Miss Tommy: A Mediaeval Romance. And, In a Houseboat; a Journal

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MISS TOMMY

^ Mtixaml Homante

AND

IN A HOUSE-BOAT

21 lournal

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN"

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

1884

V

3 \.

\J

HARVARD tOlLEGE LIBRARY

Gin Of

MMES SlUKiiiS PRAY

MISS MULOCK'S WOJ^S.

A BRAVE LADY. lUoftnttod. 8to, Paper,
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A LEOACY : The Life and Retnahu of John
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PREFACE.

In the exciting blaze of modern fiction the
glowworm light of this simple and old-fashioned
story almost seems to need apology ; except that
it is, in degree, a true story; and truth is al-
ways worth something. My heroine really lived ;
about half a century ago ; she was very beautiful
and charming; her name was Thomasina, and she
was generally called " Miss Tommy.''

Perhaps, in these days, when so many women
disdain to be such — contemning domestic life,
and, by a curious contradiction, at once imitating
and despising men, it may be excusable to have
painted one who was "only a woman" — noth-
ing more.

MISS TOMMY

Oi Mttncmal Komame

MISS TOMMY.

PART I.

I on should call her Thomasi-
na," said I, as I held in my
arms a friend's first baby,
whose dear and honored fa-
ther bears the old-fsehioned
name of Thomas, though
snppressed into an initial.
" Thomaaina !" repeated the yoang mother
with polite hesitation. "Isn't it a — rather a
long name? And if it were shortened — fancy
her being called ' Tom ' or ' Tommy ' !"

" "Why not i The most charming woman I
ever knew was named Thomasina, and all her
life was called ' Miss Tommy.' "
While I spoke the old days came back upon

2 MI8S TOMMY.

me — the days when I was a girl, who am now a
middle-aged mother. I saw her clear as if it
were yesterday, my dear " Miss Tommy," whom
I loved with a kind of passionate admiration,
such as a girl often conceives for an elderly
woman, and which she returned with the ten-
derness that warm childless hearts give, and are
glad to give, to other people's children.

She rises up before me now — her pale, pure
face, her small, dainty figure, her gentle way of
moving and speaking, and her dear little soft
hands — she had such pretty hands to the very
last. But her beauty was not obtrusive. You
might be in the room with her for ever so long
and not notice Miss Tommy, till you came and
sat beside her — found her out, so to speak ; and
then you were never likely to forget her. I
never did, from the first hour when I made her
acquaintance.

It was in a ball-room, of all places in the world
— a London ball-room. I was sitting in a corner,
dull and silent, refusing to dance, for the only
one I cared to dance with had just gone oflE to
India, and as I was only nineteen and he two-

MISS TOMMY. 6

and-twenty, our parents would not let us be en-
gaged ; they said we would change our minds
half a dozen times during the three years that he
was to be away — which might have been true,
though it wasn't. So I wore the willow, half in
sorrow, half in anger, for Charlie Gordon's sake,
and thought myself the most miserable and ill-
used girl in the world.

Everybody — that is, the "everybody" of a
large family and a circle of affectionate friends
— knew of my griefs and my wrongs. Some
blamed, no doubt, and some sympathized, for
Charlie was a universal favorite. He was away,
luckily for him, and out of it all ; for me, I bore
my heart-break as best I could, and tried to wear
my willow — rather ostentatiously, but with a dig-
nified grace which raised me very much in my
own opinion, and even afforded me a certain con-
solation.

I can smile at myself now, at the folly of sup-
posing that the whole order of things was to be
turned upside down to make two lovers happy —
two creatures, young and foolish, with not a half-
penny between them. And yet I am a little

4 MISS TOMMY.

sorry for my old self too, for it was a very hon-
est self, and its pain was a very real pain. I
should not like to inflict the like on my own
children without serious cause.

Enough of this, however, though it is not so
much outside my story as it appears to be.

I had been sitting, silent and sullen, watching
the couples waltzing round, and declining every
partner who came up to me, with a scarcely civil
negative — they were decent young men enough,
but, oh, so inferior to Charlie! — when I heard
some one beside me say, in a gentle tone, " Do
you dislike dancing ?"

It was a small and rather elderly lady — a
" wall-flower " like myself — but with such a beau-
tiful face, and such a pretty dress — a dove-colored
silk trimmed with rich old lace. But her toilet
was not of the youthful style that the London
ladies of her age made themselves look old and
ugly in — nay, might even have been called " pro-
vincial" had it not been so very suitable and
graceful. Who she was I had no idea, and yet,
as the ball was in my aunt's house, I knew nearly
all the guests. And I might have resented this

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swer it, hovever. ski cse jemtt flCTiiJinfffiL:
^I diink I bacf« soai t^il b^

but yoo weie qvzse & ^Eszit ^ri ^iqi. Ii s iuimt
yens anee I Tkiscd tokt cm*, iir I suftuzL aonuft
up to Loodoii. Mt Iumbk s js I>i<r^cJ^

^ DoTer P It was tbe puiee oear Cliiirae'i
letter was dated from. *I>> Jxia kit^'v I>i^
aod— and the icgxmeBis iitagf>jimft" :^i£nt T I
ly aaked.

^Xo; I am u hgrnhlp cmlsiaJ^flDci ioe.
a quiet smile. ^ I hsre bo mcSssrw ffsintfgsfi:
But the other day I watdied a rtgrnenx jeare
India — the — th."

It was Chailie's own. And hr her wmr of
lookiiig down and not at me, and by a certain
t^ider intonation in her roiee, I wm sore iLe
knew about me and Charlie^ P^faaps she was
Boiry for na. I grasped h^* hand.

^ Indeed, I ought to know yoo, to remember
yon ; bnt I forget your name."

"I am Miss Trotter — Thomasina Trotter —
sometimes called ^ Miss Tommy.' "

6 MISS TOMMY.

She laughed and I laughed, which prevented
my crying — which I was ready to do. To think
of this little old lady having had the last precious
glimpse denied to me — the sight of my Charlie
before he sailed !

" Miss Tommy ! What a funny name ! I
must tell it to — ^" And then the thought that I
had now no Charlie to tell anything to, for our
parents would not let us correspond, came upon
me with such a pang that I could hardly keep
back the tears.

Miss Trotter touched my hand softly, and
then stood up in front of me, as if admiring
the dancers, till I had recovered my composure.

"I beg your pardon. I ought not to be so
silly ; but, oh 1" — here my grief burst out — " he
is just gone to India, and that was his regiment
you saw, and — if you had ever known Charlie
Gordon — "

The old lady — ^she seemed old to me who was
nineteen — started slightly, and a sudden color
flushed all over her delicate features. "My
dear," she said, taking my hand, " I did not know
this Charlie Gordon, but from all I hear of him

MISS TOMMY. 7

I can imagine that his friends mast miss him
sorely. And to part with any one dear to us,
for a long absence abroad, with all the chances
and risks of absence, is" — here her voice fal-
tered — " is a hard thing."

Then she did know all. How I blessed her
for her kind words !

"But," she continued, suddenly brightening,
" let us hope he will come back safe and sound,
and — ^just the same."

Yes, she did understand. I, who thought my
love affair the most important affair in the world,
was grateful to the old lady, and felt that I could
have loved her in spite of her ugly and vulgar
name, " Miss Tommy Trotter." Who could she
be? I had never heard of her; but then my
aunt had a large circle of friends outside our
circle, and for many months past my interests
had narrowed down to one person. I cared lit-
tle for anybody or anything that was not con-
nected with Charlie.

I should soon have poured out into her sympa-
thizing bosom the whole story of me and Char-
lie, but for the unromantic intervention of supper,

B MISS TOMMY.

to which some one took her in, and she disap-
peared. I might have forgotten her altogether,
for in my preoccupied state of mind I was apt
to forget both people and things, everything but
Charlie, had not my mother one day, sitting by
ray bed-side — ^I had fretted myself at last into
real illness — said suddenly :

"Decie" (being the tenth, I had been chris-
tened Decima), " where did you meet Miss Tom-
my Trotter ?"

" Miss Tommy Trotter ?"

"An old friend of your aunt's, now staying
with her. She was asking kindly after you, and
sorry you were ill. She also said, as you had
been ordered sea air, and as it is so inconvenient
for me to leave home, if I would trust you to
her at Dover — "

" Dover ? Yes, I will go. Please let me go
at once," cried I, with an eagerness that must
have given a pang to my tender mother, with
whom I had steadily refused to go anywhere.
But she had already learned, as mothers must,
that there had come a time when even she could
not make her darling happy. Tears after, when

MISS TOMMY. y

she slept peacefully " under the daisies," I found
out by my own experience how miserable I must
have made my poor mother in those days.

"Very well, dear," was all she said. "Miss
Trotter, your aunt tells me, is a most sensible
woman, and will look after your health. And
you will have sufficient comforts, even luxuries,
for she is a lady of fortune, inherited from her
uncle, Mr. Thomas Trotter ; a most respectable
man, but not quite a gentleman ; in fact, a tailor
— an army tailor."

We Murrays were proud of our blue blood, and
since I had known the Gordons I was prouder
still. For a moment I hesitated, and wished I
had not so readily consented to visit a tailor^s
niece.

" But she looks and speaks like a gentlewoman.
Miss Trotter herself — ^"

"And she is a gentlewoman, or your aunt
would not have kept up acquaintance with her.
She first heard of her through a mutual friend,
who said the Trotters were always ^ quite re-
spectable.' "

" What friend ?"

1*

10 MISS TOMMY.

" Major Gordon," my mother answered, hesi-
tating, for that was Charlie's old ancle in India.
His name turned the balance. I was now de-
termined to go to Dover. In truth, I would al-
most have gone anywhere to get away from
home.

Two days after — for I rose from my bed and
packed my things myself the very next day, as
if I had never been ill at all — two days after
I found myself breathing the salt sea air, and
gazing across the stormy ocean which had car-
ried away my Charlie. Indeed, the first walk I
insisted on taking was to the pier -head, where
his dear feet, in those lovely military boots about
which he was so particular, had last touched Eng-
lish shores. To be sure, that sacred spot was now
occupied by a burly sailor, who, from his huge
boots to his old sou'wester, formed a striking
contrast to my Charlie ; still, I viewed him with
tender interest; and there, with the sea-breeze
blowing my tears away, and the bright winter
sun — if the winter sun shines anywhere, it shines
at Dover — making me feel hopeful in spite of
myself, I told Miss Tommy my love-story from

beginning to end. We were keeping her car-
riage waiting at the pier-head all the time, bnt I
never thonght of that ; in those days I was not
in the habit of thinking mncb about anybody
escept myself and my sorrows.

MisH Trotter lifitened to them with great pa-
tience, tboiigh with not qnite so mach moarnful

12 MI8S TOMMY.

sympathy as I had expected. In fact, when I
had finished, she actually smiled.

" The end ? No, my dear ; I cannot call it the
end yet : you are but nineteen. And now, as it
is a little chilly, what do you say to our going
home to tea?"

I did not care for tea — not I ! I would much
rather have driven up and down the pleasant
esplanade, to watch the sun setting behind the
heights and throwing his last glimmer on Dover
Castle, where Charlie had spent those few sad
last days, thinking of me (at least I hope so).
But my companion said gently, though decisively,
" We must go in" — and we went in.

The house was not near so grand as I expected,
from what I had heard of Miss Trotter's large
fortune. Eight hundred a year or so — I was try-
ing to grow learned about incomes — would have
kept it luxuriously. It was a very pretty house,
sitting — to speak metaphorically — with its back
under the clifE and its feet to the shore, a little
garden alone parting it from the sea ; indeed, in
very high winter tides the waves actually washed
into the flower beds, creating much destruction,

MISS TOMMT. 13

which, however, was always repaired hj spring.
For it was snch a sheltered, sunshiny nook ; and
the rooms, thongh smaU, were most daintUy and
tastefnlly furnished: the whole atmosphere with-
in and without was so redolent of cheerful peace,
that on entering I gave a great sigh of satisfac-
tion, and wondered if Charlie had ever seen it.

" I really cannot say," replied my hostess, smil-
ing, ^^not having had the honor of Lieutenant
Gordon's acquaintance. And

'How should I your tnie-loTe know
From another one'

of the many young officers who walk up and
down here ? Dover town is all dotted with bits
of scarlet; and — hark! there is the bugle — we
are quite a military community, you see."

^' I am so glad I" For it warmed my heart and
made me happy — being " a lass that loved a sol-
dier," and fain to cast my lot with him for good
or ill. Silly enough, and yet —

Miss Tommy regarded me with a curious, ten-
der kind of observation, till the smile on her lips
melted into a half -sigh. She turned away and
began making the tea, which she always did with

14 MI88 TOMMY.

Iier own hands, despite her well-appointed house-
hold of servants — women -servants only. There
was apparently no butler in her establishment;
and though the carriage we had just stepped out
of was exceedingly comfortable, there were no
footmen in livery behind it. We had to open
and shut its doors ourselves. Altogether, even on
this my first day at Miss Trotter's house, I was
much struck by the total absence of show and
formality ; by refinement without lavishness, and
comfort without luxury.

"An old maid's house," as she placidly called
it, hoping I should be happy therein. Could I ?
Are old maids ever happy ? Which of course I
disbelieved, at nineteen. After many more years'
experience and observation of life I incline to
reconsider my verdict.

Even now — to me who had just gone through
a great domestic convulsion, to say nothing of
tlie small tempests in teapots that were always
bi^^wlng in our numerous and tumultuous family

th^ exceeding repose of the maiden household
I Imd il^H>ppwJ into, where nobody squabbled and
MmUh)^ ^^ fui^%'' was most soothing and pleasant.

MISS TOMMY. 15

It was, of course, a silent house — no children
running about or girls singing up and down the
stairs; but when one has had rather too much
of domestic noise, silence is agreeable for a time.
And it was a small house, much smaller than I
had expected — which, perhaps, in some youthful-
ly incautious manner I betrayed, for Miss Trotter
said, in the course of our tea-dinner — not a regular
late dinner at all :

"I hope, my dear, you will be able to make
yourself happy here. You see, I live quite sim-
ply. Where would be the use of anything else ?
There is only myself. One cannot eat more
than one dinner, or sleep in more than one room,
at the same time. Still," she added, with that
curiously bright smile she had — a mixture of
pain struggling with pathos, like a person who
had tried to be happy all her life in spite of cir-
cumstances — " still I must own that I like a nice
dinner and a pretty room."

"And certainly you have them," I answered,
with a full sincerity that evidently pleased her.

" Yes, I think this is pretty," said she, glancing
round the room and out of the window, where

16 MISS TOMMY.

the last gleam of sanset was shining on the dis-
tant sea. "Sycamore Hall, my uncle's place in
the country, is much larger and grander, and I
have to live there in summer-time, and I try to
keep it up properly, but I like my little Dover
house much better."

Here the conversation ceased, for I felt it
awkward. In her place I should have ignored
as much as possible this defunct tailor- uncle —
"quite respectable" as he had been termed by
Major Gordon ; but Miss Trotter referred to him
and to his Sycamore Hall — no doubt a mansion
full of coarse and vulgar splendors — as calmly as
she did tp her own small house and simple way
of living. She must be an "odd" sort of per-
son, I thought, and very different from the peo-
ple among whom I had been accustomed to move
— " our circle," as my sisters sometimes called it.

Miss Trotter, as I found out in course of our
talk, had no sisters, no relations at all. She
was, in the full sense of the term, a solitary old
maid, yet the least like an old maid, and, as I
soon discovered, the least solitary, of any lady I
ever knew. For a "lady," even in my sisters'

MISS TOMMY. 17

reading of the word, no one could doubt she
was, in spite of her uncle the tailor.

She devoted herself to me with a cordial po-
liteness, though mingled with occasional fits of
what appeared to me like shyness, for the whole
of the first day, for I was very tired, and perhaps
just a trifle cross — "depressed," as I called it —
and, like many another young goose, I had come
to consider depression — that condition in which
one sits dumb and dogged, with downcast eyes,
and cheek leaning on one's hand — as rather a
virtue than not. It took all my hostess's kindly
pains to rouse me from it, by talking to me and
showing me the town of Dover — that dear, old-
fashioned town, which I shall always love to the
bottom of my heart.

It has changed little since those days, or, in-
deed, since days long before then. In its narrow
streets and quaint back alleys you may still come
upon bits of Roman brick-work, mediaeval stone-
work, and solid last -century wood -work. The
place is full of relics interesting to the archaeolo-
gist, from the time of Julius Caesar upwards.
You, continental travellers, rushing through it,

18 MIBS TOMMY.

and you, fashionable diners at the "Lord War-
don," liave no idea how picturesque Dover can
look, with its quaint, foreign-like Snargate Street,
its old-world Castle Street, with a noble view of
the Castle framed in at the end, and finally the
Ciistlo itself, which Charlie had told me about,
and which I was so eager to see — walking about
the embattled rock, up and down steps, and in
and out of fortifications, with feet as active as if
1 had never been ill.

In truth, I did not feel very ill, the air was so
pure and invigorating, the sense of freedom and
hope so strong, and the little old lady by my
side was such a bright companion, taking such a
hearty interest in everything about her, including
me. For I could see that I, Decima Murray,
really was an object of interest to her, at which
in my youthful conceit I was not at all surprised,
nor at the unwearied patience with which she
listened to my endless references to my sorrows
— of course, the most important subject in the
world was that of Charlie and me.

I was, however, " taken down a peg," as Char-
lie would have said, when, after breakfast on the
second day, Miss Tommy rose at once.

MISS TOMMY. 21

"Now, my dear, I must leave you to amuse
yourself. Being rather a busy woman, I never
attempt to entertain my guests. Here are plenty
of books and music; and there is the shore — it
is very pleasant sitting on the shingle in front
of the house, if you have nothing else to do;
dinner is at one ; and the carriage will be round
soon after two, and — "

She went on to outline the day and my duties
in it, making me out to be a mere portion of the
household life, instead of the pivot upon which
it all turned. Not very flattering, but she did it
so naturally and cheerfully that one could not be
offended.

"I hope you will not be dull, my dear. My
young guests seldom are, and I have a good
many from time to time. It is very pleasant to
an old woman to have a girl in the house. They
help me, too^ in many ways."

Now, I had never been accustomed to help
anybody. I always expected everybody to help
me. Being the youngest, and the beauty of the
family, from the time I left school I had idled
about in great enjoyment. From the choosing

22 MIBS TOMMY.

of a dress to the sewing on of a glove-button,
everything had been done for me, and I had no
mind to change this order of things. I was no
longer a light-hearted girl, but an ill-used woman
and an interesting invalid. So I tacitly ignored
the suggestion of my being useful, and began
killing time, ornamentally, in my customary
way

Still, after a while this became rather monoto-
nous, especially when I saw my hostess busy day
after day, occupied from morning to night with
duties domestic and duties social; for she had
evidently a large circle of friends, in which she
was an important element — a rich single woman
always is. Even when she found time for a
brief chat with me, she had always her knitting
or sewing at hand, to work while she talked.
Our two hours' drive every afternoon for the
good of my health was, I think, the only portion
of the day in which I ever saw her idle.

I wondered at her. An elderly woman, and
an old maid too, for whom life was over — or,
rather, for whom it had never begun, for what
is life without love in it ? — how could she be so

lOMXT. 2S

cheerfali For dieerfol she inrariablj vtf : lyA
with any exobenuit spiritfi, but with a qmei lOr-
der-cnrrent of placid gajetr, that I — ^ulI I fiaj
I envied! Xot exactly. Somedmee I aliDos:
pitied her for having had either no Lean at aZI
or no nse for one ; and I hogged my gnef. xmizAfi
away from the sight of Miss Trotters l^igLt faiOe:.
let my listless hands drop idle on my lap. ai;d £&.:
and monmed for Chaiiie.

" Are you not sorry for me F I asked oije div.
when we had been sitting taUdng as we drorei
at least, I had talked, and all about mjytiL of
oonise. So preooeopied was I that I never jjr^-
ticed all the beanty of ocean and sky, Walmer
Castle, St. Margaret's, and the Goodwin Saijds —
that smiling, glittering expanse of sea where
many a ship has gone down. ^ Sorely yoo mo^
be sorry for me f

" Yes, very. Bot," after a panse, " not exactly
for what yoo soppose."

"Not for being parted from Charlie? Why,
I am the most unhappy girl in the world.''

" Are yoo 2" she said, smiling. Then sudden-
ly changing into seriousness, ^Xo girl can be

24 MI88 TOBCMT.

considered * the most unhappy girl in the world,'
be her love ever so nnfortunate, if she has loved,
and if the object of her affection has never been
nnvsrorthy of it."

" What, not if she was torn from him, as I
from Charlie? or lost him in some way — if he
died, or — married somebody else ?"

Miss Tommy (I like to call her thus) sat silent,
her little hands folded over her muff, and her
eyes looking straight forward with a sort of
wistfulness in them — those sweet brown eyes,
so merry, bright, and clear !

"Different people, my dear, have different
opinions, and yours may not agree with mine.
But I think, and I have always thought, that if
a girl has a real true affection — I will not say a
passion, which is a selfish thing, but a devotion,
which is the most unselfish thing on earth — and
has the strength to keep to it, nothing can ever
make such an attachment ^unfortunate,' except
the man's sinking so low that to love him be-
comes worse than a folly — a degradation. But
I must not become didactic," added she, with a
sudden change of tone and manner. "If there

MISS TOMMY. 25

is a thing that frightens young people, it is
preaching — I never preach."

That was true. If I had now and again felt
so ashamed of my idleness that I seriously con-
templated asking her to give me something to
do, it was not because she ever told me I was
lazy ; only, contrasted with her busy life, I be-
gan to see the fact only too plainly.

" My love for Charlie could never be a degra-
dation," I replied, with dignity. " He is the best
of men. Indeed, the Gordons are all honorable
men. His father is long dead, killed in battle,
as you know " — of course, I supposed everybody
to know and remember every small fact con-
nected with Charlie — " but his uncle and god-
father is, he says, quite a prema clievalier^ a Bay-
ard, a Don Quixote, as they call him in the fami-
ly. You must have heard of him. Perhaps you
know him ?"

" Yes."

And then I remembered it was Major Gor-
don who had vouched for the Trotters being " re-
spectable." Probably the departed Thomas Trot-
ter had been his tailor. I felt a little shy of the

2

26 MISS TOMMY.

•

subject. To me the idea of a tailor in the family
was as bad as a sheep-atealer ; worse, indeed, for
I could quite sympathize with Charlie when he'
told me of his ancestors the Border chieftains,
" several of whom were hanged, and a good many
more ought to have been." But a tailor I I
turned away my eyes from my companion's sweet
face, and contemplated Dover Castle in the dis-
tance ; would hav6 changed the subject, but Miss
Trotter evidently had no intention of avoiding
it.

" I knew Major Gordon when he was a young
man," she said. " He first made acquaintance
with my uncle in the way of business, and then
he met my father, who was a country clergyman,
and a very clever man. He came often to our
house at one time."

" And you know him still. What is he like ?"
I asked, eagerly ; for anything or anybody con-
nected with Charlie was interesting to me.

" Yes, I may say I know him still ; for he is
not one to neglect an old acquaintance. I have
seen him every time he has returned to Eng-
land."

MISB TOMMY. 27

" That has not been very often. Do you know
— have you ever heard — " I stopped, remember-
ing the "skeleton in the house," which Charlie
had confided to me. "Did you ever see — his
wife ?"

" Yes ; she was a very beautiful woman — a
good deal older than he."

"And was she bad or mad — or what? Did
she run away from him, or was he obliged to
shut her up ? Charlie did not know ; nobody
did know, he says. Poor Major Gordon was al-
ways quite silent both as to his sorrows and his
wrongs. But it does not matter— she is dead
now."

" Dead !"

" Yes ; she died six months ago. Charlie said
his uncle might possibly be coming home soon ;
but he hoped — ^and I hope too — ^it would not be
just yet, till he himself had reached India. An
uncle of Major Gordon's high character would be
so very useful to Charlie."

" Yes," answered Miss Trotter, rather vaguely ;
and then the conversation dropped. Nor — in
spite of my anxiety to get as much out of her

28 MISS TOMMY.

as I could respecting this uncle and namesak<3,
upon whose will and power to help Charlie, by
promotion or otherwise, depended so much of
our future — did I succeed in eliciting any more
facts about Major Gordon. Indeed, I soon came,
perhaps hastily, to the conclusion that there were
none to discover ; that the acquaintance between
them had been so slight, and renewed so briefly,
and at such long periods, as to leave nothing to
talk about.

At any rate, Miss Trotter would not talk, either
about his personal appearance, which Charlie had
said was " so queer," or his income, or his rela-
tions with his unfortunate wife. She just an-
swered my questions as briefly as civility allowed,
and spoke of something else. In this, as in most
other matters, I soon found Miss Trotter disliked
" talking over " things. If she was an old maid,
she was an old maid not given to gossip.

As time went on — my visit extending from
days to weeks — I almost forgot she was an old
maid. She had such motherly ways with the
heaps of young people who were perpetually
haunting her house, making it anything but a

MIB8 TQianr. 29

doll house ; and she moved about it so brightly
and actively, with her little, light figure and her
pretty face — I think small women keep young
much longer than big ones. Miss Trotter seemed
to me to grow younger and younger every week ;
there was a sunshine in her smile and an elas-
ticity in her step ; and then her complexion, that
^^cmx^^ of elderly ladies, was kept so fresh and
fair by her simple, regular life, her busy habits
and placid mind, that sometimes, to call her, as
she always called herself, ^ an old woman," seemed
quite ridiculous.

And then she had such a young heart. She
would laugh like a child over a funny story, cry
like a child over a pathetic book. But she was
not sentimental. By and by, whenever I b^;an
talking of my woes, she adroitly changed the con-
versation, gave me something else to think about
— something to do. Doing, not talking, was her
characteristic. She was decidedly a woman of
few words. She said she ^ liked thinking best ;"
and whenever we were together, after we had
grown familiar with one another, there used to
come long pauses of busy silence, during which.

30 MI8S TOMMY.

fast as our fingers moved — for I at last conde-
scended to work too — we scarcely interchanged a
single word.

Sometimes, when I got tired of thinking, even
about my Charlie, I used to wonder what in the
world Miss Trotter was thinking about — what
she could find to think about, old as she was,
and with no Charlie. Once I asked her.

She colored up, almost as vividly as I should
have done had I been thinking of Charlie.

" What do I think about, did you say ? Why,
my dear, I can hardly tell. I have always been
a rather meditative person, and during my life I
have had a good deal to think of, and a good
many people too. That was when I was very
poor ; it is not likely to be different now I am
rich."

" Are you very rich ?" — a question that would
have been impertinent were it not so silly. But
I meant no offense, nor did she take any.

" I have enough for all I want or wish, my
dear ; and after that, enough, thank God, to give
to a few others what they want. So I pay back
in my old age the debts of kindness of my youth.

MISS TOMMY. - 31

And I rejoice in my riches, even though they are
often a care."

" A care ! How can that be possible ?"

Miss Trotter turned, with a rather sad look in
her eyes. " Decie, if you were wearing a warm
cloa'k, and saw another, or several others, stand-
ing in the cold all in rags, yet knew not how to
amend things, would you not sometimes long to
take off your delightful silks and furs? But I
am talking nonsense. All I mean to say is the
very trite remark, * that we all have our cares.' "

" Yes, indeed 1" I reverted to mine, and be-
moaned for the hundredth time the cruel fate
which divided me from Charlie, and behaved, or
misbehaved, myself as love -sick young people so
constantly do, to the grief of their parents, the
annoyance of their relations, and the ridicule of
their friends.

