CHAPTER XVIII.

'dores' plans a great satisfaction to him, I was more than flesh and blood could for he's a partisan too. Mind, I say noth-bear. ing against the hospital. What other places have, we ought to have too. We have the same needs as our neighbors. If Perth has one, I would have onethat's my principle. But I would not take it up because it's a plan of Lord Lindores'. And I hear you and that muckle lout Pat Torrance were nearly coming to blows.

"Is that the minister too?" John cried angrily.

"No, it's not the minister; the minister had nothing to say to it. Don't you take up a prejudice against the minister. That's just as silly as the other way. It was another person. Pat Torrance is just a brute; but you'll make little by taking up the defence of the weaker side there. A woman should hold her tongue, whatever happens. You must not set up, at your age, as the champion of ill-used wives.

"So far from that," said John, with fierce scorn," the tipsy brute swore eternal friendship. It was all I could do to shake him off."

IT happened after this that John Erskine, by no will of his own, was drawn repeatedly into the society of the somewhat lonely pair at Tinto. Torrance had never been popular, though the county extended to him that toleration which a rich man, especially when young, is apt to receive. There were always benevolent hopes that he might mend as long as he remained unmarried; and after his marriage his wife bore the blame of more than half his misdeeds. To tell the truth, poor Carry, being so unhappy, did not take pains to conciliate her neighbors. Some she took up with almost feverish eagerness, and she had two or three impassioned friends; but she had none of that sustaining force of personal happi ness which makes it possible to bear the weariness of dull country company, and she had not taken any particular pains to please the county: so that, except on the periodical occasions when the great rooms were thrown open to a large party, she and her husband, so little adapted as they were to indemnify each other for the loss of society, lived much alone in their great house, with none of that coming and going which enlivens life. And since what he called the satisfaction which John had given him, Torrance had experienced a sort of rough enthusiasm for his new neighbor. He was never weary of proclaiming him to be an honest fellow. "That's the way to meet a man," he would say "straightforward; if there's any mistake, say it out." And Erskine was overwhelmed with invitations to "look in as often as he pleased," to "take pot-luck," to come over to Tinto as often as he wearied. Sometimes he yielded to those solicitations out of pity for poor Carry, who seemed, he thought, pleased to see him; and sometimes because, in face of this oppressive cordiality, Miss Erskine is very right, as she it was difficult to say no. He did not enalways is. Whatever her advice may be, joy these evenings; but the soft look of it will carry the sympathy of all your well-pleasure in poor Carry's eyes, the evident wishers, Mr. John, and they are just the whole county, man and woman. I cannot say more than that, and less would be an untruth."

But Miss Barbara still shook her head. "Let them redd that quarrel their own way," she said. Stand you on your own feet, John. You should lay hands suddenly on no man, the Apostle says. Mr. Monypenny, is that you? I am reading our young man a lecture. I am telling him the old vulgar proverb, that every herring should hang by its ain head."

"And there's no a truer proverb out of the Scriptures, Miss Barbara," said Mr. Monypenny, a man of middle age, and grizzled, reddish aspect. It irritated John Beyond description to perceive that the new-comer understood perfectly what was meant. It had evidently been a subject | of discussion among all, from Sir James to the agent, who stood before him now, swaying from one leg to another, and meditating his own contribution to the arguments already set forth.

relief with which she saw him come in, went to John's heart. Not a word had passed between them on the subject which all their neighbors discussed so fully. No hint of domestic unhappiness crossed Carry's lips; and yet it seemed to John that she had a kind of sisterly confidence in him. Her face brightened when he appeared. She did not engage him in long intellectual conversations as

she did Dr. Stirling. She said, indeed, | sight of this passing figure.
little at all to him, but she was grateful to
him for coming, and relieved from that
which she would not complain of or object
the sole society of her husband.
This consciousness touched John more
than if he had been entirely in her con-
fidence. A kind of unspoken alliance
seemed to exist between them.

