Smith and the Pharaohs, and other Tales

This is the tale of Barbara, Barbara who came back to save a soul alive.

The Reverend Septimus Walrond was returning from a professional visit to a distant cottage of his remote and straggling parish upon the coast of East Anglia. His errand had been sad, to baptise the dying infant of a fisherman, which just as the rate was finished wailed once feebly and expired in his arms. The Reverend Septimus was weeping over the sorrows of the world. Tears ran down his white but rounded face, for he was stout of habit, and fell upon his clerical coat that was green with age and threadbare with use. Although the evening was so cold he held his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and the wind from the moaning sea tossed his snow-white hair. He was talking to himself, as was his fashion on these lonely walks.

"I think that fresh milk would have saved that child," he said, "but how was poor Thomas to buy fresh milk at fourpence a quart? Laid up for three months as he has been and with six children, how was he to buy fresh milk? I ought to have given it to him. I could have done without these new boots till spring, damp feet don't matter to an old man. But I thought of my own comfort-the son that doth so easily beset me-and so many to clothe and feed at home and poor Barbara, my darling Barbara, hanging between life and death."

He sobbed and wiped away his tears with the back of his hand, then began to pray, still aloud.

"O God of pity, in the name of the loving and merciful Christ, help me and poor Thomas in our troubles."

"I ought to have put Thomas's name first-my selfishness again," he ejaculated, then went on:

"Give consolation to Thomas who loved his baby, and if it pleases Thee in Thy infinite wisdom and foresight, spare my dearest Barbara's life, that she may live out her days upon the earth and perhaps in her turn give life to others. I know I should not ask it; I know it is better that she should go and be with Thee in the immortal home Thou hast prepared for us unhappy, suffering creatures. Yet-pity my poor human weakness-I do ask it. Or if Thou decreest otherwise, then take me also, O God, for I can bear no more. Four children gone! I can bear no more, O God."

He sobbed again and wiped away another tear, then muttered:

"My selfishness, always my selfishness! With six remaining to be looked after, that is counting Barbara if she still lives, I dare to ask to be relieved of the burdens of the flesh! Pitiful Christ, visit not my wickedness on me or on others, and O Thou that didst raise the daughter of Jairus, save my sweet Barbara and comfort the heart of poor Thomas. I will have faith. I will have faith."

He thrust his hat upon his head, pulling it down over his ears because of the rough wind, and walked forward quite jauntily for a few yards.

"What a comfort these new boots are," he said. "If I had stepped into that pool with the old ones my left foot would be wet through now. Let me thank God for these new boots. Oh! how can I, when I remember that the price of them should have been spent in milk for the poor baby? If I were really a Christian I ought to take them off and walk barefoot, as the old pilgrims used to do. They say it is healthy, and I tried to think so because it is cheap, though I am sure that this was the beginning of poor little Cicely's last illness. With her broken chilblains she could not stand the snow; at any rate, the chill struck upwards. Well, she has been in bliss three years, three whole years, and how thankful I ought to be for that. How glad she will be to see Barbara too, if it pleases God in His mercy to take Barbara; she always was her favourite sister. I ought to remember that; I ought to remember that what I lose here I gain there, that my store is always growing in Heaven. But I can't, for I am a man still. Oh! curse it all! I can't, and like Job I wish I'd never been born. Job got a new family and was content, but that's their Eastern way. It's different with us Englishmen."

He stumbled on for a hundred yards or more, vacuously, almost drunkenly, for the hideous agony that he was enduring half paralysed his brain, and by its very excess was bringing him some temporary relief. He looked at the raging sea to his right, and in a vague fashion wished that it had swallowed him. He looked at the kind earth of the ploughed field to his left, and wished vividly, for the idea was more familiar, that six feet of it lay above him. Then he remembered that just beyond that sand-heap he had found a plover's nest with two eggs in it fifty years ago when he was a boy, and had taken one egg and left the other, or rather had restored it because the old bird screamed so pitifully about him. In some strange manner that little, long-forgotten act of righteousness brought a glow of comfort to his tormented spirit. Perhaps God would deal so by him.

In its way the evening was very beautiful. The cold November day was dying into night. Clear, clear was the sky save for some black and heavy snow clouds that floated on it driven before the easterly wind that piped through the sere grasses and blew the plovers over him as though they were dead leaves. Where the sun had vanished long bars of purple lay above the horizon; to his excited fancy they looked like the gateway of another and a better world, set, as the old Egyptians dreamed, above the uttermost pylons of the West. What lay there beyond the sun? Oh! what lay beyond the sun? Perhaps, even now, Barbara knew!

