‘Have you talked it over with her?’ said Mr. Ferrars, as his little slender wife met him under the beeches that made an avenue of the lane leading to Fairmead vicarage.

‘Yes!’ was the answer, which the vicar was not slow to understand.

‘I cannot say I expected much from your conversation, and perhaps we ought not to wish it. We are likely to see with selfish eyes, for what shall we do without her?’

‘Dear Albinia! You always taunted me with having married your sister as much as yourself.’

‘So I shall again, if you cannot give her up with a good grace.’

‘If I could have had my own way in disposing of her.’

‘Perhaps the hero of your own composition might be less satisfactory to her than is Kendal.’

‘At least he should be minus the children!’

‘I fancy the children are one great attraction. Do you know how many there are?’

‘Three; but if Albinia knows their ages she involves them in a discreet haze. I imagine some are in their teens.’

‘Impossible, Winifred, he is hardly five-and-thirty.’

‘Thirty-eight, he said yesterday, and he married very early. I asked Albinia if her son would be in tail-coats; but she thought I was laughing at her, and would not say. She is quite eager at the notion of being governess to the girls.’

‘She has wanted scope for her energies,’ said Mr. Ferrars. ‘Even spoiling her nephew, and being my curate, have not afforded field enough for her spirit of usefulness.’

‘That is what I am afraid of.’

‘Of what, Winifred?’

‘That it is my fault. Before our marriage, you and she were the whole world to each other; but since I came, I have seen, as you say, that the craving for work was strong, and I fear it actuates her more than she knows.’

‘No such thing. It is a case of good hearty love. What, are you afraid of that, too?’

‘Yes, I am. I grudge her giving her fresh whole young heart away to a man who has no return to make. His heart is in his first wife’s grave. Yes, you may smile, Maurice, as if I were talking romance; but only look at him, poor man! Did you ever see any one so utterly broken down? She can hardly beguile a smile from him.’

‘His melancholy is one of his charms in her eyes.’

‘So it may be, as a sort of interesting romance. I am sure I pity the poor man heartily, but to see her at three-and-twenty, with her sweet face and high spirits, give herself away to a man who looks but half alive, and cannot, if he would, return that full first love—have the charge of a tribe of children, be spied and commented on by the first wife’s relations—Maurice, I cannot bear it.’

‘It is not what we should have chosen,’ said her husband, ‘but it has a bright side. Kendal is a most right-minded, superior man, and she appreciates him thoroughly. She has great energy and cheerfulness, and if she can comfort him, and rouse him into activity, and be the kind mother she will be to his poor children, I do not think we ought to grudge her from our own home.’

‘You and she have so strong a feeling for motherless children!’

‘Thinking of Kendal as I do, I have but one fear for her.’

‘I have many—the chief being the grandmother.’

‘Mine will make you angry, but it is my only one. You, who have only known her since she has subdued it, have probably never guessed that she has that sort of quick sensitive temper—’

‘Maurice, Maurice! as if I had not been a most provoking, presuming sister-in-law. As if I had not acted so that if Albinia ever had a temper, she must have shown it.’

‘I knew you would not believe me, and I really am not afraid of her doing any harm by it, if that is what you suspect me of. No, indeed; but I fear it may make her feel any trials of her position more acutely than a placid person would.’

‘Oho! so you own there will be trials!’

‘My dear Winifred, as if I had not sat up till twelve last night laying them before Albinia. How sick the poor child must be of our arguments, when there is no real objection, and she is so much attached! Have you heard anything about these connexions of his? Did you not write to Mrs. Nugent? I wish she were at home.’

‘I had her answer by this afternoon’s post, but there is nothing to tell. Mr. Kendal has only been settled at Bayford Bridge a few years, and she never visited any one there, though Mr. Nugent had met Mr. Kendal several times before his wife’s death, and liked him. Emily is charmed to have Albinia for a neighbour.’

‘Does she know nothing of the Meadows’ family?’

