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Heriot's Choice

<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> <h3>DR. HERIOT'S WARD</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'I can pray with pureness For her welfare now— Since the yearning waters Bravely were pent in. God—He saw me cover, With a careless brow, Signs that might have told her Of the work within.'—Philip Stanhope Worsley. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> The pretty shaded lamps were lighted in the drawing-room; a large gray moth had flown in through the open windows and brushed round them in giddy circles. Polly was singing a little plaintive French air, Roy's favourite. Tra-la-la, Qui va la, it went on, with odd little trills and drawn-out chords. Olive's book had dropped to her lap, one long braid of hair had fallen over her hot cheek. Mildred's entrance had broken the thread of some quiet dream,—she uttered an exclamation and Polly's music stopped. 'Dear Aunt Milly, how late you are, and how tired you look!' 'Yes, I am tired, children. I have been to Stenkrith, and Dr. Heriot found me, and we have had a long talk. I think I have missed my tea, and——' 'Aunt Milly, you look dreadful,' broke in Polly, impulsively; 'you must sit there,' pushing her with gentle force into the low chair, 'and I shall go and bring you some tea, and you are not to talk.' Mildred was only too thankful to submit; she leant back wearily upon the cushions Polly's thoughtfulness had provided, with an odd feeling of thankfulness and unrest;—how good her girls were to her. She watched Polly coming across the room, slim and tall, carrying the little tea-tray, her long dress flowing out behind her with gentle undulating movement. The lamplight shone on the purple cup, and the softly-tinted peach lying beside it, placed there by Polly's soft little fingers; she carried a little filagree-basket, a mere toy of a thing, heaped up with queen's cakes; a large creamy rose detached itself from her dress and fell on Mildred's lap. 'This is the second time you have shivered, and yet your hands are warm—oh, so warm,' said the girl anxiously, as she hung over her. Mildred smiled and roused herself, and tried to do justice to the little feast. 'They had all had a busy day,' she said with a yawn, and stretching herself. The vicarage had been a Babel since early morning, with all those noisy tongues. Yes, the tea had refreshed her, but her head still ached, and she thought it would be wiser to go to bed. 'Please do go, Aunt Milly,' Olive had chimed in, and when she had bidden them good-night, she heard Polly's flute-like voice bursting into Tra-la-la again as she closed the door; Qui va la she hummed to herself as she crept wearily along. The storm had broken some miles below them, and only harmless summer lightning played on the ragged edges of the clouds as they gleamed fitfully, now here, now there; there were sudden glimpses of dark hills and a gray, still river, with some cattle grouped under the bridge, and then darkness. 'How strange to shiver in such heat,' thought Mildred, as she sat down by the open window. She scarcely knew why she sat there—'Only for a few minutes just to think it all out,' she said to herself, as she pressed her aching forehead between her hands; but hours passed and still she did not move. Years afterwards Mildred was once asked which was the bitterest hour of her life, and she had grown suddenly pale and the answer had died away on her lips; the remembrance of this night had power to chill her even then. A singular conflict was raging in Mildred's gentle bosom, passions hitherto unknown stirred and agitated it; the poor soul, dragged before the tribunal of inexorable womanhood, had pleaded guilty to a crime that was yet no crime—the sin of having loved unsought. Unconsciousness could shield her no longer, the beneficent cloak of friendship could not cover her; mutual sympathy, the united strength of goodness and intellect, her own pitying woman's heart, had wrought the mischief under which she was now writhing with an intolerable sense of terror and shame. And how intolerable can only be known by any pure-minded woman under the same circumstances! It would not be too much to say that Mildred absolutely cowered under it; tranquillity was broken up; the brain, calm and reasonable no longer, grew feverish with the effort to piece together tormenting fragments of recollection. Had she betrayed herself? How had she sinned if she had so sinned? What had she done that the agony of this humiliation had come upon her—she who had thought of others, never of herself? Was this the secret of her false peace? was her life indeed robbed of its sweetest illusion—she who had hoped for nothing, expected nothing? would she now go softly all her days as one who had lost her chief good? And yet what had she desired—but to keep him as her friend? was not this the sum and head of her offending? 