and water. I don't want you to object to what I am doing, for I mean to go on doing it, and I am writing to the Miss Buchans to-day to break with them. Mrs. St. Lucas wants me to go to Vienna with her next month. What do you think of that! I mean to study music there, and next autumn I am assured of plenty of work.

"Sometimes I shut my eyes and see the little valley running down to the sea. Tell me how the mine is going, and if Miss Muir is still planning a house for you. And are you living in lodgings or still at the Rectory?

"This is from the Bubble who is beginning to soar once more."

Thorold's answer was as follows:

"MY DEAR LITTLE FLEDGED MUSICIAN,—

"Why should I try to cut your wings? And stamp upon your talent which is now seeing the light of London Town? I don't like the life for you, and rather agree with poor unfortunate Jim. It is too hard work for one of your calibre. The late hours, the strain, and rush, and artificial atmosphere will all tell on your nervous system, but this, I am sure, you will have to find out for yourself. The week or two you are experiencing now will be very different from the perpetual grind of a professional accompanist. And if you should develop into a professional soloist, it will be harder work still.

"I have nothing to say, except that if you get tired or disillusioned, send for me. I am at the end of a wire. And we'll fix up something else. Never be afraid of owning up to mistakes. Such a lot of trouble comes from false pride. What can I tell you about myself? I am in diggings at a farm near the mine, and I eat a lot of Cornish cream, and enjoy Cornish pasties and Saffron buns. We're very pleased with the mine—we've opened up a vein of tin, and now the work is going fast! I feel sorry that your time at the Mount is over. What will Miss Anne do without you? Vienna is not an attractive town to me. I knew it in my young days before my father died. To spend one of summer's best months there is pitiful. But the music, of course, is enchanting. Only—only—child—don't let the musical world swamp and drown your soul.

"Yours when you want me,

"THOROLD."

Gentian tucked this letter inside her frock after kissing the signature.

"Yours when you want me," she murmured to herself; "how I wish I could make that into a proposal! Oh, Cousin Thor, I'll send for you, I know I shall, but not yet! Things are going too well, and I'm enjoying myself. And my musical soul is being fed and satisfied."

CHAPTER XIV

"I WANT YOU"

TO say that both Mrs. Wharnecliffe and Thorold were very uneasy about their young protégé would be to state it very mildly.

If Mrs. Wharnecliffe had not had her husband in bed with one of his bad attacks of gout, she would have gone up to town herself and taken Gentian under her motherly wing. She knew Mrs. St. Lucas, and was well aware of her happy-go-lucky Bohemian propensities.

As to Thorold, he thought about Gentian night and day; he longed to cast prudence and diffidence to the winds, and go up to London and fetch her down to Cornwall, where she could once more be under his protecting care. But when he had written to her, he waited patiently, dreading, yet sometimes almost longing, to receive a summons from her.

And then about the middle of July it came.

A telegram was handed to him as he was starting to meet his manager at the mine, one morning about ten o'clock.

It was very brief.

"I want you—Gentian."

He flung a few things into his suit-case, borrowed Mr. Muir's car and caught the morning express from Liskeard to town. She had wired to him from a country inn just outside Maidenhead. He did not get there till about six o'clock. The landlady came to the door at once.

"You'll be the young lady's cousin or guardian, so she tells me. She ought to be in bed, but she's on the couch in the best parlour. Come this way, please."

"Is she ill—an accident—what is the matter?

"The doctor says 'tis a marvel: she's escaped with bruises and a sprained wrist. She was pitched right out of the car, and found underneath it."

"Who was with her?"

"Nobody, she drove herself down from town, and turning a corner ran into some felled trees. I always do say that for a reckless driver, give me a young lady!"

Thorold said nothing. He followed her to a small dingy parlour at the back of the house, and there, covered with an old plaid shawl, upon a horsehair couch, lay Gentian. An ugly bruise and plastered cut on her forehead and a bandaged wrist were the only evidences of her accident, but she looked white and shaken, and could only faintly smile as she looked up at him.

"I knew you would come. I told the landlady so."

He stood looking down upon her with his kind eyes.

"Do your friends know where you are?"

"No. I have run away from them."

It was so like Gentian, that Thorold could have smiled, had he been less concerned about her.

And then she held out her unhurt hand to him, and when she had got hold of his hand, clutched it as if she could never let it go, and burst into a flood of tears.

He stood silent beside her, for he knew that her tears would relieve her, and then he said gently:

"Don't bother to talk. I'll wait to be told things till you're feeling better, but I must let Mrs. St. Lucas know where you are, and I would like to see the doctor."

"Don't tell Mrs. St. Lucas, don't! He will come down and make a fuss. We were going up to Chester and York—a kind of tour—and I won't go, and he'll be angry."

She was struggling to get the better of her tears.

"I must wire to relieve their anxiety, but I won't say where you are. I will say you are returning home with me. I will write later when you can give me details."

