"A perplexity of his own making. As for their not going to Castle Blanch, they were always there in my poor sister"s time a great deal more than was good for any of them, or his parish either, as I told him then; and now, if he finds out that it is a worldly household, as he calls it, why, what harm is that to do to a couple of babies like those? If Mrs.

Charteris does not trouble herself much about the children, there are governesses and nurses enough for a score!"

"I must own," said Honora, "that I think he is right. Children are never too young for impressions."

"I"ll tell you what, Miss Charlecote, the way he is going on is enough to ruin the best children in the world. That little Cilly is the most arrant little flirt I ever came across; it is like a comedy to see the absurd little puss going on with the curate, ay, and with every parson that comes to Wrapworth; and she sees nothing else. Impressions! All she wants is to be safe shut up with a good governess, and other children. It would do her a dozen times more good than all his stories of good children and their rocky paths, and boats that never sailed on any reasonable principle."

"Poor child," said Honora, smiling, "she is a little witch."

"And," continued the uncle, "if he thinks it so bad for them, he had better take the only way of saving them from it for the future, or they will be there for life. If he gets through this winter, it will only be by the utmost care."

Honora kept her project back with the less difficulty, because she doubted how it would be received by the rough captain; but it won more and more upon her, as she rattled home through the gas-lights, and though she knew she should learn to love the children only to have the pang of losing them, she gladly cast this foreboding aside as selfish, and applied herself impartially as she hoped to weigh the duty, but trembling were the hands that adjusted the balance. Alone as she stood, without a tie, was not she marked out to take such an office of mere pity and charity? Could she see the friend of her childhood forced either to peril his life by his care of his motherless children, or else to leave them to the influences he so justly dreaded? Did not the case cry out to her to follow the promptings of her heart? Ay, but might not, said caution, her a.s.sumption of the charge lead their father to look on her as willing to become their mother? Oh, fie on such selfish prudery imputing such a thought to yonder broken-hearted, sinking widower! He had as little room for such folly as she had inclination to find herself on the old terms. The hero of her imagination he could never be again, but it would be weak consciousness to scruple at offering so obvious an act of compa.s.sion. She would not trust herself, she would go by what Miss Wells said. Nevertheless she composed her letter to Owen Sandbrook between waking and sleeping all night, and dreamed of little creatures nestling in her lap, and small hands playing with her hair. How coolly she strove to speak as she described the dilemma to the old lady, and how her heart leapt when Miss Wells, her mind moving in the grooves traced out by sympathy with her pupil, exclaimed, "Poor little dears, what a pity they should not be with you, my dear, they would be a nice interest for you!"

Perhaps Miss Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child"s manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her writing-case before her, cogitating over the opening address, as if her whole meaning were implied in them.

"My dear Owen" came so naturally that it was too like an attempt to recur to the old familiarity. "My dear Mr. Sandbrook?" So formal as to be conscious! "Dear Owen?" Yes that was the cousinly medium, and in diffident phrases of restrained eagerness, now seeming too affectionate, now too cold she offered to devote herself to his little ones, to take a house on the coast, and endeavour to follow out his wishes with regard to them, her good old friend supplying her lack of experience.

With a beating heart she awaited the reply. It was but few lines, but all Owen was in them.

"MY DEAR NORA--You always were an angel of goodness. I feel your kindness more than I can express. If my darlings were to be left at all, it should be with you, but I cannot contemplate it. Bless you for the thought!

"Yours ever, O. SANDBROOK."

She heard no more for a week, during which a dread of pressing herself on him prevented her from calling on old Mrs. Sandbrook. At last, to her surprise, she received a visit from Captain Charteris, the person whom she looked on as least propitious, and most inclined to regard her as an enthusiastic silly young lady. He was very gruff, and gave a bad account of his patient. The little boy had been unwell, and the exertion of nursing him had been very injurious; the captain was very angry with illness, child, and father.

"However," he said, "there"s one good thing, L. has forbidden the children"s perpetually hanging on him, sleeping in his room, and so forth. With the const.i.tutions to which they have every right, poor things, he could not find a better way of giving them the seeds of consumption. That settles it. Poor fellow, he has not the heart to hinder their always pawing him, so there"s nothing for it but to separate them from him."