But Miss Trotter neither laughed nor was an-
gry. A little quiet smile was all she indulged
in.

"My dear, the separation is only for three
years, till you are twenty-one and he twenty-four
— no very great age. And some lovers have

32 MIB6 TOMMY.

been parted for a whole lifetime, and had to bear
it. Do you think you are the only person who
ever suffered? If you knew the sad stories —
many of them love stories — that I have listened
to for the last thirty years. Yet — ^I listen still."

"It is very kind of you." And it began to
dawn upon me that she tras very kind — this
busy, active, maiden lady, with every hour of
her day, every corner of her kindly heart, as full
as it could hold — to listen to me in my self-ab-
sorbed grief, which seemed, in my morbid fancy,
to be the only sorrow in the world. " But these
others ; what has become of them all ?"

She answered softly,

i( (

Some are married, some are dead,'

as Longfellow sings, in his ' Old Clock on the
Stairs.' Life always goes on to the same tune,

* Forever — never! Never — forever!' and some-
times, strange to say, the 'never' creates the

* forever !' "

Though I did not take in her meaning, her
manner rather surprised me, and the voice, though
calm, had a tone of sadness in it. Could it be

that she undeistood, ot her own expenencev tbe
pain I was endming? duU die — thk br^ic Ettle
middle-aged woman, so fall of fibooght for odboiy
living such an actrre, aeefiilr ti^^PI? ^^^^ — ^^ ^^^^
^ loved and lost " ! There was a tradiCKm. mr
annt had said, that Miss Tomm j Trotter had once
been the belle of the neighborhood, and had re-
fused at least twentj c^ers. Bat she was an old
woman now, and I, with the favorhe belief of the
yomig, that the old never feel anjthin^ and be-
ing preoccupied with mj own affuz^ pot the
question aside. A minnte or two afiier, we were
both langhing so menilj at some aeeidental le-
mark she made that I f <»got all about it.

One of AGsB Tommy's strongest diaraeteristics
was her keen sraise of homor. Xot that she was
at all that very donbtfnl penonage, a female wit,
bnt she dearly liked to be merry, and had a tal-
ent for seeing the comic suie ot things. I one
day told ha- she wonld ^ create a joke upon the
ribs of death,'' as Shakespeare says.

"Well, and if I do!" she answ^ied. **One
must bear things somehow, and it is better to
bear them with a langh than a moan. Besides,

2»

84 MISS TOMMY.

an innocent joke is like a life -boat, it often car-
ries us over the roughest seas."

That, I often thought, was the reason young
people liked her company. She was so amusing,
as well as sympathetic. She had always a cloud
of girls about her — ^young men too, though there
were not many at Dover. But, on the whole, I
think she did not care for men. She won great
deference from the other sex, but she never flat-
tered them, nor was put into any great flutter of
felicity by their attentions, as I have seen young
and old maids too betray. Perhaps she saw their
weak points a little too plainly to be universally
adored, in spite of the twenty traditional wooers,
of whom she was said never to have encouraged
one.

So time passed on. My stay extended from
weeks to months, for I was not wanted at home ;
probably, as I now think, they were glad to get
rid of me, for I could not have been pleasant
company to either my mother or my sisters. But
Miss Trotter endured me — made the best of me.
I grew stronger in health and less morbid in
mind. Now and then, instead of weeping, I

MISS TOMMY. 35

caught myself laughing as I had never laughed
since Charlie went away.

He had now been gone six months. The win-
ter was over, the spring was fast coming on. In
the lengthening twilight we used to walk up and
down the shore and watch the sunset colors of
the sea, and make plans for taking drives inland
to see if the hedges were beginning to bud, and
from what sheltered nooks came those baskets of
primroses which little dirty girls and 'boys were
daily offering to us, with a pathetic entreaty that
Miss Trotter found irresistible, as well the little
villains knew.

" Those primroses must be growing some-
where," she would say, sententiously. " We must
go and look for them."

But still we never went, for the bitter east
winds — the one only fault of Dover — made driv-
ing diflBcult. We liked to spend every afternoon
in walking up and down the shore, not seldom
wandering on to the Admiralty Pier, then newly
begun, to watch the workmen there, and to see
the Calais boat come in.

This was — and maybe still is — the great amuse-

36 MI88 TOMMY.

m^it of Dover, especially on rough days. Miss
Tommy and I used to laugh over the innate
cruelty of human nature in going to watch the
landing of miserable foreigners or returning Brit-
ons who had been nnwise enough to trust them-
selves away from our happy island. Many an
^ odd fish " we saw and smiled at, and many an
invalid at whom we did not smile, for the home-
ward route from the East was then often by
Calais and'Dover, and everything Indian had the
deepest interest for me. My companion too —
sometimes I saw her kind brown eyes fixed with
the most earnest inquiry upon some sallow-faced,
sickly passenger — ^perhaps a liver-tormented cross
old Indian, burned up with years of hot climate
and brandy pawnee. Would Charlie ever look
like that? Could I imagine him with a dried-
up, bronzed, unlovely face, like those faces which
made Miss Tommy stop her harmless jokes to re-
gud wistfully, even with a sort of tenderness ?

« I am so sorry for them," she would say. She
was Borry for everybody who was sick, or sad, or
wea naughty, as I sometimes told her ! And she
^mgnerei ^^that sickness or sadness often made

MISS TOMMY. 37

naughtiness." Yet she herself was sometimes
both — she was not very strong, as I slowly found
out — but this never made her " naughty."

One day — shall I ever forget it ? — a blustering
March day, when we could hardly keep our foot-
ing, or succeed always in " dodging " the sudden
waves that came sweeping against the pier — over
it sometimes, in a shower of spray — she and I
went as usual to see the boat come in. I liked to
go ; the wild weather never harmed me, and some-
how even the sight of the ocean which divided
us seemed to bridge over the distance between
me and Charlie. I once said as much to my com-
panion, and she answered that it was " natural."

She, too, enjoyed the sea on stormy days, so
we stood our ground — almost the only ladies
who did so — and watched the little dot of a boat
come nearer across the Channel, appearing and
then almost disappearing among the high waves
— " like a human life," Miss Trotter said — till it
got home at last.

She counteracted the sentimental remark by a
series of harmless jokes, which made me laugh in
spite of myself. I had put my arm round her —

38 MISS TOMMY.

as I did sometimes, being a very tall girl and she
such a little woman that I almost thought she
would be blown away — when I suddenly felt her
start, and saw her eyes were fixed with something
more than curiosity on one of the passengers.

He stood on the deck a little apart, waiting till
the crowd at the gangway should melt away, and
idly looking up at the white cliffs, as if it had
been many a long year since he had last seen
them. He was a tall gentleman, tall and thin.
If I say he reminded me of Don Quixote I mean
no offense to that hero — always a great favorite
of mine — or to this man, who looked a man in
the best sense of the word. Gaunt and gray, and
rather shabbily dressed, in half- military fashion,
with a decidedly military bearing, he never could
have been mistaken for anything but that rather
rare article — " a man and a gentleman."

Following the direction of Miss Trotter's eyes,
he attracted mine too.

" Who can he be ? Is he anybody you know ?"

" I think so," she answered beneath her breath.
"Come with me to the gangway, Decie ! you will
be so glad."

HISS TOMMY. 41

Her lips were quivering, bat her smile, as she
turned to me — I shall never forget it! — never
cease to be grateful for her kind thought of me
just then.

In another minute I saw her hold out her
hand — " Major Gordon, I believe ?"

Major Gordon ! Charlie's uncle !

The tall gentleman started, and, perceiving us,
lifted his hat.

" I am Major Gordon. But — ^pardon me ; my
memory often fails me."

He accepted, bowing, her offered hand ; he
looked down intently into her face, without the
slightest sign of recognition.

"I beg your pardon — I ought to know you,
and yet — "

"I am Miss Trotter, Mrs. Murray's friend.
And this is Miss Decima Murray."

"Ah, yes!" A light seemed to break upon
him ; he turned to me and shook my hand warm-
ly. Then Charlie must have told him. Perhaps
he had even seen Charlie.

I was so delighted, that, as the children say, I
"hardly knew whether T stood on my head or

42 MISS TOMMY.

my heels." He had come home, this nncle from
India, who was to prove a sort of protecting an-
gel to Charlie, whom probably he had met be-
fore he started, and who had told him to come
and see me. He looked as if he liked me, as if
he meant to like me — the dear old gentleman!
For he was an old gentleman — that is, he might
be something between fifty and seventy ; but
after forty everybody was " old " to me then,

" I have heard of you, Miss Murray ; I meant
to come and see you. This chance meeting is a
great pleasure to me, and also to find you with
an old friend — "

He turned to Miss Trotter, who stood a little
aside, and spoke to her kindly and cordially.
Evidently he had no feeling about the tailor-
uncle, but asked after " all the family " with a
slightly hesitating air, as if trying to remember
of what it had consisted, and where they all now
were.

Miss Trotter soon set him at ease. " I have no
relations; they are all dead long ago. There is
only me."

Major Gordon shook her hand warmly again

1088 TOMIIT. 43

and again, thanldng her for being ^so TefT
kind" as to remember him for all these reazs
since he had been bst in England. "^ How many
years ! for reaUy I have lost count. One forges
so many things — I can haidly belicTe that I am
again at home. And how strange to find one
face, not to say two faces ^ — he bowed and smiled
to each of ns ; a most pleasant smile, that lighted
np his worn face into something like yonthfulneas
— ^^ to meet me with sach a kindly welcome."

^^ Ln^age, sir," cried an offidons porter, jnst
taking away the gangway ; and we dropped into
the bnsmess of life again.

He had very little Inggage — sorprisingly little
for a gentleman home from India ; but then he
was a soldier, and accustomed to rongh it, as evi-
dently he did. My Charlie wonld have been
horrified at travelling with such a portmanteau.
Major Gordon caught me looking at it.

" Old and battered, like myself," said he with
a smile. " Never mind, it has seen good service.
And now — it also is coming home."

A slight sigh, almost immediately repressed,
and Major Grordon stood, looking around hira

44 MISS TOMMY.

with a half -bewildered air, and faintly potting
aside, with a rather irritable gesture, the appeal-
ing porters, or inn - touters, who began to gather
round him.

" Where am I going ? I don't know, my good
man. Nowhere particular. The custom-house?
yes, the custom-house — I must follow the rest.
Good day — adieu ! and thank you, ladies."

But Miss Trotter came forward, with her prac-
tical, business-like air — she was the most thorough
" woman of business " I ever knew.

" I am a resident here, and can easily get your
luggage examined and passed. Also, my carriage
is waiting at the head of the pier, and if you
would return and dine with us — ^"

I hung upon his hand — he was my Charlie's
dear old uncle ! — and begged him to come. I was
sure — quite sure — Miss Trotter would be glad to
see him. " Do come with us," I implored ; " do
come home."

" Come home !" he repeated, with a strange
pathos in the words. " You are very kind," turn-
ing to Miss Trotter, " and I thank you. Yes, I
will come."

HISS TOMMY. 45

And so it befell that Major Gordon's first day
in England, after so many years, was spent in
Miss Trotter's house, with herself and me. A
very pleasant day — and to me, at least, a real fe-
licity. How I blessed the " chance," as I thought
it (not being aware till long afterwards that some
of his friends had known he was daily expected
in England) — the happy chance which brought
Charlie's uncle to Dover, and brought me to the
Admiralty Pier at the very moment of his land-
ing. ITor did he himself disguise his pleasure.
An Indian oflScer, retired invalided upon half-
pay, with no relations and no money, is not like-
ly to have a very jubilant welcome home.

He said as much, or, rather, it dropped from
him unawares, while sitting peacefully at our fire-
side — I had become so much at home there that
I often called it " ours." But otherwise he spoke
very little of himself or his affairs.

Nor, eagerly as I expected it, did he once re-
fer to mine. He watched me. I felt he was
"taking stock of me" — noticing every word I
said, everything I did, with a sharp observance
almost amounting to suspicion ; but except in

46 MISS TOMMY.

answer to a question or two from Miss Trotter —
bless her for that ! — he never mentioned CharKe.

I should have been angry with him, except
that, as he sat warming his long brown hands
at the fire — his gray mustache and thin, sallow
face giving him more the air of a Don Quixote
than ever — he looked such a lonely man that I
felt sorry for him. After a time, however, he
brightened up and turned to Miss Trotter, who
sat in the shadow — her little figure half buried
in the depths of her favorite arm-chair. He be-
gan talking with her of old times.

" It was so kind of you to speak to me. I
cannot imagine how you recognized me, after
all the years that have passed since we met — I
forget how many."

" Not so very many — ten perhaps — "

" And where was it I saw you last ? I ought
to recollect, but my memory is so bad. I am
getting quite an old man now."

"At Mrs. Murray's — just before you sailed.
Also, if you remember, you came to see me at
Crookfield — my father had just died."

" Ah, yes, I came once, and I ought to have

MISS TOMMY. 47

come oftener — but" — a dark shadow crossed his
face—" my time was much engrossed just then."

Miss Trotter said nothing, and after a niinute
or so he again recurred to her father.

"The dear old rector — how kind he was to
me when I was a young man ! Not so very
young neither — I was nearly thirty, but I felt
like a boy during all that furlough. How I en-
joyed fishing in the rectory stream, and making
hay in the rectory meadow ? It seems all like a
dream now — so very long ago.

" Yes."

"But perhaps you will hardly recollect — you
must have been such a mere child then, Miss
Trotter — ^fourteen or thereabouts."

" Seventeen. I was older than I looked."

"And you have changed very little. I could
almost see the face of the little girl in the hay-
field."

Was it my fancy, or a sudden red glow from
the firelight ? but I saw the delicate pink cheek —
Miss Trotter had the complexion of a girl still —
change to a deep carmine. Our guest never saw
it : he was gazing absently into the glowing coals

48 MISS TOMMY.

— indeed, he had mechanically taken up the poker
to stir them, but dropped it with a smile.

" I beg your pardon, Miss Trotter — and yet —
I have certainly known you more than seven
years."

She too smiled, and said gently that he need
not apologize — she did not consider him as a
stranger; and then she rose and made the tea,
leaving him and me to sit and talk. But he did
not profit by the opportunity ; he still told me
not a scrap of news about poor Charlie. Either
he was very reticent — men are so much shyer
about love-affairs than women — or else the time
for him to take any interest in such things had
long passed by. Yery likely ! Whatever he had
been, he was certainly growing into an "old
fogy " now. Not even a rich " old fogy," as I
had somehow imagined him to be. His clothes
were decidedly shabby ; and when there was a
talk of his going to sleep at the Lord Warden,
he said it would be " too expensive," and decided
with a dignified indifference that I marvelled at
— so unlike Charlie ! — to take up his quarters at a
much inferior hotel.

MISS TOMMY. 49

" Not that I have sunk to the * worst inn's worst
room,' as Pope has it — how fond your father was of
Pope, Miss Trotter ! — but I am obliged to take care
of my pence, else my pounds would not take care of
themselves. And I am growing an old man now."

No one contradicted the fact — which indeed
was only too true. As he sat thoughtfully twirl-
ing his gray mustache, and sometimes putting a
hand upon his broad forehead, bald to the crown,
as if to remove a certain feeling of confusion
there, no one would have imagined Major Gor-
don anything but an old man.

And with an old man's peculiarity he again and
again reverted to the days of his youth, and this
pretty village of Crookfield, of which Miss Trot-
ter's father had been rector.

"How long is it since you were there? Is
it much changed ?" he asked. " Everything is
changing nowadays — everything and everybody;
I should hardly like to see it again. I have never
seen it but that once, since — let me consider — I
believe not since the day your father married me.
You know" — turning suddenly to Miss Trotter —
" you know that my wife is dead ?"

3

50 MISS TOMMY.

« Yes."

He stated the fact — indeed, the two facts, be-
tween which had come such a lifelong tragedy (I
found it all out afterwards) — merely as facts, noth-
ing more. With the silent dignity which makes
most men — not, alas! women — cover over their
domestic wounds, he wrapped his mantle round
him, Csesar-like, hiding every drop of blood, every
quiver of pain. He had always done it, I heard,
and he did it still.

But all was ended now. As we watched him
from our wicket-gate walk down the moonlight
shore — we had gone a few steps outside to show
him the way to his hotel — upright still, and
soldier-like in his bearing, but so thin and with-
ered-up and melancholy-looking, one wondered if
he had ever been young. I said as much to Miss
Tommy.

" A nice old gentleman, though, but rather
grim. No wonder they call him Don Quixote.
But how anybody could ever say that, even in his
young days, he was like my Charlie — ^"

Miss Trotter turned, with just the shadow of
sharpness in her gentle voice. "You girls are apt

MISS TOMMY. 51

to make severe criticisms and rash judgments.
Had you known Major Gordon in his ' young
days,' as you call them, perhaps you would have
thought differently. He might not have been
exactly handsome, but there was no one so grace-
ful, so courteous, such a true gentleman. Still,
like Don Quixote, if you will," she added, with a
little laugh, but I saw in the moonlight that her
eyes were glittering with tears.

" He certainly is very like Don Quixote now,"
said I; « and what a mercy his Dulcinea is dead !
Did you notice he never talked about her ? Per-
haps he loved and admired her to the last. And
so they were married at your village ?"

" Yes ; she came from near there."

" And she was very beautiful, and he was very
much in love with her ? They went out to India
and then they came back for a year, with the
little daughter that died here, and he returned
alon« ?"

I put these facts, which I had heard, in the form
of questions, hoping to find out more, but Miss
Trotter merely answered, "I believe so." She
was as reticent as the Major himself. Whatever

52 MI8S TOMMY.

she knew of his affairs she kept in as sacred
silence as he did. And there was no getting out
of her what she did not choose to tell. Small as
she was, simple in her bearing and feminine in
her manner, no one could ever take a liberty with
Miss Tommy.

In those days people did not rush about with
the speed of "From London to Paris in ten
hours." Major Gordon, intending to rest at
Dover three days, stayed three weeks. After so
much knocking about the world he seemed not
sorry for even a brief repose. He and his battered
portmanteau removed from the second-rate hotel
which he calmly affirmed was " rather too dear for
him," and took up their quarters in a lodging found
for him by Miss Trotter with a widow woman,
one of her numerous "friends" — she had as many
friends among the poor as the rich, and she always
gave them that pleasant name.

Most people are "known by their friends," who
catch the reflection of themselves, more or less.
Major Gordon never came to us — and he came
every day — without singing the praises of his ex-
cellent landlady. Mrs. Wilson was so "good,"

MISS TOMMY. 53

80 " clever," so " kind." He seemed surprised to
find these qualities in a woman, and dwelt upon
them, in the smallest trifles, with an earnest grati-
tude that would have been amusing, had it not
been so pathetic.

And how he did enjoy his cosey, sunshiny rooms,
half-way up the Castle Hill ; even though on one
side the sunshine rested on the white stones and
green trees of an old churchyard. In front of the
house was a sloping garden, where the birds were
just beginning to build. There, too, he had the
familiar military element to amuse him, for all
the traffic of the Castle passed his door, and he
would prick up his ears like an old war-horse,
Mrs. Wilson said, at the tramp of a regiment or
the music of a band.

Major Gordon was not exactly a reading man.
His eyes were weak, he told us ; he had once had
slight ophthalmia in Egypt ; and his wandering,
soldier's life had tended to the study of men
rather than of books. But he was a shrewd old
fellow, as I soon saw. He had gone through the
world with his eyes open, and his observations on
things and people were often very acute ; though

54 MISS TOMMY.

with regard to himself and his own affairs he had
the simplicity of a child.

In fact, as I said to Miss Trotter, Charlie's uncle
amused me exceedingly — "he was such a queer
combination of the serpent and the dove." I
laughed with him and at him ; I admired him and
criticised him, after the boldly candid fashion of
young people. But Miss Tommy never made any
comments upon him at all.

As I said, instead of three days he stayed three
weeks, before going on to London, which he
seemed in no hurry to do.

" My business can stand over, and keep no one
waiting; nobody expects me," he said one day,
with a smile, half sad, half cynical — there was a
touch of cynicism in many of his remarks, which
always had the effect of making Miss Trotter
silent. "All I have to do can be done at any
time."

"No time like the present, as Miss Trotter
would say," I answered, laughing.

" Young lady," said the Major, turning upon
me with a sharpness so unwonted that it actually
made me start, " if you had no future and no past.

MISS TOMMY. 56

yon would trouble yourself very little about the
present."

Which seemed to be his way — a kind of indif-
ferent drifting with the tide, sad to see in a man
who has passed his prime, from whom youth*8
energy has naturally departed, leaving behind
neither the firm resolve of middle life nor the
calm contentment of old age.

Possibly I give my impressions of Major Gor-
don more from what I afterwards knew of him
than from what I first observed, for he was not
one of those people who take you by storm — •
it required time and opportunity to find him
out. We had both. He seldom missed a day
in coming to East Cliff, though never until af-
ternoon ; for Miss Trotter's mornings were al-
ways full — mine, too, by the force of example,
which was ten times better than precept. But
in the lengthening spring evenings, when day-
light began to fade, we used to see his tall, thin
figure, with that old fur coat buttoned to the
throat, appearing in the distance down the Es-
planade ; he would join us and walk home with
us, sit down by our fireside " for just ten min-

5G MIS8 TOMICY.

ntes," and when he once sat down he never got
np again.

One conld scarcely wonder at this. The bright
room, the cosey tea-table — not your careless, come-
and-go, afternoon tea, which had not then been in-
vented, but the good old-fashioned evening meal,
with the hissing nm, the hot muffins, the yellow
marmalade and tempting jam, and the mistress of
it all sitting at the head of her table, with her
placid, homelike smile. No wonder that her guest
sometimes put his cup down and regarded her
wistfully.

" Miss Trotter," he said one day, " you are the
most comfortable-looking woman I ever knew,
and the cleverest at making other people com-
fortable."

" Thank you," she laughed.

" And I remember you were the same as a
child. How your father used to call you his ^ lit-
tle house-mother !' What a pity — " He stopped ;
perhaps he had been going to say, " What a pity
you were never married," but politeness made
him alter it to " What a pity more women were
not like you 1"

MISS TOMMY. 57

That simple, open admiration — so outspoken
and free from all reserve — it seemed sometimes
rather to wound its object. She always turned
the conversation, as now.

" Yes, my father had many a pleasant nickname
for his favorites. Yours, I remember, was ' Bon-
nie Prince Charlie.' "

Major Gordon laughed heartily. " What a mis-
nomer ! The adjective should have been applied
to you ; for I think you were the ' bonniest ' little
girl I ever saw. It was a pleasure to look at you
— as it is still " — with a courtly bow, so complete-
ly belonging to the stately compliments of the old
school that no one could be offended at it.

And yet I fancied I saw that pained look again
cross Miss Tommy's face — the sweetest "old
lady's " face that ever was, as I thereupon declared.
She made us both a little bow, and bade us "go
on with our tea, and talk no more nonsense."

Thus we enjoyed our innocent jokes, a very
happy trio ; or, if not happy, at least contented.
If two of us had felt inclined to keep up the
" winter of our discontent," it was " made glorious
summer" by the sunshiny nature of the third.

3*

58 MI88 TOMMY.

Miss Tommy bonestlj declared that she liked to
be happy ; and no one could live with her, as I
liad done all these months, without becoming, in a
moderate and decorous degree, happy toa

I said so to Major Gordon, one day when he and
I were walking together, as we sometimes did, for
many a merry mile. Miss Trotter following us in
her little pony carriage ; for she was not strong,
and often said what a '^ thankfulness " it was to
her that, having walked so much in her youth, she
conld in her old age afford the luxury of driving.
But we two were still young and active, she told
us, and she watched us striding along through the
pleasant lanes and sweeps of undulating country
which lie inland, just beyond Dover town.

We were bound to St. Eadegund's Abbey, which
we wished to show Major Gordon before he left.
His departure, fixed and unfixed again several
times, was finally settled for to-morrow ; and, the
week after, so was mine. I too was going to Lon-
don, to resume my family's usual round of " the
season ;" to be speculated upon by match-making
mothers, criticised by ugly sisters, and flirted with
by undesirable younger brothers, to my mother's

MI8B TOMMY. 59

great alarm. No need ! My heart was bound up
in my absent Charlie.

His uncle had told me nothing about him. Our
affair, if he knew it, and I could not help fancying
he did know, was apparently of no importance to
him — a mere specimen of the " calf-love " which I
had more than once heard him contemptuously
refer to in conversation. The " tender passion ''
was clearly not in his line. He treated me much
like any other young lady — politely, paternally,
but without showing any special interest in me or
recognizing my possible future tie to himself.
Now I, though sometimes he vexed me by the
stolidity with which he ignored all my " fishing
questions," having all one aim — Charlie — I could
not help feeling a deep interest in him and a sense
of regret at his departure, which surprised myself.

" What is there in some people that, though we
are glad to see them, we never miss them ; while
others, whenever they go away, they leave a large
hole behind ?"

I had said this to Miss Tommy as she was tying
on her bonnet for our expedition ; and I happened
to catch in the glass the reflection of her face.

60

Snch a monrnf al expreeeion it had, with iIb wide
eves that saw nothiDg, and its close-set mouth, as if
fixed for the endurance of an eternal want, a per-
petual pain.

It haunted me all through the walk, though
whenever she passed us her face was dressed in
smiles — so much so that Major Gordon said :

"What a very happy woman Miss Trotter
seems to be ! a great deal happier, perhaps, than
if she had been married."

Which was one of many severe remarks on the
married state which continually fell from him,
inclining me to rise up and do battle with him,
except that he had the advantage of me, and of
Miss Trotter too, in having been married. But,
as she said to me once, there are two kinds of
cynics — those w.ho do not believe at all, and those
who believe so intensely that they will accept
nothing short of absolute truth — absolute perfec-
tion. Was that the reason she had never mar
ried?

Arrived at St. Radegund's, I took out my
sketch-book — Charlie had a fancy for art, and
had given me once some lessons, so of course I

MIBB TOMMY. 61

stuck to my drawing valorously. I had talked to
Charlie's uncle as long as I could, but still he was
an " old fogie ;" the young and old have not
many points in common, and after a while find
one another's society a trifle dull. Now, elderly
folk do not seem to mind dulness, but can go on
together, as I have known Major Gordon and
Miss Trotter do, for ever so long, without ex-
changing a dozen words.

They did so now. After we had examined the
ruins, and speculated on the departed St. Eade-
gund, who, I believe, was a lady abbess, and this
her convent; but really 1 felt little interest in
her, a long dead and buried woman, while I was
a living woman, oh ! so keenly, painfully alive !
1 left my two respected seniors to their mutual
society, and took refuge in my own, which was
much more interesting. Soon I had settled my-
self in a secluded corner to make my sketch, and
think of Charlie.

Both these useful occupations had absorbed me
for a good half-hour, when I heard voices behind
me ; there was a broken wall between, and they
evidently did not know 1 was there. Indeed,

62 MI88 TOMMY.

they were in such earnest talk — those two worthy
friends of mine — that I should not have troubled
myself about them, any more than they about
me, had I not, after a minute or so, caught
Charlie's name.

" Yes, he is a real good fellow, that nephew of
mine ! I only wish I could be a better uncle and
godfather to him ; bat I have little influence and
no money. Besides, he is in the queen's service,
and I in ^ John Company's.' His only way of
getting promotion is by purchase. If I had the
money I once made — you know I never was ex-
travagant, and I did hope to keep enough to be
comfortable in my old age, and perhaps have a
trifle for Charlie — well, it is gone, and there is
little use in speaking about it."

"No." There was something strangely pa-
thetic in these monosyllables of Miss Trotter's,
which implied and concealed so much. Her
soft " No " and " Yes " — I can almost hear them
still !