‘Nothing but that old Mrs. Meadows lives in the town with one unmarried daughter. She speaks highly of the clergyman.’

‘John Dusautoy? Ay, he is admirable—not that I have done more than see him at visitations when he was curate at Lauriston.’

‘Is he married?’

‘I fancy he is, but I am not sure. There is one good friend for Albinia any way!’

‘And now for your investigations. Did you see Colonel Bury?’

‘I did, but he could say little more than we knew. He says nothing could be more exemplary than Kendal’s whole conduct in India, he only regretted that he kept so much aloof from others, that his principle and gentlemanly feeling did not tell as much as could have been wished. He has always been wrapped up in his own pursuits—a perfect dictionary of information.’

‘We had found out that, though he is so silent. I should think him a most elegant scholar.’

‘And a deep one. He has studied and polished his acquirements to the utmost. I assure you, Winifred, I mean to be proud of my brother-in-law.’

‘What did you hear of the first wife?’

‘It was an early marriage. He went home as soon as he had sufficient salary, married her, and brought her out. She was a brilliant dark beauty, who became quickly a motherly, housewifely, common-place person—I should think there had been a poet’s love, never awakened from.’

‘The very thing that has always struck me when, poor man, he has tried to be civil to me. Here is a man, sensible himself, but who has never had the hap to live with sensible women.’

‘When their children grew too old for India, she came into some little property at Bayford Bridge, which enabled him to retire. Colonel Bury came home in the same ship, and saw much of them, liked him better and better, and seems to have been rather wearied by her. A very good woman, he says, and Kendal most fondly attached; but as to comparing her with Miss Ferrars, he could not think of it for a moment. So they settled at Bayford, and there, about two years ago, came this terrible visitation of typhus fever.’

‘I remember how Colonel Bury used to come and sigh over his friend’s illness and trouble.’

‘He could not help going over it again. The children all fell ill together—the two eldest were twin boys, one puny, the other a very fine fellow, and his father’s especial pride and delight. As so often happens, the sickly one was spared, the healthy one was taken.’

‘Then Albinia will have an invalid on her hands!’

‘The Colonel says this Edmund was a particularly promising boy, and poor Kendal felt the loss dreadfully. He sickened after that, and his wife was worn out with nursing and grief, and sank under the fever at once. Poor Kendal has never held up his head since; he had a terrible relapse.’

‘And,’ said Winifred, ‘he no sooner recovers than he goes and marries our Albinia!’

‘Two years, my dear.’

‘Pray explain to me, Maurice, why, when people become widowed in any unusually lamentable way, they always are the first to marry again.’

‘Incorrigible. I meant to make you pity him.’

‘I did, till I found I had wasted my pity. Why could not these Meadowses look after his children! Why must the Colonel bring him here? I believe it was with malice prepense!’

‘The Colonel went to see after him, and found him so drooping and wretched, that he insisted on bringing him home with him, and old Mrs. Meadows and her daughter almost forced him to accept the invitation.’

‘They little guessed what the Colonel would be at!’

‘You will be better now you have the Colonel to abuse,’ said her husband.

‘And pray what do you mean to say to the General?’

‘Exactly what I think.’

‘And to the aunts?’ slyly asked the wife.

‘I think I shall leave you all that correspondence. It will be too edifying to see you making common cause with the aunts.’

‘That comes of trying to threaten one’s husband; and here they come,’ said Winifred. ‘Well, Maurice, what can’t be cured must be endured. Albinia’a heart is gone, he is a very good man, and spite of India, first wife, and melancholy, he does not look amiss!’

Mr. Ferrars smiled at the chary, grudging commendation of the tall, handsome man who advanced through the beech-wood, but it was too true that his clear olive complexion had not the line of health, that there was a world of oppression on his broad brow and deep hazel eyes, and that it was a dim, dreamy, reluctant smile that was awakened by the voice of the lady who walked by his side, as if reverencing his grave mood.