He left the room. He was always prompt and practical. When he returned, he had seen the doctor, wired to Mrs. St. Lucas, and ordered a nice little dinner to be sent into the parlour for himself and Gentian. He had also got a room for himself at an hotel in Maidenhead.

He found Gentian looking much better and brighter.

"It's all right now you are here," she said, "I'm ready to explain all."

"Not yet. We will have some food first. What a fortunate thing you were so near this inn!"

"Yes; one of the ostlers heard the crash and ran out. It was only just round the corner. Such a corner! They ought to have put up warning lights, but I suppose I was reckless—I felt so."

She could not eat much, she said her head was bad, but she drank a cup of tea, and she looked up at him pathetically when he helped her back to the couch.

"If only I was feeling well, how much we could enjoy ourselves!" she said.

A little later the meal was carried away, and then he drew up a chair to her side, and with her hand lightly clasping his she told her story.

"Do you know Mr. Buchan? He is very amusing, and alive to his finger-tips, and he's a passionate, magnificent violinist. He loves his violin like nothing in the world, and he amuses himself with everybody else. He liked me, and he was awfully nice, and respectful and courteous, and all he ought to be, until we had finished our London recitals. Then he was tired and his nerves were on edge, and he would take me about to places I did not like, and he began to take liberties, called me by my Christian name, and was always taking hold of me, and talking in a silly inane fashion. He thought I liked it, until one day I made myself very angry and showed him that I did not intend to be treated so. Then he did it to tease me.

"The night before last, Mrs. St. Lucas had a dinner engagement somewhere, and I was feeling tired. I had not been in bed before two or three in the morning for a whole week. He came in about dinner time and wanted me to go to the Ritz with him. I refused, and then he said he should stay at home with me. I am quite sure he took too much whisky at dinner, for when he came into the drawing-room afterwards, he reeked of it, and he began to be most objectionable, calling me his 'darling girl' and trying to kiss me. I walked straight away from him and locked myself up in my bedroom.

"Mrs. St. Lucas came home very late, so I determined to tell her about it in the morning. I did not know quite what to do, for she had made all arrangements to go to Vienna, and of course Mr. Buchan was going too, and I suddenly felt sick and disgusted with it all. I hardly slept—worrying through things and not seeing how I could back out of it, or get away from them. Then in the morning I heard from Mrs. St. Lucas' maid when she called me that Mrs. St. Lucas had gone down to Richmond with a party of friends for the day. It was just like her. She left a message saying she would be back early in the evening. I asked the maid if Mr. Buchan were out or in, and she gave me a note from him."

Gentian paused, then with her head held very proudly, she went on:

"If he had apologized for his behaviour, I would very likely have forgiven him on condition he never offended in that way again, but his note was sentimental drivel, just flattering me, and saying that the earth could do better without the sun than he could without me, and he ended by saying he wanted to take me down the river for the day. Would I be kind and come? I sent a message by the maid to say that I was not well and was going to have a quiet day in my room. And then after I had heard him leave the flat, and angrily tell the maid he would not be in till late, it suddenly struck me what I could do!

"In a few minutes I was out of bed and dressed, and had got to the nearest garage. I hired a car without thinking of where I was going. I only knew I must get away from it all. I remembered as I was going through the streets, that Waddy had a married sister in Wiltshire. She came to her funeral, and I thought for the sake of Waddy that she might take me in. And then, just as I came here, I ran into some trees half across the road. I'm not smashed up myself, perhaps it would be better for you and others if I were, but the car is an utter wreck, and I shall have to pay an awful sum at the garage, I suppose. I didn't know what to do, and then I thought of you. And if you can square it up with them now, I'll pay you back by instalments. If it takes a lifetime to do it, I will!"

She glanced up at him feverishly.

Thorold responded at once.

"I'll write to them to-night, they must know, of course. Now what do you want to do?"

There was silence. Gentian leant back against a very hard cushion and looked up at him gravely.

"What do you advise me to do?" she said.

"I think the best thing for you to do is to go to bed and have a good night's rest. You look as if you badly need it. I'll come round after breakfast, and if you feel fit, I'll take you to Mrs. Wharnecliffe, who is really anxious about you. She told me you had left off writing to her."

"Oh, I haven't written to anyone—except perhaps you—and you haven't heard very often, have you?"

"We'll talk over things to-morrow. I do not know whether you want to break entirely with these new friends of yours. But don't worry your head over them. Now I am going. Good night. The landlady says she has a comfortable bedroom for you."

"Oh, what does it matter where I sleep! I'm only a plague and bother to all my friends. Good night. You're like one of your Cornish Tors—I wish—I wish I could be so immovably serene!"

Thorold left her—and acting upon his advice, Gentian went up to her bedroom and got into an old-fashioned fourpost bed with a feather mattress. As she put down her head upon her pillow, she said to herself determinedly:

"I shan't think of Vernon or his sister. I shall wipe them off my mind. I shall only dream and think of that peaceful Cornish valley by the sea, and of Cousin Thor moving about in it trying to shoulder all the people's burdens. He is shouldering mine, and I will leave him to do it. He never fails me."

