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he was very like his uncle, Christina's father; if so, Richard North must have been a very handsome man. Bernard was hardly a handsome man as yet; you would rather have called him a beautiful boy, though he was one-and-twenty, three years older than his cousin, and, like her, tall, though slight. He was fairer than she was, with sunnier hair, and a more ready smile; altogether, the family likeness was more apparent in the freedom of carriage and general bearing, than in the minuter details of feature and expression.

Christina had looked up at the sound of his footstep, but her face did not brighten, nor did she turn to meet him, when he came in flinging down his cap upon the table, and setting down his basket. He had come in bringing a breath of freshness, health, and happiness, with the rush of the outer air; but Christina was not ready to be touched by it.

"Why, Christina," he said, "what are you doing? you must be putting out your eyes."

"I can see quite well," said Christina pettishly, and gave a little wilful pull at her worsted, and the needles slipped in her hands, and the stocking unravelled itself so fast that the stitches ran after each other, and the ball rolled on to the floor.

"How tiresome you are! it is all your fault," said Christina; "I wish you had to pick those stitches up again."

She turned from the window, threw down her work, and, going to the fire, lighted one of the high candlesticks which stood on the chimney-piece. When she returned for her work it was in Bernard's hands, and he was patiently doing his best to repair the mischief. His mother sometimes said that his dexterous fingers were as useful as a girl's, and if he had not so much experience as Christina, he had far more patience; so she stood by, and the cloud gradually cleared from her face as she watched him at his work. She had not welcomed him, nor did she thank him now; but she brightened and smiled, and began to talk.

"What have you got in your basket?

Fish-oh, how charming! Really, Bernard, you are delightful. It is just what I wanted. Janet, here is some fish for your master's dinner. Janet !" and she danced over the stone floor and along the passage into some remote region where Janet was busy at her work.

When she returned her cousin had laid aside the stocking, and was shaping something out of a piece of wood with his knife as he sat in the chimney-corner. Christina's good humour was quite restored, and she, too, sat down, disposed to be gracious, at the other side of the hearth. After all, here was some one quite ready to sympathize with her and think her right; and that in itself was a soothing thought. She would never have complained to a stranger, her pride and her loyalty to her grandfather would alike have made it impossible; but as to Bernard, he was different, and was as nearly related to him as she was herself.

"Mother says we shall be ruined: I am sure I wish we could and have done with it!" she said, ending her story, and then she laughed; but the laugh had something of bitterness in it.

As for Bernard, he did not either expostulate or reason; he was not even sorry for Christina. All this weariness and anger and impatience of her lot in life was tending in one direction; and although he did not exactly put it to himself in words, he knew it, and the knowledge was dear to him. It could not be now, of course, but some time or another, some time he would be able to come forward as a deliverer. How the idea had first sprung up within him he did not know, nor did he care to inquire; it dated a long way back, he knew, back to the time when they went nutting together in the autumn woods, when they had gathered primroses in the valley, and when they had roasted chestnuts on the kitchen hearth; back to the time when they had been children together; back to the time when his schoolboy savings had been spent upon her first silver thimble. He could not give her wealth, perhaps ; but what did it matter? at least she should have freedom and sunshine, and a happy home. Christina, too, was

Then

content that it should be so. The idea did not dwell with her as it did with himit did not mingle in her dreams by night or her thoughts by day; but when she was troubled and impatient, and weary of her life, then she too looked on to the time when she should escape from it all to the homestead on the hill, where peace reigned with all its pleasant sights and sounds; where, as she thought in her ignorance, murmuring and discontent and anger must be hushed. it was that she thought of that day when they had stood together on the moor a year ago; of his words, and of the promise that she had made, and of the spray of purple heather she had given him as a pledge. No one else had even guessed at it, unless, perhaps, his mother, and she had never spoken of it even to him. Perhaps she hoped that the boyish fancy might die out; and as for Christina, why should she care to speak of it? There was no sympathy to be had, even if she had wanted it, and, as a matter of fact, she did not want it. Besides, it was only in times of vexation, as I have said before, that she thought of it herself. This was the reason that at this moment it flashed across her mind, and for the time their thoughts were the same.