A figure appeared standing upon a sand dune between the pathway and the sea. Septimus was short-sighted and could not tell who it was, but in this place at this hour doubtless it must be a parishioner, perhaps one waiting to see him upon some important matter. He must forget his private griefs. He must strive to steady his shaken mind and attend to his duties. He drew himself together and walked on briskly.

"I wish I had not been obliged to give away Jack," he said. "He was a great companion, and somehow I always met people with more confidence when he was with me; he seemed to take away my shyness. But the license was seven-and-sixpence, and I haven't got seven-and-sixpence; also he has an excellent home with that stuffy old woman, if a dull one, for he must miss his walk. Oh! it's you, Anthony. What are you doing here at this time of night? Your father told me you had a bad cold and there's so much sickness about. You should be careful, Anthony, you know you're not too strong, none of you Arnotts are. Well, I suppose you are shooting, and most young men will risk a great deal in order to kill God's other creatures."

The person addressed, a tall, broad-shouldered, rather pale young man of about twenty-one, remarkable for his large brown eyes and a certain sweet expression which contrasted somewhat oddly with the general manliness of his appearance, lifted his cap and answered:

"No, Mr. Walrond, I am not shooting to-night. In fact, I was waiting here to meet you."

"What for, Anthony? Nothing wrong up at the Hall, I hope."

"No, Mr. Walrond; why should there be anything wrong there?"

"I don't know, I am sure, only as a rule people don't wait for the parson unless there is something amiss, and there seems to be so much misfortune in this parish just now. Well, what is it, my boy?"

"I want to know about Barbara, Mr. Walrond. They tell me she is very bad, but I can't get anything definite from the others, I mean from her sisters. They don't seem to be sure, and the doctor wouldn't say when I asked him."

The Reverend Septimus looked at Anthony and Anthony looked at the Reverend Septimus, and in that look they learned to understand each other. The agony that was eating out this poor father's heart was not peculiar to him; another shared it. In what he would have called his "wicked selfishness" the Reverend Septimus felt almost grateful for this sudden revelation. If it is a comfort to share our joys, it is a still greater comfort to share our torments.

"Walk on with me, Anthony," he said. "I must hurry, I have every reason to hurry. Had it not been a matter of duty I would not have left the house, but, so to speak, a clergyman has many children; he cannot prefer one before the other."

"Yes, yes," said Anthony, "but what about Barbara? Oh! please tell me at once."

"I can't tell you, Anthony, because I don't know. From here to the crest of Gunter's Hill," and he pointed to an eminence in front of them, "is a mile and a quarter. When we get to the crest of Gunter's Hill perhaps we shall know. I left home two hours ago, and then Barbara lay almost at the point of death; insensible."

"Insensible," muttered Anthony. "Oh! my God, insensible."

"Yes," went on the clergyman in a voice of patient resignation. "I don't understand much about such things, but the inflammation appears to have culminated that way. Now either she will never wake again, or if she wakes she may live. At least that is what they tell me, but they may be wrong. I have so often known doctors to be wrong."

They walked on together in silence twenty yards or more. Then he added as though speaking to himself:

"When we reach the top of Gunter's Hill perhaps we shall learn. We can see her window from there, and if she had passed away I bade them pull the blind down; if she was about the same, to pull it half down, and if she were really better, to leave it quite up. I have done that for two nights now, so that I might have a little time to prepare myself. It is a good plan, though very trying to a father's heart. Yesterday I stood for quite a while with my eyes fixed upon the ground, not daring to look and learn the truth."

Anthony groaned, and once more the old man went on:

"She is a very unselfish girl, Barbara, or perhaps I should say was, perhaps I should say was. That is how she caught this horrible inflammation. Three weeks ago she and her sister Janey went for a long walk to the Ness, to-to-oh! I forget why they went. Well, it came on to pour with rain; and just as they had started for home, fortunately, or rather unfortunately, old Stevens the farmer overtook them on his way back from market and offered them a lift. They got into the cart and Barbara took off the mackintosh that her aunt gave her last Christmas-it is the only one in the house, since such things are too costly for me to buy-and put it over Janey, who had a cold. It was quite unnecessary, for Janey was warmly wrapped up, while Barbara had nothing under the mackintosh except a summer dress. That is how she caught the chill."