'Oh, God, Thou knowest my integrity!' she cried from the depths of her suffering soul. Alas! was it her fault that she loved him? was it only her fancy that some sympathy, subtle but profound, united them? was it not he who deceived himself? Ah, there was the stab. She knew now that she was nothing to him and he was everything to her. Her very unconsciousness had prepared this snare for her. She had called him her friend, but it had come to this, that his step was as music in her ear, and the sunshine of his presence had glorified her days. How she had looked for his coming, with what quiet welcoming smiles she had received her friend; his silence had been as sweet to her as his words; the very seat where he sat, the very reels of cotton on her little work-table with which he had played, were as sacred as relics in her eyes. How she had leant on his counsel; his yea was yea to her, and his nay, nay. How wise and gentle he had ever been with her; once she had been ill, and the tenderness of his sympathy had made her almost love her illness. 'You must get well; we cannot spare you,' he had said to her, and she had thanked him with her sweetest smiles. How happy they had been in those days: the thought of any change had terrified her; sometimes she had imagined herself twenty years older, but Mildred Lambert still, with a gray-haired friend coming quietly across in the dusk to sit with her and Arnold when all the young ones were gone—her friend, always her friend! How pitiable had been her self-deception; she must have loved him even then. The thought of Margaret's husband marrying another woman, and that woman the girl that she had cherished as her own daughter, tormented her with a sense of impossibility and pain. Good heavens, what if he deceived himself! What if for the second time in his life he worked out his own disappointment, passion and benevolence leading him equally astray. Sadness indescribable and profound steeped the soul of this noble woman; pitiful efforts after prayer, wild searching for light, for her lost calmness, for mental resolve and strength, broke the silence of her anguish; but such a struggle could not long continue in one so meek, so ordinarily self-controlled; then came the blessed relief of tears; then, falling on her knees and bowed to the very dust, the poor creature invoked the presence of the Great Sufferer, and laid the burden of her sorrow on the broken heart of her Lord. One who loved Mildred found, long afterwards, a few lines copied from some book, and marked with a red marginal line, with the date of this night affixed:— <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'So out in the night on the wide, wild sea, When the wind was beating drearily, And the waters were moaning wearily, I met with Him who had died for me.' </div> </div> Had she met with Him? 'Had the wounded Hand touched hers in the dark?' Who knows? The lightnings ceased to play along the edges of the cloud, the moon rose, the long shadows projected from the hills, the sound of cattle hoofs came crisply up the dry channel of the beck, and still Mildred knelt on, with her head buried on her outstretched arms. 'I will not go unless Thou bless me'—was that her prayer? Not in words, perhaps; but as the day broke, with faint gleams and tints of ever-broadening glory, Mildred rose from her knees, and looked over the hills with sad, steadfast eyes. The conflict had ceased, the conqueror was only a woman—a woman no longer young, with pale cheeks, with faded, weary eyes—but never did braver hands gird on the cross that must henceforth be carried unflinchingly. 'Mine be the pain, and his the happiness,' she whispered. Her knees were trembling under her with weakness, she looked wan and bloodless, but her soul was free at last. 'I am innocent; I have done no wrong. God is my witness!' she cried in her inmost heart. 'I shall fear to look no man in the face. God bless him—God bless them both! He is still my friend, for I have done nothing to forfeit his friendship. God will take care of me. I have duty, work, blessings innumerable, and a future heaven when this long weariness is done.' And again: 'He will never know it. He will never know that yesterday, as I stood by his side, I longed to be lying at the bottom of the dark, sunless pool. It was a wicked wish—God forgive me for it. I saw him look at me once, and there was surprise in his eyes, and then he stretched out his kind hand and led me away.' And then once more: 'There is no trouble unendurable but sin, and I thank my God that the shame and the terror has passed, and left me, weak indeed, but innocent as a little child. If I had known—but no, His Hand has been with me through it all. I am not afraid; I have not betrayed myself; I can bear what God has willed.' She had planned it all out. There must be no faltering, no flinching; not a moment must be unoccupied. Work must be found, new interests sought after, heart-sickness subdued by labour and fatigue; there was only idleness to be dreaded, so she told herself. It has been often said by cynical writers that women are better actors than men; that they will at times play out a part in the dreary farce of life that is quite foreign to their real character, dressing their face with smiles while their heart is still sore within them. But Mildred was not one of these; she had been taught in no ordinary school of adversity. In the dimness of that seven years' seclusion she had learnt lessons of fortitude and endurance that would have baffled the patience of weaker women. Flesh and blood might shrink from the unequal combat, but her courage would not fail; her strength, fed from the highest sources, would still be found sufficient. Henceforth for Mildred Lambert there should shine the light of a day that was not 'clear nor dark;' she knew that for her no dazzling sunrise of requited love should flood her woman's kingdom with brightness; happiness must be replaced by duty, by the quiet contentment of a heart 'at leisure from itself.' 