and thoughts, is another question. But, as it was, Anne had no time to think of the blank. In the exhaustion of the revolution accomplished she was seized hold upon by all these crowding occupations, her thoughts forced into new channels, her every moment busy. No soul comes through such a crisis without much anguish and many struggles, but Anne had little time to indulge herself. She had to stand to her arms, as it were, night and day. She explained her position to Mr. Loseby, as has been said, and she informed her stepmother briefly of the change: but to no one else did she say a word.

'There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.' Could any word express more impressively the pause of fate, the quiet of patience and deliberation over the great and terrible things to come. There was silence in the heaven of Anne's being. She forbore to think, forbore to speak, even to herself. All was still within her. The firmament had closed in around her. Her world was lessened, so much cut off on every side, a small world now with no far-shining distances, no long gleams of celestial light, nothing but the little round about her, the circle of family details, the work of every day. Instead of the wide sky and the infinite air, to have your soul concentrated within a circle of Mr. Morris's papers, however admirable they may be, makes a great difference in life. Sometimes she even triumphed over circumstances so far as to see the humorous side of her own fate, and to calculate with a smile half pathetic, all that her unreasonable fidelity had cost her. It had cost her her father's approbation, her fortune, her place in life, and oh! strange turning of the tables! it had cost her at the same time the lover whom she had chosen, in high youthful absolutism and idealism, at the sacrifice of everything else. Was there ever a stranger contradiction, completion, of a transaction? He for whom she had given up all else, was lost to her because she had given everything for him. A woman might weep her heart out over such a fate, or she might smile as Anne smiled, pale, with a woful merriment, a tremulous pathetic scorn, an indignation half lost in that sentiment which made Othello cry out 'The pity of it! The pity of it!' Oh, the pity of it! that such things should be; that a woman should give so much for so little-and a man return so little for so much. Sometimes, when she was by herself, this smile would come up unawares, a scarcely perceptible gleam upon her pale countenance. What are you smiling at, Anne?' her stepmother or Rose would ask her as she sat at work. Was I smiling? I did not know-at nobody-I myself,' she would say, quoting Desdemona this time. Or she would remind herself of a less dignified simile-of poor Dick Swiveller, shutting up one street after another, in which he had made purchases which he could not pay for. She had shut up a great many pleasant paths for herself. Her heart got sick of the usual innocent romance in which the hero is all nobleness and generosity, and the heroine all sweet dependence and faith. She grew sick of poetry and all her youthful fancies. Even places became hateful to her,

6

gave her a pang. Mount, where she had written volumes all full of her heart and inmost thoughts to Cosmo, pained her to go back to, though she had to do it occasionally. And she could not think of big London itself without a sinking of the heart. He was there. It was the scene of her disenchantment, her disappointment. All these were as so many slices cut off from her life. Rose's estate, and the leases, and the tenants, and the patronage of Lilford parish, which belonged to it, and all its responsibilities, and the old women, with their tea and flannels, and the Dower-house with Mr. Morris's papers-these circumvented and bound in her life.

But there was one person at least whose affectionate care of her gave Anne an amusement which now and then found expression in a flood of tears: though tears were a luxury which she did not permit herself. This was the Rector, who was always coming and going, and who would walk round Anne at the writing-table, where she spent so much of her time, with anxious looks and many little signs of perturbation. He did not say a great deal to her, but watched her through all the other conversations that would arise, making now and then a vague little remark, which was specially intended for her, as she was aware, and which would strike into her like an arrow, yet make her smile all the same. When there was talk of the second marriage of Lord Meadowlands' brother, the clergyman, Mr. Ashley was strong in his defence. 'No one can be more opposed than I am to inconstancies of all kinds; but when you have made a mistake the first time it is a wise thing and a right thing,' said the good Rector, with a glance at Anne, 'to take advantage of the release given you by Providence. Charles Meadows had made a great mistake at first-like many others.' And then, when the conversation changed, and the Woodheads became the subject of discussion, even in the fulness of his approbation of that excellent girl Fanny,' Mr. Ashley found means to insinuate his constant burden of prophecy. What I fear is that she will get a little narrow as the years go on. How can a woman help that who has no opening out in her life, who is always at the first chapter?'