to

Even Tinto's

rude gaze was softened by it. He looked out at his wife and child with something more like human tenderness than was usual to him. Himself for a moment gave place in the foreground to this embodiment of the nearest and closest ties of life. He stopped in the talk which he was giving forth at large in his usual loud monologue, unaffected by any reply, and something softened the big balls of his light projecting eyes. "Let's step outside and finish our cigars," he said abruptly. Lady Caroline herself looked different from her wont. The child against her heart soothed the pain in it: there is no such healing application. It was not a delightful child, but it was her own. One of its arms was thrown round her neck; its head, heavy with sleep, to which it would not yield, now nestled into her shoulder, now rose from it with a sleepy, half-peevish cry. She was wholly occupied with the little perverse creature, patting it with one thin soft hand, murmuring to it. The little song she was crooning was contemptible so far as music went, but it was soft as a dove's cooing. She had forgotten herself, and her woes, and her shipwrecked life. Even when that harsher step came out on the gravel, she did not recognize it with her usual nervous start. All was soothed and softened in the magical evening calm, in the warm softness of the baby, lying against the ache in its mother's heart.

One evening when June was nearly over in the long, never-ending northern daylight, this tacit understanding was at once disturbed and intensified. John had been captured by his too cordial neighbor in the languid afternoon when he had nothing to do, and had been feeling somewhat drearily the absence of occupation and society. Torrance could not supply him with either, but his vacant condition left him without excuse or power to avoid the urgent hospitality. He had walked to Tinto in all the familiarity of county neighborhood, without evening dress or ceremony of any kind. They had dined without the épergnes and mountains of silver which Torrance loved, in the low dining-room of the old house at Tinto, which still existed at one end of the great modern mansion. This room opened on the terrace which surrounded the house, with an ease not possible in the lofty Grecian erection, well elevated from the ground, which formed the newer part. Lady Caroline, who had left the gentlemen some time before, became visible to them as they sat at their wine, walking up and down the terrace with her baby in her And Torrance, for a wonder, did not The child had been suffering from disturb this calm. He stopped to touch some baby ailment, and had been dozing the child's cheek with his finger as his a great part of the day, which made it un- wife passed him, but as this broke once willing to yield to sleep when evening more the partial slumber, he subsided came. The mother bad brought it out into quiet with a sense of guiltiness, puffwrapped in a shawl, and was singing softlying his cigar at intervals, but stepping as to lull it to rest. The scene was very lightly as he could with his heavy feet, tranquil and sweet. Sunset reflections and saying nothing. A touch of milder were hanging still about the sky, and a emotion had come to his rude bosom. pearly brightness was diffused over the Not only was that great park, those horizon-light that looked as if it never woods, and a large share of the surroundmeant to fade. The trees of the park laying country, his own, but this woman with in clustered masses at their feet, the landscape spread out like a map beyond, the hills rose blue against the ethereal paleness of the distance. Close at hand, Lady Caroline's tall, pliant figure, so light and full of languid grace, yet with a suggestion of weakness which was always pathetic, went and came - the child's head upon her shoulder, her own bent over it-moving softly, singing under her breath. The two men sitting to gether with little conversation or mutual interest between them, were roused by the

arms.

her baby was his, his property, though so much more delicate, and finer than he. This moved him with a kind of wondering sense of the want of something which amid so much it might yet be possible to attain happiness, perhaps, in addition to possession. His breast swelled with pride in the thought that even while thus engrossed in the humblest feminine occupation, like any cottager, nobody could mistake Lady Car Torrance for anything less than she was. They might think her a princess, perhaps. He did not know

"They are coming now in about ten days," Carry said. "Of course they have stayed longer than they meant to stay. People never leave town on the appointed day

any princess that had that carriage, he | lowed freely that conversation was not in said to himself; but less or meaner, no- his way. body could suppose her to be. And he was touched to see her with his child, her whole soul that soul which had always eluded him, and retained its chill superiority to him-wrapped up in the baby, who was his as much as hers. There was in the air a kind of flutter of far-off wings, as if peace might be coming, as if happiness might be possible even between this ill-matched pair.