'There is no trouble unendurable but sin,' she had said to herself. Oh, that other poor sufferers—sufferers in heart, in this world's good things—would lay this truth to their souls! It would rob sorrow of its sting, it would lift the deadly mists from the charnel-house itself. For to the Mildreds of life religion is no Sunday garb, to be laid aside when the week-day burdens press heaviest; no garbled mixture of sentiment and symbolic rites, of lip-worship and heart freedom, tolerated by 'the civilised heathenism' of the present day, for in their heart they know that to the Christian, suffering is a privilege, not a punishment; that from the days of Calvary 'Take up thy cross and follow Me' is the literal command literally obeyed by the true followers of the great Master of suffering. Mildred was resolved to tolerate no weakness; she dressed herself quickly, and was down at the usual time. 'How old and faded I look,' she thought, as she caught the reflection of herself in the glass. Her changed looks would excite comment, she knew, and she braced herself to meet it with tolerable equanimity; a sleepless night could be pleaded as an excuse for heavy eyes and swollen eyelids. Polly indeed seemed disposed to renew her soft manipulations and girlish officiousness, but Mildred contrived to put them aside. 'She was going down to the schools, and after that there were the old women at the workhouse and at Nateby,' she said, with the quiet firmness which always made Aunt Milly's decrees unalterable. 'Her girls must take care of themselves until she returned.' 'Charity begins at home, Aunt Milly. I am sure Olive and I are worth a score of old women,' grumbled Polly, who in season and out of season was given to clatter after Mildred in her little high-heeled shoes. Dr. Heriot's ward was becoming a decidedly fashionable young lady; the pretty feet were set off by silver buckles, Polly's heels tapped the floor endlessly as she tripped hither and thither; Polly's long skirts, always crisp and rustling, her fresh dainty muslins, her toy aprons and shining ribbons, were the themes of much harmless criticism; the little hands were always faultlessly gloved; London-marked boxes came to her perpetually, with Roy's saucy compliments; wonderful ruby and cream-coloured ribbons were purchased with the young artist's scanty savings. Nor was Dr. Heriot less mindful of the innocent vanity that somehow added to Polly's piquancy. The little watch that ticked at her waist, the gold chain and locket, the girlish ring with its turquoise heart, were all the gifts of the kind guardian and friend. Dr. Heriot's bounty was unfailing. The newest books found their way to Olive's and Mildred's little work-tables; Chriss was made happy by additions to her menagerie of pets; a gray parrot, a Skye terrier whose shaggy coat swept the ground, even pink-eyed rabbits found their way to the vicarage; the grand silk dresses that Dr. Heriot had sent down on Polly's last birthday for her and Olive were nothing in Chriss's eyes compared to Fritter-my-wig, who could smoke, draw corks, bark like a dog, and reduce Veteran Rag to desperation by a vision of concealed cats on the stable wall. Chriss's oddities were not disappearing with her years—indeed she was still the same captious little person as of old; with her bright eyes and tawny-coloured mane she was decidedly picturesque, though stooping shoulders, and the eye-glass her short-sight required, detracted somewhat from her good looks. On any sunny afternoon she could be seen sitting on the low step leading to the lawn, her parrot, Fritter-my-wig, on her shoulder, and Tatters and Witch at her feet, and most likely a volume of Euripides on her lap. The quaint little figure, the red-brown touzle of curls, the short striped skirt, and gold eye-glasses, struck Roy on one of his rare visits home; one of his most charming pictures was painted from the recollection. 'There was an Old Woman,' it was called. Chriss objected indignantly to the dolls that were introduced, though Roy gravely assured her that he had adhered to Hugh's beautiful idea of the twelve months. Polly had some reason for her discontent and grumbling. The weather had changed, and heavy summer rains seemed setting in, and Mildred's plan for her day did not savour of prudence. It suited Mildred's sombre thoughts better than sunshine; she went upstairs almost cheerfully, and took out a gray cloak that was Polly's favourite aversion on the score that it reminded her of a Sister-of-Charity cloak. 