" You are right. Let bygones be bygones.
That has always been my principle and practice.
The loss of the money was not my fault, only my

MISS TOMMY. 69

misfortune. With my small needs I can do with-
out it. And now about Charlie."

Was I mean ? I think I was ; yet the impulse
to listen was irresistible. For three weeks I had
been kept on the tenter-hooks of suspense; not
a word, good, bad, or indifferent, did his uncle
say of my poor Charlie. Of course, the ideal
and honorable thing just now would have been
a good loud cough I But that might have per-
plexed them. Indeed, I had already heard a lit-
tle too much, for it was easy to guess that Major
Gordon's " misfortune " was his wife. I made
this excuse to myself at the time for doing what
I did. Well, I did it, and there's an end.

" Charlie, poor lad ! Well, he may be a great
fool — a young man in love usually is — but he is
an honest fool. He told me everything, and
made me promise to go and see his young lady
as soon as I reached England. This was the
cause of my inflicting myself so long on your
kindness, Miss Trotter."

" I perceive."

"It was my only chance of finding out what
stuff the girl was made of. Not a bad sort of

64 MISS TOMMY.

girl. As you say, Charlie might have done worse ;
but lie would have done better not to have got
into the entanglement at all."

Entanglement 1 Charlie's devotion to me an
" entanglement 1" I was furious, first at Major
Gordon and then at Miss Trotter. What could
these two old idiots know about love — such love
as mine and Charlie's?

After a pause I heard the latter say gently,
"What is your objection?"

" First and foremost — she has money."

Was it my fancy, or a real tremble in her
voice, as Miss Trotter answered, " Few people
besides yourself would count that an objection.
Why ?"

" Can you ask ? when Charlie has not a half-
penny f No, no ; a man with proper pride would
never have dreamed of such a thing."

" Is not that rather hard for Decie ? When she
herself is worth much more than her fortune ?"

And then my dear Miss Tommy spoke up for
me, warmly, kindly, generously, until I felt my-
self blushing to the ears, and wished with all my
heart I had been half as good as she thought me.

MISS TOMMY. 65

" We will let that pass," replied Major Gordon
in his most worldly tone; he was both worldly
and matter-of-fact sometimes, or liked to appear
so. " My dear Miss Trotter, you always believe
the very best of everybody. Yet the girl is a
good girl enough ; but how do we know what
sort of woman she will turn out ? Many a man
is deceived by a pretty face ; he marries it, and
learns afterwards to loathe it. A handsome girl
— a girl with money ; how can you tell that she
will not grow into an arrant flirt — a married
flirt, the worst of all — or a scolding, extravagant
jade, or some of those delightful forms of the
genus woman that we sometimes see in India?
Never in England, of course ;" and I could im-
agine the Major's courteous, deprecatory bow.
Though I heard also his bitter laugh, which nega-
tived it.

And after a minute I heard the sweet pleading
voice : " We need not talk ; it is enough, gener-
ally, to act. What can be done for these foolish
young people? They are very fond of one an-
other."

" Fond ? — as a child is fond of a stick of sugar-

66 MISS TOMMY.

candy. Take it away and they will soon get over
it. Best that they should get over it."

" Are you sure of that ?"

" Quite sure. A man who marries young is a
fool; if he marries late in life he often takes
the crooked stick and repents it till death. The
wisest man is he who never marries at all. And
so I said to my nephew Charlie."

" And he said — "

"The usual thing! Did any young man in
love ever listen to anybody's advice, or feel any-
thing but hatred to the prudent parent or friend
that stood between him and his madness ?"

" Have you done this ?"

"Not at all. My bark is worse than ray bite,
I assure you. I only told him he was a very
great fool, and that I could not help him in the
least. Had I been a rich man now, I might have
been a fool too, for I like the lad — ^I might have
bought his promotion, and sent him home in
three years, a colonel perhaps, to marry Miss
Decie, supposing she is still true to him, which
is not over likely. Could any girl of nineteen
keep true for a twelvemonth to any man ?"

MISS TOMMY. 67

Miss Trotter made no answer, and Major Gor-
don went on to thank her for her interest in his
nephew.

" And he really is a good fellow, who will work
his way and get promotion — also gray hairs. Miss
Murray will by that time be the happy wife of
an earl or a millionaire. Your rich people gen-
erally marry money — carrying coals to Newcas-
tle. I hope, by-the-bye, that Mrs. Murray will
not suspect me of doing anything to forward my
nephew's cause by my visit here ?"

" I will take care she shall not."

" And, Miss Trotter, do not imagine I think ill
of your young protegee^ who is most fortunate in
having you for her friend. Sh^ is a very pleas-
ant person ; she might make a good wife ; and,
if I could earn money enough to buy Charlie's
promotion — Do you think anybody would give
work — paying work — to a broken-down old sol-
dier ?"

He said this with a laugh, but evidently meant
it — an intention so kindly that I forgave him a
good deal ; forgave too the answer by which Miss
Trotter negatived it.

68 MIS8 TOMMY.

" I think it is the young who ought to work.
The old should take rest ; they need it, and de-
serve it."

" But you — you never seem to rest ? Ton are
busy from morning till night, chiefly for other
people. You are able to throw yourself out of
yourself in the most marvellous way. Tou think
of everybody ; does anybody ever think of you ?
Nay, here am I, keeping you standing discussing
Charlie's affairs and my own, when you ought to
be sitting in your carriage. Where is it ? Shall
I go and fetch it ?"

" If you please."

I heard him stride away — heard her creep for-
ward and sit down on a stone — a broken pillar.
The bent little figure, the hands tight-clasped on
her lap, the head drooped down as in patient ac-
quiescence under a long- familiar burden — I can
see her still, my dear Miss Tommy !

But just then I saw nothing but myself, and
my own indignation, which at last boiled over. I
startled her by my sudden appearance.

" Miss Trotter, you must drive me home. I
will not walk back with Major Gordon. I have

MISS TOMMY. 69

heard — I don't care whether I was right or wrong
— but I overheard, accidentally, every word he
has been saying to yon about me and Charlie.
And — ^I hate him !"

Whereupon I burst at once into a storm of
tears.

Miss Trotter rose and came beside me. I felt
my hand taken, with a firm, soft clasp, which
calmed me in spite of all my wrath.

" My dear, they say listeners never hear any
good of themselves, but you cannot have heard
much harm. And people are often mistaken
without being actually wrong. We need not
'hate' them. We should rather be sorry for
them."

"I am not sorry for him at all — the hard,
worldly-minded, mean old fellow."

Here a little hand was laid upon my mouth.

"Not mean — he never could be mean. And
you never could speak ill of Charlie's uncle. He
is fond of Charlie."

I looked down in her face with its soft, pale
smile — not till now had I noticed how exceed-
ingly pale she was — and it seemed to comfort me.

70 MISS TOMMY.

" I can't imagine how it is that you under-
stand everybody's troubles, and have a cheering
word to say to everybody. It must be because
you are so happy and have had such an easy
life."

" Must it ? Well, never mind. Dry your
teare, Decie — an April shower on an April day,
for indeed it is no more. Look, there comes
the carriage, and Major Gordon, carrying a great
bunch of primroses. Does that look * worldly-
minded V Forgive him, my dear. Take no no-
tice of anything; Do your best — and leave the
rest."

I obeyed her. I received Major Gordon and
his floral oflEering — which he presented to me
with the air of a knight of the Middle Ages —
without betraying any grudge against him. Nay,
I even walked home with him, conversing in the
most amicable manner on the beauties of spring,
and the pity it was to waste May mornings and
June evenings in the follies of the London sea-
son, just as if I had never " hated " him at all.

It was impossible indeed to hate him long.
There was such an extraordinary sweetness about

MISS TOMMY. 71

him — that mixture of sweetness and strength
which in a man is so fascinating, at any age.
Charlie had it in degree; but I must confess I
never saw it so strongly marked in any man as
in Charlie's uncle, despite his bald crown and
gray hairs.

" He might almost win a woman's heart yet,"
I said to Miss Trotter, after he had departed that
night, bidding us a rather lingering good-bye,
for he was to start at eight next morning. He
seemed quite uncertain when he should come
back, if he came back at all. " Perhaps he may
find some rich widow who would take him, oddi-
ties and all, or some benevolent and eager-to-be-
married old — "

I stopped, ashamed, for I had ceased to laugh
at old maids since I had known Miss Tommy.
Though no one could be less like the received
type of an old maid than she was, with her love-
ly old face, so peaceful and smiling, her contented
air, and her universal and most motherly tender-
ness, especially over the young.

" Some * unappropriated blessing,' which is the
polite term for an unmarried woman," said she,

72 MISS TOionr.

with A gontlo smilo. "No, I do not think Major
(lonlon is likely to marry. But he might ha^e
II l()i)(5 and useful life yet. I trust he will ha^e.
Ill) diwTvefl it."

Sho rose and took up his gloves — such an old
and hluihhy pair I which he had left behind on
liin favorite arm-chair — the Major's chair we had
f(ot to (^all it ; it looked sad and empty now.

'* \Vt» will Bond them after him when we know
wlu^ru ho luiH p;one to," she said, and folded them
up and laid thuni carefully in a drawer.

'i'liaL ni^ht she went to bed rather early — we
had ^ot into a habit of sitting " four feet on a
fiJiidor" over the dying fire till midnight — and
blio lijoked very tired all next day. But she
said bIio had to do double duty consequent on
yesterday's idleness, so went about as usual, while
I busied myself in preparing for my melancholy
departure.

I had not thought till I came to leave her how
sorry I should be to do it — how I should miss
her genial smile, her ceaseless care and thought
for me. That busy life seemed still to have room
for everything and everybody.

MISS TOMMY. 73

" Good-byes are sore things," I said, thinking
sorrowfully of mine with Charlie ; of which Miss
Trotter might have been thinking too, for she an-
swered :

" And yet it is something to have the right to
grieve — to know that the grief is mutual — to feel
that the parting is not indefinite. There are
those who have none of these consolations, yet
they have to bear the same pang. Some part-
ings are like death itself, only without its peace."

I looked up from my packing, for she spoke
with keen sympathy, even emotion.

" Yes, there must be some poor young creat-
ures even more miserable than I and Charlie."

" I and Charlie," " Charlie and me 1" I wonder
she was not sick of that perpetual chorus of ego-
tistical woe, which I, like many another foolish
girl, inflicted upon my affectionate friends — at
least upon this friend. She insisted that I should
"keep myself to myself" with other people;
especially with my family, who, I shrewdly sus-
pected, would not stand as much as she did. I
should have henceforth to conceal my sorrows,
or try and rise superior to them, and make my-

4

74 MIB8 TOMMY.

self as happy as I cotildy with Charlie away ;
which seemed a sort of infidelity to Charlie.

When I said so, Miss Tommy smiled.

" My dear, young people in love always think
it a duty to be miserable. By and by they learn
a higher duty — that if you are not happy your-
self you have the more need to make other peo-
ple happy. The weakest, the most unchristian
thing a woman can do, or a man either, is to die
of a broken heart."

" Yet people have died."

" And lived — which is harder. But what non-
sense we are talking 1 You will not die broken-
hearted after parting with me, my dear," and
she laughed her own merry laugh. "And for
Charlie, I would advise you, for the next three
months at least, not to say a word about Charlie.
You may think of him all the same, you know."

" Don't laugh at me."

" I am not laughing. I want you to think of
him. I hope you will keep true to him ; for one
real love, be it ever so sad, is better than twenty
' fancies,' or a hundred ' flirtations.' "

"Thank you — thank you; you are not like

MISS TOMMY. 75

Major Gk)rdon. Ton believe in me ; you do not
think I shall ever forget Charlie."

"No."

We stood at the wicket -gate for a breath of
the salt sea, just to refresh us before bedtime.
The moonlight nights were over; but through
the clear darkness we could trace the beautiful
curve of the bay, studded with its ring of lights
— the incoming tide, heard rather than seen, on
the one hand, and the dim outline of white cliffs
on the other. How many a night we had walked
up and down, the two of us — latterly the three —
and now it was all come to an end.

"Ton will have to take your walks alone," I
said.

" Yes ; I am used to it."

That phrase, with its infinite pathos! I did
not notice it then, nor understand it ; I was too
young to have " got used " to anything. But I
somehow felt my heart yearn towards the soli-
tary woman. Any unmarried woman must be
solitary, I thought. I put my arms round her
and kissed her, not as a mere salutation, but
with the warm kisses of youth, as I used to kiss

1DB6 TOUKT.

Chftrlie (no ! let me correct mjeelf, as Clwriie
used to kiss me). She kissed me back again,
with, to in; surprise, a great sob ; and then and
there in tlio gileiit starlight, to my still greater
Btirpriee, she — like the people in the Bible — "fell
on my neck and wept." Mj dear Miss Tommy !

PART IL

Chablie Gordon did come back at the three
years' end; and, despite his uncle's prophecy,
he did find me true, and not married either
to an earl or a millionaire. I will not say that
I had not been asked; but that is neither here
nor there, and, as Miss Trotter once observed,
the less a woman says about her rejected lovers
the better.

She — my dear Miss Tommy — happened to be
sitting with me when Charlie suddenly appeared.

It was the day after my twenty-first birthday,
which, though lively enough, I cannot say was
very happy. But I tried hard to make it so ; for
I had by this time learned my lesson — the lesson
first taught me by her dear old self in her pretty
house at Dover, during the peaceful three months
when she "took me in" — me, almost a "stranger"
— and returned me back to my parents healed in
body and mind. At least I was so much better

78 MISS TOMMY.

that I endured the ensuing three years without
making myself unendurable to my family, as is
the way with so many young people who have
been " crossed in love." Much pity I have for
them, poor things I — the tender .pity that Miss
Tommy had for me; but my pity never blinds
me, as it never blinded her, to the truth of the
matter, namely, that to waste one's life, with all
its duties, all its blessings — ^and few lives are void
of the latter, none of the former — to sacrifice it on
the shrine of any one human being, is, as some
statesman said of a great political error, ^^ worse
than a crime — a blunder." And had I for those
three years made myself and my family utterly
miserable on Charlie's account, I should certainly
have committed a great blunder; for I should
have taught them to despise me and hate him —
hate my dear Charlie, the best, nicest, pleasantest
— but I will not forestall things.

On my birthday — which was a rather important
date, since on coming of age I inherited some
money from an old great-aunt — I had all my own
people about me : my married brothers and their
families, my two elder sisters, both engaged and

MISS TOMMY. 79

making "excellent matches" — to my mother's
great delight. For me, I would not have married
either of my brothers-in-law elect for the world I
But I was very civil to them, and took with com-
posure the jokes about my "unattached" condi-
tion, without a single creature to pay me attention
either in the house or at the birthday ball. In-
stead, I occupied myself with paying attention to
my dear Miss Tommy, who, though I had not been
allowed to visit her again, was always considered
in the family as my particular friend, and invited
to our house whenever I desired it.

Not since that pleasant fortnight which I spent
with him had I again seen Major Gordon. My
family met him once in society, and — by all ac-
counts — gave him so unmistakably the "cold
shoulder" that I scarcely wondered he had left
unfulfilled his promise of coming to see me when
he was "settled" in London. But possibly he
never had settled anywhere; for I had heard
nothing of him until quite lately, when, in answer
to my questions, Miss Trotter said that in an ac-
cidental letter which she had received from him
he " inquired kindly " after me.

80 MISS TOMMY.

This was all. She evidently wished to say as
little as possible about the Gordons — nncle and
nephew — which did not contribute to the happi-
ness of my birthday. But, I reflected, no doubt
she felt bound in honor to tell me nothing about
Charlie, and perhaps after all she had very little
to tell. For when I communicated to her the
only news which had reached me of Major Gor-
don — how some mutual friend had met him in
the city looking very shabby, worn, and old — she
seemed both surprised and pained.

But to return to me and Charlie. By-the-bye,
it was a creditable novelty in me to " return " to
Charlie, instead of making him, as aforetime, the
one sole subject of my conversation. He ap-
peared, as I have said, the very day after my birth-
day. We were sitting among the debris of the
ball, in the dulness of tired-out folk, when the
footman suddenly announced " Colonel Gordon."

^^ It must be a mistake — and mamma and the
girls are out," I said to Miss Trotter ; but she only
smiled.

" It's you, miss, that the young gentleman asks
for," said our old John, with a grin — well he knew

MISS TOMMY. 81

Charlie in the old days! "And be told me to say
Colonel Gordon."

So in be walked, as composedly as if be bad
been tbe fairy prince come to demand tbe band
of tbe beautiful princess, wbicb be did witbin an
hour or two, of her astounded parents !

There was no reason why be should not. He
was no longer Mr., but Colonel, Gordon. A lucky
battle (alas! that we should call it so) bad pro-
moted him — had enabled him to come home in
time to keep bis tryst with me, and to " come for-
ward," as the phrase goes, with dignity and inde-
pendence, to ask me of my father.

We sat together in the little boudoir, band-in-
hand, like children ; sat and cried for joy — kissing
one another between whiles, also like children;
for there was no one near except Miss Trotter,
knitting energetically in the big drawing-room. I
introduced Charlie to her, saying she was a friend
of bis uncle ; but he did not seem to have beard
of her or to think much about her. In truth,
poor dear fellow ! at that moment he thought of
nothing but me ; and declared he bad thought of
nothing but me all the time be bad been parted

4*

82 MI88 TOlOfT.

from me. Which I hope was true. At any rate,
I saw no reason to doubt it.

"A colonel's pay is not a fortune, my Decie,
but it is quite equal to what you have, and so my
pride is satisfied — my uncle's too. He met me
when I reached London yesterday. We had a
long talk, and though he did not exactly advise
me to come here to-day, he did not object to it.
He said he liked you very much, and that if I
must be so foolish as to marry, perhaps I had
better marry you ; and so — ^"

Here Charlie ended his sentence in another but
equally satisfactory way. Oh, dear me ! how fool-
ish we are when we are young, and yet how sweet
is the folly !

And then he told me confidentially a remark-
able fact — which there was no need to make a
matter of public talk — that when he came home he
found lying at his banker's a large sum of money,
which, added to his colonel's pay, would give an
income sufficient to enable us to marry at once.
It had been paid into the bank anonymously — ^by
whom, he had not the remotest idea.

This latter fact was rather " uncomfortable," he

MISS TOMMY. 83

owned, and I agreed with him; still it did not
strike me as wonderful that anybody should do
anything for Charlie; and among his numerous
friends probably there was one who had a fancy
for secret benevolence.

"I thought at first it was my uncle, but found
the dear old fellow knew nothing at all about the
matter, of which I was very glad, for though he
declares he is not poor, that no gentleman is poor
who knows the extent of his income and lives
within it, still he must have great trouble to make
ends meet. And he ought to have more comforts
than he has, an old man like him — ^better clothes,
better food, and perhaps some one to do his writ-
ing and reading for him : his sight is not good,
though from long habit he manages extremely
well. He is at once very independent and very
helpless — ^poor Uncle Gordon !"

Here Miss Trotter, who had sat in the back-
ground absorbed in her knitting, looked up. (1
had told Charlie he need not mind her; she
knew all about us, and would play propriety
in the most harmless way till my mother came
home.)

84 MISS TOMMY.

^'Has Major Gordon changed his address?
Will you give it to me ? I am an old friend of
his."

Charlie bowed. He admired pretty women of
all ages; and I could see he was quite taken by
the sweet-looking little old lady.

"Who in the world is she? Trotter? Not
Trotters the army-tailors?"

I stopped his whispers with the severest of
frowns, made him write down the address of his
uncle's new lodgings — it was in a very shabby
and dreary London street — ^and gave it to Miss
Tommy. Shortly afterwards she made some ex-
cuse and left us together, which was, we both
agreed, the very kindest thing she could do.

So it was all soon arranged, for Charlie was one
who never allowed any grass to grow under his
feet. He was determined, and so was I. We had
both an independent income, small, but suflBcient ;
and we were young and strong enough to "rough
it " a little if necessary. Though it scarcely would
be necessary, as, to my mother's great relief, the
regiment was coming home, so that Charlie would
have, for the present at least, no more fight-

inSS TOMMY. 85

iug, nor would my parents lose their youngest
darling.

I was their darling, I felt ; and they had meant
me no harm, nor done it either, by insisting on
the temporary separation between my lover and
me. It had only made us the worthier and, if
possible, the dearer to one another. True love is
all the truer for being tried.

When, next day, I received the congratulations
of our mutual families — ^though his consisted only
of his uncle, for his only living relative, a married
sister, lived in the far north of Scotland — ^I think
my Chsirlie^B Jiancee was the happiest girl in the
world. Far happier than if I had at once got
what I wanted, and oh ! a thousand times happier
than if I had withstood or disobeyed my parents,
sulked with my brothers and sisters, and made
myself generally disagreeable at home — the dear
familiar home which would be mine now for so
very short a time. Another home might be fuller,
wider, brighter ; but there is something in the in-
nocent girl-life, free from cares and responsibili-
ties, safe hidden in the warm nest, and cherished
under the soft, motherly wing — something which

86 lOBS TOMMT.

a girl never gets again in all her days, and never
thoroughly understands or appreciates till it is
hers no more forever.

Yet, as I said to Miss Tommy, for once in my
life quoting poetry,

^'LoTe 18 swoet,
Given or retamed — ^**

to which she only answered, " Yes " — ^her usual
gentle ^^ Yes." But she kissed me fondly. I am
sure she was glad in her inmost heart to see me so
happy.

And, looking back through many years, through
*' all the chances and changes of mortal life," as
the prayer-book has it, I can remember vividly
that day, and feel that it was good to be happy.
I can see myself sitting in my usual place at the
family dinner-table, beside my father, but with
Charlie on my other side, an accepted lover, and
both of us, we flattered ourselves, sustaining our
new position with dignity and grace. Still we
were both a little nervous — I am sure I was — and
it Was quite a relief that there were no strangers
present, except two who could hardly be called
such — ^Miss Trotter and Major Gordon.

MISS TOMMY. 87

They happened to sit together at the other end
of the table, for my mother had, of course, been
taken in to dinner by Charlie's uncle, and my
father — he was a little distraity poor man, and no
wonder ! — ^had forgotten Miss Tommy. She would
have had to walk in alone, had not Major Gordon,
ever courteous, turned and given her his other
arm.

So the two old acquaintances were placed side
by side, which they seemed to enjoy, for they
talked a good deal. And, as I noticed to Charlie
(it was such a comfort to have Charlie to tell
everything to once more !), his uncle grew less
solemn and Don Quixotish — as who would not
under the snnBhiny influence of my dear Miss
Tommy? (N.B. I never called her that to her
face, but she knew we often did so behind her
back ; nor do I think she disliked it — she once told
me that her father's pet name for her was always
" Tommy.")

As I sat in my usual place, radiant in my new
happiness, with all my dear ones about me, and
especially the dearest of all, more than once I
caught Miss Trotter's glance wandering towards

88 MI88 TOlOfT.

me with a wiBtful tenderness almost amounting to
sadness, and I wondered, with a sudden flash of
intuition, bom of my deep bliss, what her youth
had been, whether she had ever known, even for
a brief moment, the felicity which, thoughtless as
I was in these early days, I thought of with a sigh
of content, saying with old King David, "My cup
runneth over."

" I am glad to see Major Gordon here," whis-
pered I to Charlie. " He looks a good deal older
since I saw him first. I wonder what he was like
as a young man."

" They say he was like me." (To which I re-
sponded indignantly, " Oh no !") " But he would
not be an ill-looking fellow, poor Uncle Gordon, if
only he would spruce himself up a bit, as he has
done to-day, for the credit of the family. He is
not vain, but he is most awfully proud. Would
you believe it, he is vexing his very life out be-
cause he cannot discover the anonymous friend to
whom I owe that money, and he cannot bear
being indebted to any human being. I think he
is more angry than grateful. Now, I am very
grateful."

MISS TOMMY. 89

And so was I, without perplexing myself about
the matter, which, however, Major Gordon did
not refer to at all; but whenever he fell into
fits of silence or abstraction, as was not seldom,
Charlie whispered, "He is worrying himself about
the money, poor old dear !"

The " old dear," however, was very benignant
to me, informing Charlie that "he had always
liked me." Though a little stately and formal,
not at all like the " gay Gordons " of the ballad,
which I took care to quote to Charlie —

''He tnnied about lightlie, as the Gordons does a',
I thank yon, Leddy Jean, my lovers promised ava'* —

still, taking him altogether, I confessed, and after
he had left my mother confessed also, that Major
Gordon was not an uncle to be ashamed of.

It sounded odd to call him major and his
nephew colonel ; but he did not seem to mind it,
they being in different services. Besides, as I
heard him say to Miss Trotter, what did it mat-
ter? "his day was done." A sad remark, to
which she made no answer; but as he turned
away, I saw her eyes follow him with a long, wist-
ful look — which opened mine.

90 MI88 TOIOTT.

I was only one-and-twenty, and she — well! I
had never heard exactly how old she was; but
there are some people and some things which
never grow old. From that minute there dawned
upon me an idea, which I had the good sense and
delicacy to keep entirely to myself, bat which
furnished me with a due to many mysteries —
even to that grand mystery of Charlie's money.
And so, perhaps, I was the only person not sur-
prised when, two days after, as we ladies were all
sitting in the morning-room, there came a mes-
sage that Major Gordon was below, and " wished
to speak to Miss Trotter for five minutes on busi-
ness."

" Do not be frightened, Decie ; I know what it
is," said she, taking my hand — hers was cold and
nervously trembling ; but she sat still and said no
more.

Major Gordon walked into the room, looking
more than ever " as if he had swallowed a poker,"
my sisters said. He exchanged a few civilities
with my mother, and then, as she was leaving the
room, stopped her.

^^Do not go, Mrs. Murray; I have no secrets

MISS TOMMY. 91

with Miss Trotter. The 'business' I wished to
speak to her about is public enough — only too
public. I should prefer you all hearing the ques-
tion I have the pleasure, or pain, of putting to
her, and which, I trust, she will answer can-
didly."

Miss Tommy looked up full in his face. It was
a look quite different from that she bestowed on
any of us. In it was something at once sad, ear-
nest, yet restful — something of a child's look, dif-
fident and hesitating, but full of trust, reminding
me of what she had once said of him, that if he
had one quality more than another, it was relia-
bleness.

" I will speak at once and resolve my doubts,"
be said, crossing over to her. "Miss Trotter,
the unknown friend who placed that large sum to
my nephew's credit at his banker's was, I have
reason to believe, yourself. Am I right ?"

She grew crimson all over, then paled again,
and said gently, almost deprecatingly : "Yes, it
was I."

" And why did you do it ?"

" Ah, Major Gordon 1" I cried, reproachfully,

92 MISS TOMICT.

and ran to embrace my dear Miss Tommy in a
burst of gratitude, but she softly put me aside."

<< Why should I not do it ? I have no one to
spend my money upon, or leave it to — neither
husband, child, nor near relation. I chose to do
this, and I think I was justified in doing it."

She spoke with a mingled dignity and pathos
which could not fail to strike anybody. It seemed
to strike Major Gordon, and remind him that in
his pride he had a little failed of courtesy : grati-
tude, I suppose, could not have been expected
from him.

" Forgive me. I acknowledge your generosity;
but there are two sides to the subject, ours and
yours. It is hard enough for us, poor as we are
— my nephew and I — to be connected with a
wealtliy family by marriage ; but it is harder still,
it is almost humiliating, to be indebted to — "

" I beg your pardon," interrupted Miss Trotter;
and her voice had a quiver of keen pain. " You
are not indebted to me, Major Gordon. What I
did I did for the sake of this little girl here, and
for a young man who, by what I have learned —
and I took some pains to find out all about him —

MISS TOMMY. 93

deserves every good thing that Fortune can be-
stow. For me, I am merely a tool in the hands
of Fortune, or Providence, to make two people
happy. There is not so much of happiness in this
world that I or any one need regret the deed."