Sleep came to her very soon in spite of aching wrist and limbs. She met Thorold at the breakfast table the next morning looking much more like herself. And she had recovered her spirits. Meeting his intent gaze she asked him lightly:

"Am I looking an awful guy? I feel as if I have been in a football scrimmage."

"You are very thin," said Thorold gravely. "I suppose it is the result of the life you have been leading—late hours and excitement."

"I have only had six weeks of it, barely that."

"It's long enough to have brought lines to your face which were not there before."

"You're not complimentary. You never are to me. But I have got nervy and cross in London. I always hated towns. I told you so when you came and took Waddy and me away from it. The air is used up, and people get in one's way, and are nasty, and then that rouses nastiness in me."

"Well, now we must talk matters over. You have been too hasty and impetuous in running away like this! Do you want to end all this musical life? Will you be content to settle down quietly away from it all?"

"I never want to get away from music. I could not be happy without a piano or organ, but I never want to see Mr. Buchan again, never. He thinks of nobody but himself, and thinks he can treat me anyhow!"

Gentian's cheeks grew hot and red as she thought of her last interview with Vernon, and of his letter following it.

"I don't know where I am to live," she went on with a plaintive tone in her voice. "I could never go back to the Miss Buchans. Now I see that I treated them badly, for they have been very kind to me. But Mr. Buchan made me write to them and definitely refuse to go back to them. And I can't stay very long with Mrs. Wharnecliffe."

"We'll talk over plans with her," said Thorold hastily. "I think you had better write yourself to both Mr. Buchan and his sister. They have been kind to you. Don't shirk it. You are not a child, and must be able to have the courage of your convictions."

Gentian looked at him with laughter in her eyes.

"You are just the same as ever. Very kind when I am in trouble, but so quick to dictate to me and correct my faults. When I sweep people out of my life, I do it with one good swish of the broom, and never give my reasons. Why should I?"

"I think it would be more courteous and more straightforward if you were to do so."

"What! To tell Mrs. St. Lucas that her brother is detestable to me!"

"No, that is not necessary."

Gentian jumped up from the breakfast table. "I'll write with the greatest pleasure. No one can say that I am afraid of them."

She seized hold of her writing-case, sat down and scribbled off two hasty notes which she handed to Thorold to read before she placed them in their envelopes.

"DEAR MRS. ST. LUCAS,—

"I hope you were not anxious about me. I would have explained had you been home. I have had enough of town life. Your brother and I have had words—I don't feel I care about being with him any more. I have played for him at his two big Recitals, and that is all I came up for. I shall never change my mind, but I thank you for your kind hospitality and hope you will enjoy Vienna. Please send my luggage to Mrs. Wharnecliffe and forgive my hasty departure.

"Yours gratefully,

"GENTIAN BRENDON."

"DEAR MR. BUCHAN,—

"I feel you will have given your sister an explanation of my disappearance. Please do not think that all girls are alike, and that I understand such talk and behaviour as yours. Your letter is offensive to me. What have I done to make you write in such a style? I hope we shall never meet again. I should have been happier if I had never known you.

"I can't describe myself anything but a disgusted and disillusioned acquaintance,

"GENTIAN BRENDON."

Thorold handed them back to her with a very grave face.

"Well, you don't approve of them?"

"I think you might write to him differently. With a little more dignity. After all, he may have only expressed what he felt for you—you are too severe."

"Oh, men always side with men."

"I am trying to be just and fair," said Thorold. "Give his note back to me."

Gentian tore it to pieces, then dashed off another epistle.

"DEAR MR. BUCHAN,—

"I am sorry that I felt obliged to come away from town. Your attitude lately has stopped our friendly intercourse, and I think it wiser to end my visit to your sister.

"Thanking you for all your past kindness,

"Yours sincerely,

"GENTIAN BRENDON."

"That is better," was Thorold's comment. "Now we'll post these at once, and get them off our mind. There's a train we can catch in an hour's time. The doctor wants to see you once more. I see him coming along the road now."

"Oh, I don't want doctors," said Gentian impatiently.

But she was persuaded to see him, and he was able to bandage her wrist afresh.

"You want a good rest. Your nerves are overstrained," he told her. "Why will you young people burn the candle at both ends! Then if illness or accident comes, you have no resisting force to overcome them."

"I consider I've weathered through my accident in splendid fashion," she said.

He shook his head.

"Your pulse does not tell me so. Take it quietly. You will feel your bruises for some days, but you have had a wonderful escape."

In an hour's time Gentian was sitting opposite Thorold in a railway carriage.

He talked to her a great deal about Cornwall; of its traditions and folklore and history. He persistently refused to discuss any future plans with her and she was content, for the time being, to live in the present.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe received Gentian with her usual warmth of welcome.

"The very bad penny has returned to you," said Gentian softly and contritely.

"I almost felt it would be so," was Mrs. Wharnecliffe's response. "Your heart was so set on going, that I felt it would be wise to let you go; but I had a presentiment that it would be a failure."