She was rather tall, very graceful, and well made, but her features were less handsome than sweet, bright, and sensible. Her hair was nut-brown, in long curled waves; her eyes, deep soft grey, and though downcast under the new sympathies, new feelings, and responsibilities that crowded on her, the smile and sparkle that lighted them as she blushed and nodded to her brother and sister, showed that liveliness was the natural expression of that engaging face.

Say what they would, it was evident that Albinia Ferrars had cast in her lot with Edmund Kendal, and that her energetic spirit and love of children animated her to embrace joyfully the cares which such a choice must impose on her.

As might have been perceived by one glance at the figure, step, and bearing of Mr. Ferrars, perfectly clerical though they were, he belonged to a military family. His father had been a distinguished Peninsular officer, and his brother, older by many years, held a command in Canada. Maurice and Albinia, early left orphans, had, with a young cousin, been chiefly under the charge of their aunts, Mrs. Annesley and Miss Ferrars, and had found a kind home in their house in Mayfair, until Maurice had been ordained to the family living of Fairmead, and his sister had gone to live with him there, extorting the consent of her elder brother to her spending a more real and active life than her aunts’ round of society could offer her.

The aunts lamented, but they could seldom win their darling to them for more than a few weeks at a time, even after their nephew Maurice had—as they considered—thrown himself away on a little lively lady of Irish parentage, no equal in birth or fortune, in their opinion, for the grandson of Lord Belraven.

They had been very friendly to the young wife, but their hopes had all the more been fixed on Albinia; and even Winifred could afford them some generous pity in the engagement of their favourite niece to a retired East India Company’s servant—a widower with three children.

CHAPTER II

The equinoctial sun had long set, and the blue haze of March east wind had deepened into twilight and darkness when Albinia Kendal found herself driving down the steep hilly street of Bayford. The town was not large nor modern enough for gas, and the dark street was only lighted here and there by a shop of more pretension; the plate-glass of the enterprising draper, with the light veiled by shawls and ribbons, the ‘purple jars,’ green, ruby, and crimson of the chemist; and the modest ray of the grocer, revealing busy heads driving Saturday-night bargains.

‘How well I soon shall know them all,’ said Albinia, looking at her husband, though she knew she could not see his face, as he leant back silently in his corner, and she tried to say no more. She was sure that coming home was painful to him; he had been so willing to put it off, and to prolong those pleasant seaside days, when there had been such pleasant reading, walking, musing, and a great deal of happy silence.

Down the hill, and a little way on level ground—houses on one side, something like hedge or shrubbery on the other—a stop—a gate opened—a hollow sound beneath the carriage, as though crossing a wooden bridge—trees—bright windows—an open door—and light streaming from it.

‘Here is your home, Albinia,’ said that deep musical voice that she loved the better for the subdued melancholy of the tones, and the suppressed sigh that could not be hidden.

‘And my children,’ she eagerly said, as he handed her out, and, springing to the ground, she hurried to the open door opposite, where, in the lamp-light, she saw, moving about in shy curiosity and embarrassment, two girls in white frocks and broad scarlet sashes, and a boy, who, as she advanced, retreated with his younger sister to the fireplace, while the elder one, a pretty, and rather formal looking girl of twelve, stood forward.

Albinia held out her arms, saying, ‘You are Lucy, I am sure,’ and eagerly kissed the girl’s smiling, bright face.

‘Yes, I am Lucy,’ was the well-pleased answer, ‘I am glad you are come.’

‘I hope we shall be very good friends,’ said Albinia, with the sweet smile that few, young or old, could resist. ‘And this is Gilbert,’ as she kissed the blushing cheek of a thin boy of thirteen—‘and Sophia.’

Sophia, who was eleven, had not stirred to meet her. She alone inherited her father’s fine straight profile, and large black eyes, but she had the heaviness of feature that sometimes goes with very dark complexions. The white frock did not become her brown neck and arms, her thick black hair was arranged in too womanly a manner, and her head and face looked too large; moreover, there was no lighting-up to answer the greeting, and Albinia was disappointed.