6

Dear me, Rector,' said Mrs. Mountford, 'I did not know you were such an advocate of marriage.'

'Yes, I am a great advocate of marriage: without it we all get narrow. We want new interests to carry on our life; we want to expand in our children, and widen out instead of closing in.'

'But Fanny has not closed in,' said Anne, with a half malicious smile, which had a quiver of pain in it: for she knew his meaning almost better than he himself did.

'No, no, Fanny is an excellent girl. She is everything that can he desired. But you must marry, Anne, you must marry,' he said, in a lower tone, coming round to the back of her chair. There was doubt and alarm in his eyes. He saw in her that terror of single-minded men, an old maid. Women have greatly got over the fear of that term

and take more deeply to heart the loss to every woman of their own sweet society, have a great horror of it. And Anne seemed just the sort of person who would not marry, having been once disgusted and disappointed, Mr. Ashley concluded within himself, with much alarm. He was even so far carried away by his feelings as to burst forth upon his excellent son and Curate, one evening in the late autumn, when they were returning together from the Dower-house. They had been walking along for some time in silence upon the dusty, silent road, faintly lighted by some prevision of a coming moon, though she was not visible. Perhaps the same thoughts were in both their minds, and this mutual sympathy warmed the elder to an overflow of the pent-up feeling. Man alive!' he cried out suddenly, turning upon Charley with a kind of ferocity, which startled the Curate as much as if a pistol had been presented at him. Man alive! can't you go in for her? you're better than nothing if you're not very much. What is the good of you, if you can't try, at least try, to please her? She's sick of us all, and not much wonder; but, bless my soul, you're young, and why can't you make an effort? why can't you try? that's what I would like to know,' the Rector cried.

Charley was taken entirely by surprise. He gasped in his agitation, 'I-try? But she would not look at me. What have I to offer

her?' he said, with a groan.

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Upon which the Rector repeated that ungracious formula. You may not be very much, but you're better than nothing. No,' the father said, shaking his head regretfully, we are none of us very much to look at; but, Lord bless my soul, think of Anne, Anne, settling down as a single woman: an old maid!' he cried, with almost a shriek of dismay. The two men were both quite subdued, broken down by the thought. They could not help feeling in their hearts that to be anybody's wife would be better than that.

But when they had gone on for about half an hour, and the moon had risen silvery over the roofs of the cottages, showing against the sky the familiar and beloved spire of their own village church, Charley, who had said nothing all the time, suddenly found a voice. He said, in his deep and troubled bass, as if his father had spoken one minute ago instead of half an hour, Heathcote Mountford is far more likely to do something with her than I.'

6

6 Do you think so?' cried the Rector, who had not been, any more than his son, distracted from the subject, and was as unconscious as Charley was of the long pause. She does not know him as she knows you.'

6

That is just the thing,' said the Curate, with a sigh. She has known me all her life, and why should she think any more about me? I am just Charley, that is all, a kind of a brother; but Mountford is a stranger. He is a clever fellow, cleverer than I am; and, even if he were not,' said poor Charley, with a tinge of bitterness,' he is new, and what he says sounds better, for they have not heard it so often

and besides-well,' the 'that is about all, sir.

Curate broke off with a harsh little laugh,
He is he, and I am me-that's all.'

If that is what you think,' said the Rector, who had listened to all this with very attentive ears, pausing, as he took hold of the upper bar of his own gate, and raising a very serious countenance to his son, if this is really what you think, Charley—you may have better means of judging-we must push Mountford. Anything would be better,' he said, solemnly, than to see Anne an old maid. And she's capable of doing that,' he added, laying his hand upon his son's in the seriousness of the moment. 'She is capable of doing it, if we don't mind.'