They had had luncheon in the train. Sitting out under the big acacia tree on the lawn, Gentian poured out her story. Mrs. Wharnecliffe smiled at times at her childishness, yet was surprised with her quick comprehension and discernment. She saw that Vernon Buchan had wearied her long before the actual break with him, and she was thankful for it.

Thorold left them alone for a considerable time; then, when he joined them, Mrs. Wharnecliffe said she must finish writing some letters.

"We will have tea out here," she said. "I shall not be long."

Thorold took a garden chair and pulled out his pipe, but he did not light it. He looked at Gentian in a funny, diffident kind of way.

"Now shall we talk plans?" he said.

"Yes," said Gentian with a sigh; "but you'll be very clever if you can find a home for me anywhere, I must work; but what to do, and how to earn money, I do not know. I suppose I must try and give music lessons, but I am not very patient."

Thorold cleared his throat.

"I should like to offer you a home," he said; "but I doubt if you would—"

"Oh, where? Not in Cornwall with you? As your housekeeper?"

He shook his head.

"Oh, no."

Gentian's face fell.

Then he put his pipe in his pocket, and took her slim little hand in his.

"Am I too old and stodgy for you, Gentian? Too dull and commonplace to make you happy? Would you care to come down to Cornwall and make me one of the happiest men there?"

"Are you asking me to marry you?" whispered Gentian, her blue eyes glowing as she looked up into his rather agitated face.

"I am asking you to be my wife," he said very solemnly.

Her face broke up into ripples of laughter. Then a tender softness came over it.

"Cousin Thor, you're a darling! Do you really mean it?"

"Would I joke on such a subject?"

"I never, never thought you'd care enough for me. Why, I like you better than anyone else in the world! You're not asking me out of pity?"

Thorold had drawn her into his arms.

"There's no pity in my heart," he said softly, "only immense love. And it has been there for a long, long time, only I thought I was too old for you."

"You're not a bit old, you're everything that I want. Did you know how I felt about you?"

"Tell me."

But Gentian had suddenly become shy. "I will one day, but not yet."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe, looking out of her morning-room, suddenly rang her bell, and gave orders that tea was to be delayed half an hour. At the end of that time, she walked out to the acacia tree, and received the news with great equanimity.

"And now do you think all your troubles are at an end, Gentian?" she asked, smiling.

"Troubles?" repeated the girl with shining eyes. "Oh, indeed they are! The whole world is changed to me. Now, Mrs. Wharnecliffe, I shall have a right to go off to Cornwall as often as I like, and a right to have my say in his house, and everything that concerns him. I have a right to look after him in every way. How I've longed to do it! I can hardly believe it is true! Just think. An hour ago I had no hope—no certainty or knowledge of what was to become of me—I was lonely and miserable. I had made a mess of my affairs in town—I had offended the Misses Buchan, I felt you and Cousin Thor did not know what to do with me, and looked upon me as an incubus—an obstacle to your peace of mind! I felt he was going back to his mine, and Miss Muir meant to marry him. And here in this peaceful garden I was at the end of everything. When Cousin Thor said he wanted to talk plans, I thought I should be placed in some awful family, or have a stiff, starched chaperon. I haven't had time to think things out yet. I hardly know if I stand on my head or my heels. Do you think he really and truly means what he says? He's the sort that might sacrifice his whole life from compassion or pity on somebody. And that somebody would be me! You know him very well."

But Thorold interrupted:

"Do you doubt my word?" he asked her softly.

And Gentian gazed at him with tender smiling eyes.

"No, you couldn't tell a lie. You've done for yourself, Cousin Thor, for good or evil you have got me now. Mrs. Wharnecliffe, are you in your heart of hearts the least bit sorry for him?"

"I should be, if I did not know you both very intimately. I know he will satisfy all your requirements, Gentian, and it is in your power to satisfy his."

"Here we are, taking all the romance and beauty out of it, and deliberately discussing it in cold blood," said Gentian. "I shall be as bold as brass, and say it out loud: I love him, Mrs. Wharnecliffe, and he loves me. Nothing else matters, nothing. If his mine burst up to-morrow, and we had to live in two rooms on bread and cheese, I would be singing for joy in my heart."

"And now we will have tea," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, laughing, "and for the present, Gentian, bread and cheese is not your portion. May I say this, that you are a very fortunate girl. I don't think you know what I think of your Cousin Thorold."

"Yes I do—he's a tower of strength. I told him once my ideal of a husband, and he's the only man that has fulfilled it. I want some one like a rock for steadiness and reliability, he must never fail me, never deceive me, never disappoint me. And his soul must be the strongest part of him; for mine is the weakest. And you know his side of the bargain. A scatter-brained, changeable, impetuous, well-meaning, but altogether selfish bubble—just a frothy bubble. But—" here sudden fire leaped to her eyes—"I'll do better, and I'll spend my life in making him happy. He never thinks of himself, he has always thought first of others. I will think first of him."

"You embarrass me," said Thorold.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe gave a turn to the conversation.

"Personalities will now be avoided," she said playfully. "What is more to the purpose is—how long will you be able to stay here, Thorold?"