'Not that I do not love and honour Sisters,' she had added by way of excuse, 'but I should not like you to be one, Aunt Milly,' and Mildred had hastened to assure her that she had never felt it to be her vocation. She remembered Polly's speech now as she shook out the creases; the straight, long folds, the unobtrusive colour, somehow suited her. 'I think people who are not young ought always to dress in black or gray,' she said to herself; 'butterfly colours are only fit for girls. I should like nothing better than to be allowed to hide all this hair under a cap and Quaker's bonnet.' And yet, as she said this, Mildred remembered with a sudden pang that Dr. Heriot had once observed in her hearing that she had beautiful hair. She went on bravely through the day—no work came amiss to her; after a time she ceased even to feel fatigue. Once the crowded schoolroom would have made her head ache after the first hour or so, but now she sat quite passive, with the girls sewing round her, and the boys spelling out their tasks with incessant buzz and movement. The old women in the workhouse did not tire her with their complaints; she sat for a long time by the side of one old creature who was bedridden and palsied; the idiot girl—alas! she was forty years old—blinked at her with small dazed eyes, as she showed her the gaily-coloured pictures she had pasted on rag for her amusement, and followed her contentedly up and down the long whitewashed wards. In the cottages she was as warmly welcomed as ever; one sick child, whom she had often visited, held out his little arms and ceased crying with pain when he saw her. Mildred laid aside her damp cloak, and walked up and down the flagged kitchen for a long time with the boy's head on her shoulder; singing to him with her low sweet voice. 'Ay, but he's terrible fond of you, poor thing!' exclaimed the mother gratefully. She was an invalid too, and lay on a board beside the empty fireplace, looking out of the low latticed window crowded with flower-pots. The other children gathered round her, plucking her skirt shyly, and listening to Mildred's cooing voice; the little fellow's blue eyes seemed closing drowsily, one small blackened hand stole very near Mildred's neck. <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'There's a home for little children Above the bright blue sky,' </div> </div> sang Mildred. 'Ay, Jock; but, thoo lile varment, thoo'll nivver gang oop if thou bealst like a bargeist,' whispered the woman to a white-headed urchin beside her, who seemed disposed for a roar. 'I cares lile—nay, I dunn't,' muttered Jock, contumaciously; to Jock's unregenerated mind the white robes and the palms seemed less tempting than the shouts of his little companions outside. 'There's lile Geordie and Dawson's Sue,' he grumbled, rubbing his eyes with his dirty fists. 'Gang thee thy ways, or I'll fetch thee a skelp wi' my stick,' returned the poor mother, weary of the discussion, and Jock scampered off, nothing loth. Mildred sang her little hymn all through as the boy's head drooped heavily on her shoulder; as she walked up and down, her dreamy eyes had a far-off look in them, and yet nothing escaped her notice. She saw the long rafter over her head, with the Sunday boots and shoes neatly arranged on it, with bunches of faint-smelling herbs hanging below them; the adjoining door was open, the large bare room, with its round table and bedstead, and heaped up coals on the floor, was plainly visible to her, as well as its lonely occupant darning black stockings in the window. 'After all, was she as lonely,' she thought, 'as Bett Hutchinson, who lived by herself, with only a tabby cat for company, and kept her coal-cellar in her bedroom? and yet, though Bett had weak eyes and weak nerves, and was clean out of her wits on the subject of the boggle family, from the "boggle with twa heeds" down to Jock's "bargheist ahint the yat-stoop."' Bett's superstition was a household word with her neighbours, 'daft Bett and her boggles' affording a mine of entertainment to the gossips of Nateby. Mildred, and latterly Hugh Marsden, had endeavoured to reason Bett out of her fancies, but it was no use. 'I saw summut—nay, nay, I saw summut,' she always persisted. 'I was a'most daft—'twas t'boggle, and nought else,' she murmured. Mildred was no weak girl, to go moaning about the world because her heart must be emptied of its chief treasure. Bett's penurious loneliness read her a salutary lesson; her own life, saddened as it was, grew rich by comparison. '"If in mercy Thou wilt spare joys that yet are mine,"' she whispered, as she laid the sleeping child down in the wooden cot and spread the patched quilt lovingly over him. Jock grinned at her from behind an oyster-shell and mud erection; lile Geordie and Dawson's Sue were with him. 'Aw've just yan hawpenny left,' she heard him say as she passed. Mildred had finished the hardest day's work that she had ever done in her life, but she knew that it was not yet over. Dr. Heriot was not one to linger over a generous impulse; 'If it is worth doing at all, one should do it at once,' was a favourite maxim of his. Mildred knew well what she had to expect. She was only thankful that the summer's dusk allowed her to slip past the long French window that always stood open. They were lighting the lamp already—some one, probably Olive, had asked for it. A voice, that struck Mildred cold with a sudden anguish, railed playfully against bookworms who could not afford a blind-man's holiday. 