Poor child, she thought, she is feeling deeply that I am an interloper, it will be different now her father is coming.

Mr. Kendal was crossing the hall, and as he entered he took the hand and kissed the forehead of each of the three, but Sophia stood with the same half sullen indifference—it might be shyness, or sensibility.

‘How much you are grown!’ he said, looking at the children with some surprise.

In fact, though Albinia knew their ages, they were all on a larger scale than she had expected, and looked too old for the children of a man of his youthful appearance. Gilbert had the slight look of rapid growth; Lucy, though not so tall, and with a small, clear, bright face, had the air of a little woman, and Sophia’s face might have befitted any age.

‘Yes, papa,’ said Lucy; ‘Gilbert has grown an inch-and-a-half since October, for we measured him.’

‘Have you been well, Gilbert?’ continued Mr. Kendal, anxiously.

‘I have the toothache, said Gilbert, piteously.

‘Happily, nothing more serious,’ thrust in Lucy; ‘Mr. Bowles told Aunt Maria that he considers Gilbert’s health much improved.’

Albinia asked some kind questions about the delinquent tooth, but the answers were short; and, to put an end to the general constraint, she asked Lucy to show her to her room.

It was a pretty bay-windowed room, and looked cheerful in the firelight. Lucy’s tongue was at once unloosed, telling that Gilbert’s tutor, Mr. Salsted, had insisted on his having his tooth extracted, and that he had refused, saying it was quite well; but Lucy gave it as her opinion that he much preferred the toothache to his lessons.

‘Where does Mr. Salsted live?’

‘At Tremblam, about two miles off; Gilbert rides the pony over there every day, except when he has the toothache, and then he stays at home.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘We went to Miss Belmarche till the end of our quarter, and since that we have been at home, or with grandmamma. Do you

really

mean that we are to study with you?’

‘I should like it, my dear. I have been looking forward very much to teaching you and Sophia.’

‘Thank you, mamma.’

The word was said with an effort as if it came strangely, but it thrilled Albinia’s heart, and she kissed Lucy, who clung to her, and returned the caress.

‘I shall tell Gilbert and Sophy what a dear mamma you are,’ she said. ‘Do you know, Sophy says she shall never call you anything but Mrs. Kendal; and I know Gilbert means the same.’

‘Let them call me whatever suits them best,’ said Albinia; ‘I had rather they waited till they feel that they like to call me as you have done—thank you for it, dear Lucy. You must not fancy I shall be at all hurt at your thinking of times past. I shall want you to tell me of them, and of your own dear mother, and what will suit papa best.’

Lucy looked highly gratified, and eagerly said, ‘I am sure I shall love you just like my own mamma.’

‘No,’ said Albinia, kindly; ‘I do not expect that, my dear. I don’t ask for any more than you can freely give, dear child. You must bear with having me in that place, and we will try and help each other to make your papa comfortable; and, Lucy, you will forgive me, if I am impetuous, and make mistakes.’

Lucy’s little clear black eyes looked as if nothing like this had ever come within her range of observation, and Albinia could sympathize with her difficulty of reply.

Mr. Kendal was not in the drawing-room when they re-entered, there was only Gilbert nursing his toothache by the fire, and Sophy sitting in the middle of the rug, holding up a screen. She said something good-natured to each, but neither responded graciously, and Lucy went on talking, showing off the room, the chiffonieres, the ornaments, and some pretty Indian ivory carvings. There was a great ottoman of Aunt Maria’s work, and a huge cushion with an Arab horseman, that Lucy would uncover, whispering, ‘Poor mamma worked it,’ while Sophy visibly winced, and Albinia hurried it into the chintz cover again, lest Mr. Kendal should come. But Lucy had full time to be communicative about the household with such a satisfied, capable manner, that Albinia asked if she had been keeping house all this time.