John Erskine was the spectator in this curious domestic scene. He looked on

"There are so many people to see." "And so many things are put off till the last. I remember how hurried we were, how rapidly the days flew at the end."

"You do not go to town now?"
"No," she said hurriedly; "it is no

for London."

care

with wondering, half-pleased, half-indig-deprivation. We-neither of us
nant observation. He was almost angry
that Carry should be lowered to the level
of this husband of hers, even if it gave her
for a time a semblance of happiness; and
yet his heart was touched by this possi-
bility of better things. When the child
went to sleep, she looked up at the two
men with a smile. She was grateful to
her husband for his silence, for bringing
no disturbance of the quiet with him; and
grateful to John for having, as she
thought, subdued Torrance by his influ-
ence. She made to them both that little
offering of a grateful smile as she sat
down on the garden-seat, letting the child
rest upon her knee. The baby's head
had slid down to her arm, and it lay there
in the complete and perfect repose which
a mother's arms, protecting, sustaining,
warm, seem to give more than any bed.
The air was so sweet, the quiet so pro-
found, that Carry was pleased to linger
out of doors. Not often had she shown
any desire to linger in her husband's so-
ciety when not bound by duty to do so.
This evening she did it willingly. For
the moment, a faux air of well-being, of
happiness and domestic peace, seemed to
pervade the earth and the air. "It is so
sweet, it cannot do her any harm to stay
out a little," she said, smiling at them over
the baby's sleeping face, which was half
hidden in the soft, fleecy white shawl that
enveloped it. John Erskine sat down at
a little distance, and Torrance stood with
a half humility about him, half ashamed,
willing to do or say something which
would be tender and conciliatory, but not
knowing how. They began to talk in low
tones, Erskine and Carry bearing the
frais of the conversation. Sometimes
Torrance put in a word, but generally the
large puffs of his cigar were his chief con-
tribution. He was willing to let them
talk. Nay, he was not without a certain
pleasure, in this softened mood of his, in
hearing them talk. He would have al-

Torrance felt a certain gratitude to his wife for thus identifying her inclinations with his. "If truth were told, maybe that might be modified," he said. "I dare say you would like it, Car. You would get people to talk to. That's what amuses her," he added, with an explanatory glance at John. It was a novel sort of pleasure to him to give this amiable explanation of Lady Caroline's peculiarities, without any of the rough satire in it with which he was accustomed to treat the things he did not understand; and his constant pride in her found a new outlet. "It's not gaieties she wants, it's conversation," he said, with a softened laugh. "Next year we must see if we can't manage it, Car."

con

She turned to him with a startled glance, not knowing whether to deprecate all change so far as herself was cerned, or to thank him for this unusual thoughtfulness. Fortunately, her instinct chose the latter course. "It is kind of you to think of me," she said, in her soft voice. In all their wretched married life, they had never been so near before. He replied by his usual laugh, in which there was always a consciousness of that power of wealth which he could never forget he possessed. Oh yes, he would do it he could do it whenever he pleased - buy pleasures for her, just as he might buy dresses or jewels for her, if she would take a little pains to make herself agreeable. But even the laugh was much softer than usual. She gave him a little nod over the sleeping child, in which there was kindness as well as an astonished gratiude. Perhaps she had never been so much at her ease with him before.

66

They are going to fill the house in the autumn," she said, returning to the previous subject. "I hear of several people coming. A certain Lord Millefleurs

"That reminds me," said John, "that | lences, and would not care for real disI had a letter the other day from one of tinction. That is a great mistake. It is our old Swiss party. You will remember all the other way. It is we who think of him, Lady Caroline these things most."

"Now just look you here, John Erskine," said Tinto, projecting his big eyes, "You are all so contemptuous of wom-"I thought you were he that is the en," Lady Caroline said, with a faint smile, truth. She told me there was somebody. "even the kindest of you. You think a I thought it was you, and I was deter lady would only notice frivolous excel- mined to be at the bottom of it. Now

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