"It will come to an end some day, I suppose," said Christina; "but I don't know. So many things may happen, you know; you might change,-I might change. Many things might happen. I might die first."

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Why do you say that?" said Bernard. Her words had brought a passing cloud over his sunny face. Christina always gave way to her moods, and said what was in her mind, and he was used to it; but nevertheless, her speech gave him a slight shock. Why should she think of change or death just now, when only the present was pressing upon her, and to him at least the future was full of so bright a promise?

"Why do you talk of change?" he said again. "How can I change? What can happen?"

"I don't know. How can I tell? But I suppose things may happen, even

here!" said Christina, with a little shrug of her shoulders; and then she repented herself of having damped his spirits, and smiled at him affectionately. "But I have not changed yet, Bernard, not yet;" and if Bernard had any misgivings left, he put them aside for the time.

He walked home that evening, towards the quiet, grey house on the hill-side, where his mother was waiting for him, not thinking of the future with any apprehensions; indeed, he was not thinking of the future at all, but of Christina's looks and words as he had parted from her; of the light flickering upon her hair as she sat in the circle of fire-light, of the familiar places, of old times, and childish memories. He did not think that she was beautiful, or kind, or charming; she was simply Christina, and that was all, but she was everything to him.

It was a trifling incident which first interrupted his thoughts, an ordinary sight which would have had little effect upon him at another time, perhaps, but which now breaking in upon his meditations, more or less jarred upon his mood of mind. It was simply that, through a gap in the trees of Cranford Park, he could see from the road, lights twinkling in the windows of the house which lay within.

"Then they have come back," he said to himself. "Christina was right; things happen even here."

And what did it matter to him? He would have said nothing, only he was dreaming dreams, and those shifting, restless lights disturbed him, and the moonlight would have been pleasanter without them.

CHAPTER II.

WHEN Bernard was gone, Christina sat for a few minutes meditating; then she gave a little sigh, and, rousing herself, she too left the kitchen; but her sigh and her meditations had nothing to do with Bernard. He had been, and he had gone, and for the moment he had cheered her, but his visits could not

change the character of her life, or even make epochs in it. If her mother had been a little less sad, if her grandfather had been a little less bitter, it might have been different; then she might have spoken to them of her future, and of Bernard's hopes; but to speak now would only be to raise a storm of anger and incredulity. Perhaps after all they were right, and she was wrong; perhaps it might be true that happiness was a wandering, deceptive light; that it would always dance before her eyes, and never take a form. So she went down to the evening meal with still a little cloud hanging over her brow.

Old Mr. North never forgot that, as people say, "he had seen better days." He might be poverty-stricken, aged, and forsaken, but in his own eyes, at least, he was still Geoffrey North, the great man of the parish, the Squire to whom the Park belonged. He had had misfortunes, but he refused to recognize the fact. 66 Family reasons made it desirable for me to give up my establishment and come to live here," he was accustomed to say with an assumption of dignity which had something pathetic in it; "and this quiet life suits me in my old age.' He seemed able to ignore the truth, so long as he had only himself to deceive, but dreaded to read it in strangers' eyes; and refusing to see those few friends who would have been glad to seek his society, he shut himself up with his books and his recollections, which sometimes must have been sad enough. He sat at the head of his table with his bottle of untouched port before him, and still talked of country business and foreign affairs, and the folly of men, as if his opinion was of the highest importance; but "nothing should tempt him back into active life," so he said with uncalled-for determination.

Christina had smiled at it all sometimes, for she was not old enough to be touched by the piteousness of the mockery; but to-day she was simply indifferent, and leant back in her chair gazing at the reflection of her own cloudy face in the polished wood.