Anthony made no comment, and again they walked forward without speaking, perhaps for a quarter of a mile. Then the horror of the suspense became intolerable to him. Without a word he dashed forward, sped down the slope and up that of the opposing Gunter's Hill, more swiftly perhaps than he had ever run before, although he was a very quick runner.

"He's gone," murmured Septimus. "I wonder why! I suppose that I walk too slowly for him. I cannot walk so fast as I used to do, and he felt the wind cold."

Then he dismissed the matter from his half-dazed mind and stumbled on wearily, muttering his disjointed prayers.

Thus in due course he began to climb the little slope of Gunter's Hill. The sun had set, but there was still a red glow in the sky, and against this glow he perceived the tall figure of Anthony standing quite still. When he was about a hundred yards away the figure suddenly collapsed, as a man does if he is shot. The Reverend Septimus put his hand to his heart and caught his breath.

"I know what that means," he said. "He was watching the window, and they have just pulled down the blind. I suppose he must be fond of her and it-affects him. Oh! if I were younger I think this would kill me, but, thank God! as one draws near the end of the road the feet harden; one does not feel the thorns so much. 'The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, bl-bl-yes, I will say it-blessed be the Name of the Lord.' I should remember that she is so much better where she is; that this is a very hard world; indeed, sometimes I think it is not a world, but a hell. Oh! Barbara, my sweet Barbara!" and he struggled forward blindly beating at the rough wind with his hands as though it were a visible foe, and so at last came to the crest of the hill where Anthony Arnott lay prone upon his face.

So sure was Septimus of the cause of his collapse that he did not even trouble to look at the Rectory windows in the hollow near the church two hundred yards or so away. He only looked at Anthony, saying:

"Poor lad, poor lad! I wonder how I shall get him home; I must fetch some help."

As he spoke, Anthony sat up and said, "You see, you see!"

"See what?"

"The blind; it is quite up. When I got here it was half down, then someone pulled it up. That's what finished me. I felt as though I had been hit on the head with a stick."

The Reverend Septimus stared, then suddenly sank to his knees and returned thanks in his simple fashion.

"Don't let us be too certain, Anthony," he exclaimed at length. "There may be a mistake, or perhaps this is only a respite which will prolong the suspense. Often such things happen to torment us; I mean that they are God's way of trying and purifying our poor sinful hearts."

Barbara did not die. On the contrary, Barbara got quite well again, but her recovery was so slow that Anthony only saw her once before he was obliged to return to college. This was on New Year's Day, when Mr. Walrond asked him to dinner to meet Barbara, who was coming down for the first time. Needless to say he went, taking with him a large bunch of violets which he had grown in a frame at the Hall especially for Barbara. Indeed, she had already received many of those violets through the agency of her numerous younger sisters.

The Rectory dinner was at one o'clock, and the feast could not be called sumptuous. It consisted of a piece of beef, that known as the "aitch-bone," which is perhaps the cheapest that the butcher supplies when the amount of eating is taken into consideration; one roast duck, a large Pekin, the Near Year offering of the farmer Stevens; and a plum pudding somewhat pallid in appearance. These dainties with late apples and plenty of cold water made up the best dinner that the Walrond family had eaten for many a day.

The Rectory dining-room was a long, narrow chamber of dilapidated appearance, since between meals it served as a schoolroom also. A deal bookcase in the corner held some tattered educational works and the walls that once had been painted blue, but now were faded in patches to a sickly green, were adorned only with four texts illuminated by Barbara. These texts had evidently served as targets for moistened paper pellets, some of which still stuck upon their surface.

Anthony arrived a little late, since the picking of the violets had taken longer than he anticipated, and as there was no one to open the front door, walked straight into the dining-room. In the doorway he collided with the little maid-of-all-work, a red-elbowed girl of singularly plain appearance, who having deposited the beef upon the table, was rushing back for the duck, accompanied by two of the young Walronds who were assisting with the vegetables. The maid, recoiling, sat down with a bump on one of the wooden chairs, and the Walrond girls, a merry, good-looking, unkempt crew (no boy had put in an appearance in all that family), burst into screams of laughter. Anthony apologised profusely; the maid, ejaculating that she didn't mind, not she, jumped up and ran for the duck; and the Reverend Septimus, a very different Septimus to him whom we met a month or so before, seizing his hand, shook it warmly, calling out:

"Julia, my dear, never mind that beef. I haven't said grace yet. Here's Anthony."