The words were a little sad, but the smile was
so sunny that even Major Gordon must have been
a stone to resist it. He extended his hand, and
clasped hers warmly.

" Tou are a good woman, an exceedingly good
woman; and my nephew is fortunate in having
your esteem — your — patronage, shall I say ? No,
your kind oflSces. I hope he will be grateful to
you — I think he will."

" He ought to be !" cried my mother, warmly.
She had no pangs of wounded pride, and her prac-
tical mind at once leaped to the obvious conclu-
sion that so affectionate and wealthy a friend — an
old maid, too — implied a very comfortable future
for Charlie and me. " But, my dear Miss Trotter,
how well you kept the secret, and what a roman-
tic idea to take into your head 1"

"Not at alll" laughing in her old, pleasant
way. "May not a woman do as she likes with

94' MI88 TOMMT.

her own { an unmarried woman especially. That
is the advantage we have over yon British mar
trons ; there is no one to argue with us, no one to
contradict us. Besides" — ^here she took a graver
tone, and (I thought) turned more towards Major
Gordon as she spoke — ^^ I am rich now, but I was
poor once, very poor. It teaches me to under-
stand poverty. I mean " — and now she addressed
him directly — ^^that you must disabuse your
nephew's mind of any idea of obligation to me.
I am merely paying back, in my old age, the debts
of my youth. Do not speak of the matter again.
Forget it. Will you promise me this ?"

She laid her hand on his coat sleeve — a rather
shabby sleeve. Now, in full daylight, any eye —
certainly a woman's — might have detected sad ev-
idences that he had no woman to take care of
him : frayed wrijstbands, holes in gloves, buttons
missing from shirt-fronts, etc. Poor Major Gor-
don!

"I do promise 1" he said, with much feeling;
and, taking up the little hand, he kissed it in
knightly fashion before us all — an action so sud-
den, so unlike what one would have expected of

MISS TOMMY. 95

him that I did not wonder to see her start. But
the expression of her dear old face was less of
pleasure than pain.

Major Gordon soon left, saying, in his usual
formal manner, " that he would now go in search
of his nephew, explain to him this discovery, and
send him to offer his own acknowledgments to
his benevolent friend," indicating Miss Trotter by
a stately bow, which forced me to clasp her round
the neck in a fervor of enthusiasm.

"I shaVt call you my * benevolent friend,'"
exclaimed I, half crying, half laughing. ^^ I love
you ; that is all."

^^ And that is enough," she answered, stroking
my hair in a fond way she had. Shortly after*
wards she went to her own room, whence she did
not emerge for some hours.

Kext day she bade us adieu, and departed from
our large, merry household to her own 'solitary
home.

My mother declared she could not possibly stand
three weddings at once, and that Charlie and I
must wait a little, which I was not sorry to do. I
liked to prolong the sweetness of the courtship

96 MISS TOMMY.

time; indeed, as I confided to Miss Tommy, I
would not have minded ever so long an engage-
ment now that I really belonged to Charlie, and
could be a comfort to him in all things, as he to
me. And she answered that I was right. " True
love was always true, whether or not it ever ended
in marriage" — a sentiment in which Charlie did
not wholly agree with her.

But he did agree with her, and so did I, in pro-
testing against a grand wedding like my sisters',
with three clergymen to tie the knot, and twelve
bridesmaids to " assist " at the performance, which
was a real " performance," and went off admira-
bly. But I would have preferred being married
in a cotton gown, with the pew-opener for my
bridesmaid.

When I said this, however. Miss Tommy
laughed, and declared I was going a step too far ;
that there were certain duties we owed to society ;
and, for her part, she thought it might be a pleas-
ant thing to be married with all one's family
about one.

"A blessing we solitary ones perhaps appreci-
ate more than you," she added ; and then we fell

MISS TOMMY. 97

into a discussion upon family ties, d propo8 of
Scotch clannishness, and of Major Gordon, in
-whom it was very strong. I was sure he liked
Charlie, not merely for himself, dear fellow ! good
as he was, but because he belonged to " the fam-
ily."

" And, as he once argued with me— r-we are very
good friends now, you know — he cannot under-
stand why you should like Charlie so much, see-
ing he does not belong to you — is not connected
with you by any tie of blood. Nor am I, for that
matter; yet you like me a little, don't you?"

She pressed my hand tenderly, and then said :
" Yes, you are right. The tie of blood — that is
all Major Gordon cares for. Some have this feel-
ing very strong — so strong that it blunts all sense
of other ties. I have known parents, most de-
voted to their own children, who had no tender-
ness, no justice even, for other people's children ;
and brothers and sisters who thought whatever
they did was right, and what outsiders did infalli-
bly wrong. But perhaps I judge harshly, Decie,
my dear, and from my own point of view. What
would become of me if I had no heart except for

5

98 MI88 TOIOCT.

my own kith and kin, of whom I have none in
the wide world ?"

It was not often that she Bpokethns; seldom,
indeed, of herself at all. She once said, langhing,
'^ that she did not find it an interesting subject."
But to-day, in the pleasure of having me with
her, and on this visit — the last I should pay her
before I was married — our hearts seemed to open
out one towards one another.

We were sitting on the Castle Hill, near the
top of the steps, and looking down on Dover town
and bay, which lay so still and bright, with the
autumn sunset reflected in it. Miss Trotter still
came, every winter, to her little honse at Dover.
She liked it better, she owned, than her grand
mansion in the country ; and so did I. We agreed
that my farewell visit as Decie Murray should be
to Dover. Accordingly, we fell into our old ways,
and walks too. But I noticed she could not walk
quite so far ; she had often to stop and rest, as
now. And when Charlie came down, she let us
go off on our rambles by ourselves, and Major
Gordon by himself. For he, too, appeared once
or twice, and took up his quarters with his old

I

ll

MISS TOMMY. 101

landlady, who thought him " the nicest old gen-
tleman that ever was."

Scarcely an "old" gentleman, unless one saw
his face. He was so thin — slim, one might say —
and upright that, walking behind him and Char-
lie, you could hardly say which was the uncle and
which the nephew. How often we watched them
both. Miss Tommy and I, standing by the window
of her little drawing-room — watched them walk
away together, like father and son, we looking
after them — was it like mother and daughter ? or
aunt and niece ? or simply friends — chosen friends?

People may talk as they will of the "ties of
blood," but the ties of friendship, of voluntary
election, firm and well founded, are fully as close
and as strong — comparable to nothing, I think,
except the tie of marriage ; that is, the real mar-
riage of heart and soul, which I was now begin-
ning to understand.

"I believe," said I one day to Miss Tommy
when I was standing by her side, watching those
two, who had just left us, and were coming back
to dinner — " I believe, if anything happened that
I did not marry Charlie, I should break my heart."

102 MISB TOMHT.

" No, you wonld not," she answered gently, but
without hesitation. ^^ Being a good woman, you
would live and bear it. But whether he lived or
died, if he did nothing to make him unworthy of
love, you would feel like his wife to the end of
your days."

I looked at her, just on the point of saying
" that this was true ; only, how could she possibly
understand?" and then I changed my mind and
said nothing.

I cannot say I altogether liked Major Gordon's
settling himself at Dover, and so persistently com-
ing here with his nephew, like the old song —

*' You'll in your girls again be courted,
And I'll go wooing with my boys,"

which the boys might not wholly approve of.
Charlie did not, but I calmed him down. And,
for certain reasons of my own, I forgave the Ma-
jor, and gave him no hint of being unwelcome.
He really was not so very much in the way after
all. Accustomed to long solitude, he needed very
little to amuse him ; and if he had done so. Miss
Trotter was fully equal to the occasion. Though
not exactly clever, she had the quick sympathy

MISS TOMMY. 103

which is almost better than cleverness. She was
always inventing some little pleasure, outside, for
him and for us ; and inside the house her constant
cheerfulness, her unfailing sweet temper, and,
above all, her bright sense of fun, made an atmos-
phere that would have sunned into pleasantness
the grimmest old curmudgeon alive.

But Uncle Gordon was no curmudgeon, nor
grim, though I sometimes accused him of being
so. By degrees he seemed to become accustomed
to our peaceful life, took an interest in all Miss
Trotter's work, and in our play, as he called
our harmless love-making, which was so soon to
merge in the busy duties of life; he warned us
once that we were " like a couple of lambs sport-
ing on the edge of a precipice." However, his
bitter sayings grew fewer and fewer : he seemed
to accept the fact that Charlie and I were happy,
and to condescend to be happy himself after his
fashion. He owned that he " really enjoyed " our
quiet evenings, all four together, to which I sto-
ically submitted and compelled Charlie to submit ;
not shutting ourselves up in a separate nook, as
most lovers do. For, as I told the dear fellow.

104 MISS TOMMY.

when he got impatient and cross, we should soon
have our evenings all to ourselves, and have to sit
" four feet on a fender " all our lives long.

When I thought of this future — how sweet it
was, how dear and familiar Charlie had grown to
me, how impossible it would now be to carry on
life without him — more and more it was borne in
upon me what those suffer who have to live their
whole life without the one human being who is
their other self, the entire satisfaction and comple-
tion of their existence. And I felt such pity —
the deep pity that only happy folks can feel — for
those who had been, for any cause, what is termed
" disappointed in love."

Major Gordon might never have been in love
at all, by the little sympathy he showed for
Charlie and me. Instead of going and talking
with Miss Trotter, which he could so easily have
done, he would persist in keeping up desultory
general conversation, which sometimes drifted
back into old times, familiar to our respected
seniors, but a little dull for us. They belonged
to the old world — we to the new; and, fond as
we were of them, there seemed a gulf between

loss TOMMT. 105

them and us. In spite of onr heroic self-sacri-
fice, we found our evenings rather dreary, and
were glad to propose a game at whist, or a book
to read. Charlie read aloud remarkably well, and
therefore was verj^good-natured in doing it.

But it was diflBcult to find anything he con-
sidered worth reading in the rather limited li-
brary of Miss Trotter, who, I must confess, was
not a literary lady. Her books had chiefly be-
longed to her father. I discovered among them,
to my surprise, some which Major Gordon must
have given her when she was a girl. But neither
he nor she was a book-lover now. His life had
been too completely that of a wandering soldier,
and hers was absorbed in the responsibilities of
her large fortune and still larger heart. Still
they both liked to hear " a pretty story," or a
"little bit of poetry" — something which be-
longed to their young days — something they
could understand. And one evening, when we
were at our wits' end, Charlie and I, to find
something " old-fashioned " enough for our dear
but rather diflBcult friends, we lighted upon an
odd volume of Crabbe, which, no doubt, in the

5*

106 MI88 TOMHT.

days of the departed Beverend John Trotter had
been considered " delightful " poetry.

Charlie opened it by merest chance at a poem
called "Procrastination," which probably this
generation has never heard of, and yet it is very
touching as well as clever in its way. It is the
story of two lovers, aflBanced early in life.

"The pnident Dinah was the maid beloved.
And the kind Rapert was the youth approved."

Fortune is against them, however, and Dinah's
" prudence," together with the advice of the
wealthy aunt with whom she lives, causes the
marriage to be put off and off. Rupert goes
abroad to earn money ; the aunt dies and leaves
Dinah her heiress, but Eiipert, still poor, is not
summoned back. The letters between them grow
fewer and colder. Prosperity hardens the elderly
maiden's heart. She spends month after month

*'In quiet comfort and in rich content.
Miseries there were, and woes the world around,
But these had not her pleasant dwelling found.
She knew that mothers grieved and widows wept,
And she was sorry — said her prayers — and — slept"

At last there appears before her

MIBS TOMMY. 107

^' A huge, tall sfdlor with his tawny cheek
And pitted face."

It is Eupert, poor as ever, but loving and faith-
ful — too faithful even to dread infidelity. The
lady calls him "friend," suggests that they are
both frail and old, too old to think of love or
marriage. With a mixture of religious senti-
ment and worldliness, she gives him what is ele-
gantly termed " the sack."

**She ceased. With steady glance, as if to see
The very root of this hypocrisy,
He her small fingers monlded in his hard
And bronzed broad hand ; then told her his regard,
His best respect, were gone : bat love had still
Hold in his heart, and goyemed yet the will.
Or he would curse her. Saying this, he threw
The hand in scorn away, and bade adieu.
Frond and indignant, suffering, sick and poor,
He grieved unseen, and spoke of love no more."

Sinking lower in fortune, he "shares a parish
gift " in this his native place. There sometimes

**At prayers he sees
The pious Dinah dropped upon her knees;
Thence, as she walks the street with stately air.
As chance directs, oft meet the parted pair.
When he with thick-set coat of badge-man^s blue
Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue —

lOS MISS TOMMY.

When his frenk air and his unstudied pace

Are seen with her soft manner, air, and grace.

And his plain artless look with her sharp meaning fiice.

It might some wonder in a stranger more

How these together could have talked of lore."

At this point of his reading Charlie paased;
lie had read very well, growing interested in
the story in spite of himself. So was I too.
The " pious Dinah," how I hated her 1 We sat
in a circle ronnd the fire; well I remember the
picture! — Miss Trotter in her little chair, knit-
ting — she said she was obliged to knit to keep
herself awake ; yet she did not seem asleep now,
though the knitting had dropped. Her wide-
open eyes were fixed with a sad, yearning, un-
speakably tender gaze on the arm-chair opposite,
where, in comfortable shadow — she always ar-
ranged the light so that his eyes should not be
troubled by it — sat Major Gordon.

He was not sleeping either, but listening in-
tently; he always listened to a story with the
earnest simplicity of a child.

" Shall I finish it, uncle, or are you tired ?"

" Not tired — no ! But go on— go on," he an-
swered irritably. " Let us see how it ends."

MISS TOMMY. 109

There was very little more. Only a picture —
I wonder no artist has ever painted it — of one of
those chance meetings, when Eupert, sitting on
a roadside seat, watches " the lady " giving or-
ders to a tradesman, and moralizes npon how he
should have treated her had their positions been
reversed —

''Ah, yes I I feel that I had faithful proved,
And should have soothed and raised her, blessed and loved.*'

And then —

"Dinah moves on — she had observed before
The pensive Bupert at a humble door :
Some thoughts of pitj raised bj his distress.
Some feeling touch of ancient tenderness,
Beligion, duty, urged the maid to speak
In terms of kindness to a man so weak.
But pride forbade, and to return would prove
She felt the shame of his neglected love —
Nor wrapped in silence could she pass, afraid
Each eye would see her and each heart upbraid.
One way remained — ^the way the Levite took
Who Mrithout mercy could on misery look
(A way perceived by craft, approved by pride).
She crossed, and passed him on the other side."

" The " — I am afraid it was really that strong
expletive — " the devil she did I" exclaimed Major
Gordon, starting up in his chair, and then laugh-

110 loss TOMMY.

ing at himself in a sort of Bhamefaced way at his
great excitement over " a mere bit of poetry."

" Not poetry at all," protested Charlie, with
lofty disdain. '^ A piece of common human nat-
ure, nothing more." ^
• " Yes, of course it is only human nature," said
his uncle, calming down. ^^And it served the
fellow right. He was a fool to trust a woman.
And any man — any poor man — who marries a
rich woman is worse than a fool, a knave."

To do Major Gordon justice, I believe that, in
his simplicity of nature, his entire freedom from
egotism or self- consciousness, he had no idea of
the drift of what he was saying. I should have
given him a gentle hint that his remark was, if
not untrue, at least uncivil, but I caught sight of
Miss Trotter's face and held my tongue..

What a sad, strange thing it is, the way the
best of people often wound others quite unin-
tentionally I How often I have seen hands that
would not willingly have hurt a fly, stab some
tender heart to the very core, and pass on, never
even noticing the blow, or guessing that they had
wounded another, perhaps to death.

MISS TOMMY. Ill

Miss Trotter rose from her little chair. As she
did so, her rnstling gown — she always dressed
richly and becomingly — reminded me of the
" shaded silk of changeful hue.*' But there the
parallel ended. .

^^ Decie," she said, leaning on me as she passed,
for she moved feebly and unsteadily, " your Char-
lie reads well ; I like to hear him. He has been
very kind. And now, if Major Gordon approves,
we will go to our game at whist."

Her smile, as she turned towards him, was some-
what fixed in its sweetness, and there was a me-
tallic evenness in her tone not customary with
her. Then, rearranging the light so as not to
incommode Uncle Gordon, whose eyes always
troubled him more or less, she took her place at
the card-table and played for an hour.

When our guests left she sat talking with me
for a little while. I think it was about the color
of my drawing-room furniture, and whether I
should have chintz or damask. But as we parted
on the top of the stairs, the cheek I kissed and
the hands I held were as cold as stone.

Lying awake that night I thought a good deal.

112 MISS TOMMY.

and before morning I made np my mind, perhaps
in grievons error— I was still a girl, with a full
and happy heart, which saw only one perfect
happiness — love — in existence — but I meant well.
I repeat — though I think of it now with an an-
guish of remorse, perhaps wholly unneeded — that
I meant well.

The next day was one of those lovely antumn
mornings that we often have at Dover — bright,
mild, and so clear that the windows in Calais
town were plainly visible, glittering in the sun-
shine across a placid sea. I had a curious fancy
about Dover and Calais, places so like and so nn-
like, so near and yet so apart. They reminded
me of two people sitting looking at one another
over an easily crossed barrier — two who had been
friends all their lives, and never anything more.
" Friends — lovers that might have been."

I made the remark — perhaps a very stupid re-
mark — this day, and at luncheon, that everybody
might hear. But nobody did hear apparently,
except Charlie, who laughed at me for quoting
poetry, and declared that Dover and Calais were
not friends, but bitter enemies, and then retold

MISS TOMMY. 113

the old tale of Queen Philippa and the burghers
coming with ropes round their necks, till, if he
had not been such a dear innocent donkey, I
could have boxed his ears.

It was such a remarkably clear day that Miss
Trotter proposed a walk to the Castle. Charlie
had never seen the view from the top of the
Keep, and Major Gordon was never weary of
going round the fortifications, explaining military
tactics, and " fighting his battles o'er again," as
is so pleasant to old soldiers. Sometimes, in the
midst of it, he would sigh and declare ^^ his day
was done," at which we only laughed at him, for,
though so excessively thin, he was a hale man
yet, and had grown much stronger since his re-
turn to England. Eut he was just at the time
of life when many people, feeling the approach
of old age, dread it and resist it, instead of ac-
cepting it with its good as well as its ill. He
was continually trying to do too much, and then
calling himself " a broken-down man, fit for noth-
ing in this world."

As he did this day, when, having already
walked to St. Eadegund's and back, he persisted

114 HISS TOMMY.

in climbing the Castle, and explaining to ns
every inch of the forts and fortifications. At
last, fairly tired oat, he sat down on the tnrf
behind the Roman Pharos, now an adjunct to the
Castle church, and prepared for a qniet smoke,
the one only luxury which he allowed himself.

I can see him at this minute — his sallow,
bearded face, his long, thin, brown hands; he
never wore gloves now, saying they were " too
expensive," and, indeed, all his clothes were a lit-
tle " seedy " in character. But his figure was so
upright, his carriage so graceful, that if he had
been clothed in a sack Major Gordon would have
looked like a gentleman.

I sat down beside him, owning I was tired, and
sending Charlie off to the keep in company with
Miss Trotter, who volunteered to accompany him.

" IIow young and active she is still !" said
the major, following them with his eyes. " She
walks as fast as Charlie himself."

" Yes ; she has spirit enough to do anything
she has set her mind to do. She is a dear soul,
and so sweet-looking still. I think I never saw
such a pretty old lady."

MISS TOMMY. 115

" Scarcely an old lady yet ; she must be ten or
twelve years younger than I, and much yonnger
in character and feelings. But she was always
light-hearted."

"Was she?"

" And is so still. What a peaceful face it is !
What an even, happy life she must have had !"

I said nothing. This chance turn which the
conversation had taken was gradually bringing
about — providentially, was it? — that to which I
had made np my mind.

" You women are incomprehensible creatures,
Decie," continued Major Gordon, with a long pnflE
at his pipe, " else I should have thought it a curi-
ous circumstance that Miss Trotter, with all her
attractions, has remained unmarried."

I answered that I did not find it curious at all.
Some of the very best and most charming women
never did marry, not because nobody asked them,
but because they were asked by nobody they
cared to accept. For my part, I said, I would
have been an old maid and gloried in it — but for
Charlie !

Charlie's uncle laughed heartily, regarding me

116 MISS TOMMY.

with that amused paternal air which sometiixies
pleased, sometimes vexed me. Now, when I
was so desperately in earnest, it altogether vexed
ine.

" You men are often as blind as bats," I cried.
'^ My dear Miss Tommy is worth a hnndred of
yon. Is it possible, Major Gordon, that it has
never occurred to you why she never married P'

^^ Xo." And he turned upon me a countenance
of most simple-minded astonishment — blank aston-
ishment, nothing more.

^^ And does it not occur to you now that the
wisest and best thing you could do, for both your
sakes, would be to — to make her Mrs. Gordon ?"

For a minute he seemed perfectly paralyzed—-
but with surprise, mere surprise — then he seemed
dimly to understand. His sallow face grew scar-
let ; it was strange to see an old man blush like a
girl. He drew himself up with a haughty dignity
that I had never seen before, even in him.

" You are utterly and entirely mistaken. What
you say is worse than a mistake — an insult to her
and to me."

I was so confounded that I had not a word to

f

t

MISS TOMMY. 119

say. My only answer was a bnrst of tears— futile,
childish tears.

Major Gordon was one of those men who, in
their worst anger, are mollified at once by seeing
a woman weep.

" Don't, my dear girl, pray don't," he mnttered,
hastily ; " I forgive you. I know you meant no
harm ; only you must never mention this — this
folly, not even to Charlie. On no account what-
ever to Charlie," added he, earnestly. "It is a
pure invention of your silly little brain, which
must never be repeated to any human being."

He rose, letting his pipe drop as he did so ; it
was broken to bits, and it was a very favorite pipe
too ; but he never stopped to pick it up ; he just
rose and walked away. I saw him through my
burning tears marching up and down, with his
head bent and his hands clasped behind him,
but he made no effort to come back to me again.

Nor did I attempt to go to him. I could have
bit my tongue off, knocked my head against the
wall, in my anguish and vexation of spirit. And
yet, as he truly said, I had meant no harm. I had
only tried in my rash and silly way to play Prov-

120 HISS TOMMY.

idence — ^to put things right, which often go so
cruelly wrong in this world — and I had failed.

But perhaps I had been mistaken after all ? In
him I certainly had. There was evidently not an
atom of tenderness or emotion in him. To see
him walking to and fro there, as stifiE as a bronze
statue, and then go forward to meet Charlie and
Miss Trotter as if nothing had happened ; oh ! it
was aggravating beyond all words !

Maybe it was to punish me, I thought, or to
prevent my betraying anything to Charlie, that
he put his arm through his nephew's, and they
walked ahead together to East Cliff ; much to the
annoyance of my poor boy, who naturally wanted
to walk with me. For Miss Trotter — my dear
Miss Tommy ! — she accepted the arrangement, as
she usually did any fancy of Major Gordon's, and
followed with me, talking in her usual sweet way
— contented always in others' contentment. For
me there was nothing left but to practise the self-
control which she had taught me; I kept my
misery to myself, and, either from pride or pain,
I think I was more than usually cheerful all that
day.

MISS TOMMY. 121

It had strack me as not impossible that Major
Gordon might not appear in the evening as nsaal;
indeed, I should have thought better of him had
he stopped away. But he did not. He came in
rather late, and when Charlie — whose quarters
were at the Lord Warden — was just beginning to
wonder what had become of his uncle ; but he did
come, and sat in his arm-chair, and played his
game at whist in the old way. If once or twice
he seemed absent or even a little sad, this was so
much his habit that we none of us noticed it — ^at
least, we never said we did ; but he said " Good-
night" to us with his usual gentle courtesy — not
a word more than " Good-night."

Next morning, when we were sitting at break-
fast, there came a note to Miss Trotter. She read
it, then walked to the window and read it again.
Lastly, she gave it to me to read —

" My deab Miss Tkotteb, — Will you say to my
nephew that unexpected business demands my
presence in London to-day for some time ? I have
accordingly given up my rooms — offering good
Mrs. Wilson a week's rent instead of the proper

6

122 MISS Toionr.

notice. She has refused it. Therefore I am
obliged to trouble you with the sum enclosed,
begging you to make it useful to her in some
way.

" To yourself I can only oflfer my excuses for
not making any formal adieu, and thank you from
my heart for your many kindnesses.
" Yours sincerely,

"Chables Evebett Gordon."

I returned the letter in silence, and without
looking at her. For myself, I could have burst
out sobbing, or torn my hair in despair, had not
such proceedings been utterly ridiculous as the
result of a formal note of farewell from Charlie's
uncle. At which, moreover, Charlie himself, who
came in shortly afterwards, did not seem in the
least surprised.

" Poor old fellow ! he is so restless, he never
settles anywhere. My only wonder was that he
stayed here so long."

And so the matter was put aside. We found
on inquiry that Major Gordon had packed up his
portmanteau at night — it really seemed a part of

MISS TOMMY. 123

himself, that old portmanteau ! — and started at
eight the next morning, leaving no address.

And so the wave of life closed over him, and
more than him. Even Charlie and I soon forgot
him, for we were young and happy, and had a
great deal to talk about and arrange. Miss Trotter
too was busy, as she always was ; and I saw little
of her all day long. But at night, when Charlie
and I crept into a corner to carry on our harmless
love-making, I caught sight of her, sitting oppo-
site the empty chair, doing nothing, her hands
folded on her lap, in an attitude — was it of peace,
of patience, or only resignation ?

After that, during the few days I stayed, we
mentioned Major Gordon very seldom, and then
only in the most cursory and superficial way.
Once, when, as no second letter came, I carelessly
accused him of "forgetting" us, she answered
with grave reproof:

" N(J, that is not likely. He is one of the few
who never forget. Perhaps, as Charlie suggested,
he found Dover — and us — a little dull, and was
glad to get away. But," with a quiver of the lip,
" he need not have spoken of my ' kindness.' "

PART m.

I HAD been married over two years. If I did
not absolutely adore my Charlie, nor he me, as in
our silly sweet courtship days, we loved one an-
other in a sensible, rational way, which was far
better. We had found out all each other's faults,
crotchets, and foibles — quarrelled, and got over it.
To suppose that married people never quarrel is
simple nonsense, but then, if they have any com-
mon-sense and right feeling, they will soon get
over it — all the more perhaps from the feeling
that they miist get over it.

It may be a commonplace and unsentimental
view of things, but, as I often tell Charlie, I be-
lieve that once or twice during our first year of
married life, if he could have got rid of me, he
would have done it. And I — well, I won't say.
But as we could not get rid of one another, but
were obliged to run quietly together, like two
hounds in a leash — why, we did it, and so learned

MISS TOMMY. 125

to make the best of one another, as I trust we
shall always continue to do.

And we made more than the best, if possible,
of our little son when he came — our "son and
heir," though we had not much for him to be heir
to I We resolved that he should be Charles Ev-
erett Oordon, the third of the name now extant;
which reminded us that we ought to give him
for godfather his great-uncle, Major Gordon. And
as, being a boy, he only required one godmother,
it was a difficult and delicate question as to who
that important personage should be. My mother
said she was too old, and besides she had about
seventeen other godchildren. We were in con-
siderable perplexity, when Charlie suddenly sug-
gested Miss Trotter.