"Mr. Warde is coming to dinner to

morrow," her mother was saying. "He wants more money for his school, I suppose; he is always wanting money."

"He does not want it for himself," said Christina, rousing herself a little indignantly.

"I suppose we all want money when we can get it," said her grandfather: and then silence fell upon them again.

Afterwards, when Christina went up the narrow stairs to her little room on the upper story, though she was fond of it in a way from habit and old association, she still looked with a sort of impatience at the familiar surroundings -the engraving of the Good Shepherd over the mantel-piece in the frame which Bernard had carved, the old panelled chest of drawers, the japanned dressing-table, the flower-pots in the window, and the little work-stand in the corner. There was no attempt at ornament, nor any of the little fanciful arrangements which girls are so fond of, but yet Christina was attached to the room, and would not have changed it, as her mother had often suggested, for a larger and more comfortable one.

Perhaps it was because she looked on it as a sort of refuge; here, at least, she could be quiet and alone. Not that solitude always suited her; it did not suit her this evening, and therefore it was that she put down her candle on the table, and went to the window, pushing back the curtain and looking out into the night.

It was a clear spring night, and she could see across the road, white in the moonlight, on to the dark line of the trees of the Park. She did not look in that direction, but, leaning out, cast her eyes over the moor, and the indistinctly shadowed hill, on the side of which stood the grey house to which Bernard had taught her to look as her future home. There, at least, she would find peace and love, and kind words. There was no hope or longing within her, but still she did look to that as the end which she desired. She turned, soothed and partly consoled; after all, some one there, she knew, was thinking of her, and looking forward to that time; and then, as she turned,

she caught sight of those lights twinkling in the upper windows of Cranford Manor, which had broken in upon Bernard's meditations. There was nothing magical in them; they were ordinary lights enough, giving evidence of human life within the house. And yet in Christina's eyes these were not ordinary, but as interesting and exciting as they were unexpected.

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They have come back," she said to herself, as Bernard had said it to himself, with another meaning, and in another mood.

There was nothing distinct or defined in the pleasure with which she looked once more at the distant lights before she lay down to rest.

The Park had been long shut up, and it was long-very long-since she had seen its owners, before the General fell ill, and they all went abroad; but nevertheless she was glad to know that they had come back.

"And Mr. Warde is coming to dinner,"-so Mrs. North sighed again the next morning, as she sat down with her work at the table in the front parlour, which lay on the opposite side of the passage from the kitchen, and was especially appropriated to her; for her father-in-law said he hated to have a woman rustling about the room.

"It fidgets me to death," said the hasty old gentleman; and so he had his way, and for the most part they left him to himself.

As to Christina, it did not much matter to her whether Mr. Warde came

or stayed away. The sun had long ago melted the hoar-frost from off the grass, and everything was still and bright; even the heath was less desolate-looking in the morning sunshine, and for the first time Christina noticed the light green veil which spring had thrown over the trees of the Park.

"Did you see the lights in the windows last night?" she said, without noticing her mother's sigh. "The windows were all lighted up; they must have come back to the Park, I suppose. Did you not see the lights?"

"Yes, they have come back; but what

does it matter?" said Mrs. North, with a melancholy indifference which seemed strange to Christina. "The old man, the father, I mean, is dead at last, and so they have come back-Captain Cleasby and his sister-some one told me yesterday. Ah! Christina, how different it was when that was our home! Who would have foretold our coming down to this? It seemed all so secure and certain then."

"I don't remember it, at least hardly at all-not at all clearly-but I remember young Mr. Cleasby very well," said Christina. "He gave me a ride on his pony one day, and grandpapa was so angry when I told him about it. I was quite a little girl, but I remember it very well."

"They call him Captain Cleasby, now, though I believe he has left the army," said the mother. "Well, we have nothing to do with them, or with the Park; they are not even our tenants."