‘No; old Nurse kept the keys, and managed till now; but she went this morning.’

Sophy’s mouth twitched.

‘She was so very fond—’ continued Lucy.

‘Don’t!’ burst out Sophy, almost the first word Albinia had heard from her; but no more passed, for Mr. Kendal came in, and Lucy’s conversation instantly was at an end.’

Before him she was almost as silent as the others, and he seldom addressed himself to her, only inquiring once after her grandmamma’s health, and once calling Sophy out of the way when she was standing between the fire and—He finished with the gesture of command, whether he said ‘Your mamma,’ none could tell.

It was late, and the meal was not over before bed-time, when Albinia lingered to find remedies for Gilbert’s toothache, pleased to feel herself making a commencement of motherly care, and to meet an affectionate glance of thanks from Mr. Kendal’s eye. Gilbert, too, thanked her with less shyness than before, and was hopeful about the remedy; and with the feeling of having made a beginning, she ran down to tell Mr. Kendal that she thought he had hardly done justice to the children—they were fine creatures—something so sweet and winning about Lucy—she liked Gilbert’s countenance—Sophy must have something deep and noble in her.

He lifted his head to look at her bright face, and said, ‘They are very much obliged to you.’

‘You must not say that, they are my own.’

‘I will not say it again, but as I look at you, and the home to which I have brought you, I feel that I have acted selfishly.’

Albinia timidly pressed his hand, ‘Work was always what I wished,’ she said, ‘if only I could do anything to lighten your grief and care.’

He gave a deep, heavy sigh. Albinia felt that if he had hoped to have lessened the sadness, he had surely found it again at his own door. He roused himself, however, to say, ‘This is using you ill, Albinia; no one is more sensible of it than I am.’

‘I never sought more than you can give,’ she murmured; ‘I only wish to do what I can for you, and you will not let me disturb you.’

‘I am very grateful to you,’ was his answer; a sad welcome for a bride. ‘And these poor children will owe everything to you.’

‘I wish I may do right by them,’ said Albinia, fervently.

‘The flower of the flock’—began Mr. Kendal, but he broke off at once.

Albinia had told Winifred that she could bear to have his wife’s memory first with him, and that she knew that she could not compensate to him for his loss, but the actual sight of his dejection came on her with a chill, and she had to call up all her energies and hopes, and, still better, the thought of strength not her own, to enable her to look cheerfully on the prospect. Sleep revived her elastic spirits, and with eager curiosity she drew up her blind in the morning, for the first view of her new home.

But there was a veil—moisture made the panes resemble ground glass, and when she had rubbed that away, and secured a clear corner, her range of vision was not much more extensive. She could only see the grey outline of trees and shrubs, obscured by the heavy mist; and on the lawn below, a thick cloud that seemed to hang over a dark space which she suspected to be a large pond.

‘There is very little to be gained by looking out here!’ Albinia soliloquized. ‘It is not doing the place justice to study it on a misty, moisty morning. It looks now as if that fever might have come bodily out of the pond. I’ll have no more to say to it till the sun has licked up the fog, and made it bright! Sunday morning—my last Sunday without school-teaching I hope! I famish to begin again—and I will make time for that, and the girls too! I am glad he consents to my doing whatever I please in that way! I hope Mr. Dusautoy will! I wish Edmund knew him better—but oh! what a shy man it is!’

With a light step she went down-stairs, and found Mr Kendal waiting for her in the dining-room, his face brightening as she entered.

‘I am sorry Bayford should wear this heavy cloud to receive you,’ he said.

‘It will soon clear,’ she answered, cheerfully. ‘Have you heard of poor Gilbert this morning?’

‘Not yet.’ Then, after a pause, ‘I have generally gone to Mrs. Meadows after the morning service,’ he said, speaking with constraint.

‘You will take me?’ said Albinia. ‘I wish it, I assure you.’

It was evidently what he wished her to propose, and he added, ‘She must never feel herself neglected, and it will be better at once.’