I hesitated, which made him very angry. (N.B.
If my hnsband has a fault, it is that he always
likes everybody to agree with him in everything,
especially his wife.)

^ Why not, Decie ? What extraordinary notion
have you got into your head ? Why not, I ask ?
Because you think she'll think that you think she
ought to provide for him, or at least to educate

126 MISS TOMMY.

hiin ? which she might easily do, rich woman as
she is, with not a relative in the world."

I protested, with entire sincerity, that no such
idea had ever entered my mind. In truth, her
riches were the last thing one thought of in re-
lation to Miss Tommy. My reasons had been
altogether different. But I did not give them.
I never could see that even the most loving wife
has a right to tell her husband other people's
secrets. Also, as I once heard Miss Trotter say,
a secret discovered by chance should be kept as
sacredly as if it had been specially confided.

So I let Charlie say his say — dear hot-tempered
young villain as he is! — and then mildly sug-
gested that the plain truth was our best course
— it often is. Why not write to Miss Trotter,
saying that we asked her for pure love, that we
did not want her to do anything for our boy,
not even to give him a christening fork and
spoon ?

" That silver spoon which was not in his mouth
when he was born, I fear !" laughed Charlie.
" And we will say the same thing to Uncle Gor-
don, and tell her what we have said. She can't

MI8B TOMMY. 127

suppose we want to get anything out of him.
She knows — for I told her myself — that he is as
poor as a church mouse."

The letters were written, and an answer in the
affirmative came to both, amusing Charlie ex-
tremely.

"Such formal, old-fashioned epistles. They
may well come from an old maid, and an old —
well, Uncle Gordon is as good as a bachelor.
But I dare say both will feel kindly enough to
the little fellow. And at any rate we have paid
them the compliment."

Which, in the pride of our youthful parent-
hood, we considered a very great compliment in-
deed. We were glad to pay it, having seen but
little of either Miss Trotter or Major Gordon
since our marriage, at which they were both pres-
ent. Directly afterwards Miss Trotter had gone
to Sycamore Hall, her country place, which she
did not much care for. It was of the genteel
villa order, only a dozen miles from London by
rail. But she stayed there longer than usual,
having lent her Dover house to some invalid
friends, of whom she always had a large stock

128 1088 TOMMY.

on hand. The poor, the helpless, the sick, the
sorrowful, always gravitated towards her as by
a natural impulse. She said it was one of the
compensating laws of Providence, to give her
that great stronghold of solitary lives — some-
thing to do.

For Uncle Gordon, whether he did anything
or nothing, we could not find out. I fear, alas !
that in our young happiness we did not trouble
ourselves overmuch to find out. We resided in
barracks at Chichester, he in London. He had
enough to live upon — we knew that ^-- at least
enough for a man of his simple and almost as-
cetic habits. And he was "eccentric," Charlie
said. He did not like to be interfered with; so
when, instead of giving us his address at the
lodgings which we supposed he had, he only
gave it at his club, we accepted the fact, and
thought no more about it or him.

" Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As much as want of heart.''

And so it befell that, without intending it,
we had actually never seen these two dear old
friends, nor, I believe, had they seen each other.

MISS TOMMY. 129

since mj marriage -day, until we all met at the
church on the day of my boy's christening.

It was a London church, for my mother had
insisted on having me with her when baby was
bom, and it was dull and gloomy as London
churches often are. But there seemed to come
sunshine into it with the arrival of baby's god-
mother.

Miss Trotter had driven up from Sycamore
Hall. When she entered, in her soft gray dress,
her white bonnet and shawl, I thought she looked
as pretty as ever ; and when she took baby in her
arms, admired and kissed him, her smile was as
bright and innocent as his own (dear lamb that
he was ! and of course the finest baby that ever
was seen); but afterwards it seemed to me she
was both paler and thinner, and a good deal aged,
since those happy days at Dover.

However, I alone noticed this. Charlie ap-
proved of her very much, and whispered that
she looked "a regular fairy godmother." But
at this moment there marched up the aisle, a
little late and hurried, though upright and mili-
tary-looking as ever. Major Oordon.

6*

130 HISS Toionr.

He seemed eonfiued among ns all; shook
hands with me as if he scarcely knew me, and
bowed to Miss Trotter and my mother as if un-
certain who they were, until I explained, saying
that the former was to be godmother. Then he
shook hands with her warmly. .

^' I beg yonr pardon ; I really did not know
yon, I am growing so blind.'*

She looked np at him with a sndden, startled
air. I too recalled with almost a ^'stonnd'' of
pain how Charlie and I had laughed over his bad,
irregular writing ; and how I had quite forgotten
what he once told me, and which I had smiled
over as a morbid fancy, that in course of years he
would infallibly pay the penalty of his Egyptian
experience, and perhaps lose his sight entirely.

Was it that — was it because he could not see
how shabby his clothes were, that he looked so
untidy, so unlike himself ? And did anybody no-
tice this ?

But I had no time for speculation or for con-
trition. The ceremony began. The sponsors —
my young brother was the third — took their
places round the font ; and Uncle Gordon, stand-

MISS TOMMY. 131

ing by Miss Trotter's side, repeated after her,
with great unction and earnestness, his part in
the service. When it was ended, he even con-
descended, guided by her, to kiss the little morsel
of humanity for whom he had made these vows.

" And I mean to keep them," said he, in his
direct and simple way ; " or if I fail, she will.
The third Charles Everett Gordon shall turn out
better than both the two former — eh, Charlie ?"

He was very cheerful, and seemed glad to come
among us again, and proud to be a great-uncle and
godfather. When we returned to my mother's
we had a most merry christening breakfast — " al-
most like a wedding breakfast," Charlie declared,
if there had been a bride for the infant bride-
groom. So after the health of the hero of the
feast had been given, he gave that of the god-
mother; whereupon Major Gordon rose, with
great dignity and grace, and returned thanks for
Miss Trotter, referring to the many years he had
known her, his exceeding respect for her, etc., etc.
— a series of the usual kindly commonplaces, but
said with an earnestness very pleasant to see.

She listened, much as people do listen under

132 MISS TOMMY.

such circumstances, with her eyes fixed on the
table - cloth ; bnt her hand, when I took it,
clutched mine with a nervous grasp as if I were
something to hold by, while everybody and every-
thing went drifting away.

She had obeyed our request literally, and
brought baby nothing but her blessing. Uncle
Gordon, however, touched me exceedingly by
giving me, just before he left, a silver coral and
bells.

"Take it — it belonged to my little girl that
died," was all he said, and went away.

To think that after all these years — thirty at
the least — he should have kept something of his
dead child's, whom everybody else had long for-
gotten ! Bat, as Miss Trotter once said of him,
he "never forgot." And I vowed to myself
that I too would never forget, but in years to
come would try to do all I could for Uncle Gor-
don.

Alas ! resolutions melt away, especially when
one is not strong and has a good many cares.
My baby fell ill, and during the days and weeks
of suspense that I hung over his little cradle,

MISS TOMMY. 133

feeling that the spark of flickering life, which
was nothing to the outside world, was every-
thing to me, I never thonght of other lives. His
godfather quite passed from my remembrance,
and his godmother too, until one day, when he
had fairly turned the corner, and began to get
well, I was told that Miss Trotter was below
waiting to see me.

How I rushed into her arms ! What torrents
of thankful tears I wept upon her shoulder!
How much I had to tell her — of baby's danger,
his beauty, his sweetness — the heartbreak it would
have been to lose him — all my griefs, vay hopes,
fny joys — as I had always been accustomed to
talk about to her. But so did everybody.

She listened, as she always listened to every-
body, with that keen quick sympathy of hers,
entering into everything as if there were, for the
time being, no other interest in the wide world.
My mother had been very kind — ^we were in her
house all this time — but then she was a busy
mother of a family, and a fashionable lady be-
sides. Now, Miss Tommy was a woman, which
not all are who call themselves so ; and not every

134 MISS TOMMY.

real mother has so mach of the motherly heart as
she.

I said so to her, thanking her for having oome
all the way to London to see me, such a deal of
trouble for an old lady to take.

" Yes. I am an old lady now — ^I can do as I
like," she answered, smiling. "But I did not
come up from Dover, I am at Sycamore Hall still.
I had — business."

" Other folks' business of course 1 You may
not always * love your neighbor as yourself,' but
you wear out your life for him all the same.
Uncle Gordon always used to say so."

" It was about your Uncle Gordon I wanted to
speak to yon, Decie, if you can spare me ten
minutes."

Saying this, she looked so sad, so grave, that
suddenly I remembered, with a pang of contri-
tion, my good resolutions on the christening day,
entirely forgotten since.

" Is anything amiss with Uncle Gordon ? Sure-
ly nothing has happened ?"

'' No, my dear, nothing serious ; but I am
afraid there is a good deal amiss with him, and

MISS TOMMY. 135

I waited to consult you about it^ as soon as your
own trouble was over.'*

And then she told me — what I ought to have
known already — what Charlie and I ought to
have had the sense to find out, how she found it
out, Heaven only knows! — that Uncle Gordon
had been far from well of late ; that he was liv-
ing in shabby London lodgings, alone, uncared
for, in much discomfort, if not in actual poverty.
No wonder I We all knew his income was small,
requiring the utmost management to make it do
at all, and how could he manage with his failing
sight and advancing years? how could he save
himself from falling a prey to dishonest servants
and unscrupulous landladies ?

" He cannot take care of himself, and there is
nobody to take care of him. What can be done,
Decie T

" I will go and see him." And I started up in
remorse. " Poor Uncle Gordon I To think that
we, his own people, have forsaken him, while you
— ^but I must go to him at once."

"Will you take me with you?" she said it al-
most as if asking a favor. " I have the address,

136 MISS TOMMY.

somewhere in StPancras — and — there is a cab
waiting outside. Shall we go ?"

" Ah 1 that is so like you. When you want to
do a good deed, you do it at once."

" My dear," she answered, with a faint smile,
" the young may wait — the old cannot."

So, ashamed of my hesitation, I ran up-stairs,
to find my baby sleeping the peaceful sleep of
convalescence. There was no reason why I should
not go, so I went.

She had waiting only a common cab ; her own
comfortable carriage and sleek horses would have
indeed startled the natives of that narrow street
— one of the many semi-genteel streets which lie
between Russell Square and King's Cross, free
from shops and chiefly let as lodgings ; perfect-
ly respectable, but oh ! how unutterably dreary !
Especially on the shady side, where we found the
number we were in search of; aided by a woman
who went crying, " Strawberries ! strawberries !"
down the long, hot pavement, the only indication
that summer was at hand.

But no spring or summer, no sunshine or
fresh, sweet air, ever came into those dark, dirty

MISS TOMMY. 137

rooms, which were all Major Gordon had of
" home."

Miss Trotter looked up at the gloomy windows
with a sigh. " After all his happy youth, all his
long wanderings, this !" I heard her say, as if
more to herself than me ; and then we entered.

" Two ladies a-wanting to see old gen'Ieman in
parlor," screamed the little lodging-house ser-
vant, as if with intense astonishment at such a
visit.

He needed to be a "gentleman" to face it.
Eousing himself, half asleep, from an old leather
arm-chair, wrapped in a once gay but now most
shabby Indian dressing-gown, his hair unkempt,
his beard neglected — dull, untidy-looking— every-
thing, in short, but dirty, which would have been
impossible to the dainty habits of the dear old
man. He rose up — tall, gaunt, more like Don
Quixote than ever, none the less so from his
never-forgotten knightly courtesy.

" To what am I indebted — I mean, who is do-
ing me this honor ?"

" Oh, Uncle Gordon, it's only me — Decie — and
— ^and Miss Trotter."

/•

138 MI88 TOmCT.

'^ Miss Trotter !^' I conld see him start. '^ It is
very kind of Miss Trotter to come and see me
here."

They shook hands ; and I think neither he nor
she noticed my bad grammar — nor indeed any-
thing about me at all — ^for the moment.

He was evidently very glad to see us — ^her es-
pecially. Looking round the room for a chair
and finding none, he pushed forward the arm-
chair.

"It is not so very uncomfortable, especially
when one is asleep, as I fear I was when you en-
tered. These long afternoons one gets tired, I
find. Allow me."

With the air of a Bayard he placed her in the
chair, felt for a footstool, and put it under her
feet, then turned to me and thanked me warmly
for coming to see him.

" But how did you find me out ? I never gave
any address. I thought the club was sufficient,"
added he, returning to his hard, dry, dignified
manner. "This is not exactly a — a palace in
which to receive ladies."

I made some excuse about Miss Trotter's hav-

MISS TOMMY. 139

iDg heard where he lived, and that he had not
been well, so we were anxious. Then I darted
at once into my own affairs, and how ill his god-
son had been, occupying his attention entirely for
two or three minutes. Meanwhile Miss Trotter
sat in the arm-chair with her veil down.

I could have cried almost when I looked at
Uncle Gordon, and then at the wretched lodging-
house parlor, grimy and gloomy, with just the
ordinary shabby lodging-house furniture — a table,
six chairs, and a horse-hair sofa. !N'o pictures, no
books, no adornments of any kind. Such an air
of dreary neglect about everything; even the
half-eaten mid-day dinner being left on the table
where it was laid, as if nobody could take the
trouble to fetch it away. Yes, I — even I — could
have wept; what must it have been with others?
— ^those who knew him when he was young, like
my Charlie. Would Charlie — ^would my little
Carl ever come to this i

And yet, wreck as we found him, sitting — as he
half comically, half bitterly said, pointing to the
dSn*i8 of dinner — "like Marius among the ruins
of Carthage," there was a dignity, a patience, even

140 MISS TOMHT.

a sweetness in his look that made it impossible to
pity him. The feeling concerning him was some-
thing quite different — something that dried the
tears in one's eyes, and made one involnntarily use
a softer tone in speaking, and be more punctilious
than ever in what one said to him, as if he had
been a duke or a prince instead of a poor, broken-
down, half-pay oflBcer.

He gave ns tea — the nastiest tea and the saltest
butter I ever tasted. What would Charlie have
said to them ? But they might have been nectar
and ambrosia, by the way he offered, and Miss
Trotter officiated at, that miserable meal. He had
asked her to do so, and when she took off her veil
and gloves and sat down to that feminine duty,
she seemed to make "a sunshine in a shady
place."

It was a very shady place indeed. " This room
has a north aspect, the sun never enters it," said
Major Gordon. " The other side of the street is
brighter, but then lodgings are much dearer, and,
besides, it is very little matter to me ; I am quite
content here."

"Sweet are the uses of adversity." In all that

MISS TOMMY. 141

visit I never beard him say one of the bitter
things of which he used to say so many at Dover.
Bat now something seemed to have softened him,
and made him less restless and irritable. Was it
the long solitude, or the shadow of coming blind-
ness, of which he spoke with such composure that
I was amazed ?

" I try my best, Decie, but I fear I am growing
more helpless every day. I doubt if I shall be
competent to pass an opinion upon my godson's
beauty if I do not come to see him very soon.'*

" You must come," I eagerly urged. " Why
not ? You can have almost nothing to do."

" Nothing that I can do — ^reading and writing
are becoming impossible. Yes, the days are rather
long; that is why you found me asleep, I sup-
pose."

"Do you never go out?" asked Miss Trotter,
gently.

" Oh, yes ; regularly every day. I do not want
to get ill and fall a burden upon other folk before
my time. And my doctor in India told me I
should always be able to see light, as oculists call
it, so as to find my way about, which is a great

142 MI88 TOmCT.

comfort. For the rest, when one knowB the
worst, one can always face it, at least, when one is
old and has not mnch to lose. It is the yoang
who are frightened, is it not. Miss Trotter?" added
he, turning to her with a smile, and repeating his
thanks. '^ It was so kind of yon to take all this
tronble, when, I fear, I have neglected common
politeness."

"But not kindness," she answered. "Tour
old landlady, Mrs. Wilson, can never be grateful
enough to you for getting her son that situation
in London. She will bless you, she says, to her
dying day."

" Then I am sure I hope I shall be blessed for
a long time. Will you tell her so when you go
back to Dover ?"

" Suppose," said Miss Trotter, after a moment's
hesitation, "you were to tell her yourself?"

" What do you mean ?"

"Her lodgings have stood empty a long time.
It would be a great advantage to her if some one
who gave little trouble, like yourself, some one
she could rely on — poor widow woman as she is —
would take her two rooms. Dover may be dull —

MISS TOMMY. 143

I dare say yon found it so— bnt it is pleasanter
than London in hot weather ; and Mrs. Wilson's
rooms are very comfortable."

"Yes; and I liked the green bank in front
and the green churchyard — my quiet neighbors I
called them — behind. Yes — but — ^No I"

"By and by I hope to have Decie with me;
also your godson. Isn't it your duty to come
and see that the boy is brought up in the way he
should go ?"

" He cannot fail to be, with such a mother —
and such a godmother," said Major Gordon, bow-
ing to each of us in his old formal way. Bnt he
said no more about Dover and Mrs. Wilson, nor
did Miss Trotter. The pained look on her face,
which he could not see, and her silence, which he
did not seem to notice — I understood both, and
wondered, angrily. Is there a man in the world
who is worth a woman's devotion ?

Major Gordon talked a good deal more, asking
numerous questions about Charlie and the boy,
and scarcely speaking of himself at all. He
seemed very quiet, very patient, but as if he had
lost all interest in life, and was just drifting on

144 MISS TOMMY.

from day to day, without troubling himself much
about anything.

We rose at last.

" Pardon ! but I must go with you till you find
a cab. I will not detain you a minute."

He did, though — a good many minutes, poor
fellow! — till he emerged from the next room
spruced up — ^his old self in some degree — as thin
and upright and military-looking as ever, and
showed us out with great state, explaining, in an-
swer to some remonstrances, that we need not be
in the least uneasy about him — with the help of
his stout stick he could pilot himself anywhere.

" I have not sunk to a dog and a string yet, you
see, though it may come to that — who knows?
And I am very careful of stumbling. I have
stumbled a good deal in my lifetime, but I keep a
firm footing now. I mean to be independent as
long as ever I can."

And then with exceeding earnestness I urged
him to come and stay a little — a good while — all
summer — with Charlie and me, his own flesh and
blood.

" Do you really mean it ?" said he, in a touched

MISS TOMMY. 145

voice. "Would not you young people weary of
me ? But yet, as you say, I am your own flesh
and blood."

"And you will come?"

"Perhaps." And then, with a hearty "Good-
bye, and thank yon," he parted from us. We
passed him as we drove, feeling his way carefully
with his stick. Hearing the wheels, he paused a
moment and took off his hat with his old stately air.

" Poor Uncle Gordon ! I do hope he will
come."

"Yes, to Chichester — not Dover. He cares
only for his own flesh and blood. Many people
are like that," Miss Trotter added, hastily. " It
is — SL fine quality to have."

"Uncle Gordon has innumerable fine quali-
ties," I said. " But " — I couldn't help adding —
" if I had had the making of him, I think I would
have made him — a little different."

Miss Trotter said she was going straight home.
What a contrast that luxurious, empty Sycamore
Hall must be to the "home" we had just quitted !
So I left her at Victoria Station, sole occupant of
a comfortable, first-class carriage, looking so sweet

7

146 MISS TOMMY.

in her rich black silks, her soft whites and grays
— ^jnst the dress for an elderly lady who wishes —
and rightly wishes — ^to look " lovely " to the end.
Outwardly she was the picture of peace and pros-
perity; but after she had bade me a smiling
good-bye, I saw — ^what she did not mean me to
see — the weary face, the clutch of the clasped
hands pressed tightly together, as when we nerve
ourselves to bear an almost unbearable pain.

Yet there was nothing to do, nothing to say.
It was one of those " mysterious dispensations of
Providence," as people call them, in which no
one can interfere except Providence ; and the only
safe plan is to sit still and hold one's tongue.

I carried my son liome in triumph to Chichester,
and all the ladies of the regiment declared that
there never was such a baby ! At least, they told
me so — in which opinion I agreed. And even
now, in spite of the six which came after, I hold
the flower of my flock to be Charles Everett Gor-
don the third.

That his godfather and namesake did not come
and see him was a great blow to my maternal
pride. I wrote several touching letters, setting

MISS TOMMY. 147

forth the perfections of the young gentleman, and
asking no answer except the welcome sight of our
dear old uncle; but neither that nor any other
reply came. Then Charlie, happening to be a day
in London, called, missed him, and came back in-
dignant at the folly of any man's burying himself
in such a " horrid hole."

" But then Uncle Gordon was always eccentric,
and did not care a pin for outside things" — which
was a great eccentricity to my dear, matter-of-fact
Charlie. " He cannot be ill, for he was out walk-
ing. I left my card, with a message that we
hoped to see him at Chichester immediately. If
he does not come, it must be because he does not
care to come, and we must just leave him alone.
It is the only way."

I was not so sure of that, and I did not leave
him alone, but wrote again and again ; in vain.
After that, feeling that there was no more to be
done, unwillingly I sank into silence.

The hot summer days came and went. In Au-
gust my boy began to flag a little, and by Septem-
ber I was sure he needed sea air. So, after think-
ing of the matter on all sides — not wholly on my

143 MI88 TOMMY.

own side, for my baby, instead of making mo
more selfish, seemed to have knocked the selfish-
ness ont of my heart, and opened it to other
people's sorrows and cares — I wrote to my dear
Miss Tommy, and proposed that we should come
to Dover, to Mrs. Wilson's lodgings, which were
good enough for us, as they had once been for
Major Gordon.

"And then we should be no trouble to you,"
I added, " for you might not like a baby in the
house."

Which was a great piece of hypocrisy on my
part, for who on earth could object to such a
domestic sunbeam as my little Carl ? Though he
was not quite as silent as sunbeams — he shouted,
cooed, laughed, and, very occasionally, cried. Still,
though politeness made me disguise my opinion, I
felt he would be a great attraction in any old
maid's house, and was neither surprised nor sorry
when Miss Trotter wrote that we must come to
East Cliff and nowhere else. So we came.

There was no change? in the place or the house,
except that by some miraculous agency my former
bedroom had been turned into a nursery ! But

MISS TOMMY. 149

tliere was a great change in me — from the idle,
sentimental, love-sick girl to the busy wife and
mother, who had won from Fate all she craved.
Was it worth the winning? Do we ever find a
fulfilled desire as perfect as we thought it ?

But let me not lightly condemn either myself
or my Charlie. If in some things I had not
gained exactly what I expected, I had gained
much that I did not expect — experience, which is
a possession in itself ; a full, busy, active life, in
which one has hardly time to consider whether it
is a perfectly happy life or not. Also, I had
gained, in a sense, myself; had learned to guide
and control myself, which is the great secret of
guiding and governing others. In so doing I had
also learned to live out of myself, and in and for
others — the real mystery and best blessing of mar-
riage.

" No ; don't imagine I ever wish I had not been
married," said I one day to Miss Tommy, when I
had been opening up to her a fardel of cares do-
mestic, small in themselves, but amounting often-
times to a heavy burden, such as unmarried girls
— free, careless creatures! — can hardly under-

150 MISS TOMMY.

stand. " How people can ever go on making nov-
els and plays end with marriage, and dismiss their
charactei'S to live happy ever after, passes my
comprehension ! But for all that — for all that — ^"

I looked at my sweet Carl, asleep on his rug
on the shingle, with an umbrella over him, and
thought of his kind young father, who was so
proud of him and so fond of him, in an ignorant,
masculine way. And I felt that, spite of all cares,
mine was the true life, the natural life ; that I had
need to rejoice in it, and to thank God for it, as I
hope I did.

We were sitting on the shore just in front of
Miss Trotter's house — our usual morning encamp-
ment — with books and work, though, I fear, we
did little at either, but sat watching the waves, in
sleepy peace, migrating backward from time to
time — not being of the courtiers of Canute tribe, to
make believe that our individual wills could con-
trol the routine of the universe. How little can
any one life fashion its destiny ! except so far as
it takes its lot into its own hands, accepts it, and
makes the best of it.

I had not to look far for an example of this.

MISS TOMMY. 151

Coming back with clearer eyes to my old haunts,
I admired more than ever my dear Miss Tommy.
I enjoyed, too, having her all to myself, at least,
80 far as was possible in her busy life. It seemed,
however, a little less busy than it used to be, and
she herself less active and energetic. More than
once she owned to being " tired." And when I
suggested that she had come to the time of rest,
and ought to rest, she did not deny it, unless by a
faint smile, and a whisper of " Not yet ; not just
yet, my dear." And as she sat beside me on the
shingle, ostensibly keeping guard over Carl's slum-
bers, and knitting the while, I noticed that her
eyes were, often neither on the child nor her
work, but fixed with a quiet sadness on the shining
water — the " illimitable sea without a bound " —
which, I think, when people come to the verge of
this our little life they seem to yearn to, as if it
reminded them of that eternity which, we pray,
may satisfy all that was incomplete in time, and,
in some way or other, round our poor, petty ex-
istence as the ocean rounds the world.

Though I had been at Dover some days, and
we had had a great deal of talk, we had never

152 MISS TOMMY.

once Bpoken of Uncle Gordon till this noomiDg,
when, missing mj dailj letter from mj husband,
and knowing he was to go up to London on the
Saturday, I wondered whether anything had gone
wrong, and communicated my doubts to mj com-
panion.

Miss Trotter looked up. " The Monday letters
come in late from London." She took out her
watch. " They will arrive in five minutes. Stay
hero, Decie, while I go and fetch them."

And she watched me while I tore open Char-
lie's ; feeling glad to see his dear, old, ugly scrawl
again, more illegible than ever, as if he had writ-
ten in great haste. (lie must have done so, for
he never mentioned Carl.)

^''I want you to come up to London and see
Uncle Gordon, lie has fallen into the hands of
a confounded quack, who promises to cure his
weak sight, but it seems more a case of kill than
cure, lie won't listen to me ; he may to you, or
perhaps to Miss Trotter, if you could get her to
come. He has evidently a great respect for her
judgment. Bring her, and come at once.'

" It is impossible !" I cried. " Leave my Carl

MISS TOMMY, 153

for two days! what is Charlie thinking of? How
stupid men are, even when husbands and fathers I
Impossible 1"

Miss Trotter, who had sat down on the shingle,
rose up. There was a new enei'gy in her move-
ments, a new brightness in her eyes.

*'My dear, let us try if we cannot make it pos-
sible. I will go with you, and Carl too ; the jour-
ney will not harm liim, and he can stay with a
friend of mine in London" — my mother was
abroad. *'Let me see. The next train starts in
two hours. Could you be ready ?"

There was no resisting her quiet resolution.
" We'll try," I said, and rose.

"You will never regret it. Look here" — she
pointed out a postscript which I had not noticed
in Charlie's letter. " 'Unless you come at once it
may be too late. The operation is fixed for Tues-
day.' "

*' And this is Monday. Poor XJncle Gordon !"

"It must not be too late," Miss Trotter said.
" We will go to him to-night, and get him to come
right away from London — here, perhaps. You
must persuade him, Decie."

7*

154 MISS TOMMY.

^^You must, Charlie said."

"Oh, no; he only cares for his own people,"
was the answer, with a sad kind of smile.

IIow we managed it I hardly knew, but we did
manage it : we caught our train, and arrived safely
in London. She took me to her "friend," an old
servant, who had married from her house, and
who now let most comfortable lodgings. There
we established Carl and his nurse. Miss Trotter
waiting patiently beside me till my screaming lit-
tle angel was put to bed and asleep, and myself
fed, rested, and refreshed — how she thought of
me in all these little things ! Then she said,
" Shall we go ?" and we went.

