LITMIR.BIZ

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village street.

      The woman—lady he called her—gave a glance round to see if any one was looking, then suddenly stepping back, bade him come in. There was nothing in the house of the schoolmistress that looked like mystery. He knew it well enough. He had been there with his mother when he was a child. He had come with errands from her to the late mistress. The narrow passage and the tiny little sitting-room that opened off from it were as familiar to him as the Rectory. He walked into the parlour, which, however, startled him, as if it had been a new place which he had never seen before. How well he remembered the black haircloth sofa, the square table with its heavy woollen table-cover, which left so little room for coming or going. It was newly furnished, draped with curtains much more fresh than anything in the Rectory, a small sofa with pretty chintz, an easy-chair or two, the small tables which were not so common in those days. Jim did not notice those things in detail, but the general effect was such as to turn his head.

      ‘Hullo!’ he said, in his surprise.

      ‘You see the difference in the room? No; I wouldn’t have my predecessor’s old things. I have done it almost all with my own hands. Isn’t it nice?’

      ‘It is very different,’ said Jim. His home was dingy, but it was natural, and he had an undefined sense that this was not natural. There was something fictitious in the air of the little room with its poor, coarsely-papered walls—a sort of copy of a boudoir out of a novel, or on the stage. He was not very learned in such things, and yet it seemed to him to be part of a décor rather than a room to live in. In Mrs. Peters’ time it was very ugly, but as honest as the day.

      ‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘and let me give you a cup of tea; or perhaps—for I think I know gentlemen’s tastes—there may be something else that you will like better. Sit down, at least, and I will try if I can find something to your taste; for I want to make a little bargain with you, Mr. Plowden, that may be for my advantage and yours, too. Sit down for a moment, and wait for me here.’

      She vanished as she spoke, and left him much bewildered in the little bedizened room. It occurred to him during the moment he was left there that perhaps, on the whole, it would have been better had he gone after all to the parlour in the ‘Blue Boar.’ But his entertainer reappeared in a minute or two, bearing in her hands a tray, upon which stood a tall glass, foaming as nothing ever foamed in the ‘Blue Boar.’ I don’t pretend to say what its contents were. They were foaming, and highly scented, and they pleased Jim Plowden, I am sorry to say, better than tea.

      ‘That is something like what we had at Nuneham that lovely day. Don’t you recollect me now?’

      ‘Mrs. Brown!’ cried Jim. It was not a name which said very much to the ordinary ear. It would, indeed, be difficult to say less. But the new schoolmistress made him a curtsey such as had never been seen in Watcham before.

      ‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘that you remember me; though I ought to have been pleased and satisfied that you did not—for a woman, however she may came down in the world, never likes to think that she has been forgotten. I have recalled myself to your recollection, Mr. Plowden, in order to say that I hope you won’t say anything to your father or any one of where we met last. I was then, if you remember, chaperon, to some young ladies.’

      ‘Oh yes, indeed, I remember perfectly,’ cried Jim, ‘your nieces.’

      ‘Well, yes, my nieces if you like; and I was not at all like a village schoolmistress, was I? Things happen so in this life; but it would do me no good, Mr. Plowden, with the Rector or the other good people, to know that I had been—well, helping you to squander your money at Oxford only last year.’

      ‘You did not help me to squander my money, Mrs. Brown. I was only one of the guests. I had no money to squander; but I fear what you mean is that you have come down in the world. I am very sorry, I am as sorry as I can be. It is very different, this, from anything you have been accustomed to; but instead of saying nothing about it, which I can understand as a matter of pride, don’t you think it would be better for me to tell my mother, who though she has her own ways which you might perhaps not care for, is very kind, and would, I am sure, try to make things as pleasant as she could and as little hard, and ask you up to the Rectory and all that?’

      Mrs. Brown turned her back upon Jim, and he feared that she wept. But I don’t think she wept, though when she turned round again she had her handkerchief to her eyes. She said, ‘I am sure your mother is goodness itself, Mr. Plowden; but I am a proud woman, as you perceive. No, you must not breathe a word to your mother. I have one friend who knows all about me; and that is Mrs. Swinford, at the Hall; but except her and yourself I want nobody to know. Will you promise me that nobody shall know from you, Mr. Jim?’

      How did she know his name, Jim? How did she remember him at all, a little, young, ignorant freshman much honoured to make one of the brilliant water party of which she and her nieces had been the soul? He was ready to have promised anything, everything she asked.

VIII

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      ‘She was nice enough to us,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘but very hoighty-toighty with your aunt. Did you observe that, Emmy? Poor Aunt Emily was very kind. She said in such a pretty way, “That is Emily Plowden now,” and really Emmy looked so very like her at that moment—with the charm of youth, of course, added on—that nobody could help remarking it. Mr. Swinford looked from one to the other, making a little comparison I could see—and you may imagine in whose favour it was.’

      ‘It was in my sister’s favour, of course,’ said the Rector. There was something in the way in which he emphasised the my, as if to mark the difference between his daughter, who was her mother’s as well as his, and his sister who was all his own, that might have been amusing to a bystander, but to Mrs. Plowden was not amusing at all.

      ‘It is most curious,’ she said, ‘the way you always stand up for your own family——’

      ‘Whom do you mean by my own family? Emmy is my own family, I suppose?’

      ‘You know very well what I mean. I mean your side of the house in opposition to mine. One would think that nobody born was ever equal to your people—not even your own children.’

      ‘My own children are as God has made them,’ said the Rector. He added, as if she had been somehow of a superior manufacture, ‘But my sister Emily was the sweetest creature I ever saw when she was Emmy’s age. Emmy is a good girl, and she is very nice-looking or she could not be supposed to be like my sister. But as for comparing the one to the other, my dear, it only shows how little you know.’

      ‘Upon my word!’ cried Mrs. Plowden, not without reason, ‘I hope my Emmy may be compared to any one. Your sister had always a great deal too much intellectual pride about her to please me. She was not content to be nice-looking, which nobody ever denied, but she went in for being clever, too. I know you don’t approve of women taking that sort of position, James. Indeed, you have said as much a hundred times—and now to go on raving about your sister, as if we haven’t all had sisters that were out of the common in our day!’

      ‘My dear, I didn’t know there was anybody out of the common connected with you. My impression is I never heard you brag of that before—no more than poor Emily ever did about being more clever than the rest of us. Poor girl, it hasn’t come to much in her case.’

      ‘I am not one to be always blowing a trumpet about my family,’ said Mrs. Plowden angrily; ‘but if you think my brother Thurston is nobody——’

      ‘Not in the least; he is a very nice fellow, and a Q.C.’

      ‘Or my sister Florence!’ said the Rector’s wife, ‘poor Florry’s godmother—and the girl takes after her, I’m glad to say—and it’s to her credit, whatever you may think.’

      ‘Oh, your sister Florence!’ said the Rector. This was a point that

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