LITMIR.BIZ

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hostess and her daughter, and Miss Wilson – a blind man! He had not the taste to prefer Eliza Millward. He seldom quitted the secluded place of his birth, where he lived in solitary state. I was the companion most agreeable to his taste. I liked the man well enough, but he was too cold, and shy, and self-contained, to obtain my cordial sympathies.

      His heart was like a sensitive plant, that opens for a moment in the sunshine, but curls up and shrinks into itself at the slightest touch of the finger, or the lightest breath of wind. Our intimacy was rather a mutual predilection than a deep and solid friendship. Mr. Lawrence was like a new garment, all very neat and trim to look at, but very tight in the elbows.

      Soon after the arrival of the guests, my mother mentioned Mrs. Graham. My mother regretted she was not there, and explained to the Millwards and Wilsons the reasons.

      “She is a very strange lady, Mr. Lawrence,” added she; “we don't know what to think of her. But you can tell us something about her, for she is your tenant, you know. And she said she knew you a little.”

      All eyes were turned to Mr. Lawrence.

      “I, Mrs. Markham!” said he; “you are mistaken. I don't – that is – I have seen her, certainly; but I can't tell anything about Mrs. Graham.”

      He then immediately turned to Rose, and asked her to favour the company with a song, or a tune on the piano.

      “No,” said she, “you must ask Miss Wilson: she plays and sings much better.”

      Miss Wilson demurred.

      “She'll sing readily enough,” said Fergus, “if you stand by her, Mr. Lawrence, and turn over the leaves[9] for her.”

      “I shall be most happy to do so, Miss Wilson; will you allow me?”

      She bridled her long neck and smiled. After that she played and sang, one piece after another; while he stood patiently by, and turned over the leaves of her book.

      “I don't take wine, Mrs. Markham,” said Mr. Millward; “I'll take a little of your home-brewed ale[10]. I always prefer your home-brewed to anything else. There's nothing like this, Mrs. Markham!” said he. “I always maintain that there's nothing to compare with your home-brewed ale. These things are all blessings and mercies, if we only knew how to make use of them.”

      “But Mrs. Graham doesn't think so. You'll just hear now what she told us the other day,” said my mother

      And my mother favoured the company with a particular account of that lady's ideas,

      “Now, don't you think it is wrong?”

      “Wrong!” repeated the vicar, with more than common solemnity, “criminal, I say, criminal! She is making a fool of the boy, despising the gifts of Providence, and teaching him to trample them under his feet.”

      Mr. Lawrence sat with his elbow on the table, and covertly smiled to himself.

      “But don't you think, Mr. Millward,” suggested he, “that when a child may be naturally prone to intemperance – by the fault of its parents or ancestors, for instance – some precautions are advisable?” (Mr. Lawrence's father shortened his days by intemperance).

      “Some precautions, it may be; but temperance, sir, is one thing, and abstinence another.”

      “With some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible. A parent's authority cannot last for ever. Children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things. It seems to me, that this plan of Mrs. Graham's, as you describe it, Mrs. Markham, is not without its advantages.”

      He pushed his chair a little away from the table, and leant back towards me – and carelessly asked me if I knew Mrs. Graham.

      “I have met her once or twice,” I replied.

      “What do you think of her?”

      “I cannot say that I like her much. She is handsome, but not amiable. She too hard, too sharp, too bitter for my taste.”

      He made no reply, but looked down and bit his lip.

      After that we were dancing. Then I followed Eliza to help her with her shawl. And I snatched a kiss behind her father's back. But alas! I turned round, and there was my mother close beside me. When the guests departed, she said to me,

      “My dear Gilbert, you know how I love you and prize you above everything else in the world. But how bitterly it will grieve me to see you married to that girl – or any other in the neighbourhood. What you see in her I don't know. There's neither beauty, nor cleverness, nor goodness, nor anything else in her. Wait awhile and see! If you bind yourself to her, you'll repent it all your lifetime.”

      “Well, mother, do be quiet! I'm not going to marry yet, I tell you. But I want to enjoy myself.”

      “Yes, my dear boy, but not in that way. Indeed, don't do such things. You'll get entangled in her snares before you know where you are. And if you marry her, Gilbert, you'll break my heart.”

      “Well, don't cry about it, mother,” said I; “don't abuse Eliza anymore. I'll promise to think twice before I take any important step.”

      I lighted my candle, and went to bed.

      Chapter V

      Soon I accompanied Rose her in a visit to Wildfell Hall. To our surprise, in a room we saw a painter's easel, with a table beside it covered with rolls of canvas, bottles of oil and varnish, palette, brushes, and paints.

      “I must make you welcome to my studio,” said Mrs. Graham; “there is no fire in the sitting-room today, and it is very cold.”

      She resumed her place beside the easel. It was a view of Wildfell Hall at early morning.

      “I see your heart is in your work, Mrs. Graham,” observed I. “Our presence will interrupt, we shall regard ourselves as unwelcome intruders.”

      “Oh, no!” replied she and threw her brush on to the table. “I can readily spare a few minutes to the few that favour me with their company.”

      “You have almost completed your painting,” said I, with a greater degree of admiration and delight than I expressed. “But why have you called it Fernley Manor, Cumberland, instead of Wildfell Hall?”

      “Because I have friends – acquaintances at least – from whom I desire to conceal my present abode.”

      “Then you don't intend to keep the picture?” said I.

      “No; I cannot afford to paint for my own amusement.”

      “Mamma sends all her pictures to London,” said Arthur; “and somebody sells them for her there, and sends us the money.”

      I remarked a pretty sketch of Lindenhope from the top of the hill; another view of the old hall in the sunny haze of a quiet summer afternoon; and a simple little picture of a child, with glimpses of dark low hills and autumnal fields behind it.

      “I really have nothing else to paint,” observed the fair artist. “They say that you have a fine view of the sea somewhere in the neighbourhood. Is it true? And is it far?”

      “Yes, if you are ready to walk four miles – or nearly so – eight miles, there and back.”

      “In what direction does it lie?”

      I described the situation.

      “Oh, stop! Don't tell me now: I shall forget every word of your directions before I require them. I shall not go there till next spring; and then, perhaps, I may trouble you. At present we have the winter before us, and – ”

      She suddenly paused, with a suppressed exclamation, started up from her seat, and said,

      “Excuse me one moment!”

      She hurried from the room, and shut the door behind her.

      I looked from the window and beheld the man's coat behind a large bush that stood between the window and the porch.

      “It's

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