It was an August evening — sunless, airless — all
tlic more dreary because one knew that the sun
was setting and the breezes blowing somewhere
in the world ; somewhere that one might get to,
and yet could not. I often think the saddest of all
wants or losses is a loss that on« feels to be needless.

" Why will he shut himself up in this miserable,
dull street," I cried, as we entered it, "when he
might make himself so happy among us all ? His
life is not near done yet."

MISS TOMMY. 155

" No ; look I" — she grasped my hand. " Is not
that he at the door ?"

It was, indeed, poor Uncle Gordon — taller, thin-
ner, shabbier than ever, I thought — standing on
his door-step, with his head raised, staring up at a
bright glimmer of light, the last ray of sunset
caught by the attic windows opposite. He watched
it till it vanished, and then, feeling his way with
his stick, walked slowly down the street. But he
did not see us till I touched him, nor recognize us
till I mentioned our names.

For the moment a gleam of pleasure crossed his
face — " Oh, how good I how kind !" — and then the
light faded. "How did you come, and why?
Did Charlie say anything ?"

I answered — as Miss Trotter had decided I should
answer, if necessary ; for it was the truth, though
not all the truth — " Since you will not come and
see your godson, I have brought him to see you ;
at least, I shall bring him to-morrow morning."

"To-morrow? That will be* too late." He
tjould not restrain a slight shudder. "Did not
Charlie tell you ?"

"We know it all, and we have come to talk with

156 MISS TOMMY.

jou about it," said Miss Trotter, in her finn, soft
voice ; and I saw her, to my surprise, put her arm
through his, and guide him across the street cor-
ner. He, too, seemed surprised, and then he
pressed the hand close to his side, with a sort of
acknowledgment of the kindness, and as if he
found a certain comfort in it.

"I was going out for my evening walk — ^my
last ; for I am to be shut up some weeks in total
darkness. Indeed, who knows if I may ever see
again ? It is just a chance ; but I think it right
to take it ; do not you ?"

" I am not sure."

"But I must take it," said he, irritably. "1
am growing so helpless ; and if I have to live on
for the next five, ten, twenty years — no, no,
thank God, not twenty ! But even five would be
too many, as I am now."

He spoke in such intense despondency that I
was frightened. I did not understand trouble — I
had seen so little of it in my young life — or morbid
melancholy ; for Charlie, bless him ! takes every-
thing easily, and is the cheeriest, most light-heart-
ed soul ! But my dear Miss Tommy, she was

MISS TOMMY. 157

familiar with sorrow, as all sorrowful people in-
jstinetively knew. I fell behind a little, leaving
the two " old folks " to walk on together.

Soon Major Gordon stopped. " How thonght-
less of me 1 You will be tired this close evening.
Shall we go back to my lodgings ?"

" Or shall we go into the Kegent's Park, close
by ? It will be cooler there.'*

" Just as you choose."

He contentedly submitted to be led, and his
companion, with a new impulse, as it were, took
the leading of him. She was usually rather a si-
lent person, especially with Major Gordon; but
now she talked, and got him to talk. I heard him
tell her, as if it were a relief, all he had suffered
of late — the weary helplessness, the intolerable ir-
ritation of compelled idleness.

" If I were a feeble old man it might be easier,
but I am not feeble. I can walk miles and miles.
Sometimes I go on walking for hours, round and
round the Eegent's Park ; the park-keepers must
take me for the "Wandering Jew, or one of the
wild beasts escaped from the Zoological Gardens.
I almost think I see myself, like the brown bear

ir»S MISS TUMMY.

there, pacing to and fro everlastingly in his cage
— nothing to hope for, nothing to do. That is the
worst of it,'' turning suddenly round upon her as
she eat beside him on the bench, in that long ave-
nue which makes Eegent's Park a pleasant place
even in the dullest summer evenings. "Fancy —
yon, who have such a busy, bright life — what it
must be to have nothing to do all day long; to sit
thinking, thinking, till your head whirls round;
to go back and back upon your whole life, and see
all the mistakes of it, too late to remedy — ^"

" Is it too late ? Is anything ever too late while
life and strength last?"

'* ] >iit they may not last long, and then I shall fall
a helpless burden upon somebody. But no; I'll
take cai'c it never comes to that. For the burden
I am to myself" — he stuck his stick fiercely into
the turf, as if he were slaying an enemy — "I only
M'onder sometimes that I have not blown my
brains out."

Here I could not help a little cry.

"No, my kind niece; no, my good old friend,"
said Uncle Gordon, patting our hands as he sat
between us; "you need not be afraid. It will

MISS TOMMY. 101

never come to that. I am a Christian man ; and,
besides, I must keep up the dignity of the family.
It would never do, would it, Decie, for the third
Charles Everett Gordon to be ashamed of the
first ?"

" He never will 1 Oh, Uncle Gordon, if you
would only come to us ; to baby and me ; we are
staying with Miss Trotter, and you might go to
your old lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson would be de-
lighted to take care of you."

"I don't want anybody to Hake care' of me,"
was the sharp answer; and then he begged my
pardon. "Ah, yes, I do; I feel I do; but —
However, perhaps to-morrow — "

" It is a great risk."

"No more than the risk of a battle; one con-
quers or dies."

" Or lives on, wounded and useless, which is
much harder than dying."

" You are right. Miss Trotter ; I never thought
of that."

" If this man — you own he is a quack — should
fail; if he should leave you worse than before,
which he says he may, what then J"

162 MISS TOMMY.

"Nothing. I shall have done it by my own
choice, and the result matters to nobody."

" Is there any human being who can say, who
dare venture to say, that his well-being matters to
nobody ?"

He seemed startled, uneasy. She went on.

"To throw up one's life, saying it belongs to
one's self alone, is some people's creed, I know ;
but is it not a very selfish one ? Ought we not to
do the best we can with the life Heaven gives,
nntil Heaven takes it away ? But I did not mean
to preach — I am not good at preaching — only to
suggest a practical idea."

" You were always good at practical ideas," ho
answered, with a smile. " Say on."

She explained that she had a friend — the first
oculist of the day. With so many invalids on
hand she had no end of friends among doctors.
She proposed to bring the great man for a consul-
tation with the other one, who could not possibly
object to this before anything was done.

" Give me his address ; he shall be written to,
and the whole trouble taken off your hands,"
added this Machiavelian woman. "It will only

MISS TOMMY. 163

be a day's delay, and then, if yon still wish
for the operation " — she glanced up at his poor,
dim eyes — beautiful eyes they must have been
when he was young — and shivered, like a mother
who feels cruelly in every nerve every hurt
to her child — "you will have at least the satis-
faction of having done nothing that was not in-
evitable."

" You are right," he said.

"She always is right," I added, eagerly; but
Miss Tommy laid her hand on my mouth, took
out her tablets, wrote down the address he gave,
then asked him to put us in a cab, and we would
go home.

"I am glad to be of some use still," he said,
rising. "I shall see you to-morrow. You will
bring the great man ? I can afford to pay him.
Just this one more chance !"

He breathed hard, as if a weight were taken
off his mind, and, thanking us warmly for all our
kind thought of him, he bade us adieu.

"Poor Uncle Gordon!" I sighed once more.
But she did not sigh. She said nothing, yet I
thought I saw a change in her dear face, of some-

164 MI88 TOMMY.

thiDg — not exactly happiness, but what I had
heard her say was better — blessedness.

The ass in the lion's skin — we afterwards found
ont how great an ass he was, and how completely
he had taken in the simple old soldier — did not
stay to face the great lion, but sent word that he
bad to go to a case a hundred miles off, and could
not attend the consultation.

"I thought as much," laughed Miss Trotter's
eminent friend, when he heard the name. " You
will never see any more of him.'* And we never
did.

The great doctor was a character, as most great
doctors are. When we brought him into Major
Gordon's dull room his large, kindly presence
seemed to carry sunshine with it — mental and
moral. He took by storm the sickly, morbid,
nervous man, encouraged him by pleasant words,
and then proceeded to business.

" I must have some one of you with me. Who
will stay ?"

**I will," said Miss Trotter, at once, and Uncle
Gonion said, " Thank you."

So they turned us out, Charlie and me. For

HISS TOMMY. 165

•

nearly an hour we perambulated the streets, in
sore suspense. I might have felt it more had mj
poor Charlie felt it less, but I never saw him so
unmanned. When at last we were summoned
back — to no very ill news, as I saw at a glance —
Charlie quite gave in, and wrung his uncle's hand
with something very like a sob.

" "Well, my boy," said Major Gordon, cheerily,
" I know the worst now, and no one shall ever say
of me, * A soldier, and afeard.' "

"No, indeed," added the great man. "Mrs.
Gordon, I have been giving your uncle here a
piece of my mind. He will never see better
than he does now, but he may not see much
worse, if he lets well alone. Of course, I could
try all sorts of experiments, but they would be
mere experiments — all might fail; and at his
age, I repeat, it is better to let things alone.
There is a story about a man who ^sought not
unto the Lord, but unto the physicians' — which
means, I take it, that he would not trust Nat-
ure, would neither believe in her curative power,
nor accept her natural laws of decay. We often
do the same thing, and worry ourselves and our

166 MISS TOMMY.

friends to death, for fear of dying, until we actu-
ally die."

" But it is not a question of dying here. I may
live to be ninety, you say. The question is, how
I am to face my life — such as it is ?"

" My dear friend " — with this honest, good man
all his patients were 6is dear friends — "you have
but to live a day at a time, and it will grow easier
as you get used to it. I have known many blind
men who led the merriest and happiest of lives.
And * better bear the ills you have,' as my dear old
Shakespeare tells me, Hhan fly to others that
you know not of;' which might have been your
fate had you risked that operation. We know
a good deal — we doctors; but I think the best
tiling we know, and the cleverest of us learn it
soonest, is our own ignorance."

Everybody laughed ; and the tragedy melted
into comedy.

A few more wholesome advices Miss Trotter's
friend gave, one of which was to "clear out of
here as fast as possible." And on receiving his
fee he put it back on the table, saying that he,
a man of peace, made it a point of honor never

MISS TOMMY. 167

to take anything from " our national defenders."
So, shaking hands all round, he jumped into his
carriage and departed. I never see his name in
print now without remembering the good deed he
did that day.

Charlie, too, departed. "You women will man-
age all the rest," he whispered. But I could
manage nothing ; my nerves had been thoroughly
shaken. I was glad Uncle Gordon could not see
me, as I sat in a corner and cried. He, too, looked
exceedingly pale and exhausted.

But there was one of us whose strength never
was exhausted as long as there was anything to be
done. Nor her patience — and it required a good
deal ; for at first he was deaf as an adder to all her
charming. Gradually she reasoned him into ac-
knowledging that Mrs. Wilson, and Mrs. Wilson's
delicate son, who was a good scholar and a sweet-
natured lad, would be useful to him; while his tak-
ing possession of his old lodgings would be a very
great advantage to them — which, perhaps, was
the wisest argument she could use. The sharpest
sting of Uncle Gordon's lot seemed to be that
he was now, as he said, " of no use to anybody."

168 HISS TOMMY.

"But we will make you of nse, Miss Trotter
and me, and, at worst, you can play with the
baby."

"Is it come to that?" said he, with a hearty
laugh, which looked like acquiescence. "And
that lad Wilson, who is so to benefit by the
pleasure of reading to me, and enjoying my
sweet society. I suppose you think, Miss Trot-
ter, that I am like the Countess of Pembroke,
and that * to love me is a liberal education !' A
pity the experiment has never been tried. But it
would fail — with me everything has failed."

That mixture of bitterness and sadness, with a
strange vein of sweetness running through it all,
intense gratitude for the smallest kindness, and a
thoughtfulness for others which I have never
seen in any other man — no, I did not wonder at
anybody's loving Uncle Gordon.

Miss Trotter went up to him as he stood at the
window, and laid her hand on his arm.

" I don't think I ever asked anything of you in
all my life, but I ask you now — Will you come
back to Dover with Decie and me ?"

There was evidently a struggle in his mind as

HI8S TOMMY. 169

great as must have been in hers before she made
the request ; but both were conquered.

Major Gordon took the gentle hand, and pressed
it warmly in both his own, saying, in a broken
voice, " Thank you ; yes — I will go."

What a jubilee of a journey it was! How
happy he seemed, and how glad she looked to see
him happy ! And, as I said to Charlie afterwards,
these elderly folk, when they really do enjoy
themselves, do it thoroughly; not like us young
people, who are always ready to find a crumpled
rose-leaf under all our felicities. But those for
whom life is slowly narrowing down to the sim-
plicities of childhood are, like children, contented
and amused with little things.

I had not expected Uncle Grordon to take the
least notice of his godson, but he did. He even
condescended to travel with him and with us, for
several stations, before retiring to his smoking-car-
riage; seemingly much interested in discovering
that young Carl had the right number of arms, legs,
and fingers — which latter were used in pulling his
great-uncle's beard till that respected relative cried
for mercy. Nevertheless, when driven from the

8

170

field, the Major came again and again to onr car-
riage, asking if we were all right, and apparently
taking pleasure in being ^ a family man," as I told
him, and having somebody belonging to him to
take care of.

'' Let me do it," I overheard him saying to
Miss Tommy, in some trifling difficulty abont the
luggage. ^^ Let me do all I can for yon, and as
long as I can. The hardest thing possible is to be
compelled to do nothing."

That sentence struck the key-note, I think, of
all our relations with him, during those days which
followed — halcyon days, which I look back upon
with a peace indescribable. It was September,
the pleasantest month in the year at Dover, where,
indeed, all months are pleasant; but this month
especially, with its clear, bright, cool days, its brill-
iant sunsets and harvest moonlights ; and last, not
least, as a variety, its equinoctial storms, when the
wind blew and the waves rose, sweeping right
over the Admiralty Pier and flooding the espla-
\m\o — nay, once pouring in a torrent over the
imor (lowers in our front garden, and departing^
l^mvlnK '^ ^ wreck till next spring.

MffiS TOMKT. 171

^^Next qiring," said MisB Tommj, with her
ugaal eheerfol aoquiesceiioe in the inefitable, ^ we
will make it all bright again."

She was in an especiaU j bright mood, and look-
ing better than I had eeen her look ever sinee my
marriage. She was a perfect sLive to little Gail,
managing him as if she had been the mother of
ten, instead of an old maid. And she took eaie
of me — ^for I was not strong — as if she had been
my mother. How she found time for OTerything
was a mjeterj ; hot, as she said, langhing, ^ If she
couldn't find time, she made it." Thns she made
time — an hoar ev^y day — to do writing and read-
ing for Major Grordon.

He had taken up his old quarters with Mn.
Wilson, who received him with open arms. Her
little house had, I noticed, been made pretty and
comfortable from attic to basement, and, as she
had no other inmates, she was able to give Major
Gk>rdon the range of all her rooms, and derote
herself to his comfort in a way which soon showed
itself in his changed appearance, e^en down to his
lovely white shirt-fronts^ and his good, respectable
coats, hats, and boots.

172 MISS TOMMY.

"I can't see them," he said, "but they feel
much tidier than they used to be, and I always
find them in the same place, and put them on with-
out any trouble. She almost perplexes me with
her gratitude, that poor woman. I can't think
why she is so kind to me, and how she continues
to make me so very comfortable at so very small
a cost."

But I could.

However, I only laughed, and told him he
would grow quite a dandy in his old age, now that
he had a woman to look after him, to say nothing
of that lad Jack, who had installed himself as
amateur valet, and did his duty both with pride
and affection. For, odd as the old soldier un-
doubtedly was in his ways — a mixture of irritabil-
ity and independence that made living with him
not always smooth sailing — he had one peculiarity
which I only wish were commoner among his sex
— he thought so little about himself that he made
everybody else think about him. From the eldest
to the youngest of the Wilson family there was
not one who would not have done anything in the
world for the comfort of Major Gordon.

MISS TOMMY. 173

Yes, I repeat, those were halcyon days, to me,
who had had a good deal of saffering and care, and
to my two companions, who gradually became, in a
way I had not noticed before, companions to one
another. Not of mornings; Miss Trotter was al-
most always busy then, and it was not her way to
neglect business. She sometimes looked after us
with wistful eyes, when she started us oflE, baby
and me to our encampment on the shore. Major
Gordon for his long morning stroll; he grew
daily more active and strong, and his eyes did not
seem worse, so we said as little about them as pos-
sible ; but she neither walked with him nor idled
with me, until, punctually as the twelve o'clock
gun fired, we used to see the little figure emerg-
ing from the house, and coming towards us wher-
ever we were — which she always seemed to know.
And then we all sat and chatted together for an
hour, till dinner-time.

After dinner we always drove, far away inland,
or through the fiat and dull country — not pretty
to look at, but fresh with salt wind, and glimmer-
ing with continual glimpses of sea — towards Wal-
mer and Deal. Uncle Gordon always liked the

174 MISS TOMMY.

sea best. He said he bad been brought up near
it in his youth, and had never got over the love
of it and the delight in it. The mere '^ smell of
the sea/' he sometimes declared, seemed " to kill
fifty years," and make him feel like a boy again.

There was at times a curions yonthf nlness about
him still ; or it seemed to have sprung up of late,
like autumn crocuses. He took an interest in all
our proceedings, women as we were. But we were
neither silly nor idle women — certainly, one of us
was not. Accustomed for years to manage her

large fortune entirely herself, Miss Trotter's re-

•

sponsibilities and sphere of action were very wide.
Until I listened to her talks with Major Gordon,
whose advice and opinion she often asked — ^for it
gave him something to think of, and occasionally
his great longing, "something to do" — I had no
idea how largely useful an old maid's life could be,
nor what an important element she was in the
community. These were before the days of wom-
en's rights. I do not believe Miss Trotter ever
dreamed of being made a common-council woman,
or of having a seat in Parliament, yet she could
have filled both ofiSces better than a good many

MISS TOMMY. 175

men I know. Her capacity for business was as
great as her delight in it — real delight — the pleas-
ure of seeing things work harmoniously, of em-
ploying all her energies, and using — not abusing
— all her money, since, as she sometimes said, the
one aim of life should be, " Let nothing be lost."

She was never much of a talker, but I noticed
that, seeing how dependent Major Gordon natu-
rally was upon conversation, she learned to talk
more. And, in spite of her shyness at reading
aloud, she taught herself to do it, and, of even-
ings, often read to us for hours — "in humble
emulation of Charlie," she once said, when I,
who remembered that last reading of Charlie's
and the unlucky consequences which followed it,
felt conscience -stricken. But the Major sat im-
passive, never taking the slightest notice. Per-
haps he had entirely forgotten the unfortunate
incident — perhaps —

I never was inside a man's heart — very queer
articles they must be sometimes ! I never knew
much of any man except my dear, simple-minded
spouse ; but I think, if anything ought to have
touched a man — ^not his vanity, not his passions.

176 MI8S TOMMY.

but that highest and best self of him which all
good men have — it would be that which had been
given to Major Gordon. However, I have not
to jndge, only to record.

Day by day went on. Miss Trotter seemed to
have the art of filling up every hour with some-
thing pleasant. Carl grew into a young Her-
cules, and I into a very creditable mother of the
same. Every day Uncle Gordon appeared with
a brighter look and a lighter step. He was in-
deed, as Miss Trotter always declared, remarkably
hale and active for his years. Far more so, as
we both gradually found out, than she.

" She seems so tired," he said to me one day.
I had not given him credit for noticing the fact
— men seldom do know whether we are tired or
not. I am sure I might be ready to drop be-
fore my dear innocent Charlie would ever find
it out — but that is neither here nor there.

"She often is tired," I answered, "only she
doesn't say so. She hates to trouble anybody."

" Indeed !" and from that time his hand was
always ready to help her across the shingle, his
arm to sustain her in our walks up and down the

MJSA TOMMY. 177

esplanade. He accommodated his quick pace to
her slow one, his long strides to her tiny foot-
steps, tnmed when she tamed, and stopped when
she seemed weary.

Those qniet walks, sometimes in snnshine, bnt
oftener in twilight, or even moonlight and star-
light — ^for, on accoant of his poor eyes. Uncle Gor-
don liked walking at night — ^how enjoyable they
were! What a fairy picture the old town be-
came, with its circle of glittering lights, echoed
by the lights of the Castle and the heights ; while
on the other side was the ever-moaning sea, a
dense black, dotted with masses of white foam, or
shining in that mysterious, moon-made ^^path of
rays" which

'* We think would lead to some bright isle of rest"

So beautiful, so dream-like, the scene often used
to be, that even I, happy wife and mother as I
was, with all the blessings of youth close in my
grasp, grew sentimental. It was enough to make
old people forget they were old, and wish they
could begin their life over again — only, with a
difference !

"I wonder how it would feel to be like that

8*

178 MISS TOMMY.

little man of yours, Decie," said Major Gordon
one day, pointing to Carl, who was rolling aboat
on the sea-shore at St. Margaret's. We had taken
him with ns tliere, as we were to be several hours
away. Uncle Gordon had said he should like
to have our tea picnic in a quite new place;
and whenever he wished a thing, I noticed that,
soon or late, it came about. ^^Carl, my friend,
if my poor old soul could somehow get into
your little body, and begin life all over again,
what would I do with it ? Miss Trotter " — turn-
ing to her as she sat on the shingle — we had
investigated the picturesque village and the fine
old church, and the steep descent to the little
bay, and were sitting down — she always seemed
glad to sit down — "Miss Trotter, do you know,
I sometimes feel afraid of growing old. Do
you r

"ISTo;" afterwards, with a gentle smile and a
firmer decision, she repeated, " Oh, no !"

" But you would like to be young ? I was al-
ways happy when I was young — were not you ?"

" Happiness comes to some early, to others late ;
and perhaps it is best not to think much of hap-

r

MIB8 TOMKT. 181

piness at all. One often finds it when one has
ceased to look for it."

^^ But I used to look for it — here, there, and
everywhere — eagerly, greedily — and I never found
it. And now I am left 'on the bleak shore
alone,' as the song says. Solitary, useless, blind,
no wonder I am afraid of old age."

It was a good while before she answered, and
then it was in a slightly constrained tone.

'^ I think your fear of the future is needless.

As Dr. told you, one has but to live a day

at a time. Your eyes are never likely to be
worse than now ; and I have known people who
could not see at all, yet were neither dependent
nor helpless."

It was the wrong word, as she saw, with a sting
of pain, when too late to alter it.

'^ I hate to be helpless," he broke in, almost
fiercely ; ^^ and as for being dependent, I should
loathe it. I mean to do all I can for myself, to
my very last breath."

"So do I," was the quiet reply. "I can under-
stand the man — who was it ? — that wished to ' die
standing.' But one cannot always stand, and

18S

ttand Alone. Sometimes I hare to lean pretty
hard on Dede there. She does not mind i^ imd
I— I rather like it."

^ Thank yon," I cried, impnlnvelj damping ike
dear little soft hand. I had began to'eompre-
hend the pride and pleasnre it is for the young
to help the old, though I did not take in as I do
now how little we can help them — how many
burdens thej have to bear which God only can
lighten, until, in his own good tim^ he takes
them all away.

It went to my heart to see this dear woman
putting ont her frail little hand to cany another's
burden, as if she had none of her own.

^^ I think," she said, ^^ old age should be to us
a Sabbath after the week's work is done. We
should rest, and be glad to rest ; we should not
try to do more than we can do, and then be
angry that we cannot do it. It is better often
to accept our infirmities than to struggle against
them. They may not be harder than many
things we suffered in our youth. I once heard
a sorely tried woman say, her greatest trial was
that her sufferings were only mental ; no sorrow

MISS TOMMY. 183

ever made her ill, and it wonld have been such a
relief to be ill I Now, I, who never feel quite
well—"

Major Gordon tamed to her with a startled
air.

" I mean, very seldom. But I always feel quite
happy," she added, in her cheerf ullest of tones.

And she looked happy. There was now in her
faded face a continual peace, deeper even than
when I first knew her. Then, there was a kind
of effort in it, a determination to be happy, spite
of fate. Now there was none — she was happy.
She sat with my boy across her lap; he had
tired himself out, and then settled down (truly,
though I say it, there never was such a good
child as my little Carl I). She kept patting him
softly while she talked ; but her eyes looked out
far beyond him, beyond us all, to the great wide
sea shining in the sun — the sea which she had
been so fond of all her life, across which her heart
must have fied many a time ; but it had no need
to do that now.

Major Gordon sat and smoked his pipe, perfectly
content. It was touching to see how very con-

■ 1

184 urn lomiT.*

tent he could be, for a man who had knocked
about the world for half a centuiy — ^he once told
U8 he was a mere boy when he first went out to In-
dia. And he was content with such little things —
our innocent, childish, tea picnic, and the book
afterwards. Miss Trotter generally produced a
book from her pocket wherever we went: it
whiled away the time to him, who could neither
scramble about nor enjoy views. And, as he
often said, it gave him something to think about

We had been going through a course of Shake-
speare, which he m joyed with the freshness and
simplicity of a boy — ^he said he had never " culti-
vated his mind " before, and was determined to
do it now, or, rather, we were doing it for him.

" Go on with ' King Lear,' will yon, Miss Trot-
ter, if Decie can put np with snch a melan-
choly story ? But I have a fellow-feeling for the
poor old forsaken king, and the blind Gloucester.
You were just at the point where they got to
Dover fields, and he wanted to throw himself over
the cliflf, and Edgar saved him — was it not ?"

" Yes ; how well you remember I"

So he did, every word she read, with that pleas-

MISS TOMMY. 185

ant voice of hers, ^' gentle and low, an excellent
thing in woman." How Uncle Gordon made us
langh, even in that most pathetic passage over
Cordelia, by his emphatic " Yes, so it is I" His lis-
tening was the most earnest, absorbing thing, just
like a child's.

" Poor old Gloucester. What a take-in it was !
And yet it was right. I hope he kept to the
* free and patient thoughts ' which Edgar recom-
mended. But it isn't always easy for a blind man
to be patient," he sighed. "And that is your
Shakespeare's Cliff, Miss Trotter. I remember,
you told me to look out for it, the first day I went
back to India. I could see it then, I can't now.
But I could climb it still, if you would guide
me as Edgar did Gloucester. I'll promise not to
throw myself over."

He seemed so eager to go, with the restlessness
which still came over him at times, though much
seldomer than formerly, that Miss Trotter pro-
posed our driving direct from St. Margaret's to
Shakespeare's Cliff.

"We should get there before sunset, and the
sky looks stormy; we may have the equinoctial

186 IQBS TOlOfT.

gales soon, and our difb Hre not safe in a lii|^
wind. PerhapB we had better not lose this calm
day.**

^ That's right," said Unde Gordcm ; ^ I lil^ do-
ing things at once. I always did. Wh^i one is
yonng one hates to lose time." «

^ And when one is old one has no time to bse."

She rose, gave Oarl to his nnrse^ and Mon we
were all climbing the steep aseent wh^bi leads
down to that lovely, lonely bay of St. M»Fgare^s»
I noticed how often she paused, and how heavily
she sometimes leaned on me, or on the strongs
hand which was always at her service now. *^ Let
me help you," Uncle Gordon used to say; "it
helps me too, you know."

On our drive home I thought my dear Miss
Tommy was rather silent, watching the sunset,
which promised to be very fine. Some of the
grandest sunsets I have ever seen have been from
the hill-road between St. Margaret's and Dover
Castle. She pointed it out to me, but still silent-
ly. We had both of us learned not to speak much
of pleasures in which poor Uncle Gordon could
not share.

