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and then he looked to see if Christina was in her place; but he did not see her, for she was sitting on the other side of the church, with her aunt, Mrs. Oswestry. Christina never looked in his direction, but yet she knew quite well that he was there, and knew that his sister was not with him, and she was sorry for it, for she had hoped to meet Miss Cleasby and make her acquaintance in a casual way, without going against her grandfather's wishes to visit her at her own house. Captain Cleasby was alone, and she did not now want to meet him. The service was over, the clerk had followed Mr. Warde into the vestry, the organist was playing the last voluntary, the congregation were dispersing, and as Captain Cleasby passed down the church he for the first time became aware of Christina's presence.

But

"Wait a little, Aunt Margaret," Christina said in a whisper: and Mrs. Oswestry, imagining that she wished to listen to the organ, did wait, until the last note had been struck and the church was almost empty. Then they also rose and made their way out. But late as they were, there was a little knot of people still gathered about the porch, and Captain Cleasby was among them. He was talking to Mr. Sim, the churchwarden, and no one could have accused him of waiting for Christina; so he had said to himself, when it had occurred to him whether it would be better not to keep up the intercourse which his sister considered so injudicious. "Nonsense, what did it matter? her aunt was with her." So he had said to himself: and he merely bowed as they came out, and finished his conversation with Mr. Sim; and it was not until they were some little distance from the churchyard gate that he came up with them, inquired after Mr. North, and asked to be introduced to Mrs. Oswestry. He saw at a glance that she was not like the women he was accustomed to meet in the neighbourhood. She was not particularly interested in him, nor anxious to be conciliatory, nor did she smile upon

him like Mrs. Gregson and Mrs. Sim. In fact, she did not, like Christina's mother, "feel the difference," but as a mother and an elderly woman she felt herself superior in wisdom and experience to any young men who might cross her path. Like Christina, she was a democrat; and moreover, she did not stand like her upon the equality of youth. She was kind, but she was grave, and not in the least disposed to admire Captain Cleasby, or give him credit for better qualities than he possessed. Neither was she surprised at the friendly way in which he talked, but considered it quite natural that he should wish to be on pleasant terms with his nearest neighbours.

"I had the pleasure of meeting your son the other day, Mrs. Oswestry," he said; "but he told me that you were away from home: and now that you have come back he has left you, hasn't he?"

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Yes, he is in the north, and will be absent for some time."

"And in the meantime you are to be quite alone?" and then he turned to Christina. "Don't you think it is your duty to go and take care of your aunt in his absence?" he said, thinking how much easier it would be to see her there than at the White House.

"Aunt Margaret doesn't want me," said Christina.

"I need say nothing about that, because Mrs. Oswestry is here in person to controvert your plea."

Mrs. Oswestry was not altogether pleased by his manner. She would have thought it impertinent but for his pleasant voice and deferential looks.

"I am here, but not to controvert it, Captain Cleasby," she said; "Christina understands me when I say that I do not want her. Her proper place is at home; and when you have come to my time of life, you will find that rest and solitude have their charms. I am not apt to feel lonely. We elderly people are content to wait and look back upon the past."

"It is the looking back that I should be afraid of, when it comes to be looking far back."

"Surely not, and there is not only pleasure but profit in it. Our experience ought to be worth something to ourselves, for it is of little use to any one else."

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"That is a hard saying," said Captain Cleasby; "why will young people be so perverse? But seriously, now that we all believe in the progress of the age and the march of the intellect, I really don't see why age should count for so very much. We should not have much respect for Methuselah's opinion now. He was old, but the world was young. "Yes, the world was young, but I don't know that its wisdom has increased with its age. The same mistakes have been made over and over again, and repented of afterwards. You will grow wiser, Captain Cleasby, in reproducing commonplace follies, and gradually laying them aside.”