"And may I have them?" asked Honor, too anxious to pick her words.

"Why, I told him I would come and see whether you were in earnest in your kind offer. You would find them no sinecure."

"It would be a great happiness," said she, struggling with tears that might prevent the captain from depending on her good sense, and speaking calmly and sadly; "I have no other claims, nothing to tie me to any place. I am a good deal older than I look, and my friend, Miss Wells, has been a governess. _She_ is really a very wise, judicious person, to whom he may quite trust. Owen and I were children together, and I know nothing that I should like better than to be useful to him."

"Humph!" said the captain, more touched than he liked to betray; "well, it seems the only thing to which he can bear to turn!"

"Oh!" she said, breaking off, but emotion and earnestness looked glistening and trembling through every feature.

"Very well," said Captain Charteris, "I"m glad, at least, that there is some one to have pity on the poor things! There"s my brother"s wife, she doesn"t say no, but she talks of convenience and spoilt children--Sandbrook was quite right after all; I would not tell him how she answered me! Spoilt children to be sure they are, poor things, but she might recollect they have no mother--such a fuss as she used to make with poor Lucilla too. Poor Lucilla, she would never have believed that "dear Caroline" would have no better welcome for her little ones! Spoilt indeed! A precious deal pleasanter children they are than any of the lot at Castle Blanch, and better brought up too."

The good captain"s indignation had made away with his consistency, but Honora did not owe him a grudge for revealing that she was his _pis aller_, she was p.r.o.ne to respect a man who showed that he despised her, and she only cared to arrange the details. He was anxious to carry away his charge at once, since every day of this wear and tear of feeling was doing incalculable harm, and she undertook to receive the children and nurse at any time. She would write at once for a house at some warm watering-place, and take them there as soon as possible, and she offered to call that afternoon to settle all with Owen.

"Why," said Captain Charteris, "I hardly know. One reason I came alone was, that I believe that little elf of a Cilly has some notion of what is plotting against her. You can"t speak a word but that child catches up, and she will not let her father out of her sight for a moment."

"Then what is to be done? I would propose his coming here; but the poor child would not let him go."

"That is the only chance. He has been forbidden the walking with them in his arms to put them to sleep, and we"ve got the boy into the nursery, and he"d better be out of the house than hear them roaring for him. So if you have no objection, and he is tolerable this evening, I would bring him as soon as they are gone to bed."

Poor Owen was evidently falling under the management of stronger hands than his own, and it could only be hoped that it was not too late. His keeper brought him at a little after eight that evening. There was a look about him as if, after the last stroke that had befallen him, he could feel no more, the bitterness of death was past, his very hands looked woe-begone and astray, without the little fingers pressing them.

He could not talk at first; he shook Honor"s hand as if he could not bear to be grateful to her, and only the hardest hearts could have endured to enter on the intended discussion. The captain was very gentle towards him, and talk was made on other topics but gradually something of the influence of the familiar scene where his brightest days had been pa.s.sed, began to prevail. All was like old times--the quaint old silver kettle and lamp, the pattern of the china cups, the ruddy play of the fire on the polished panels of the room--and he began to revive and join the conversation. They spoke of Delaroche"s beautiful Madonnas, one of which was at the time to be seen at a print-shop--"Yes," said Mr. Sandbrook, "and little Owen cried out as soon as he saw it, "That lady, the lady with the flowery watch.""

Honora smiled. It was an allusion to the old jests upon her auburn locks, "a greater compliment to her than to Delaroche," she said; "I saw that he was extremely curious to ascertain what my carrots were made of."

"Do you know, Nora, I never saw more than one person with such hair as yours," said Owen, with more animation, "and oddly enough her name turned out to be Charlecote."

"Impossible! Humfrey and I are the only Charlecotes left that I know of!

Where could it have been?"

"It was at Toronto. I must confess that I was struck by the brilliant hair in chapel. Afterwards I met her once or twice. She was a Canadian born, and had just married a settler, whose name I can"t remember, but her maiden name had certainly been Charlecote; I remembered it because of the coincidence."

"Very curious; I did not know there had been any Charlecotes but ourselves."

"And Humfrey Charlecote has never married?"

"Never."