MISS TOMMY. 187

I know not why I should call him "poor"
Uncle Gordon, for, indeed, I had almost ceased
to pity him. He bore his affliction with such pa-
tient heroism — ^the heroism of courage, not stoicism
—for he let us help him and guard him as much
as ever we liked, except that he was so anxious
not to give us " trouble."

When we had deposited Carl and his nnrse at
home, he was most eager to go on to Shake-
speare's Clifi; so we went as far as the carriage
could be taken, and climbed the rest — a rather
hasty climb, for the sun was sinking fast. Miss
Trotter faintly suggested that Uncle Gordon and
I should go alone, but he would not hear of it.

" It is an easy ascent, you say, and Decie and I
will help you. Oh, no, you must not stay behind.
We could not possibly do without you — we never
can."

She smiled, and went.

Everybody knows Shakespeare's ClifE — the
haunt of Dover shop-girls and shop-boys on Sun-
day afternoons, and of Dover visitors all the week.
Nothing in the least adventurous about it ; just a
steep down, green and smooth, rising to a peak.

188 MISS TOMMY.

where you can look over the sheer, precipitoas clif
into the sea. Not now, however,

*' Half-way down
Hangs he who gathers samphire— dreadfal trade!"

Neither do

*' The fishermen that walk npon the beach
Appear like mice.*'

Doubtless the clifE is much less grand than it
was in Shakespeare's time, if Shakespeare ever
saw it; but it is grand still — so dizzy a height
that I was not surprised to see Miss Tommy catch
hold again, of her own accord, of the hand which
had helped her up. He turned round and smiled.

" Don't be afraid ; I shall not jump over, and so
' shake patiently my great affliction off,' like poor
old Gloucester. I might have done so once — I
don't know — if you had not come and saved me."

Uncle Gordon said this with deep feeling. He
stood, holding tightly her hand, while with the
other hand he took off his hat and bared his head
to the wind, which blew sharp and keen. It was
a fine face, a noble face, with its look of quiet
heroism, with its smooth brow and shut eyes,
turned towards the gorgeous sunset, which, alas !

MISS TOMMY. 191

to him was nothing. Bat he had mach enjoy-
ment left still ; and, what is rather rare, he seem-
ed to know it and own it.

" People talk of owing their lives to other peo-
ple, but. Miss Trotter, I think I shall owe you
more than my life — the worth of it — if, old as I
am, it ever gets to be worth anything; and I
hope I shall not forget. But you are shivering —
I can feel your hand shake."

It was nothing, she said ; only she had been hot
with walking, and the wind up here was very
cold.

Major Gordon took up his outer coat, and, in
spite of all her remonstrances, wrapped her in
it. We hurried her down to the carriage, almost
carrying her between us, the little "fairy god-
mother," as he sometimes called her. She laugh-
ed at our anxiety, speedily recovered herself, or
seemed to do so, and was unspeakably bright and
gay all the evening, looking so pretty and so young
— I wished Uncle Gordon had had his eyes. As
for his heart, it was an article so incomprehen-
sible that by this time I had ceased speculating
about it, and given it up in despair.

198 HIB8 Tomnr. ^

Next day, for the very first time since I had
known her, Miss Tommy did not appear at break-
fast She was not ill, she said, only she felt tired
— ^rather more tired than usual; but she should
certainly be up by noon. However, noon camo,
and she was not up, to the great perplexity of
Major Gbrdon, who appeared, as usual, to have
his newspaper read to him.

I had to do it, but he complained that I did not
read half so well, nor could understand what he
wanted read, as did the ^^ fairy godmother." At
which, when I told her, she laughed heartily, and
declared that, after going throngh life without
any accomplishments, it was most delightful to
have acquired in her old age that most useful one
— the art of reading aloud.

" Tell Major Gordon his praise puts me on my
mettle. I shall certainly be up to-morrow."

And so she was ; but only to find that she was
able for nothing more than to lie on the sofa in
the sitting-room beside her bedroom — the "par-
lor" we called it, because such endless talking
^^nt on in it ; such a ceaseless stream of people
finally came to consult her there — people in

MISS TOMMY. 193

trouble, people in joy, people wanting money,
advice, sympathy, help ; continual " wants," which
Miss Trotter was expected to supply, and did so,
as far as was in her power, every day of every
week.

But she could not do it now. She lay, smiling
still, and not "wry" ill, she affirmed, but still
unable to see anybody. I had to keep guard at
the door — ^no sinecure ! — ^and tell all visitors that
it was " only a chill," and she would be better to-
morrow.

« That ' only a chill V—I don't like it," said Uncle
Gordon, who came to the house about six times a
day, and sat patiently in the drawing-room, or
made himself useful in amusing little Carl, for
the child took an uncomfortable fancy of crying
for his mother. " You see, an old soldier learns
to be a bit of a doctor, and I know many a bad
illness comes from a mere chill. She must have
got it that evening on Shakespeare's Cliff, and it
was I who persuaded her to go."

He seemed so distressed, so remorseful, that I
made out my anxiety to be less than it really was,
and got him to stay the evening. T read to liiin,

9

IM maB

USked to hiniy but it would not do. He could
not rest; he seemed to be perpetnallj missing
her ; indeed, the room looked so empty and f dt
00 silent without h^, that I oonld hardly bear it
myself. It was a real relief when, at last, he fell
asleep in his favorite arm-ehair, for he seemed un-
willing to leave the house till the latest possible
minute. Kot till aU was quiet, and I myself the
lart person up, did I succeed in turning him out,
and watehing his retreating figure — such a firm,
active step it was still t — ^along the shore.

At ei^t in the morning he came haxk again,
" just to inquire." He looked sorely troubled to
find my invalid was no better, and when I went
np to her I could hear him pacing to and fro in
the room below, till I almost feared she must hear
him too. Once, I was sure she did. She was lying
with her eyes shot — ^asleep, I thought — when she
suddenly opened them.

" Is that Major Gordon ?" she asked.

I said " Yes ;" and told her how I could hardly
get him out of the house, and how restless and
unhappy he was, blaming himself as the cause of
her illness.

HISS TOMMY. 195

" Oh, no," with the brightest of smUes. « Tell
him I am quite sure to be better to-morrow."

She closed her eyes and went to sleep again,
with a look as peaceful as that of my little Carl.

But she was not " better to-morrow," and I in-
sisted on sending for the doctor.

Miss Tommy did not like doctors ; busy people,
and people not given to trouble much about them-
selves, seldom do. She said — imitating gayly
one of the Scotticisms that even yet Major Gor-
don occasionally let fall — that "she couldna' be
fashed ;" that machines would wear out, and had
better wear out with as little fuss as possible ; but
to-day, when I urged our great anxiety — his, as
well as mine — she yielded.

I was out when the doctor came ; she had sent
me for my daily walk with Uncle Gordon. " He
must not miss it," she said ; " and, besides, sick-
nurses ought to go out every day. I have had a
great deal of nursing to do in my life, but I never
was nursed before," she added, and put up her
face to kiss me, like a child. When I returned
the doctor had come and gone.

Miss Trotter was lying on her sofa in the par-

196 MI8B TOMMY.

4

lor. How sweet she looked in her soft gray
dressing-gown and close white cap 1 But her face
was turned to the wall. She hardly noticed my
entrance, and, when I spoke, moved with a half-
startled look, as if I had roused her from sleep or
deep thinking. Her cheeks were flushed, and her
breathing was quick and hard.

" Decie," she whispered, " the doctor says I am
to go to bed and stay there. I think he is right,
but I waited till you came in. Also because" —
she lifted herself up and looked in my face with
a sad, earnest expression — "I want to see Major
Gordon, for just five minutes."

I hesitated. In truth, I was shocked to see the
change in her.

" It cannot harm him or me. I mtist see him.
You can stay. I have nothing, almost nothing,
to say to him ; but I must see him."

And she lay, scarcely moving, with her eyes
fixed on the door, until he came.

If I had not loved my Charlie — and yet that
was a different sort of love too — I could never
have understood that yearning gaze, nor the
quick, bright smile, followed by a look of intense

2KT

oootent md tbbl » Msior GrDrotm scr Qtnm beaide
her, and toc^ Iibt Iiodc in boiL iiiE — 'V'hleL ite
sometiiiieE did now buiL ^v iar and U' me— 6 pfr-
tbetic ags tbai lixt oarknfls ws £TC*wiiJi^ rouuc

I veart md bh in !;&{• ucfw-^frhnQtirir. wat/^iiu^
the hmg it^QerB of itie zi^ zissc imrk^ ov^s- aijti
broke ^^rv^ tbs sa-'waT it iaiv>wes% of apntr.
My foIL hriglit li& — k full beipit; ttj: atid iif
resdeBB as l^bai tide — fi&c imiK: twu t^ui^ liv^. iii;
bat done, ooml pesio^ just ebtiiii^ awav — wii^ ^^
oootnfit!

"I Bent far tchl'*' die aaid. for Uiide fiordoii
Beemed too JDaneb xdot^ to utter n word. ^'W
caose the doetor telk xoe I «ia!I xi<it W able v^ «^
any <Mie £w Kwne lixae, aod I tiiou^t J tsLould
like to 0Be jon ap&iiu io ease — hu mu^ — Js%>t
that it miidb mattot : but one ue^er kii<> w«,^

He started- ^ Tot do oot meaii that ? Ob, no
no, no I It ▼«« tbe cLUi ou tU cJiff-t^^p^ ^uad I
brought you there- It it I tiutt Lare kilM ^ou/'

" Xot in the leart," fehe ani?wer«)d, etrorjgJ/ md

firmly. "You must never ima^ue wich «u<>h

utter noneenfie. On tbe contrary,*' changiij|f h<jr

196

fittb Im^ into mamittaem, ^acNDething yofa odd
iht&a win make me hasppj; wooM have made me
happy for an my dajs to ocmie. I wanted to tell

70a 80."

She panaed, bat he Baid nodiing. She went on:
^Once yon aaked me if I had had a happy life.
No, not Tory. Bat I have tried to make the best
of ity aa everybody can."
^^I wish to God I had done so too P
^* Yon have," she answered, eagerly ; ^^ indeed
yon have. I know it. Yon thonght I knew
nothing, bnt I knew everything, and have known
it all along. And I say yon have done all yon
could, in all ways. It has been a comfort to me
for years and years, to feel this ; to think that
there was somewhere in the world, even if ever
so far away, a man so good as yon."

She spoke with diflSculty, and with long pauses
between, but distinctly and firmly, as people
speak on their deathbeds, when they have ceased
to have anything to hope for, anything to fear.
He could not see her face, but she could see his,
and I was glad she could.

" Now, my friend " (as she now and then called

MISS T0M3IY. 199

him, thoiigh generally nothing but Major Gor-
don) ; " now you must go."

"Presently. One word — you are not so very
ill ? Ton will try to get better V

" Oh, yes ; I will try," speaking in the soothing
tone one uses to a child — not unneeded, he being
utterly unmanned.

I rose, for I felt he must go.

"Good-bye, then; just for to-day," he mut-
tered. " Good-bye."

And, lifting her hand, he would have kissed it ;
but she drew him nearer to her, and, putting both
her arms round his neck, with unutterable tender-
ness, she kissed him on the forehead and on the
poor blind eyes.

" All my life — all my life I" she murmured, with
a smothered passion almost like that of youth.
They kissed one another once more, solemnly and
lingeringly, as if for an eternal farewell, and then
I led him out of the room.

*****

My dear Miss Tommy did not die. For weeks
it was a struggle between life and death, but life
gained the victory.

SNK)

^I wkh to live," she said, more than onoe.
^I have 80 much to Uve for; so much to do.''

And well abe might have said this, had she
seen the cmel ^^want" she was in the house, in
the neighboriiood, even in the outside world.
If ot till then — for she had never had a dangorons
illness in her life — not till then did anybody find
ont how deeply Miss Trottw was beloved and
how widely respected. The ridi came in their
carriages, the poor on their ragged feet, to her
door, and looked np with tears to that silent win-
dow, behind which the fight for life was going on.
Ob, it was a terrible time, and yet a peaceful one.
I came out of it an older and a graver woman —
fitter to face life, or death, without being afraid.

I do not think she was afraid — it was not in her
nature to be afraid of anything ; but I think she
would have liked to stay just a little longer, "to do
her work," as she said. And I sometimes fancied
she was pleased with all those testimonies from
outside of what a noble life an " old maid '' can
live, aud how sorely fehe can be missed, even
though she leaves behind neither child nor hus-
band. Very sweet to her were all those tokens

901

of nniversal love, whieh in unmarried woman
can always win ; a love neither of nature nor of
blood, but of choice and — ^let not those who nerer
win it deceive themaelTee — of deeerring.

Slowly and steadily life came bade into her
dear old face ; but it was quite an old face now,
the hair perfectly gray and the delicate complex-
ion gone. Nothing was left except her wonderful
look of sweetness and peace — an abiding inward
peace, never absent now. Xor did it change
when, though she revived to eonvaleseence, we
soon began to feel that paiect health, with all its
activities, ener^es, and enjoyments, was never
likely to be hers any more.

Still, after she came down-stairs, we tried our
very best to make everything go on just as (be-
fore — with, however, a difference.

Of course, all I had guessed, seen, and heard in
that supreme moment when she thought she was
dying was kept by me as sacred and silent as if I
had known nothing. Uncle Gordon never spoke
of it to me, nor did she. Whether they ever re-
ferred to it with one another, or whether they let
it aU pass like a dream of the night — which, in

9*

mBB xcnoiT.

troth, to me it sometimeB Boemed-^I cannot tell,
and I neyer heard. When they met, which was
as soon as the doctor allowed hw to see anybody,
it was like ordinary friends— dose and tender and
tried, hot still only friends.

There was no talk whateyer of marriage. Such
an idea never seemed to have entered into any-
body's head regarding them, two snch '^old peo-
jde" as they were — Unde Gordon, with his
horror of matrimony, and IGss Tommy, who had
an her days shown snch a total indifference to it
But I, who had heard those words, ^ All my life-
all my life !" read the history differently.

Possibly it was his pride, or their mutual
shrinking from the world's sneering comments on
elderly marriages, or it might have been that she
felt her own infirmities, and did not wish to be a
burden upon him — ^for she had pride too, dear
soul! But, whatever it was, it was exclusively
their own concern, and both seemed entirely sat-
isfied.

They did not marry, yet it was hardly possible
to imagine a more perfect union. It did one
good to see them together, and they were now to-

MISS TOMMY. 203

gether every day. How her face brightened at
the sight of him, and his at the sound of her
voice ! There was between them that entire sym-
pathy which even married people seldom have —
that comfort of companionship which, be it
friendship or love, and whether discovered early
or late, makes, when found, the utmost blessing
of life. All the more that neither of them had
any other close ties, except Charlie and me. But,
after carefully thinking it over, I decided not to
tell my secret, or, rather, their secret, even to
Charlie.

They did not marry. And sometimes, when I
saw the perfect oneness between them, and how
completely they belonged to one another, I felt
there was no need they should marry. They
were too old for the world to say a hard word
against them — indeed, it never noticed them at
all. Daily was Uncle Gordon's tall, gaunt fig-
ure seen marching up and down the esplanade
beside her chair — her illness had been rheu-
matic fever, and it was long before she could
walk. Later on, when she did walk, though very
feebly, she was supported by the arm which nev«''

d04 ICDSS TOlOfT;

failed her ; followed, perhaps, bj a eareless glance
or two from the groups of juveniles who hannt
the Dover shore ; young ladies, and young of-
ficers from the Castle, talking, laughingy and
flirting together^ and possibly calling it ^ love."
How little they understood Uie word t But thes^
whose story nobody knew f

Even my Charlie, now settled into a practical
man of the world and f adier of a family^ never
suspected anything deeper than he saw. . Pethaps
if he had, he, too^ would only have mailed; bnt
he was the best and dearest of husbands, and not
a bit jealous of my devotion to Miss Tommy.
Indeed, seeing that I was likely to be so much
at Dover, be proposed that we should come and
live there ; applied for and obtained a semi-mili-
tary post at the Castle. So we planted ourselves
beside her, at which Miss Trotter was very glad.

" I am an old woman now ; I want taking care
of," she said to me one day. " Others will have
to do my work for me. I must learn to be idle,
and rest."

But idleness was evidently a great punishment
to her. As soon as possible she had resumed her

MISS TOMMY. 207

usual "work," as well as that part of it which
she had done for Uncle Gordon ; such as read
ing his newspapers to him and writing his let
ters. But very soon the tables were turned;
instead of her helping him, he began to help
her.

As I have said, in his youth Major Gordon had
an excellent head for business. Soldier as he
was, he had accumulated — as in those days the
servants of the East India Company had many
opportunities of doing — a considerable fortune.
It had all been wasted, and not by himself ; but
he never spoke of this, and I need not.

Still, his shrewdness and clear-headedness re-
mained, rather increased than diminished by his
dim sight — nay, having once accepted his infirm-
ity, he, with his orderly and methodical soldierly
habits, succeeded in making the very best of it.
It was astonishing how much he did, and was
happy in doing, aided by his faithful secretary
Jack Wilson.

So I was scarcely surprised when, one day, call-
ing me into her room, the parlor, where they usu-
ally spent their mornings, sometimes with Jack

908 iCDSs Tcnorr.

to do writing for them, sometimeB she and Major
Gordon alone, the dear godmother said :

^^Decie, we want to tell yon something'' — ^
both often said ^^ we " now. ^^ We have come to
the oondnsion that my life is rather too hard
for me. I mean, the endless amount of business
_other people's business— which I have always
done and cannot give np. I need help, and my
friend here" — laying her hand on TJnele Gor-
don's as he sat beside her sofa — alas, she was al-
most always lying down now I — ^' has promised
to help me."

" I am 80 glad — bo glad !"

Perhaps she thought from my eagerness that I
had meant something different from whal; she
meant, for the faintest possible flush crossed her
cheek, and died out again.

" He is going to be my man of business ; to
look into all my affairs; to undertake all my
correspondence, with Jack as his lieutenant and
working secretary. He will be always ready to
give me his advice, and see that I am not cheated,
and that I don't cheat anybody — an onerous duty.
In fact, as I said, he will take care of me."

MISS TOMMY. 209

" And in return," added Major Gordon, with
a touch of his old pride, " Miss Trotter wishes to
give me — and being a poor man I am content
to accept — a regular salary, a much larger salary
than I think I deserve. We called you in, Decie,
to decide the point."

" It seems we need a mutual friend in this, if
in nothing else," said Miss Tommy, gayly ; and
she laid the disputed question before me ; in
which, of course, I decided for her, and against
Uncle Gordon.

^^ It is no use fighting against two women, and
one of them with such a strong will of her own,"
said he, smiling, and turning to Miss Tommy —
it was one of the prettiest things in the relation
between these two to see how they sometimes
made fun of each other's peculiarities — "so I
submit."

" That is right, and Decie knows it is right.
She is a very sensible woman. But indeed it
matters little, between you and me ; we quite un-
derstand one another, do we not ?"

" My dear, yes !" he answered, softly. That
was the only diflference in his manner to her,

no

irfiidiy alwajB so eoortooiUy hid now in it a toncli
€f reveren t tmdmieai^ andi as he showed to no
one ebe. And when ihej were by th^naelTesy
or with only me, he caDed h^ not ^IGsb Trot-
ter," bat ^'Dear," or ''My dear," with an intonar
tion 8iidi as I have hesid betweoi people who
had beoi fi^ yesn married.
, lima sU was sailed ; and it was likewise set-
tied that we should Hve half Hbe year at Dover,
in oar three separate habitatioDs^ bat that when
we went for the sommor to 8yeanii»e Hall we
shoald practically beecmie one funQy — ''my
family," as l^Gss Trotter affectionately called ns,
saying what a pride it was to have a family in
her solitary old age.

I think the next few years were the happiest
she had ever known. She often said so, looking
into my eyes with a wistful tenderness — ^the ten-
derness of those who know one another's secrets,
yet never speak of them, even between them-
selves. Yes, she was perfectly happy, even though
she had her sufferings — the inevitable physical
sufferings of declining years, which perhaps the
old bear better from knowing that they are in-

BOSS TOMMY. Sll

evitable, that there is no waj out of them except
through ^^ the grave and gate of death," as the
Prayer-Book says. How much or how little she
thought of that, or of the " joyful resurrection "
with a new body, but (oh, God grant it !) with the
same soul, I could not teU. She had little need
to talk of the heavenly life ; she lived it here on
earth.

Uncle Gordon had his sufferings too, but they
were not those of weakness. His iron constitution
recovered itself; he bade fair to become a hale and
hearty septuagenarian or octogenarian. Cheerful,
too, in spite of his blindness, which never became
total darkness. In our happy domestic circle the
deadened heart of him burst out into full flower,
late, but lovely, " like a Glastonbury thorn," as I
sometimes said. But there was nothing of the
thorn-tree about him. He was more like a holly,
which loses all its prickles as it nears the top.

And he was the best of uncles to Charlie and
me and our boys — we had three now, so that the
clan Gordon was not likely to end. Miss Trotter
delighted in them and petted them all, but none
was to her like her own Charles Everett the third,

212 MISS TOMMY.

whom I generally let her have all to herself, that
he might grow up as perfect as " old maids' chil-
dren " are said to be. Though, as Charlie some-
times observed, it seemed "funny" to call Miss
Tommy an old maid — she, that was a sort of
mother to everybody who needed one. Her
motherliness was her strong characteristic. Many
grown-up people now living owe their life, health,
education — all that makes existence worth having
— to that childless woman, who never had a baby
of her own on her lonely breast.

But she was happy — ^I know she was. Her
empty heart was filled, her anxious spirit at rest.
She, who all her life had suffered and labored for
others, now enjoyed her Sabbath of peace. She
saw of "the travail of her soul," and was satis-
fied.

Our last winter at Dover was, I rejoice to re-
member, the brightest we ever spent there. A
faint, cold fear, which had long hung over us, that
my husband might be ordered on foreign service,
was dispelled by his consenting to retire on half-
pay, which Miss Trotter earnestly desired.

" Don't leave me, Decie," she said, with a pa-

mss TOiiMT. 213

thetic entreaty, the fall meaning of which I un-
derstood afterwards. "Don't any of you leave
me for very long at a time."

We never did. Uncle Gordon, for one, was
never absent from her a single day — not mere*
ly for her sake, either. Feeble as she was, he
seemed as if he could not do without her — ^her
clear head, her bright, brave heart. He himself
was wonderfally well and strong, looking years
younger than his real age, taking a firm hold of
life still, and, as "man of business" to the rich
Miss Trotter, able to make such a good use of it*
He liked the work too ; it interested him, and eX'
ercised all bis dormant energies. He never now
complained of having nothing to do, and, indeed,
was becoming a remarkable instance of how much
even a blind man can do if he tries.

" How well it has all turned out, Decie, since
the day when you and I stood together on that
Admiralty Pier and watched the boat come in !"

We were standing, she and I, I remember, at
the window of her parlor; I with my last baby
asleep on my shoulder, and she watching silently
her well-beloved sea. Also watching Uncle C

n4

doDy who WIS ^tekiiig Yds ^oostitiitiimal,'' as he
ealled it — marchuig up and dawn the little jetly,
iqpright as an arrow, and evidentij enjoying him-
adf ezeeedingi J.

''How well he looks, how strong he is!" I said.
''Kever was th^re a man so dianged."

** YesP she answered, with a smile, and suddenly
turned and kisaed me — (»r, rather, the baby — ^with
her ejes full of tears. Tlmi added, '^I hsTo had
snch a happy life I Hi^piw altogether, I thinly
than that of most women. And I thank God."

We stood a HtUe widh longer, nntil she noticed
how BtroDg the wind was blowing, and how thin
Uncle Gordon's coat was.

"He forgets how keen our Dover east winds
are in March. He fancies himself as yoang as
ever ; and yet he is" — with a little low laugh of
complete content — "we are both of ns getting
really old. No, that coat won't do, Decie. I
must speak to him about it to-morrow."

" That to - morrow " — she was away ! I say
" away," for I never could feel it like death. We
found her next morning, asleep, apparently, with
her hands clasped on her breast ; as she once told

KISS TOMMY. 215

me she generally went to sleeps" it felt bo like
saying one's prayers." But she was away — quite
away.

She had died, as she must have long known she
probably would die, of the heart disease which so
often follows rheumatic fever. All her affairs
were left clear, down to the minutest item. She
had more than once said that a sudden death was
the happiest of all — and she had it. Her great
fear — ^that of living to be a burden upon others
— she thus escaped. But her last thought was of
other people — of him ; for I found written on the
little slate which always lay on her dressing-table,
as a slight help in the endless small things she
had daily to remember — " Mem. — To speak about
Major Gordon's coat to morrow."

* * * * *

"When Miss Trotter's will was read it was
found that, many years ago, she had left half her
fortune to Charles Everett Gordon. By a later
codicil she left him the whole, with reversion to
his nephew and great- nephew. Except some
charitable annuities, and one or two small memo-
rial legacies, she left it to him absolutely, without

S16 lOBS DOlOtT.

icrtrietioM — **oertaia that be will use it sa well
II it aai pooibly be nsed."

Ho did. For i time I thought this was im-
poeaible — that he would nerer be liimeelf again,
the blow BtTDck him so t«7 hard. At 6rst be
aeeroed panlyied.by it, then for weeks he wan-
dered idxHit aimleiBly, scuoely noticing any of us,
looking alwajB tat Mme one rise, whom be could
never find. .Bot gndniU/ be rose up and faced
hii work— Am- wodE, which obe had left him to do
— and did it Adtbfnlly to tixe end.

Uncle Gordon lired to be a very old man —
winning age's beet blessings —

"Honor, loro, obedience, troops of frieodi,"

— friends whom he helped to make happy, as bis
wealth enabled him to do. But be himself re-
tained his simple, almost ascetic, habits. Many a
time I had to look after him and change his shabby
coat for a new one — remembering, with the sa-
erednesa that death casts over the commonest
things, that last though tfulness of the woman who
loved him, as, he knew now, no one else bad ever
loved him in all this world.
He never forgot her; sometimes for months he

1

I

^P UIS& TOMMY. 217

scarcely mentioned Lev name, bnt I was Bnre lie
never forgot her. And often, when his day's work
was done, lie would lean back in his arm-chair
with a tired look, and ait long silent — a silence
that none of ns ever ventured to break.

We had bnried her, by lier own written desire,

at Dover — in St. James's chnrchyard, which was

10 ^J

1

1

218 MISS TOMMY.

overlooked by Mrs. Wilson's house, where, when-
ever we went there, Uncle Gordon always took
up his old quarters. Once he drew me to the
window : it was a moonlight night, and the white
gravestones were shining, and the trees waving,
especially the tree in a corner we knew well, just
under the gray church-tower.

" Tell me, Decie, is it all right ? — the marble
cross and the flowers? She was so fond of
flowers."

I told him it was a perfect little garden. Not
only we, but everybody, seemed to take care of it.

" Yes. Everybody loved her," he said.

After a little T drew down the blind, and made
his fireside comfortable for him — the solitary fire-
side where he would sometimes sit, quite alone
and doing nothing, all evening long. Then, as I
led him to his arm-chair, he suddenly whispered,
catching my hand and grasping it hard :

" Decie, when my time comes — remember — be-
side her."

I have remembered.

THE END.

IN A HOUSE-BOAT

^ ionrnal

IN A HOUSE-BOAT.

A Jmmuil.

T HAD long heard of the house -boat, and had
-■- once seen it (as you see it now, my readers,
in a sketch done by a girl little older than many
of you, but already a notable English artist). It
lies, summer after summer, moored in a tiny bay
on our river Thames, and twice it had been of-
fered to me for a week's occupation by its kind-
ly owner, but I never was able to go. When at
last I found I could go I was as ready to ^^ jump
for joy " — had that feat been possible at my age
— as any of you young people.