"But at least there is hope whilst we are young. You see, Miss North,' we need not despair, and may learn our duties in time. But whilst we are on the subject of duties, won't you tell Miss North that she owes something to society, and that it is a social duty to come and see my sister?"

"Captain Cleasby cannot understand our ways," said Christina, colouring as she spoke; "we do not visit people, and grandpapa remembers old times, and he does not like to be reminded of them."

"He need never be reminded, he need never be told, if your aunt will give her sanction. Come in now," said Captain Cleasby.

"No, no; Christina would not like that, and she is quite right. But she would have much pleasure, I am sure, in making your sister's acquaintance," said Mrs. Oswestry, a little coldly, for his proposition had not pleased her; “I think she is mistaken in imagining that my father would have any objection."

"Then you will use your influence. My sister has not been well, and she goes nowhere, so it would really be a charity. You will be forced to come at last," he said to Christina, with a smile; "but it would have been with a better grace and more complimentary to us if you had come of your own free will.",

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. OSWESTRY had seen little society. She knew nothing of the ways of the world, and she had no "small talk," as people say; but nevertheless she had read, and thought, and formed her opinions, and knew how to express them. Captain Cleasby was clever enough to perceive her superiority to the Overton ladies in general. He was not a man who cared for deference or flattery, though he was too indifferent to be irritated by it; and he thought Mrs. Oswestry a sensible woman, and saw that she was a perfect lady. Her cold yet gracious manner, her sweet voice and harmonious intonation, her plain black dress and fine face, had all prepossessed him in her favour. He was not liable to serious impressions, nor was she a woman to impress him; but yet he was not a hypocrite-it was simply his custom to be courteous; and when he said, as he took leave, "You have given me something to think of," Mrs. Oswestry was not in the least deceived, and never imagined that he would give her words a second thought. She was essentially a just woman, and it was not because she was attracted by him, but merely from a sense of what was fitting and proper, that she did not forget to urge upon her father the expediency of Christina's going to call upon Miss Cleasby.

"So Christina wants to go, does she?" said the old man, moodily. "I should have thought she would not be so anxious to go to the Park. I'd never have thought one of mine would have cared to set foot within the house again. But it's only an old man's fancy, I suppose. No one asked the young fellow to come here; but he comes when he likes; and I suppose Christina will go if she likes." "No, I won't, if it hurts you, grandpapa."

'No, it don't hurt me- —not much, any way. I shall soon be dead, and then I reckon nothing will hurt much."

"You shouldn't talk in that way, grandpapa," said Christina, steadily; she

was well accustomed to this form of complaint, and heard it with a mixture of anger and pain. "You have no right to talk as if people would be glad when you died. These people are ready to be friends with us, and I don't remember about old times, and I should like to be friends with them, but I say I would rather not go if you don't like it."

"Christina is right," said Mrs. Oswestry; "it is natural that she should be ready to make friends, but you know that she means it when she says she would rather not go if you object to it." "I hate the subject," said Mr. North. "What do you all make such a fuss and palaver about it for? Christina can go if she has a mind, if you think she ought, Margaret. I suppose you are rightyou always have been in the right since I can remember; and you were a nice little girl too, only so quiet. The sister won't be wanting to come here, I suppose. There, Christina, I hope you're pleased."

"Yes, I am, grandpapa," said Christina frankly. For her the visit to the Park had nothing painful about it. She had no recollections to make her fearful of the ghosts which might haunt those rooms; ghosts of happier days and unfulfilled hopes; ghosts which linger round the places where our happiest and saddest hours have been spent, where the commonest objects or the most trivial sounds carry us back to those bygone days, awakening our smiles or tears as we stand once more in the presence of an almost forgotten past. It may have been buried beneath other hopes and visions and cares and sorrows. Perhaps for a time we strewed its grave with flowers; perhaps we feared to pass the spot, and shrank from speaking of it even to ourselves: but yet it is not dead, and some day it may stand before us again, more near to us than the present, more comprehensible than the future, and clothed with immortality.