"Glad to see him, I am sure," said Mrs. Walrond, her eyes still fixed upon the beef, which was obviously burnt at one corner. Then with a shrug, for she was accustomed to such accidents, she rose to greet him.

Mrs. Walrond was a tall and extremely good-looking lady of about fifty-five, dark-eyed and bright complexioned, whose chestnut hair was scarcely touched with grey. Notwithstanding all the troubles and hardships that she had endured, her countenance was serene and even happy, for she was blessed with a good heart, a lively faith in Providence, and a well-regulated mind. Looking at her, it was easy to see whence Barbara and her other daughters inherited their beauty and air of breeding.

"How are you, Anthony?" she went on, one eye still fixed upon the burnt beef. "It is good of you to come, though you are late, which I suppose is why the girl has burnt the meat."

"Not a bit," called out one of the children, it was Janey, "it is very good of us to have him when there's only one duck. Anthony, you mustn't eat duck, as we don't often get one and you have hundreds."

"Not I, dear, I hate ducks," he relied automatically, for his eyes were seeking the face of Barbara.

Barbara was seated in the wooden armchair with a cushion on it, near the fire of driftwood, advantages that were accorded to her in honour of her still being an invalid. Even to a stranger she would have looked extraordinarily sweet with her large and rather plaintive violet eyes over which the long black lashes curved, her waving chestnut hair parted in the middle and growing somewhat low upon her forehead, her tall figure, very thin just now, and her lovely shell-like complexion heightened by a blush.

To Anthony she seemed a very angel, an angel returned from the shores of death for his adoration and delight. Oh! if things had gone the other way-if there had been no sweet Barbara seated in that wooden chair! The thought gripped his heart with a hand of ice; he felt as he had felt when he looked at the window-place from the crest of Gunter's Hill. But she had come back, and he was sure that they were each other's for life. And yet, and yet, life must end one day and then, what? Once more that hand of ice dragged at his heart strings.

In a moment it was all over and Mr. Walrond was speaking.

"Why don't you bid Barbara good-day, Anthony?" he asked. "Don't you think she looks well, considering? We do, better than you, in fact," he added, glancing at his face, which had suddenly grown pale, almost grey.

"He's going to give Barbara the violets and doesn't know how to do it," piped the irrepressible Janey. "Anthony, why don't you ever bring us violets, even when we have the whooping cough?"

"Because the smell of them is bad for delicate throats," he answered, and without a word handed the sweet-scented flowers to Barbara.

She took them, also without a word, but not without a look, pinned a few to her dress, and reaching a cracked vase from the mantelpiece, disposed of the rest of them there till she could remove them to her own room. Then Mr. Walrond began to say grace and the difficulties of that meeting were over.

Anthony sat by Barbara. His chair was rickety, one of the legs being much in need of repair; the driftwood fire that burned brightly about two feet away grilled his spine, for no screen was available, and he nearly choked himself with a piece of very hot and hard potato. Yet to tell the truth never before did he share in such a delightful meal. For soon, when the clamour of "the girls" swelled loud and long, and the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Walrond was entirely occupied with the burnt beef and the large duck that absolutely refused to part with its limbs, he found himself almost as much alone with Barbara as though they had been together on the wide seashore.

"You are really getting quite well?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so." Then, after a pause and with a glance from the violet eyes, "Are you glad?"

"You know I am glad. You know that if you had-died, I should have died too."

"Nonsense," said the curved lips, but they trembled and the violet eyes were a-swim with tears. Then a little catch of the throat, and, almost in a whisper, "Anthony, father told me about you and the window-blind and-oh! I don't know how to thank you. But I want to say something, if you won't laugh. Just at that time I seemed to come up out of some blackness and began to dream of you. I dreamed that I was sinking back into the blackness, but you caught me by the hand and lifted me quite out of it. Then we floated away together for ever and for ever and for ever, for though sometimes I lost you we always met again. Then I woke up and knew that I wasn't going to die, that's all."

"What a beautiful dream," began Anthony, but at that moment, pausing from her labours at the beef, Mrs. Walrond said:

"Barbara, eat your duck before it grows cold. You know the doctor said you must take plenty of nourishment."

"I am going to, mother," answered Barbara, "I feel dreadfully hungry," and really she did; her gentle heart having fed full, of a sudden her body seemed to need no nourishment.