"I must get back to-morrow night."

They began to discuss plans. But Gentian's glowing animation died down. She sat with clasped hands round her knees, gazing dreamily across the sunny lawn.

She felt that this was the golden hour in her life, and as her eyes wandered up to the deep blue sky above her, she wondered if her faithful friend would be allowed to know the great happiness that had come to her.

CHAPTER XV

THEIR GOLDEN TIME

THOROLD did not leave till late the next afternoon. He took Gentian off for a walk in the morning. And they found a lot to say to each other, though perhaps he was the more silent of the two.

She was rather shy at times.

"You see," she explained to him, "I am not yet accustomed to my new position. And if it seems to turn my head at first, you must make allowances. It's rather a case of King Cophetua and the beggar-maid. Yes, I'm next door to a beggar-maid, and to know that for the rest of my life I shall have no money anxieties is entrancing. Do you think now if the mine goes on well, that you and I could get a couple of good horses and ride about together in Cornwall? You see, I'm at my old trade, begging from the king already!"

Her laughter rang out so merrily that Thorold could not help joining her.

"Yes, we will ride together," he said. "I would rather ride any day than use a car."

"And you'll take that little grey stone house, and let me make it cosy and pretty? What a lot of things there are to be done! Oh, I wonder if I shall make you a good wife? You like the old-fashioned sort, don't you? A wife who'll always stay at home, and take care of the house, and welcome her husband back with smiles of peace and looks of love. I'm afraid I shall find it very difficult, but I mean to do everything you want. Oh, Cousin Thor, you don't know how I worship you!"

"We'll drop the 'cousin,' shall we?"

"Yes, of course. But I've a lot of secret pet names for you. Would you like to hear them? Thorold is so grave and stiff. I called you the Buffer first, because you always came between me and difficulties, and then I thought of you as 'Mr. Ready to help,' and then the 'Limpet's Rock'—I was the limpet, of course—and you were also 'the Universal Improver.'"

"Oh, spare me," said Thorold with a little laugh; "I know I have been very down on you for many things, but you have taken my scoldings like an angel, and I don't feel like scolding any more."

Then in a graver tone, he began to talk to her about the life they would have together, of the responsibilities that would come to them, and of the opportunities they would have of helping those around them.

Gentian listened with eager delight.

"I shall, of course, do all I can. I do think seriously, you know, and I'm full now of noble resolves and desires. You will have to lift me up away from earth when you are soaring heavenwards yourself. And when I drop down with a thud into the mire, you will have to pick me up again, and start me afresh."

Their talk veered from grave to gay, but when they returned to the house, Mrs. Wharnecliffe asked them if they had settled the day for their marriage.

"You have nothing to wait for," she said; "I am sure you know each other through and through. I mean to keep Gentian with me until her trousseau will be ready, and you will have to get your house in order, Thorold. Don't think I want to hurry you, but I'm going to take Phil to the Riviera in November, and should love to see you settled comfortably for the winter, before we go."

"I have touched upon that crucial point," said Thorold.

"Yes," said Gentian, a little shyly; "and I'm going to leave it to him—I want just a little time to take it all in, and to think over it, but when he wants me, I'll be ready."

"Then why not fix a day towards the end of October? That will leave a good three months," suggested Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

And both Thorold and Gentian signified their assent.

The hours of that day passed too quickly for Gentian. She clung to Thorold when his time of departure came.

"You are quite sure you haven't made a mistake?" she said, laying her head on his shoulder with a little happy sigh; "you won't let Miss Muir make you think I am too young and giddy to make you a good wife? I shall do awful things sometimes, I always do, but I shan't do them on purpose. And I have some pride, and I'll show Miss Muir that I can keep house, and dispense hospitality, and be as good a hostess as she is herself."

"I am not afraid that my future wife will lack either dignity or grace," said Thorold. "My darling, I have made many mistakes in my life, but I am quite certain that I am not making one now."

"And we'll write and write and write to each other, till we meet again," said Gentian; "and if you're very long away, I shall get into my car and come tearing down to see you—I can always do that."

She parted from him with smiles and misty eyes, and when he had gone, came to Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"Oh, I'm the happiest girl in the world! Did you know he liked me? Did you know I liked him? I'm thanking God with all my heart for bringing such joy into my life. I shall love Him so much more, and shall serve Him so much better now. I always think that Cousin Thor is an uncalendared saint; and living with him will, of course, make me a much better character. We won't keep our engagement a secret. There's one person I should like to tell soon, and that is Sir Gilbert. He is one of my greatest friends next to you."

"We'll drive over and see him to-morrow," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "I have had a pretty good idea, for some time past, that your feelings towards Thorold were undergoing a change. You did not care for him at first, did you?"

"Well, no," admitted Gentian; "for he was too masterful. Isn't it funny? I don't mind that a bit now. I like it in him—I don't want my own way, I want his."

"Ah," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, "that is the right kind of love, that gives more than it takes. I hope you'll always feel like that, my dear child."

