That Stick ...

Poor Miss Lang!  After all her care that her young pupils’ heads should not be turned by folly about marriage and noblemen, the very event she had always viewed as most absurdly improbable had really occurred, and it was impossible to keep it a secret; though Miss Marshall did her very best to appear as usual, heard lessons with her accustomed diligence, conducted the daily exercises, watched over the instructions by masters, and presided over the needlework.  But she grew whiter, more pinched, and her little face more mouse-like every day, and the elder girls whispered fancies about her.  ‘She had no doubt heard that Lord Northmoor had broken it off!’—‘A little poky attorney’s clerk, of course he would.’—‘Poor dear thing, she will go into a consumption!  Didn’t you hear her cough last night?’—‘And then we’ll all throw wreaths into her grave!’—‘Oh, that was only Elsie Harris!’—‘Nonsense, Mabel, I’m sure it was her, poor thing.  Prenez garde, la vieille Dragonne vient.’

That Lord Northmoor was to come back by the p. 30mail train was known, and Miss Lang had sent a polite note to invite him to afternoon tea on the Sunday.  The church to which he had been for many years devoted was a district one, and Miss Lang’s establishment had their places in the old parish church, so there was not much chance of meeting in the morning, though one pupil observed to another that ‘she should think him a beast if they did not meet him on the way to church.’

It is to be feared that she had to form this opinion, but on the other hand, by the early dinner-time, tidings pervaded the school that Lord Northmoor had been at St. Basil’s, and sung in his surplice just as if nothing had happened!  The more sensational party of girls further averred that he had been base enough to walk thither with Miss Burford, and that Miss Marshall had been crying all church time.  Whether this was true or not, it was certain that she ate scarcely any dinner, and that Miss Lang insisted on administering a glass of wine.

Moreover, when dinner was finally over, she quietly crept up to her own room, and resumed her church-going bonnet—a little black net, with a long-enduring bunch of violets.  Then she knelt down and entreated, ‘Oh, show me Thy will, and give me strength and judgment to do that which may be best for him, and may neither of us be beguiled by the world or by ambition.’

Then she peeped out to make sure that the coast was clear—not that she was not quite free to go where she pleased, but she dreaded eyes and titters—out at the door, to the corner of the lane where for many a Sunday afternoon there had been a quiet p. 31tryste and walk.  Her heart beat so as almost to choke her, and she hardly durst raise her eyes to see if the accustomed figure awaited her.  Was it the accustomed figure?  Her eyes dazzled so under her little holland parasol that she could hardly see, and though there was a movement towards her, she felt unable to look up till she heard the words, ‘Mary, at last!’ and felt the clasp of the hand.

‘Oh, Frank—I mean—’

‘You mean Frank, your own Frank; nothing else to you.’

‘Ought you?’  And as she murmured she looked up.  It was the same, but still a certain change was there, almost indescribable, but still to be felt, as if a line of toil and weariness had passed from the cheek.  The quiet gray eyes were brighter and more eager, the bearing as if ten years had been taken from the forty, and though Mary did not perceive the details, the dress showing that his mourning had not come from the country town tailor and outfitter, even the soft hat a very different article from that which was wont to replace the well-cherished tall one of Sunday mornings.

‘I had not much time,’ he said, ‘but I thought this would be of the most use,’ and he began clasping on her arm a gold bracelet with a tiny watch on it.  ‘I thought you would like best to keep our old ring.’

‘If—if I ought to keep it at all,’ she faltered.

‘Now, Mary, I will not have an afternoon spoilt by any folly of that sort,’ he said.

‘Is it folly?  Nay, listen.  Should you not get p. 32on far far better without such a poor little stupid thing as I am?’

‘I always thought I was the stupid one.’

‘You—but you are a man.’

‘So much the worse!’

‘Yes; but, Frank, don’t you see what I mean?  This thing has come to you, and you can’t help it, and you are descended from these people really; but it would be choice for me, and I could not bear to feel that you were ashamed of me.’