What made Owen raise his eyes at that moment, just so that she met them?

and why did that dreadful uncontrollable crimson heat come mounting up over cheeks and temples, tingling and spreading into her very neck, just because it was the most hateful thing that could happen? And he saw it.

She knew he did so, for he dropped his eyes at once, and there was an absolute silence, which she broke in desperation, by an incoherent attempt to say something, and that ended by blundering into the tender subject--the children; she found she had been talking about the place to which she thought of taking them, a quiet spot on the northern coast of Somersetshire.

He could bear the pang a little better now, and a.s.sented, and the ice once broken, there were so many details and injunctions that lay near his heart that the conversation never flagged. He had great reliance on their nurse, and they were healthy children, so that there was not much instruction as regarded the care of their little persons; but he had a great deal to say about the books they were to be taught from, the hymns they were to learn, and the exact management required by Lucilla"s peculiar temper and decided will. The theory was so perfect and so beautifully wise that Honora sat by in reverence, fearing her power of carrying it out; and Captain Charteris listened with a shade of satire on his face, and at last broke out with a very odd grunt, as if he did not think this quite what he had seen at Wrapworth parsonage.

Mr. Sandbrook coloured, and checked himself. Then after a pause, he said in a very different tone, "Perhaps so, Kit. It is only too easy to talk.

Nora knows that there is a long way between my intentions and my practice."

The humble dejection of that tone touched her more than she had been touched since he had wrung her hand, long, long ago.

"Well," said the captain, perceiving only that he had given pain, "I will say this for your monkeys, they do _know_ what is right at least; they have heard the articles of war, which I don"t fancy the other lot ever did. As to the discipline, humph! It is much of a muchness, and I"m not sure but it is not the best at the castle."

"The children are different at home," said Owen, quietly; "but," he added, with the same sad humility, "I dare say they will be much the better for the change; I know--"

But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.

Honora hoped she should not be left alone with him, but somehow it did happen. The captain went to bring the carriage into the court, and get all imaginable wraps before trusting him out in the air, and Miss Wells disappeared, probably intending kindness. Of course neither spoke, till the captain was almost come back. Then Owen rose from where he had been sitting listlessly, leaning back, and slowly said, "Nora, we did not think it would end thus when I put my hand to the plough. I am glad to have been here again. I had not remembered what I used to be. I do not ask you to forgive me. You are doing so, returning me good for--shall I say evil?"

Honor could not speak or look, she drooped her head, and her hair veiled her; she held out her hand as the captain came in, and felt it pressed with a feverish, eager grasp, and a murmured blessing.

Honora did not see Mr. Sandbrook again, but Captain Charteris made an incursion on her the next day to ask if she could receive the children on the ensuing morning. He had arranged to set off before daybreak, embarking for Ostend before the children were up, so as to spare the actual parting, and Honora undertook to fetch them home in the course of the day. He had hoped to avoid their knowing of the impending separation but he could only prevail so far as to extract a promise that they should not know when it was to take place. Their father had told them of their destination and his own as they sat on his bed in the morning before he rose, and apparently it had gone off better than could have been expected; little Owen did not seem to understand, and his sister was a child who never shed tears.

The day came, and Honora awoke to some awe at the responsibility, but with a yearning supplied, a vacancy filled up. For at least six months she should be as a mother, and a parent"s prayers could hardly have been more earnest.

She had not long been dressed, when a hasty peal was heard at the bell, and no sooner was the door opened than in hurried Captain Charteris, breathless, and bearing a large plaid bundle with tangled flaxen locks drooping at one end, and at the other rigid white legs, socks trodden down, one shoe wanting.

He deposited it, and there stood the eldest child, her chin buried in her neck, her fingers digging fast into their own palms, her eyes gleaming fiercely at him under the pent-house she had made of her brows.

"There"s an introduction!" he said, panting for breath. "Found her in time--the Strand--laid flat on back seat, under all the plaids and bags--her father put up his feet and found her--we drove to the lane--I ran down with her--not a moment--can"t stay, good-bye, little Cilly goose, to think she could go that figure!"

He advanced to kiss her, but she lifted up her shoulder between him and her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and he retreated.

"Wiser not, maybe! Look here," as Honora hurried after him into the hall to ask after the patient; "if you have a bit of sticking-plaster, he had better not see this."