"I have really grown older," said Gentian thoughtfully, "in many ways. Dear Waddy's illness taught me a good deal. I remember I felt when she left me, that I would never smile again, my heart was quite cold and dead. Cousin Thor did me good, when he came over to see me. And I see now how right he was. Trouble does work for good if we take it in the right way. I was very rebellious and impatient at first, and I have been most awfully depressed lately—not seeing my future one little bit. Somehow I never dreamt that Cousin Thor would or could care for me. I felt very inclined to marry Jim, or anyone, and make the best of a bad job. Fancy if I had! It doesn't bear thinking about."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe let her talk on. She was a very sympathetic listener, and was too pleased with the match to be over-critical; otherwise she might have checked the girl's egotistical talk.

In a few days the news became known.

Sir Gilbert received it with his serene smile.

"I think," he said, "I must congratulate you most. There are few men nowadays so quietly helpful and so selfless as Thorold Holt."

"Yes," said Gentian; "everybody loves him. I suppose you think I am not half good enough for him. He ought to have a sweet, dignified, queenly woman, serene and calm, and instead, he has me."

"He has a little person who is learning fast to control her likes and dislikes, to think nothing of herself, and everything of those she loves."

"I am trying to arrive at that, but am not there yet," said Gentian humbly.

Miss Horatia arrived over one afternoon to offer her congratulations.

"I felt you would not come and see us," she said in her blunt downright fashion; "so I came to see you. We are not annoyed with you, though I am sure you think we are. Anne and I know our nephew's way so well. That was why we did not want you to meet him. He takes violent fancies to girls, and then slips away from them, before he definitely commits himself."

"He didn't treat me like that," said Gentian, with great dignity. "It was I who ran away from him. But I was too hasty and impulsive, Miss Horatia. I was beside myself with excitement in London, and when I was told I could make quite a nice sum by accompanying people, I thought I should like to take it up as a profession."

"And then what happened?" inquired Miss Horatia.

"Well," said Gentian hesitating, "Mr. Vernon would not leave me alone. He wearied me. I had to do everything with him, and go everywhere with him, and I got sick of it, and of the people I had to meet. I am not made for towns. I always think some of us are made for the country and some for towns, don't you think so? And then I simply fled, and I never want to see London again. It all tired me to death, and made my nerves all come to the top of my skin. Do you know the feeling?"

"I could have told you what it would be like, but you would not have believed me."

"I am ashamed of myself. How is Miss Anne? Would she see me if I came over and asked her forgiveness for leaving her so suddenly, after all her kindness to me?"

"She'll like to see you any day. And so you're really engaged to Thorold Holt? I thought you considered him an antiquated prig and meddler."

"I thought he was everything that was horrid when I first knew him," said Gentian laughing; "but everybody who really gets to know him, and watches his life, must adore him, Miss Horatia!"

Miss Horatia laughed.

"Then that is your role now! Well—you can pin your faith and love on Thorold and never be disillusioned. I'll say that, and I've known him for a good many years. You're a lucky young woman, and I congratulate you with all my heart."

"Thank you. Every one tells me that. And they nearly say 'you're not half enough good for him,' their eyes and corners of their mouths say it, if their tongues don't! But it's quite true. I'm not good enough, or clever enough, or steady enough. But somebody said once that people who live together get like each other, so I'm hoping to get like him in time."

"You would do well to be shaken into a bag together," said Miss Horatia. "I dare say you'll tone down, and he'll brisk up. Now what I want to ask you is this: Are you going to get a chance of continuing your riding after you're married?"

"Oh, I hope so. Cousin Thor says he will have horses. How is my dear Sophy?"

"She's eating her head off in the stable. Are you staying here? If so, come over and exercise her. I think I may give my old hunter to you as a wedding present."

"Oh, Miss Horatia! After the way I have behaved! Why, you're a perfect angel!"

Impulsive Gentian seized hold of Miss Horatia's hands, and in her pretty foreign fashion which had not altogether left her, lifted them to her lips and kissed them.

Miss Horatia drew her hands away with a little laugh.

"You didn't offend me. Young people must go their own way nowadays. I couldn't, when I was a girl—more's the pity. And you have gone up several pegs in my estimation by your appreciation of Thorold."

"Appreciation!" gasped Gentian. "Why I would die for him! Nobody realizes what I feel for him!"

The next day she went over to see Miss Anne, who received her kindly, but a little stiffly.

But when Gentian told her contritely how sorry and ashamed she was for having left them in such haste, she was graciously forgiven.

"My sister and I have talked it over. We knew you were under our nephew's influence, for he wrote to us about you and told us plainly that he would not let you come back to us. You made a great mistake in going up to town in the first instance, but that you would do. However, all's well that ends well, and I think that Mrs. Wharnecliffe and anyone who cares about you, must feel very thankful for your engagement."