Charley felt the old hand chill him like something icy and cold. And he did not go in with his father, but took a pensive turn round the garden in the moonlight. No, she would never walk with him there. It was too presumptuous a thought. Never would Anne be the mistress within, never would it be permitted to Charley to call her forth into the moonlight in the sweet domestic sanctity of home. His heart stirred within him for a moment, then sank, acknowledging the impossibility. He breathed forth a vast sigh as he lit the evening cigar, which his father did not like him to smoke in his presence, disliking the smell, like the old-fashioned person he was. The Curate walked round and round the grass plats, sadly enjoying this gentle indulgence. When he tossed the end away, after nearly an hour of silent musing, he said to himself, Mountford might do it,' with another sigh. It was hard upon Charley. A stranger had a better chance than himself, a man that was nothing to her, whom she had known for a few months only. But so it was: and it was noble of him that he wished Mountford no manner of harm.

This was the state of affairs between the Rectory and the Dowerhouse, which, fortunately, was on the very edge of Lilford parish, and therefore could, without any searchings of heart on the part of the new Vicar there, permit the attendance of the ladies at the church which they loved. When Willie was home at Christmas his feet wore a distinct line on the road. He was always there, which his brother thought foolish and weak, since nothing could ever come of it. Indeed, if anything did exasperate the Curate, it was the inordinate presumption and foolishness of Willie, who seemed really to believe that Rose would have something to say to him. Rose! who was the rich one of the house, and whose eyes were not magnanimous to observe humble merit like those of her sister. It was setting that little thing up, Charley felt, with hot indignation, as if she were superior to Anne. But then Willie was always more complacent, and thought better of himself than did his humble-minded brother. As for Mr. Ashley himself, he never intermitted his anxious watch upon Anne. She was capable of it. No doubt she was just the very person to do it. The Rector could not deny that she had provocation. If a woman had behaved to him like that, he himself, he felt, might

have turned his back upon the sex, and refused to permit himself to become the father of Charley and Willie. That was putting the case in a practical point of view. The Rector felt a cold dew burst out upon his forehead, when it gleamed across him with all the force of a revelation, that in such a case Charley and Willie might never have been. He set out on the spot to bring this tremendous thought before Anne, but stopped short and came back after a moment depressed and toned down. How could he point out to Anne the horrible chance that perhaps two such paragons yet unborn might owe their non-existence (it was difficult to put it into words even) to her? He could not say it; and thus lost out of shyness or inaptness, he felt (for why should there have been any difficulty in stating it?), by far the best argument that had yet occurred to him. But though he relinquished his argument he did not get over his anxiety. Anne an old maid! it was a thought to move heaven and earth.

One

In the meantime Heathcote Mountford felt as warmly as anyone could have desired the wonderful brightening of the local horizon which followed upon the ladies' return. The Dower-house was for him also within the limits of a walk, and the decoration and furnishing which went on to a great extent after they had taken possession, the family bivouacking pleasantly in the meantime, accepting inconveniences with a composure which only ladies are capable of under such circumstances, gave opportunity for many a consultation and discussion. It was no obsequious purpose of pleasing her which made Heathcote almost invariably agree with Anne when questions arose. They were of a similar mould, born under the same star, to speak poetically, with a natural direction of their thoughts and fancies in the same channel, and an agreement of tastes perhaps slightly owing to the mysterious affinities of the powerful and wide-spreading family character which they both shared. By-and-by it came to be recognised that Anne and Heathcote were each other's natural allies. of them even, no one could remember which, playfully identified a certain line of ideas as 6 our side.' When the winter came on and country pleasures shrank as they are apt to do, to women, within much restricted limits, the friendship between these two elder members of the family grew. That they were naturally on the same level, and indeed about the same age, nobody entertained any doubt, aided by that curious foregone conclusion in the general mind (which is either a mighty compliment or a contemptuous insult to a woman) that a girl of twenty-one is in reality quite the equal and contemporary, so to speak, of a man of thirty-five. Perhaps the assumption was more legitimate than usual in the case of these two; for Anne, always a girl of eager intelligence and indiscriminate intellectual appetite, had lived much of her life among books, and was used to unbounded intercourse with the matured minds of great writers, besides having had the ripening touch of practical work, and of that strange bewildering conflict with difficulties unforeseen which is called disenchantment by some,