'He is here; of course I knew how it would be,' she murmured, as she groped her way a little feebly up the stairs. She would have given much for a quiet half-hour in her room, but it was not to be; the tapping sound she dreaded already struck upon her ear, the crisp rustle of garments in the passage, then the faint knock and timid entrance. 'I knew it was Polly. Come in; do you want me, my dear?' the tired voice striving bravely after cheerfulness. 'Aunt Milly—oh, Aunt Milly!—I thought you would never come;' and in the dark two soft little hands clasped her tight, and a burning face hid itself in her neck. 'Oh,' with a sort of gasp, 'I have wanted my Aunt Milly so badly!' Then the noble, womanly heart opened with a great rush of tenderness, and took in the girl who had so unconsciously become a rival. 'What is this, my pet—not tears, surely?' for Polly had laid her head down, and was sobbing hysterically with excitement and relief. 'I cannot help it. I was longing all the time for papa to know; and then it was all so strange, and I thought you would never come. I shall be more comfortable now,' sobbed Polly, with a girlish abandon of mingled happiness and grief. 'Directly I heard your step outside the window I made an excuse to get away to you.' 'I ought not to have left you—it was wrong; but, no, it could not be helped,' returned Mildred, in a low voice. She pressed the girl to her, and stroked the soft hair with cold, trembling fingers. 'Are those happy tears, my pet? Hush, you must not cry any more now.' 'They do me good. I felt as though I were some one else downstairs, not Polly at all. Oh, Aunt Milly, can you believe it?—do you think it is all real?' 'What is real? You have told me nothing yet, remember. Shall I guess, Polly? Is it a great secret—a very great secret, my darling?' 'Aunt Milly, as though you did not know, when he told me that you and he had had a long talk about it yesterday!' 'He—Dr. Heriot, I suppose you mean?' 'He says I must call him something else now,' returned the girl in a whisper, 'but I have told him I never shall. He will always be Dr. Heriot to me—always. I don't like his other name, Aunt Milly; no one does.' 'John—I think it beautiful!' with a certain sharp pain in her voice. She remembered how he had once owned to her that no one had called him by this name since he was a boy. He had been christened John Heriot—John Heriot Heriot—and his wife had always called him Heriot. 'Only my mother ever called me John,' he had said in a regretful tone, and Mildred had softly repeated the name after him. 'It has always been my favourite name,' she had owned with that simplicity that was natural to her; and his eyes had glistened as though he were well-pleased. 'It is beautiful; it reminds one of St. John. I have always liked it,' she said a little quickly. 'His wife called him Heriot; yes, I know, he told me—but I am so young, and he—well, he is not exactly old, Aunt Milly, but——' 'Do you love him, Polly?—child, do you really love him?' and for a moment Mildred put the girl from her with a sort of impatience and irritation of suspense. Polly's pretty face was suffused with hot blushes when she came back to her place again. 'He asked me that question, and I told him yes. How can one help it, and he so good? Aunt Milly, you have no idea how kind and gentle he was when he saw he frightened me.' 'Frightened you, my child?' 'The strangeness of it all, I mean. I could not understand him for a long time. He talked quite in his old way, and yet somehow he was different; and all at once I found out what he meant.' 'Well?' 'And then I got frightened, I suppose. I thought how could I satisfy him, and he so much older and cleverer. He is so immeasurably above all my girlish silliness, and so I could not help crying a little.' 'Poor little Polly! but he comforted you.' 'Oh yes,' with more blushes, 'he talked to me so beautifully that I could not be afraid any more. He said that for years this had been in his mind, that he had never forgotten how I had wanted to live with him and take care of him, and how he had always called me "his sweet little heartsease" ever since. Oh, Aunt Milly, I know he wants me. It was so sad to hear him talk about his loneliness.' 'You will not let him be lonely any longer. I have lost my Polly, I see.' 'No, no, you must not say so,' throwing her arm round her, only with a sort of bashful pride, very new in Polly; 'he has no one to take care of him but me.' 'Then he shall have our Sunbeam—God bless her!' and Mildred kissed her proudly. 'I hope you did not tell him he was old, Polly.' 'He asked me if I thought him so, and of course I said it was only I who was too young.' 'And what did he say to that?' 'He laughed, and said it was a fault that I should soon mend, but that he meant to be very proud as well as fond of his child-wife. Do you know, he actually thinks me pretty, Aunt Milly.' 'He is right; you are pretty—very pretty, Polly,' she repeated, absently. She was saying in her own heart 'Dr. Heriot's wife—John Heriot's child-wife'—over and over again. 