"Dear me!" said Mr. Walrond, pausing from his labours and viewing the remains of the duck disconsolately, for he did not see what portion of its gaunt skeleton was going to furnish him with dinner, and duck was one of his weaknesses, "dear me, there's a dreadful smell of burning in this room. Do you think it can be the beef, my love?"

"Of course it is not the beef," replied Mrs. Walrond rather sharply. "The beef is beautifully done."

"Oh!" ejaculated one of the girls who had got the calcined bit, "why, mother, you said it was burnt yourself."

"Never mind what I said," replied Mrs. Walrond severely, "especially as I was mistaken. It is very rude of your father to make remarks about the meat."

"Well, something is burning, my love."

Janey, who was sitting next to Anthony, paused from her meal to sniff, then exclaimed in a voice of delight:

"Oh! it is Anthony's coat tails. Just look, they are turning quite brown. Why, Anthony, you must be as beautifully done as the beef. If you can sit there and say nothing, you are a Christian martyr wasted, that's all."

Anthony sprang up, murmuring that he thought there was something wrong behind, which on examination there proved to be. The end of it was that the chairs were all pushed downwards, with the result that for the rest of that meal there was a fiery gulf fixed between him and Barbara which made further confidences impossible. So he had to talk of other matters. Of these, as it chanced, he had something to say.

A letter had arrived that morning from his elder brother George, who was an officer in a line regiment. It had been written in the trenches before Sebastopol, for these events took place in the mid-Victorian period towards the end of the Crimean War. Or rather the letter had been begun in the trenches and finished in the military hospital, whither George had been conveyed, suffering from "fever and severe chill," which seemed to be somewhat contradictory terms, though doubtless they were in fact compatible enough. Still he wrote a very interesting letter, which, after the pudding had been consumed to the last spoonful, Anthony read aloud while the girls ate apples and cracked nuts with their teeth.

"Dear me! George seems to be very unwell," said Mrs. Walrond.

"Yes," answered Anthony, "I am afraid he is. One of the medical officers whom my father knows, who is working in that hospital, says they mean to send him home as soon as he can bear the journey, though he doesn't think it will be just at present."

This sounded depressing, but Mr. Walrond found that it had a bright side.

"At any rate, he won't be shot like so many poor fellows; also he has been in several of the big battles and will be promoted. I look upon him as a made man. He'll soon shake off his cold in his native air--"

"And we shall have a real wounded hero in the village," said one of the girls.

"He isn't a wounded hero," answered Janey, "he's only got a chill."

"Well, that's as bad as wounded, dear, and I am sure he would have been wounded if he could." And so on.

"When are you going back to Cambridge, Anthony?" asked Mrs. Walrond presently.

"To-morrow morning, I am sorry to say," he answered, and Barbara's face fell at his words. "You see, I go up for my degree this summer term, and my father is very anxious that I should take high honours in mathematics. He says that it will give me a better standing in the Bar. So I must begin work at once with a tutor before term, for there's no one near here who can help me."

"No," said Mr. Walrond. "If it had been classics now, with a little refurbishing perhaps I might. But mathematics are beyond me."

"Barbara should teach him," suggested one of the little girls slyly. "She's splendid at Rule of Three."

"Which is more than you are," said Mrs. Walrond in severe tones, "who always make thirteen out of five and seven. Barbara, love, you are looking very tired. All this noise is too much for you, you must go and lie down at once in your own room. No, not on the sofa, in your own room. Now say good-bye to Anthony and go."

So Barbara, who was really tired, though with a happy weariness, did as she was bid. Her hand met Anthony's and lingered there for a little, her violet eyes met his brown eyes and lingered there a little; her lips spoke some few words of commonplace farewell. Then staying a moment to take the violets from the cracked vase, and another moment to kiss her father as she passed him, she walked, or rather glided from the room with the graceful movement that was peculiar to her, and lo! at once for Anthony it became a very emptiness. Moreover, he grew aware of the hardness of his wooden seat and that the noise of the girls was making his head ache. So presently he too rose and departed.

Six months or so had gone by and summer reigned royally at Eastwich, for thus was the parish named of which the Reverend Septimus Walrond had spiritual charge. The heath was a blaze of gold, the cut hay smelt sweetly in the fields, the sea sparkled like one vast sapphire, the larks beneath the sun and the nightingales beneath the moon sang their hearts out on Gunter's Hill, and all the land was full of life and sound and perfume.