But as yet Christina knew nothing of this, and she had no fears.

"Shall you go by yourself?" her mother said. "I could not go-it would

be too sad for me; but perhaps your Aunt Margaret would take you if you asked her. I wonder you can like to go to that big house and strange people all by yourself."

Christina was standing before her glass, smoothing her hair back from her face, but now she turned and took up her hat.

"I don't see that the bigness of the house makes any difference," she said; "and as to strangers, it is only Miss Cleasby. I know her brother; and, besides, he is in Overton this afternoon."

"And are you going just as you are? Oh, Christina, I do think your other dress would have looked much nicer. You don't know what a grand place it is, and they are grand people too."

"Then depend upon it they won't think about my dress," said Christina lightly. But she went back to the dressing-table and tilted up the glass with her two hands so as to see herself better. And perhaps it was not wonderful that she smiled as she looked. She was a little excited by going to the Park, though she would not own to it, and her cheeks had more colour, and her eyes more brilliancy than usual, and she could not help recognizing her own beauty. If her muslin was not new, what did it matter, when it fell in such graceful folds? She turned away once more from the glass and threw back her head a little, and smiled at her mother.

"Never mind my dress," she said; “I think you make a mistake about the Cleasbys. We are every bit as much ladies and gentlemen as they are. It is only that they have more money, and that does not make any difference really. Good-bye, mother; do not vex yourself. I shall come home soon and tell you all about it."

It was singular that though Miss Cleasby was about as great a contrast to Mrs. North as could be imagined, in her manner and ways of thinking, on this occasion of Christina's first visit to the Park their expectations wore somewhat the same aspect. It was not that she felt the difference as Mrs. North felt it,

or that she had any feeling of pride or superiority; but she knew, of course, that Christina had been differently brought up from them, she knew that her belongings and all her surroundings were poor. She might be as much a lady as herself, but she could not have the same manner of speech nor cast of thought as if she had lived more in the world. It was one thing to see her amongst her natural surroundings, or standing on a picturesque bit of moorland, and quite another to see her in the drawing-room at the Park. Men could not understand until they saw; but she looked to Captain Cleasby's disenchantment, and was sorry for Christina, though perhaps it might be better that the spell should be broken before it had taken strong possession of her.

"I did not know that you had such an exclusive taste for exotics," said Captain Cleasby, when she expounded her views to him.

"I have not. For my own part I should be glad enough to get out of the stifling artificial atmosphere in which they flourish; but it does not improve matters to transplant wild-flowers into conservatories. They look shabby by the side of the natives of the place, even if they continue to exist. Depend upon it, Walter, I am right. I don't say that we have the best of it: the hill-side may be a better place than the garden, but we belong to the one and not to the other."

I

"Good gracious, Gusty, you talk as if we were the mighty of the land! thought you were possessed of a more liberal spirit, you who talk rash radicalism when it pleases you. Now you are as proud as old North; as for his granddaughter, I can assure you she does not think of this for a minute. There is not the least danger of her heart fainting within her at the sight of our magnificence."

"It is not our magnificence, it is something quite different. That is why I say again I am sorry that you will keep up this acquaintance, and sorry that you have asked her to come here. You think her manners perfect now; if

you saw her with other girls, you would all at once become aware that there was something wanting; you could not explain what it is, neither can I. You think her always beautifully dressed; if you saw her in this room you would see at once that her muslin was faded, and her hat not the right shape-in fact, if you saw her in a drawing-room you would see her with other people's eyes on the hill-side she is charming, I allow. Then all she has to do is to look pretty, but if she comes into society she has everything to learn; and if she cannot talk or behave like other people, it is not enough to look pretty."

"You have not seen her," said Captain Cleasby. "I won't tell you anything more about it, because it is impossible to make you understand. I think you will find yourself mistaken."