To live in a house -boat on the broad river,
with a safe barricade of water between you and
the outside world, to fish out of your parlor door,
and if you wanted to wash your hands, to let

is A HOUSE-BOAT.

down your jug from your bedroom window ;
moreover, to have nnlimited snoriees and Bnn-
seta, to Bleep with the "lap-lap" of a flowing
stream in yonr ears, to waken with the songs of
birds from the trees of the shore — what conld
be more delightful? Nothing — except perhaps
"camping oat" under the stars, which might be
a trifle damp and uncomfortable.

No dampness here. More than comfort — act-
nal beauty. When I went down to look at it in
early spring, and the kind owner showed it with
pride — pardonable pride — I found the house-boat

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 223

adorned with Walter Crane's drawings and Will-
iam Morris's furniture, perfectly "aesthetic" in
its decorations, and as convenient as a well-ap-
pointed yacht. Also there was "a feeling" about
it as if the possessor loved it, and loved to make
people happy in it. There were mottoes from
Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Milton, in every room,
and pictures on every wall, besides the perpetual
pictures outside — a gallery of ever-changing love-
liness.

I came home enthusiastic, and immediately set
about choosing " a lot of girls," as many as the
boat would hold, to share it.

Only girls. Any elderly person — except the
inevitable one, myself — would^ we agreed, have
spoiled all. I did not choose my girls for out-
side things, though some of them were pretty
enough, too; but for good temper, good sense,
and a cheerful spirit, determined to make the
best of everything, and face the worst if neces-
sary. These were the qualities I looked for, and
found.

I shall not paint their portraits, except to men-
tion that three out of the six were KatJierines,

994 iM A moma^m}ja.

We had tiberef om to dfatingiiiib thmn hb EUt j,
ibih, and Katie, tim lattar bdog our little nudd*
of^dkwork, our ooadbmaa'a dangliter. The other
three girb were: the artist — whose name, Mar-
gery May, 18 public prepay — and two girls,
speeifdly mine, whom I shall demgnate as *^ Menm
and Tnnm." All were between fifte^i and
twenty-five — happy age! — and all still walked
^in maiden meditation, fiwey free." So we had
not a man among ns exc^t onr sole mate po-
teetor, Katie's fath^, and onr long-fiuthfol ser-
vant Him I shaU caU '^Adam,'' after Shake-
speare's Adam in " As You Like It," whom he re-
sembles in everything but age.

Six girls afloat! And very much afloat they
were, swimming like ducks — no, let us say swans
— on a sea of sunshiny happiness. As we drove
from our last railway station, through the little
town — the last town, too — our open omnibus,
flUed with bright-faced girls, seemed quite to in-
terest the inhabitants. And when we reached
the actual country, that lovely Thames Valley,
which all English artists know, the ringing laugh-
ter at every small joke startled the still July af-

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 225

ternoon, and made the birds dart flattering ont
of the hedgerows! Such hedgerows! — full of
wild brier -roses, pink and deep -red honeysuckle,
traveller's joj, and dozens of other flowers useless
to name, as they may not grow in America. But
our English girls love them, our English fields
would be nothing without them.

^' There it is ! There is the house-boat I" cried
Kitty, who had seen it before, having been with
me when we explored it domestically.

"Hurrah! we have nearly reached it — our
'appy 'ome I" exclaimed Meum and Tnum, stand-
ing up in the carriage together. Two of the
£atherines followed their example; indeed, we
should have been considered a most ill -behaved
party, only fortunately there was no one to see
us except one laborer, lazily sitting on a mowing-
machine which was slowly cntting down all the
pride of the flowery meadow through which we
drove to the river-side.

There she lay, the Pinafore^ and beside her the

Bihj a little boat, which was to be our sole link

with the outside world. In it sat the owner, who

had patiently awaited us there these two hours,

10*

ni A. KHnut-aoAT.

and whose portrait I tlionld like to paint if oalj
to show yon a bachelor — an old bachelor, yon
young girls would call him — who has neither
grown selfish nor cynical, who knows how to use
his money withont abusing it, and who'does nse
a good part of it in making other people happy.
The Pinafore is his hobby. He had it bnilt
on the top of a barge, under his own direction,
and from his own design. It consists of a ealooa
at one end, a combination kitchen and dining-
room at the other, and four cabins between, with
two berths in each, A real little honse, and well
might we call it our happy home— for a week.

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 227

Onr host showed us all over it once more,
pointed out every possible arrangement for our
comfort, partook of a hasty cup of tea, and then
drove back in our empty omnibus Londonward,
deeply pitied by us whom he left behind in his
little paradise.

The first meal ! — ^its liveliness was only equalled
by the quickness with which it disappeared.
And then came several important questions.

'^Business before pleasure/' said the stern
mother. ^^ Choose your room-mates, girls, and
then arrange your rooms. It is the fashion on
board the Pinafore to do everything for your-
selves. When all is ready we will take a row
and watch the sunset, then come back to bed."

This last would have been a pleasant business
if some of them had had to ^Hurn in" to beds
of their own making.

" Ma'am," said Katie, who was beside me when
I peeped into one cabin, ^^ hadn't I better do the
rooms? the young ladies do not quite understand
about it. I will have all ready by the time you
come back."

Katie, the best of little housemaids, was heartily

SS8 BT A B00Ba*BQ4T.

tibaaked, ftiid her offar lu»eptocL ^ But, girk^ re-
member, it te to be tiie firat tod lest time. After
to-o^t yon mnrt learn to do your own rooms
yonrsdires.''

80 we threw overboard the fmustieal for the
poetical, and, like Hiawatha, wmt aaSing ^ tow*
ard the snnaet" in dreamy, laqr deli|^t.

What a annaet it wast Eirerything eeemed
fdl of rich enmmer life^ from the stately pair of
swans sailing about with th^ dx gray crfgnets
after them, to the water-hen dtting among the
reeds, the willow-wien smging in among the
bnshes, and the water-rat darting into bis hole as
we passed. All was beauty, all was peace, and

**The cares that infest the day
Do fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And silently steal away.**

Every one of my five girls could handle an oar,
some better, some worse; and how they did enjoy
their row! The two youngest took turns, and
succeeded at least in " catching crabs '' with much
fun and ease.

On and on, till we were stopped by a lock.
The three evils of the Thames are locks, weirs,

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 229

and lashers. So we turned and let ourselves drift
back with the current, now running very fast.
Now and then we "hugged" the bank, and gath-
ered thence a huge handful of purple loosestrife,
blue and white bugloss, meadow-sweet, forget-me-
not — the Thames is rich in water-flowers. On we
floated, over great beds of water-lilies, yellow or
white, which grew in a quiet little " back-water,"
where we nearly got stranded on a shoal and
pierced with a snag. But " a miss is as good as a
mile," said we, and were more careful another
time.

"Look — a private gallows!" exclaimed Tuum,
who had a droll, bright way of putting things.
" We mustn't go there on any account." But it
was only an odd arrangement for catching eels ;
so we examined it, laughed, and passed on.

The sun had long set, and the moon was setting
— the little young moon, like a silver boat — when
we re-entered our " happy home " for supper and
bed, the second speedily following the first, for
various excellent reasons, one being that the sup-
per-table was required for Adam's couch. He
bad his choice whether to sleep on it or under it,

S80

and pnfemd (lie latto', ■■ Iieiiig.**inore like a
fooF-poBtOT." Ad«m IB t^ imtiu« abooBt M'SUeDt-
■■ hit honei, but his few renau-ka, tana, diy, and
ahrewd, often pass into fumLy provettw.

80 an the Pinafore^s crew sank into repose,
exeept one, vlio has an occagioDal bad habit of
Ijing awake " till the day break and the shadows
flee away." How gloriously it did break, that
dawn on the Thames ! and how strange were the
river Bonnda, the chirping of birds and the lowing
of cattle mingling with other strange noises, after-
wards discorered to be the tapping of swans' beaks
against the barge, and the wateWrats careering
about uuderneath.

These swans, of which onr artist has taken
some portraits, are the pride and ornament of the
Thames. They belong to the Thames Conser-
vancy Corporation, and no one is allowed to
molest or destroy them. They sail abont like
kings and queens, followed by their families, and
are petted and fed and admired nritil they become
quite tame. They used to gather round our boat
and eat out of the girls* hands; and their motions,
always full of grace, were a delight to behold.

1 HOUSE-BOAT.

DawD oame, and with it the power to fsce and
enjoj another new day.

A holiday ia aever the worse when there tddb
through it a stratum — a yery thin Btratam — of
work. So the two working bees, author and art-
ist, decided to be put ashore after breakfast and
left under two trees with their several tasks, while
the others enjoyed themselves till dinner-time,

«lMa «e ci^eebad fiiMkli^ iriw vvro to junr about
ten vakmtotpmdibo^wiAm.

DisDOT nmiiidB me €ti oar domntio cffiun,
whidi, eomidwiiig Uut food f«r dgfat or tea
htuigij peo^ doei not grow on erery bnah, were
important. Qroeerifli lod otbv ibweB we broag^t
with na, bot bread, milk, bntter, fruit, and rege-
td>lM we bid to get from the inn opposite, which
alflOHOt Qxnu* int^at, ready cooked, it being im-
poanble to rout a, joint on board the Pinafore.
Fieah wetv, too, we had to get from the inn pnmp,
riTer water not being wholesome for drinking.

Great fan were those endless rows with jugs
and cans, for we were all thirety aoole, and all,
even Adam, teetotalers. The amount of milk we
got through was snch that some one snggested it
wonld save trouble to fetch the cow on board.
The kindly landlady bade ns "gather onr frnit
for ourselves," so we often brought home a boat-
load of well-earned food — potatoes, pease, crisp
lettuces pulled up by the roots, and eaten aa rab-
bits eat them, with raspberries and cherries and
currants to our hearts' content. It was almost as
good as shooting or fishing one's dinner. And,

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 233

by-the-bye, the sight of the fish jumping up
round the boat brought the saddest look to
Adam's amiable countenance.

" If I had but a rod and line, ma'am, Fd catch
them for dinner." And very nasty they might
have been, I thought — river fish generally are;
yet politeness would have obliged us to eat them,
so perhaps all was for the best.

After a mirthful day our guests departed, fear-
ing a thunder-storm, which never came, and, to
rest their arms, my five girls decided to stretch
their legs and take a walk on shore. The said
walk became a run finally. " Let's have a run,"
said the biggest of them and the most beautiful.
As she tucked up her skirts she looked a real Ata-
lanta. The second in heiglit, and only a trifie less
in grace and activity, did the same ; and off they
started up what seemed a solitary road, when lo I
suddenly appeared two young Oxford men, book
in hand I What they thought of the apparition
of these two young athletes, and the three other
girls behind, all of whom collapsed suddenly into
decorum, will never be known; but I doubt if
they read much for the next ten minutes.

, The fun Uiiu •t<q)ped, Te tiiongfat we would go
'K^Mriy into t^ TiIl>SO ebnrohjard, where two
old men were •oleninlj' making hay of the gran
«Dt over the gnvea. Tfaenoe we passed into s
qoiet wood, and finally came home, hangry, as
Qgnil^ to Ripper, uid eo condnded onr eeoond

No, not eoneliided. Abont eleven pjl hap-
pened a moat drunatie ioddent. A sadden and
violent bnmp canaed the Pimtfore to shake from
stem to stern, and woke oa all np. Some declared
that they beard a Toiee exdli^, "Hollo, Bill;
where are yon going to t" and others vowed they
heard a great rattling at what we called our
" front door." Adam was loudly called, and he
and his mistreBB, in rather hasty toilets, care-
fnlly examined every corner, but all was safe.
Then we looked ont, in case there had been an
accident ; but nothing could be Been. The river
flowed on, lonely, dark, and still. I entered the
cabin, where five maidens all in white stood to-
gether in a gronp not unlike the daughters of
Niobe, and toot their evidence. However, as the
mystery, whatever it was, could not be solved, we

IN A HOCeE-BOAT.

all went to bed ; and Adam baring, with his neoal
faithf alnees, poked into erery place tbat a thief
or even a fly coold enter, made the brief remark,
^^ Pirates P and retired again to his table.

The only resalt of this remarkable oocnrrenee
was that about eight next morning, finding a sol-
emn silence instead of the nsnal tremendous chat-
ter, I went in to look at mj ^rls, and found them
all five lying fast asleep, ^ like tops." As it was
a pelting wet morning, with the wind blowing
after a fashion which required all one's imagina-
tion to make believe that our dwelling was ^^ quite
steady," this breaking of my Mede and Persian
rule of an eight-o'clock breakfast was less impor-
tant; but I said, remorselessly, ^^This most never
happen again." Nor did it.

Their laziness lost my girls the great excite-
ment of the day. A sudden outcry from Adam
of ^^ The boat ! the boat !" revealed the alarming
sight of oar little Bibj which had got unmoored,
drifting away calmly at her own sweet will down-
stream. There we were I For a moment Adam
looked as if he meant to swim after her; then
he changed his m M with all his

986 m ▲ HODBB-iBOtAX^

ilfi6Dgtfa. Fmaale TOiees join^ tlie ehoras. At
flnfc we were in despauv f <Mr at tlmt ho^r and on
mck a wet mcHmillg tiiere was not a j^nl to be
seen at the hotel guden or ferry, wljitli^r the
pretty J3ib was floating^ jort as if die hM gone of
her own aeeord to f rteh the letters A last ago-
nized shont we made, taxi then we saw a nian
posh ont, evidoitly thinking somebody was drown^
ing. He canght the position^ and the boat, wfai<^
in another minute <Mr two wonld luive drifted
past, and brought h&t back to as in trinmph.

After this we setded down, thankf nl that things
were no worse, in spite of a dreary down-pour
and a wind that rattled every door and window
of our frail dwelling. The girls' countenances
fell. "What in the world shall we do ?"

Now, though the happiest days of my life are
spent among young people, I have always found
that a certain amount of law and order is as good
for them as for myself, else we get "deiporal-
ized." So, instead of hanging about and moan-
ing, wondering when it would clear up, and if it
didn't clear up what would become of us, I set
everybody to doing something.

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 237

Two of the girls cleaned the bedrooms, and ex-
ulted over the " dust " they swept away, another
wrote home letters, and a fourth gave us delight-

•

ful music on the harmonium. The artist had, of
course, her own proper work, sitting in the shelter
of the kitchen doorway. And when about eleven
the sky cleared, and it grew into a lovely July
day, breezy and bright, with white clouds careering
about, we felt we had well earned our happiness.

Still, it was too stormy to row much ; so we ex-
plored the shore on either side — first, the abbey,
beside which was the hotel and its garden, and
also a farm-yard, with haystacks almost touching
the ancient ruins which date from the time of
King John.

Then, after the important interval of tea, came
a long walk on the opposite bank. There, pro-
tected from the wind by three umbrellas, the party
sat admiring the view, and themselves making a
picture, in which our artist has here immortalized
them. And lastly, as if to reward our cheerful
patience, the wind sank, and in the clear west, in
the midst of a brilliant after-sunset light, sat the
crescent moon.

**We mast go oat agsin and have another
row I" — and so we bad, antU twilight mdted into
da^

Bj eight o'clock on the third morning the
house-boat was as noisy as a magpie's nest. We
had arranged for a long expedition with a boat-
man who knew each lock, weir, lasher, every dan-
ger on the river, and leaving to him all the care
of the voyage, we determined to enjoy ourselves
solely. Bnt before then I mnet needs arrange
something much sadder — our going home.

There was a general moan : " Must we go
home? Only from Monday to Saturday — the
inside of a week I And we shonld have liked to
stay here a whole month I"

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 239

Vainly I represented that even had the be-
nevolent owner allowed it — and he could not,
for there was another party of his friends wait-
ing to come in whenever we went out — our afiec-
tionate families could not possibly spare us after
Saturday.

But I stretched the time to the very longest
limit, and then, according to my habit, was mild-
ly firm. " When mother says No," observed one
who ought to know it, " there is an end of the
matter." So there was.

Our morning row was delightful, but brief,
since the four girls and the boat had to sit for
their portraits, as they appear on the following
page, the young artist having afterward drawn
herself (from memory) sitting in the bow. But
we had scarcely reached home when there came
the most awful down-pour.

I had warned them of this, having read in the
Times that a " depression " was travelling over
from America — all our "depressions" do come
from America — but of course they did not be-
lieve it. Even now, though the sky was a leaden
gray, and the river too, bubbling all over with the

940 IH A aOU8>-B(UT.

sheets of nan whiefa pelteA^on oar flat roof, Vid '
our "front garden **'Uid "bati ffodea" (as, -ire
oalkd the two eiida of the ^Jtrga, nnng one. as,ji
Bcnllery, the other as m dra«itig^<ooid).vwe..a«^
ing viA wet, m; five girii woidd hardly b^iestt
in their hard lot

"It most clear; it will clear," persisted they.
Bat it did not — for six mortal Lours. We soon
ceased to lament, and rejoiced that we were safe
under cover. We made the beet of the after-
noon ; we read, we drew, we played games. Then
we took to music, did, or tried to do, some catches
and ronnds; finally onr eldest gave us Mendels-
sohn on the little harmoniam, and our youngest,
in her clear, fresh, pathetic roice, sang ns Schu-
bert's songs from " Wilhelm Meister," antil a boat-
load of soaked, white -jacketed yoaths were seen
to stop under the opposite bank listening to the
Lurlei-like strain. (N. B. — I hope it did not
canse their deaths from rhenmatic fever.)

Bnt the worst times come to an end, if you only
wait long enough, and by seven f.u. we looked
out on a clondless sky and a shining river. Ere
we started for another sunset row Adam said.

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 243-

briefly, " There's fish for supper, ma'am.'' He
too had utilized the wet day, and there were a
dozen small dace, caught by some fishing-tackle
he had borrowed, swimming in a bucket, alike
indifferent to the hook they had swallowed and
the prospect of being speedily fried. But Adam's
pride in his fishing exploit was a little lessened
an hour after, when we found him with mingled
laughter and anxiety gazing after a majestic
swan, which had swallowed the baited hook, and
then swam away, carrying rod and line after
him. It took a long chase to recover both, but
they were recovered ; and so, we concluded, was
the swan, for he reappeared shortly after as if
nothing had ever happened to him, and ate the
food we threw out to him with his usual dignity
and grace.

The last day had now come — at least, our last
whole day — Friday. We resolved to make the
most of it, going up the river in the forenoon,
and down the river in the afternoon, taking with
us a frugal meal of bread - and - butter, milk, and
cherries, also the towing-rope, in case rowing up-
stream should be too r*-^ ^^ qnd too long a busi-

U( A UOUBE'BOAT.

0688. There is a towiDg-path all the way along
the Thame8, at one Bide or other, and we need
often to see a yonng man or eren a girl, or some-
timee both amiably hameBsed together, pnlling
along a whole boatfal of people with the greatert
ease. We thought the towing, if necesaary, wonld
be great fnn for the after-dinner row.

Onr morning row was rather s failm^ ; it was
too "genteel." The river flowed between civil-
ized fiborea, dotted with splendid villaB, Ita banks
were elegantly boarded in for promenades; its
very boat-honscs were palatial rendences. !No
osiers, niBlies, and lovely water-plants ; the very
water-lilies looked " cultivated." We agreed that
onr own bit of river was mnch the best, and that

IN A HOUSE-BOAT. 245

not a single honse-boat — we passed half a dozen
at least — was half so pretty or commodious as our
Pinafore. Content and hungry, we came back
to it, determined to eat our dinner in ten min-
utes, and be off again. But fate forbade.

"Listen! — that's surely thunder. And how
black the river looks! It's bubbling, too, all
over. Hark !"

Clash ! crash ! and down came the rain, regu-
lar thunder rain, continuing without a moment's
pause for three hours. Drenched boat-loads of
unlucky pleasure- seekers kept passing our win-
dows, struggling for the hospitable inn opposite.
Is there any satisfaction in watching the mis-
fortunes of our neighbors ? Was it the weakness
or meanness of our human nature which made us
congratulate ourselves that the rain had come on
exactly when it did, and so found us under safe
shelter, watching mildly these poor, half-drowned
creatures, instead of being in the same plight our-
selves ?

" Still, yesterday evening was lovely ; to-night
may be the same," said the girls, determined to
keep up their spirits. And when at last the rain

SM I» A IlClCSE-BOAT.

did actaallj eeaae, aud a bit of blue eky appeared,
" eoouglj to inako a cat a jacket," they set to
vorfc, bailiDg oat ud diyiog che boat, protesting
the while that this soppy and qaita aimeceesary
oocnpatioa vu " delightf oL" .

Fortone &vor8 the bnve. It vu BeTeno'do^
before we vera able to start, bnt that last row
vu the loTeliast we had on the Thames. Bach a
anoset I Such views of oder beds, and isIatiilB of
taU mdieB, and masBes of woodUnd, and smooth
green parks with centniy-old trees, and noisj
wdn, and dark, ^ent locks I We had ^own fear-
less or desperate, and determined to go throngh
two locks. Some of ns, I tbitik, would have gone
on to London, drifting contentedly down the
stream ; but motherly wisdom saw the sun fast
dropping and the twilight darkening, aud insisted
on taming homeward, and was obeyed.

Only once, when the crimson sanset, reflected
in the river from behind a fnnge of low trees,
made a picture too lovely to resist, our artist im-
plored to be " dropped," as was her habit. This
being impoBsible at that hour, we compromiBed
by "lying to" near the bank while she painted.

m A HOUBE-BOAT. 247

or tried to painty in the dim light. We Bang a
quantity of old BongB — duets and gleeB. In the
pauses the corncrake put in his note from the
shore, and one or two other birds wakened up
with a sleepy chirp ; then all sank into silence,
and there was only the quiet river and quiet sky,
up which the crescent moon was sailing brighter
and brighter. I think, however long my girls
may live, and whatever may happen to them, they
will never forget that night.

It was almost night, and brilliant moonlight,
when we reached our " 'appy 'ome.'^ Our con-
sciences were not quite easy, for we had Adam's
little daughter on board with us, and wo found
him anxiously watching for us.

"Did you think anything had happened — that
we were all drowned ?"

"Yes, ma'am, I did," said he, briefly. Poor
Adam! Shut up in his floating prison, he had
evidently not spent the happiest of half -hours.
But he forgave us, and we at least had been
happy — and it was our last night.

About eleven or so, when the magpie's nest
was all quiet, chancing to look out I saw the

S18 IN A UOBBE-BOAT.

loveliest mooneet. The large, bright creseenE
close upon the horizon shone iu a cloudless west-
-em 8^, and vm reflected in the river, vith a
gnlf of dufaieH between. Aita wstching it for
HTOvl minntei, determined to Me the last of it,
I went back into my cabin and took up a book
^— aome sketobee bj Hiss liackeeaj. One on
** FHoidship ** intereited and touched me bo mn^
that I read on to tbe end, then started np and
nubed to the window. It was too late — mj
mooa bad sett Onlj a £aint circle of l^t in
-tlie akjf and another, fainter stiU, on the rivo-,
showed where she had been.

I went back to bed a little sad at heart and
vexed with myself for having missed the lovely
sight by about a minnte, after having sat op on
purpose to watch it. Too late — too late I Why
cannot we always do, not only the right thing,
but at the right time?

My girls had apparently discovered this secret.
Long before ever I was stirring, though old birds
are nsually early birds, I heard a great clatter and
chatter in the parlor, or saloon. It was our two
"little ones," broom in hand, with their dresses

IN A HOUBE-BOAT. 249

tacked up apron fashion, cleaning and sweeping,
throwing down tea -leaves, taking np rngs, dust-
ing tables and chairs, washing china — in short,
fairly turning the house (or house -boat) out of
windows. The delighted laughter with which
they watched the dust and ddbris sail down the
river, a sort of floating island of rubbishy was
quite infectious.

" No, no ; we can't eat any breakfast until we
have done our work. We are determined to
leave the parlor as neat and beautiful as we
found it," which noble sentiment I thoroughly
shared.

After breakfast there were the cabins to put
in order, and all the packing to be done. It
was eleven before we felt free to enjoy our-
selves; and then the sky looked so threatening
that I protested against the long expedition that
was being planned. Suppose it rained — in fact,
it had rained a little — and we all got wet through,
and had to start for our long railway journey
without any possibility of drying ourselves. So,
in deference to the prudent mother, who never

denied them anything she could help, the good

11*

250 IN A HOUSE-BOAT.

girls cheerfully gave up their pleasure, and we
spent a delightful hour or two in paddling about
close at home, and gathering water-lilies.

This last proceeding was not so easy as it
looked. "Water-lilies have such thick, strong
stalks, and grow in such deep water, that in
plucking them one is apt to over -balance the
boat, especially if fully laden. We had to land
half of our crew on an osier -island, while the
others floated about, guiding themselves with the
boat-hook, and cautiously grasping at the dazzling
white blossoms and plate -like leaves which cov-
ered the surface of the water for many yards. A
risky proceeding it always is, gathering water-
lilies ; but oh ! when they were gathered, what
a handful — nay, armful — of beauty and delicate
perfume did we carry back !

And we got back not a minute too soon. "We
had scarcely sat down to dinner — our last dinner
— at which we laughed much, perhaps to keep
our spirits up, when, flash ! crash ! the storm was
upon us. A more fearful thunder-storm I never
saw. The river was one boiling sheet of plashing
rain, the clouds were black as night ; between

IN A HOUBE-BOAT. 251

them and the water the forked lightning danced,
and once when, after a loud clap of thunder, a
column of white smoke burst out from the wood
opposite, we felt sure the bolt had fallen.

For two whole hours the storm raged, and then,
just as we were wondering if the carriage would
venture to come for us, and how we should ac-
complish our seven -mile drive without being
drenched to the skin, the rain ceased, the blue
sky appeared, and the world looked as the world
feels after the thunder-storm in Beethoven's Pas-
toral Symphony.

And so, with contented and thankful hearts,
although a little melancholy, and with the very
tune of the reapers' " Thanksgiving Song " out
of the said Symphony ringing in our ears, we
left our ' house - boat and our beautiful and be-
loved river, and went our several ways home.

"We may never in our lives have such an-
other week !" said one of the girls, mournfully,
which is very possible. But ought we not to be
glad that we ever had it at all ?

One particular thankfulness I had, and I can-
not end without uttering it, as a testimonial to

Ol A HOUSE-BOAT.

md a bit of tender advice to many"

252

my five girls,

otherfi.

One day we passed a rather pathetic sight : a
motherly hen staodiug on the brink of the river,
and chnekling moumfnlly to a troop of lively
yonng ducklings which were swimming about in
utter indifference to her and her evident anxiety.

" Poor old thing !" said one of the most mis-
chievous of my girls, " she is jnst like — ahem !"

I felt the soft impeachment, and, conscience-
smitten, tried to smile.

" Bnt it really is very hard for the poor creat-
ure," gently observed another. " Once we bad a
ben with a fine brood of dncBings; they went
into the water; the mother stood awhile watch-
ing them in an agony, and then she followed ■
them."

" And what became of her ¥'

" She floated awhile, paddling with her feet,
and pufQng out her feathers, and then she sank,
and was drowned."

And perhaps if my girls had not every one of
them, however lively and daring by natnre, been
thoughtful, cautious, considerate, using that com-

IK A HOU6E-BOAT. 253

moD-Bense pradeDoe which is the tmest uoeelfiBh-
nefiB both for themselires and me, I should daring
oar six dajs in the hoofie-boat have led the life —
and might finally have died the death — of that
poor old hen. Instead of which not one of the
five was, I think, more trnlj happy than L

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