It was natural enough, poor woman, that she should sigh again as she took up her work. It was true that they had nothing to do either with the Park or with the Cleasbys, or with anything rich, or prosperous, or happy; but it was also quite natural that Christina, who was not faded, nor disappointed, nor tired, but, on the contrary, full of life and spirit, should not feel all this as her mother felt it.

"I shall go and tell grandpapa," she said; and before her mother could remonstrate, she had crossed the passage and knocked at the study door.

"Grandpapa," she exclaimed, as he put down his book, disturbed by her sudden entrance, and looked at her over his spectacles with more surprise than pleasure; "grandpapa, do you know the Cleasbys have come back?"

"No, I did not know it," said Mr. North. He was not indifferent, like her mother; on the contrary, he laid aside his book altogether, as if it had no longer any interest for him, and sank back wearily in his chair, almost as if he had received a shock.

"The old man is dead, grandpapa,

and his son and daughter have come back. We saw the lights in the windows, and we think they have come to stay."

"So Cleasby is dead!" said the old man. "I wonder why I am alive!" For a moment there was a plaintive surprise in his voice, and then it changed into a tone of irritation. "Why do you come to tell me about it, Christina? I am an old man; I came here to be quiet, and not to be troubled about my neighbours. What does it signify to me? I remember nothing about them."

"I remember quite well," said Christina under her breath; and she smiled to herself a little as she said it, and then she raised her voice and added, "and it does signify, for perhaps they may come to see us."

Mr. North laid his hands upon the arms of his chair, and slowly rose up to his full height before he answered, while Christina stood looking at him wondering and curious.

"They will not come here," said her grandfather; and his voice, still powerful at times, resounded in the little room. "I will have nothing to do with them. They will not come here. Is it not enough"-he went on, gathering his breath by a painful effort, and locking his hands together behind his back, -"is it not enough that they are living in what should still be my house, dining at my table, shutting my doors upon me; and shall I invite them to come and see how I am changed, how everything is changed? They have what was once mine; but as to my acquaintance, they neither want it, nor shall they have it."

Then, as if putting a force upon himself, he sat down again in his chair, and took his book, though he could not see the letters. "Go, Christina, go; you interrupt me," he said, with something of the former sharpness in his tone and Christina went. It was strange that this return, to her so welcome and exciting, should be indifferent to her mother, and stranger still that it should awaken an amount of

emotion in her grandfather which she was altogether unable to comprehend. To her the future was all in all, and no ghosts rose up from the past to frighten or perplex her.

It was of the future that she was dreaming, as she sat at dinner that evening, and the little conversation of trivialities, her grandfather's courtesy, her mother's laments, and the Rector's rather stern common sense made no impression upon her, until she was roused to sudden interest by a casual reference to the once more inhabited Park.

"We need some one to take an interest in the parish," Mr. Warde was saying; "but what can you expect of a young man brought up on the Continent? Still I do not despair: there may be some good to be got out of him." After ten years of hard work as a parish priest, Mr. Warde still took a cheerful view of human nature, and was not easily discouraged.

They were a strangely incongruous party,-gathered round the same table, yet mentally how far apart! The old man, smothering his pride and bitterness and sense of injury under his courteous and dignified exterior; the widow, for whom life had no longer any hopes or fears, or pressing anxieties--nothing but the recollection of a youth ending in disappointment; the Rector, in the prime of life and strength, putting his whole mind to grasp the present and grapple with the difficulties of the moment; and, lastly, the young girl, standing, as it were, upon the threshold of the world, and stretching out eager hands towards the coming years.

She looked up now, roused by the Rector's words, and saw with a return of her former wonder, that her grandfather's forehead contracted involuntarily for a moment, and that he made an effort to listen patiently. But Mr. Warde was not an observant man, and he did not notice it.

"I suppose I need not hesitate to ask them for money," he said; a man who can afford to keep up that place

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