such a sad look in her face when she is not speaking; and did you hear how she sighed once or twice when you and I were talking together?" "Yes, I think she has had, or is, perhaps, even now enduring some heavy trial. I think, too, it would have been more considerate of her husband to come down here with her, instead of leaving her to prepare the house for his reception, to make things comfortable, as she said herself. From what I could gather from Mr. Hope's letters, his son had been extravagant, and was obliged to come here to economize, and to be out of the way of evil companions--a sort of banishment, I fancy. I fear it will scarcely answer, transplanting a fashionable, extravagant young man, fresh from the gaieties of the metropolis, to a lonely Welsh village. It will need something more to effect even the first principles of reformation." "Well, brother, I am glad they have come here instead of elsewhere; perhaps we shall be able to do something for them. I shall try to be very intimate with Mrs. Hope; and you, on your part, must cultivate the husband as soon as he makes his appearance. Now, good night; it is almost morning." CHAPTER XXIII. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. "Have patience!-greet the summer flowers with joy, And keep thy heart in stedfast purity: Hope on ;-bear on!-when thou at last shalt win the prize, E. J. W. For the next, and for several succeeding days, Lilian was busily occupied. She not only gave necessary orders to Bridget and to the little Welsh maiden, who were to compose her domestic staff through the winter, but she performed with her own hands many little offices to which they had been long unaccustomed. When Saturday evening came she was very tired; but her work was done, and she looked round her new abode with thorough satisfaction in the fruit of her labours. The house stood high, at some distance from the sea-midway it seemed between the waves and the mountains. It was roomy, but old-fashioned, the ceilings were low, the passages dark, the staircase winding, and the chimney-pieces were, one and all, lofty, and elaborately ornamented in the old-fashioned style of carving and plaster decorations. On the regular sitting-room, Lilian and Miss Williams had expended their united taste, and their most strenuous exertions. It had looked so gloomy on the night of Mrs. Hope's arrival, that she had despaired of ever imparting to the wide, cheerless apartment, an aspect of warmth and comfort; and she dreaded Basil's first introduction to the dull, lonely mansion, of which he was doomed to be master. But it is astonishing what two feminine minds can effect. Busy heads and active hands have, ere now, made the most desolate abodes dwelling-places of brightness, comfort, and even of elegance and luxury ; and woman, in her own undoubted sphere, her true and rightful kingdom-home !-may, if she be only gifted with a true-loving heart, and an energetic temperament, accomplish almost anything!—that is, if her efforts be prompted by the pure desire of ministering to the comfort and happiness of those, whom it is her duty and her joy to make her first earthly consideration. Doing one's utmost for the comfort, gratification, and well-being of one's family is a very different thing from straining every nerve, occupying every waking moment, and submitting to every kind of shift in the vain endeavour to make a better show in society than one's position and circumstances naturally allow. Such efforts are always in the end unsuccessful; they are as futile as the weary labours of the Danaides of classic lore, and they must surely be as weary, as mocking, and as miserable. Standing on tip-toe is an unnatural, and therefore a very painful position, though it does seem to add an inch or two to one's height; walking on stilts also elevates one far above the vulgar crowd, but it is an inconvenient mode of pedestrianization; and yet there are people who stand on tip-toe, or stalk about on stilts (which are sure to give their patrons many a stumble and many a fall) all their lives long. How painful, how wearying, how unsatisfactory it must be! Very different were Lilian's feelings when, on Saturday evening, she and Miss Williams sat down to a late tea, in the room that had been garnished and "redd up," with such exceeding pains. A blazing fire cast a rich glow on the crimson curtains; on the gilt frames of some engravings that had adorned Lilian's own boudoir in her wealthier days, and which were now hung up to make a show, and to enliven the dark pannelled walls of the low-ceiled room; and on the dahlias and china-asters which were liberally bestowed in every spare nook. A china-plate of flowers occupied the centre of the tea-table, flanked by bread-andbutter and dry toast; flowers ornamented the high, antique mantelpiece; vases of flowers were on the pianoforte the small cottage piano, which Mr. Hope had substituted for the grand "Collard and Collard," which had been the pride of poor Lilian's heart; and flowers smiled on distant tables, in the deep windowseats, and everywhere in short where they could be comfortably accommodated. Miss Williams was to remain all night with Lilian; this was the first time of her sleeping in her new abode, and she was not yet accustomed to the idea of three women keeping sole watch and ward in a lonely house, where the roar of the sea and the moan of the mountain wind kept up a continual murmur the night through! Miss Williams, who would walk anywhere, under any circumstances, and at any hour between dusk and dawn, seemed to Lilian a host in herself; and though Bridget volunteered to clean and load an old gun she saw in the vicarage-pantry, and to shoot any marauder who might make his appearance, her mistress felt greatly relieved when Miss Williams offered herself as companion and body-guard for the Saturday and Sunday nights. On Monday Basil was expected, and every one knows what a sense of protection is afforded by the mere presence of the master of the house. In the meantime Lilian and Winifred Williams had become very intimate; there is nothing like working together for setting people at their ease, and making them understand each other; a week's co-operation in useful hearty labour, is worth more than a year's chatting, dancing, and visiting, for the purpose of bringing heart to heart, those who are to become friends, in the real sense of the word. Lilian had told Miss Williams many of her own errors and shortcomings; she had explained to her that she was no longer the petted, idolized wife of her once devoted husband, but she never blamed Basil, she never said anything that could throw a reflection on his conduct, and she gave herself entire credit for the sad, bitter alienation from him, whom she still loved as passionately and undividedly as on the day when she had plighted to him her maiden faith in the dear old church at Kirby-Brough. Miss Williams was deeply interested in the sorrowful young wife, and she cried bitterly over the recital of little Basil's death, which Lilian gave with quivering voice and whitened lips and cheeks, never sparing herself, never saying one word in extenuation of her own temper, vanity, and wilfulness, but ending ever with "I deserved it! I was not fit to train my child: I was a careless, thoughtless, worldly mother, and God took him from me, to dwell among the angels." "Yes! among the angels," said Miss Williams, wiping away her tears. "In years to come, when perhaps you may be brooding anxiously and painfully over the prospects of other children, the thought of this your "firstborn blessing," safe in the arms of Him who loved the little ones with a great Almighty love, safe from the snares of the world, from the contamination of evil example, from all that darkens the path of so many who are spared to years of maturity; the thought of your darling landed safe on the heavenly |