'Roy never would tell me so, because he said it would make me vain. Roy will be glad about this, will he not, Aunt Milly?' 'I do not know; nay, I hope so, my darling.' 'And Richard, and all of them; they are so fond of Dr. Heriot. Do you remember how often they have joked him about Heriot's Choice?' 'Yes, I remember.' A sudden spasm crossed Mildred's gentle face, but she soon controlled herself. She must get used to these sharp pangs, these recollections of the happy, innocent past; she had misunderstood her friend, that was all. 'Dear Aunt Milly, make me worthier of his love,' whispered the girl, with tears in her eyes; 'he is so noble, my benefactor, my almost father, and now he is going to make me his wife, and I am so young and childish.' And she clung to Mildred, quivering with vague irrepressible emotion. 'Hush, you will be his sunbeam, as you have been ours. What did he call you—his heartsease? You must keep that name, my pet.' 'But—but you will teach me, he thinks so much of you; he says you are the gentlest, and the wisest, and the dearest friend he has ever had. Where are you going, Aunt Milly?' for Mildred had gently disengaged herself from the girl's embrace. 'Hush, we ought to go down; you must not keep me any longer, dear Polly; he will expect—it is my duty to see him.' Mildred was adjusting her hair and dress with cold, shaking fingers, while Polly stood by and shyly helped her. 'It does not matter how you look,' the girl had said, with innocent unconscious sarcasm; 'you are so tired, the tumbled gray alpaca will do for to-night.' 'No, it does not matter how I look,' replied Mildred, calmly. A colourless weary face and eyes, with an odd shine and light in them, were reflected between the dimly-burning candles. Polly stood beside her slim and conscious; she had dried her tears, and a sweet honest blush mantled her young cheeks. The little foot tapped half impatiently on the floor. 'You have no ribbons or flowers, but perhaps after all it will not be noticed,' she said, with pardonable egotism. 'No, he will have only eyes for you to-night. Come, Polly, I am ready;' and as the girl turned coy and seemed disposed to linger, Mildred quietly turned to the door. 'I thought I was to be dismissed without your saying good-night to me,' was Dr. Heriot's greeting as he advanced to meet them. He was holding Mildred's cold hand tightly, but his eyes rested on Polly's downcast face as he spoke. 'We ought to have come before, but I knew you would understand.' 'Yes, I understand,' he returned, with an expression of proud tenderness. 'You will give your child to me, Miss Lambert?' 'She has always seemed to belong to you more than to me,' and then she looked up at him for a moment with her old beautiful smile. 'I need not ask you to be good to her—you are good to every one; but she is so young, little more than a child.' 'You may trust me,' he returned, putting his arm gently round the young girl's shoulders; 'there shall not a hair of her head suffer harm if I can prevent it. Polly is not afraid of me, is she?' 'No,' replied Polly, shyly; but the bright eyes lifted themselves with difficulty. She looked after him with a sort of perplexed pride, half-conscious, half-confused, as he released her and bade them all good-night. When he was gone she hovered round Mildred in the old childish way and seemed unwilling to leave her. 'I have done the right thing. Bless her sweet face. I know I shall make her happy,' thought Dr. Heriot as he walked with rapid strides across the market-place; 'a man cannot love twice in his life as I loved my Margaret, but the peaceful affection such as I can give my darling will satisfy her I know. If only Philip could see into my heart to-night I think he would be comforted for his motherless child.' And then again—'How sweetly Mildred Lambert looked at me to-night; she is a good woman, there are few like her. Her face reminded me of some Madonna I have seen in a foreign gallery as she stood with the girl clinging to her. I wonder she has never married; these ministering women lead lonely lives sometimes. Sometimes I have fancied she knew what it is to love, and suffered. I thought so yesterday and again to-day, there was such a ring of sadness in her voice. Perhaps he died, but one cannot tell—women never reveal these things.' And so the benevolent heart sunned itself in pleasant dreams. The future looked fair and peaceful, no brooding complications, no murky clouds threatened the atmosphere, passion lay dormant, rest was the chief good to be desired. Could benevolence play him false, could affection be misplaced, would he ever come to own to himself that delusion had cheated him, that husks and not bread had been given him to eat, that his honest yearning heart had again betrayed him, that a kindly impulse, a protecting tenderness, had blinded him to his true happiness? 'How good he is,' thought the young girl as she laid her head on the pillow; 'how dearly I must love him: I ought to love him. I never imagined any one could be half so gentle. I wonder if Roy will be glad when I tell him—oh yes, I wonder if Roy will be glad?' <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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