On one particularly beautiful evening, after partaking of a meal called "high tea," Barbara, quite strong again now and blooming like the wild rose upon her breast, set out alone upon a walk. Her errand was to the cottage of that very fisherman whose child her father had baptised on the night when her life trembled in the balance. Having accomplished this she turned homewards, lost in reverie, events having happened at the Rectory which gave her cause for thought. When she had gone a little way some instinct led her to look up. About fifty yards away a man was walking towards her to all appearance also lost in reverie. Even at that distance and in the uncertain evening light she knew well enough that this was Anthony. Her heart leapt at the sight of him and her cheeks seemed to catch the hue of the wild rose on her bosom. Then she straightened her dress a little and walked on.

In less than a minute they had met.

"I heard where you had gone and came to meet you," he said awkwardly. "How well you are looking, Barbara, how well and--" he had meant to add "beautiful," but his tongue stumbled at the word and what he said was "brown."

"If I were an Indian I suppose I should thank you for the compliment, Anthony, but as it is I don't know. But how well you are looking, how well and by comparison-fat."

Then they both laughed, and he explained at length how he had been able to get home two days earlier than he expected; also that he had taken his degree with even higher honours than he hoped.

"I am so glad," she said earnestly.

"And so am I; I mean glad that you are glad. You see, if it hadn't been for you I should never have done so well. But because I thought you would be glad, I worked like anything."

"You should have thought of what your father would feel, not of-of-well, it has all ended as it should, so we needn't argue. How is your brother George?" she went on, cutting short the answer that was rising to his lips. "I suppose I should call him Captain Arnott now, for I hear he has been promoted. We haven't seen him since he came home last week, from some hospital in the South of England, they say."

Anthony's face grew serious.

"I don't know; I don't quite like the look of him, and he coughs such a lot. It seems as though he could not shake off that chill he got in the trenches. That's why he hasn't been to call at the Rectory."

"I hope this beautiful weather will cure him," Barbara replied rather doubtfully, for she had heard a bad report of George Arnott's health. Then to change the subject she added, "Do you know, we had a visitor yesterday, Aunt Maria in the flesh, in a great deal of flesh, as Janey says."

"Do you mean Lady Thompson?"

She nodded.

"Aunt Thompson and her footman and her pug dog. Thank goodness, she only stayed to tea, as she had a ten mile drive back to her hotel. As it was, lots of things happened."

"What happened?"

"Well, first when she got out of the carriage, covered with jet anchor chains-for you know Uncle Samuel died only three months ago and left her all his money-she caught sight of our heads staring at her out of the drawing-room window, and asked father if he kept a girls' school. Then she made mother cry by remarking that she ought to be thankful to Providence for having taken to its bosom the four of us who died young -you know she has no children herself and so can't feel about them. Also father was furious because she told him that at least half of us should have been boys. He turned quite pink and said:

"'I have been taught, Lady Thompson, that these are matters which God Almighty keeps in His own hands, and to Him I must refer you.'

"'Good gracious! don't get angry,' she answered. 'If you clergymen can cross-examine your Maker, I am not in that position. Besides, they are all very good-looking girls who may find husbands, if they ever see a man. So things might have been worse.'

"Then she made remarks about the tea, for Uncle Samuel was a tea-merchant; and lastly that wicked Janey sent the footman to take the pug dog to walk past the butcher's shop where the fighting terrier lives. You can guess the rest."

"Was the pug killed?" asked Anthony.

"No, though the poor thing came back in a bad way. I never knew before that a pug's tail was so long when it is quite uncurled. But the footman looked almost worse, for he got notice on the spot. You see he went into the 'Red Dragon' and left the pug outside."

"And here endeth Aunt Maria and all her works," said Anthony, who wanted to talk of other things.

"No, not quite."

He looked at her, for there was meaning in her voice.

"In fact," she went on, "so far as I'm concerned it ought to run, 'Here beginneth Aunt Maria.' You see, I have got to go and live with her to-morrow."

Anthony stopped and looked at her.

"What the devil do you mean?" he asked.

"What I say. She took a fancy to me and she wants a companion-someone to do her errands and read to her at night and look after the pug dog and so forth. And she will pay me thirty pounds a year with my board and dresses. And" (with gathering emphasis) "we cannot afford to offend her who have half lived upon her alms and old clothes for so many years. And, in short, Dad and my mother thought it best that I should go, since Joyce can take my place, and at any rate it will be a mouth less to feed at home. So I am going to-morrow morning by the carrier's cart."