But after all he was not so sure about it himself, and he could not help acknowledging that there might be a great deal of truth in what his sister had said. It was quite true that Christina spoke to him freely and frankly, and with the graceful unconsciousness which was one of her greatest charms; and it was also true that she had none of the awkwardness which accompanies shyness or a sense of inferiority. She liked him, he knew, but he did not imagine that she looked up to him. All this he acknowledged to himself, but at the same time it was quite possible that Augusta might be in the right; she had put her arguments cleverly, and they swayed him in spite of himself. Perhaps she was right that, beside the girls whom he had been accustomed to meet with, the girls he had known in London and abroad, Christina might appear to a disadvantage. She must always be beautiful, but, after all, beauty was not everything. He hoped Gusty would be kind to her, but already she had succeeded in imparting her misgivings to him.

In the meantime Christina turned in at the Park gates, in happy ignorance of all the expectations which others had entertained of the manner in which she would make her entrance. She was full of vague anticipations of something

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Cleasby, because she was Captain Cleasby's sister, and because she might constitute a new element in her life, not because she was an important person in the neighbourhood, nor because she lived at the Park. And as to the impression she herself might make, she did not think of it at all. She was too proud and too unconscious, perhaps too careless of other people's opinion. She could not have been ashamed of their position, as her mother was, poor woman; but then she had no regrets to weigh her down, nor thoughts of what might have been. She cared little for her own beauty, but yet she knew that she was pretty, and perhaps the consciousness added something to her courage. But in spite of all this, in spite of her enterprise and frank simplicity, she would not have gone so easily to the Park if Captain Cleasby had been at home. She knew him, and she did not know his sister, but yet she preferred to introduce herself. This afternoon it was not until she had watched him drive past the White House on his way into Overton that she laid aside her work and announced her intention of going to the Park that afternoon. She had not asked herself why it was so; she would seek his sister, but she would not seek him. She had told her grandfather that she wished to be friends, but she felt whilst she said it that for some reason or other she could not be friends with Captain Cleasby. Perhaps, after all, her mother was right, and there was a gulf between them which could not be passed; perhaps it was true that a barrier had been raised between prosperity and poverty, between them and people of the world. Only she had not felt it so much at first, and she did not feel it now when she thought of his sister. But she knew it was otherwise with Captain Cleasby; if he came she would be glad to see him, only she could no longer be as

friendly as she had liked to be; and though she was not used to being afraid, she was afraid to go to the Park if he were to be there. He was not there to-day, however, as she knew, so she followed the butler across the great stone hall, with the glass doors opening on to the garden, and the flowering shrubs blossoming in the stands; and though her eyes were full of light, and the colour was glowing in her cheeks when the drawing-room door was thrown. open for her to pass in, it was only because she was a little excited by the novelty of the thing.

Miss Cleasby was sitting at her writing table at the further end of the room, but she rose when Christina came in, and went forward to meet her, and held out her soft, shapely hand, and looked down at her, not tenderly, but with a generous dispassionate gaze, and was struck, as she could not help being struck, by her beauty. This was not the little, shrinking, village girl she had expected, to whom she had meant to be kind, since she must come and it could not be helped. Christina was very slight, but, as her brother had said, she was almost as tall as herself, and she held her head like a queen, and she looked straight into Miss Cleasby's eyes with the candid inquiring look of one who, for her part, has nothing to conceal. And then she glanced round the luxurious room, at the mirrors and the cabinets and the gilded furniture, with admiration, and

no awe.

"How pretty it all is," she said: and she looked round with the open admiration of a child.

"Yes," said Augusta, vaguely. She was astonished, and had not quite recovered herself, and she sat down again and looked at Christina much as Christina looked at the new surroundings, only in her look surprise predominated. And she was much more sorry for Christina than she had been before; she was not a little, vain girl as she had imagined, but perhaps that made it worse-she would not be so easily consoled; and she was not a child, to be played with and put aside at pleasure.

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