"Yes," murmured Gentian; "I'm sure you think it is more than I deserve. But it means a fresh start, and a new life, and a glorious future for me. And I'm going to try and turn into a dowdy, virtuous, old-fashioned wife, so that every one will say: 'How her marriage has improved her! I never should have dreamt that that undisciplined, wilful, giddy girl could have altered so!' I hope you'll say so, dear Miss Anne—oh, do give me your blessing."

Miss Anne could no more resist Gentian when she adopted her winning, persuasive tone than anyone else. She promised she would come to her wedding if she were able, and would be glad to see her at any time.

And then for the next month Mrs. Wharnecliffe kept her very busy over her trousseau. She wanted to take Gentian for a few weeks to town to shop there, but the girl shrank from it, and said she would much rather get her clothes made locally.

"You don't like a place that has made you unhappy. London was not a friend to me. I think she is one of the cities in the world which is pleasant for the workers and business people and the gay idlers, but I'm a betwixt and a between, I'm not exactly a drone, and I'm not a busy bee. I'm just a lover of sunshine and peace and quiet country. Don't smile like that, Mrs. Wharnecliffe. I'm altering a lot as I grow older. I shall love the quietness of that grey Cornish house, and you can't say I don't love the country here. And I'm not going to be a smart, fashionable woman. Thorold loves me in blue, he says he wants me to dress in nothing else, so that's easy. And we're not going to have a smart wedding."

"But I shall insist upon a white wedding dress," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe firmly, "and you must have one or two nice evening frocks and some of them not blue."

Gentian was smiling happily, with her thoughts far away. Thorold had told her that the picture of her standing in the doorway of that dingy lodging-house in London had never left his memory.

"You were dressed in a rich blue gown with turquoise beads, and somehow you reminded me with your sad, sweet little face and big blue eyes of a young madonna. You might have stepped out of some old Italian picture."

"And then you discovered I was only an imp," Gentian had said to him.

She was thinking of this now and of how Thorold had drawn her into his arms and murmured:

"My little blue Gentian—I want you always dressed in blue."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe smiled as she noted her abstraction of mind. She remembered her own courting days, and made due allowance for Gentian's moods.

Time slipped along rapidly; and then they went for another day or two down to Cornwall.

This time Frances Muir was away, and Gentian was relieved to hear it.

The house was in the decorators' hands, and work being pushed along as rapidly as it could be in one of the leisurable counties of England.

Thorold and Gentian wandered over the house by themselves.

"How I longed to furnish it when I was here before. And now we are doing it," laughed Gentian. "Now you must promise not to laugh at me if I ask you for one thing. There is a little empty room at the end of the passage. It looks out west. I want a bit of the house all to myself, and I want this room. I shall watch the sunsets from it, and in the winter I shall see the daylight die away later than in any other room."

"You shall have the room most certainly. It can be your boudoir."

"No, no, it is going to be my Sanctuary. When I was in Italy, I knew somebody—she was only a girl—one of my own friends—but she had in her beautiful home one little room where she used to go to tell her beads and pray before a silver crucifix. I am not a Roman Catholic. I don't want a crucifix or beads, but I shall have a prie-dieu chair just before the window, and I shall have my Bible on a blue cushion upon the wide window-ledge, and when I'm in one of my passions—or when I feel worried or depressed—I shall run away there and be quiet, and then shall come out with peace in my heart. Sir Gilbert and you have taught me to take all my troubles to God. I do it as a habit now. But I love to have a little quiet closet as the Bible says, and be shut in there alone."

"My darling," said Thorold, bending over her and kissing rather a wistful little face, "you shall indeed have your Sanctuary. I only wish it were big enough for a small organ, for I think you would like one there. But I must tell you, I am going to present the little church here with one. I don't think you and I could stand that harmonium every Sunday. I have talked with Dick about it, and he is very pleased. You will be able to run into church whenever you like, and if you would sometimes play for the Sunday services, I expect everyone would be delighted."

Gentian's face became radiant.

"An organ! Oh, how lovely. It is the one thing I have felt unhappy about, leaving dear St. Anselm's and my dear, dear organ! Why, Thorold, there's everything we want now in this little village."

And Thorold made response in his dry and whimsical way:

"I am easily contented. Organs and rooms, and all such common things only form a background to my centre. And my centre is to be kept well and happy, so I am now going to lock this house up before she gets overtired and take her off to the Rectory to lunch."

*       *        *       *        *

Many people gathered together to see Gentian married in St. Anselm's Church. And yet it was a very quiet wedding. Neither of Thorold's young brothers was present. Gentian was much relieved to hear of Godwin's engagement to his Admiral's daughter, before her own engagement to his brother was broken to him.

It was a bright, frosty October morning. Sir Gilbert gave the bride away, and afterwards played the wedding march himself as she and her bridegroom came down the aisle. Through the whole of the service Gentian seemed very composed and quiet, but her head drooped and she never raised her eyes.

Thorold had felt her hand tremble as he put the ring upon her finger.

She never once looked at him till they were in the car driving from the church to Oakberry Hall, and then when Thorold put his arm round her, she glanced up at him through a mist of tears.