‘So much more cordial,’ said Albinia. ‘Pray let us go!’

They were interrupted by the voices of the girls—not unpleasing voices, but loud and unsubdued, and with a slight tone of provincialism, which seemed to hurt Mr. Kendal’s ears, for he said, ‘I hope you will tune those voices to something less unlike your own.’

As he spoke, the sisters appeared in the full and conscious rustling of new lilac silk dresses, which seemed to have happily carried off all Sophy’s sullenness, for she made much more brisk and civil answers, and ran across the room in a boisterous manner, when her father sent her to see whether Gilbert were up.

There was a great clatter, and Gilbert chased her in, breathless and scolding, but the tongues were hushed before papa, and no more was heard than that the tooth was better, and had not kept him awake. Lucy seemed disposed to make conversation, overwhelming Albinia with needless repetitions of ‘Mamma dear,’ and plunging into what Mrs. Bowles and Miss Goldsmith had said of Mr. Dusautoy, and how he kept so few servants, and the butcher had no orders last time he called. Aunt Maria thought he starved and tyrannized over that poor little sickly Mrs. Dusautoy.

Mr. Kendal said not one word, and seemed not to hear. Albinia felt as if she had fallen into a whirlpool of gossip; she looked towards him, and hoped to let the conversation drop, but Sophy answered her sister, and, at last, when it came to something about what Jane heard from Mrs. Osborn’s Susan, Albinia gently whispered, ‘I do not think this entertains your papa, my dear,’ and silence sank upon them all.

Albinia’s next venture was to ask about that which had been her Sunday pleasure from childhood, and she turned to Sophy, and said, ‘I suppose you have not begun to teach at the school yet!’

Sophy’s great eyes expanded, and Lucy said, ‘Oh dear mamma! nobody does that but Genevieve Durant and the monitors. Miss Wolte did till Mr. Dusautoy came, but she does not approve of him.’

‘Lucy, you do not know what you are saying,’ said Mr. Kendal, and again there was an annihilating silence, which Albinia did not attempt to disturb.

At church time, she met the young ladies in the hall, in pink bonnets and sea-green mantillas over the lilac silks, all evidently put on for the first time in her honour, an honour of which she felt herself the less deserving, as, sensible that this was no case for bridal display, she wore a quiet dark silk, a Cashmere shawl, and plain straw bonnet, trimmed with white.

With manifest wish for reciprocity, Lucy fell into transports over the shawl, but gaining nothing by this, Sophy asked if she did not like the mantillas? Albinia could only make civility compatible with truth by saying that the colour was pretty, but where was Gilbert? He was on a stool before the dining-room fire, looking piteous, and pronouncing his tooth far too bad for going to church, and she had just time for a fresh administration of camphor before Mr. Kendal came forth from his study, and gave her his arm.

The front door opened on a narrow sweep, the river cutting it off from the road, and crossed by two wooden bridges, beside each of which stood a weeping-willow, budding with fresh spring foliage. Opposite were houses of various pretentious, and sheer behind them rose the steep hill, with the church nearly at the summit, the noble spire tapering high above, and the bells ringing out a cheerful chime. The mist had drawn up, and all was fresh and clear.

‘There go Lizzie and Loo!’ cried Lucy, ‘and the Admiral and Mrs. Osborn. I’ll run and tell them papa is come home.’

Sophy was setting off also, but Mr. Kendal stopped them, and lingered a moment or two, making an excuse of looking for a needless umbrella, but in fact to avoid the general gaze. As if making a desperate plunge, however, and looking up and down the broad street, so as to be secure that no acquaintance was near, he emerged with Albinia from the gate, and crossed the road as the chime of the bells changed.

‘We are late,’ he said. ‘You will prefer the speediest way, though it is somewhat steep.’

The most private way, Albinia understood, and could also perceive that the girls would have liked the street which sloped up the hill, and thought the lilac and green insulted by being conducte