"Going?" gasped Anthony. "Where to?"

"To London first, then to Paris, then to Italy to winter at Rome, and then goodness knows where. You see, my Aunt Maria has wanted to travel all her life, but Uncle Samuel, who was born in Putney, feared the sea and lived and died in Putney in the very house in which he was born. Now Aunt Maria wants a change and means to have it."

Then Anthony broke out.

"Damn the old woman! Why can't she take her change in Italy or wherever she wishes, and leave you alone?"

"Anthony!" said Barbara in a scandalised voice. "What do you mean, Anthony, by using such dreadful language about my aunt?"

"What do I mean? Well" (this with the recklessness of despair), "if you want to know, I mean that I can't bear your going away."

"If my parents," began Barbara steadily--

"What have your parents to do with it? I'm not your parents, I'm your--"

Barbara looked at him in remonstrance.

"-old friend, played together in childhood, you know the kind of thing. In short, I don't want you to go to Italy with Lady Thompson. I want you to stop here."

"Why, Anthony? I thought you told me you were going to live in chambers in London and read for the Bar."

"Well, London isn't Italy, and one doesn't eat dinners at Lincoln's Inn all the year round, one comes home sometimes. And heaven knows whom you'll meet in those places or what tricks that horrible old aunt of yours will be playing with you. Oh! it's wicked! How can you desert your poor father and mother in this way, to say nothing of your sisters? I never thought you were so hard-hearted."

"Anthony," said Barbara in a gentle voice, "do you know what we have got to live on? In good years it comes to about 150 pounds, but once, when my father got into that lawsuit over the dog that was supposed to kill the sheep, it went down to 70 pounds. That was the winter when two of the little ones died for want of proper food-nothing else-and I remember that the rest of us had to walk barefoot in the mud and snow because there was no money to buy us boots, and only some of us could go out at once because we had no cloaks to put on. Well, all this may happen again. And so, Anthony, do you think that I should be right to throw away thirty pounds a year and to make a quarrel with my aunt, who is rich and kind-hearted although very over-bearing, and the only friend we have? If my father died, Anthony, or even was taken ill, and he is not very strong, what would become of us? Unless Aunt Thompson chose to help we should all have to go to the workhouse, for girls who have not been specially trained can earn nothing, except perhaps as domestic servants, if they are strong enough. I don't want to go away and read to Aunt Maria and take the pug dog out walking, although it is true I should like to see Italy, but I must-can't you understand-I must. So please reproach me no more, for it is hard to bear-especially from you."

"Stop! For God's sake, stop!" said Anthony. "I am a brute to have spoken like that, and I'm helpless; that's the worst of it. Oh! my darling, don't you understand? Don't you understand--?"

"No," answered Barbara, shaking her head and beginning to cry.

"That I love you, that I have always loved you, and that I always shall love you until-until-the moon ceases to shine?" and he pointed to that orb which had appeared above the sea.

"They say that it is dead already, and no doubt will come to an end like everything else," remarked Barbara, seeking to gain time.

Then for a while she sought nothing more, who found herself lost in her lover's arms.

So there they plighted their troth, that was, they swore, more enduring than the moon, for indeed they so believed.

"Nothing shall part us except death," he said.

"Why should death part us?" she answered, looking him bravely in the eyes. "I mean to live beyond death, and while I live and wherever I live death shall not part us, if you'll be true to me."

"I'll not fail in that," he answered.

And so their souls melted into rapture and were lifted up beyond the world. The song of the nightingales was heavenly music in their ears, and the moon's silver rays upon the sea were the road by which their linked souls travelled to the throne of Him who had lit their lamp of love, and there made petition that through all life's accidents and death's darkness it might burn eternally.

For the love of these two was deep and faithful, and already seemed to them as though it were a thing they had lost awhile and found once more; a very precious jewel that from the beginning had shone upon their breasts; a guiding-star to light them to that end which is the dawn of Endlessness.

Who will not smile at such thoughts as these?

The way of the man with the maid and the way of the maid with the man and the moon to light them and the birds to sing the epithalamium of their hearts and the great sea to murmur of eternity in their opened ears. Nature at her sweet work beneath the gentle night-who is there that will not say that it was nothing more?

Well, let their story answer.