"It's just joy," she whispered to him, "and relief that I did not take Jim in a hurry and lose you! And it's a little bit frightening, isn't it, getting married? We've neither of us done it before, and if you ever were to be disgusted and ashamed of me, what should I do? Now, don't stop me! I feel that everybody thinks me too young and foolish to be your wife, but time will put that right, won't it?"

Thorold's protests made her smile.

"And now," she said, "just call me Mrs. Holt, so that I may hear how it sounds."

Afterwards, at Mrs. Wharnecliffe's reception, her quiet grace and dignity were noted by all.

The rector's wife was much impressed by it.

"She has improved," she said to her husband; "since Miss Ward's death she has been much steadier. I could have wished that Mr. Holt had done better, but of course, in the circumstances, one does not wonder that he has married her. He considered that he had cut her out of her relation's money."

But it was not pity that shone in Thorold's grey eyes. He had had a grey life, and the golden sunshine that now flooded his heart almost dazed him. Gentian had long ago stolen into his heart; he knew that she would be enshrined there for the rest of his life. They went off to Italy for a fortnight and then came straight home to Cornwall.

It had been an ideal honeymoon. Thorold looked years younger, and Gentian had developed in many ways. She was changing from a pretty girl into a beautiful woman. Sometimes her grave dignity with strangers made her husband wonder. Her explanation was very simple:

"I am not going to be that contemptible thing, a child-wife! People shan't curl their lips, and go away and pity you. When we're quite alone, I'll have my fun, but not in public!"

They came to their grey manor house as dusk was falling, but there were lights and fire to welcome them, and Frances Muir had found them a delightful Cornish couple of the name of Tiddy. Mr. Tiddy opened the door and made smart salute. He had been a sailor, and thought the British Navy the most important creation on the face of the earth. Mrs. Tiddy was clean and rosy and very small, but she moved about at lightning pace and never wasted time in talk. Her spouse was the one with the tongue, as she told Gentian when talking about him.

"I knew afore us were wedded what a clacker 'e be, an' sez I, two tongues wull soon raise the wind, one agen t'uther, zo zilent be I from this time forth, an' so I be. But I'll say this for Jerry, 'e du wark so well as talk."

Most of Thorold's furniture had been brought to the house. The square hall, with its thick rugs underfoot, and thick curtains to the doors and windows, and blazing log fire, looked a very different place from when Gentian had first seen it. Whilst Thorold was giving directions about their luggage, she ran upstairs, peeped into her big, bright bedroom, where flowered chintzes and another bright fire awaited her, and then down the passage she went to her Sanctuary. There was no fire here, but she turned on the electric light, which had been installed all over the house, and looked around her, well pleased with the result of her furnishing.

The walls were white, the woodwork dark oak. A rich blue carpet was on the floor, and blue velvet curtains were drawn across the windows. The prie-dieu chair, with its blue cushion, was before the window; there were a writing-table, an easy chair and a small book-case filled with devotional books. Two pictures only were hung upon the walls. One depicted Christ walking with his two disciples to Emmaus, the other Daniel kneeling before his open window.

Gentian drew aside the curtains. In the distance she saw a line of silver sea. A young moon was already shining in the sky. She gazed for a moment up into the infinite blue above her, then turned and, kneeling upon her chair, bowed her head.

"O God," she murmured, "I thank Thee for my husband and home. Bless us in it. Make me a good wife, and help me to be a better Christian, for Jesus Christ's sake—Amen."

A moment later and she was hanging upon her husband's arm, listening with laughing eyes to Tiddy's talk.

"Missus an' me will do 'ee praper, esfay us will. A've bin to sea wi' the highest in the land, an' they be most alway single gents, and vrom puttin' in they dashed little studs in dinner starched shirts to cleanin' patent boots wi' a shine on they vit to see wan's face tu, a've waited on 'em, an' got nought but praise. An' missus an' me can well attend tu the wants of a couple like 'ee, for a du lay that man an' maid, be they king or tinker folk, when they virst be wed, be so ower taken up wi' each on 'em, that they be main easy to be pleased."

Thorold laughed and drew Gentian into the smoking-room.

"He won't find us such fools as he hopes. We dream our dreams, but I for one can be very practical, and I think my wife can be so too."

"I want to be everything that I ought to be," said Gentian earnestly, then she laughingly laid her head on her husband's shoulder.

"But there is one thing I can't and won't be, and that is a long-faced, melancholy Christian. They ought to be exterminated, for they make others hate religion."

"I hope I'm not one of that sort," said Thorold smiling.

"You? Never. You're grave sometimes, but the twinkle in your eyes always saves you. Oh, Thorold, do you think we shall always be as happy as we are now?"

And Thorold, looking at the radiant young face turned towards him, had no misgivings that life should rob her of her joyousness. He only softly repeated some lines which he had read:

"The heart that trusts for ever sings,
And feels as light as it had wings;
A well of peace within it springs,
Come good or ill,
Whate'er to-day, to-morrow brings.
It is His Will."

FINIS

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Table of Contents

- A GIRL AND HER WAYS
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- CHAPTER XV
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE