such a fact, "she is fond of me; and if she were disappointed and put out, you know-why, it might make her ill-it might do her no end of harm-it might- Seriously, you know," said Jack, looking in Mrs Preston's face, and giving another and another hitch to his chair. Though her sense of humour was not lively, she dried her eyes and looked at him with a little bewilderment, wondering was he really in earnest? did he mean it? or what did he mean? She is very young," said Mrs Preston; "no doubt it would do her harm; but I should be there to nurse her-and-and-she is so young." without which it cost her an effort "I do believe in you," she said. "I do and I love you for saying it; but oh, Mr John, what am I to do? I can't let you ruin yourself with your father. I can't encourage you when I know what it will cost you; and then, my own child "That's it," said Jack, drawing his chair over to her side of the table, with his first attempt at diplomacy" that's what we've got to think of. It doesn't matter for a fellow like me. If I got disappointed and cut up I should have to bear it; but as for Pamela, you know-dear little soul! You may think it strange, but," said Jack, with a little affected laugh, full of that supreme vanity and self-satisfaction with which a man recognises "It might kill her," said Jack, impressively; "and then whom would you have to blame? Not my father, for he has nothing to do with it; but yourself, Mrs Preston -that's how it would be. Just look at what a little delicate darling she is a little bit of a thing that one could carry away in one's arms," he went on, growing more and more animated-"a little face like a flower; and after the bad illness she had. I would not take such a responsibility for anything in the world," he added, with severe and indignant virtue. As for poor Mrs Preston, she did not know what to do. She wrung her hands; she looked at him beseechingly, begging him with her eyes to cease. Every feature of the picture came home to her with a much deeper force than it did to her mentor. Jack no more believed in any danger to Pamela than he did in his own ultimate rejection; but the poor mother beheld her daughter pining, dying, breaking her heart, and trembled to her very soul. "Oh, Mr John," she cried, with tears, "don't break my heart! What am I to do? If I must either ruin you with your father--" "Or kill your child," said Jack, looking at her solemnly till his victim shuddered. "Your child is more to you than my father; be sides," said the young man, unbending a little, "it would not ruin me with my father. He might be angry. He might make himself disagreeable; but he's not a muff to bear malice. My father," continued Jack, with emphasis, feeling that he owed his parent some reparation, and doing it magnificently when he was about it, "is as true a gentleman as I know. He's not the man to ruin a fellow. You think of Pamela, and never mind me." But it took a long time and much reiteration to convince Mrs Preston. "If I could but see Mr Brownlow I could tell him something that would perhaps soften his heart," she said; but this was far from being a pleasant suggestion to Jack. He put it down summarily, not even asking in his youthful impatience what the something was. He had no desire to know. He did not want his father's heart to be softened. In short, being as yet unaccustomed to the idea, he did not feel any particular delight in the thought of presenting Pamela's mother to the world as belonging to himself. And yet this same talk had made a wonderful difference in his feeling towards Pamela's mother. The thought of the explanation he had to make to her was repugnant to him when he came in. He had all but run away from it when he was left to wait alone. And now, in less than an hour, it seemed so natural to enter into everything. Even if she had bestowed a maternal embrace upon him, Jack did not feel as if he would have resisted; but she gave him no motherly kiss. She was still half frightened at him, half disposed to believe that to get rid of him would be the best thing; and Jack had no mind to be got rid of. Neither of them could have told very exactly what was the understanding upon which they parted. There was an understanding, that was certain-an arrangement, tacit, inexpressible, which, however, was not hostile. He was not permitted in so many words to come again; but neither was he sent away. When he had the assurance to ask to see Pamela before he left, Mrs Preston went nervously through the passage before him and opened the door, opening up the house and their discussion as she did so, to the big outside world and wakeful sky, with all its stars, which seemed to stoop and look in. Poor little Pamela was in the room up-stairs, speechless, motionless, holding her breath, fixed as it were to the window, from which she must see him go out, hearing the indistinct hum of voices underneath, and wondering what her mother was saying to him. When the parlour door opened, her heart leaped up in her breast. She could hear his voice, and distinguish, as she thought, every tone of it, but she could not hear what he said. For an instant it occurred to her too that she might be called down-stairs. But then the next moment the outer door opened, a breath of fresh air stole into the house, and she knew he was dismissed. How had he been dismissed? For the moment? for the night or for ever? The window was open to which Pamela clung in the darkness, and she could hear his step going out. And as he went he spoke out loud enough to be heard up-stairs, to be heard by anybody on the road, and almost for that matter to be heard at Betty's cottage. "If I must not see her," he said, "give her my dear love." What did it mean. Was his dear love his last message of farewell? or was it only the first public indication that she belonged to him? Pamela sank down on her knees by the window, noiseless, with her heart beating so in her ears that she felt as if he must hear it outside. The whole room, the whole house, the whole air, seemed to her full of that throbbing. His dear love! It seemed to come in to her with the fresh air to drop down upon her from the big stars as they leant out of heaven and looked down; and yet she could not tell if it meant death or life. And Mrs Preston was not young, and could not fly, but came so slowly, so slowly, up the creaking wooden stair! Poor Mrs Preston went slowly, not only because of her age, but because of her burden of thoughts. She could not have told any one whether she was very happy or deadly sad. Her heart was not fluttering in her ears like Pamela, but beating out hard throbs of excitement. He was good, he was true; her heart accepted him. Perhaps he was the friend she had so much longed for, who would guard Pamela when she was gone. At present, however, she was not gone; and yet her sceptre was passing away out of her hands, and her crown from her head. Anyhow, for good or for evil, this meant change; the sweet sceptre of love, the crown of natural authority and duty, such as are the glory of a woman who is a mother, were passing away from her. She did not grudge it. She would not have grudged life, nor anything dearer than life, for Pamela; but she felt that there was change coming: and it made her sick-sick and cold and shivering, as if she was going to have a fever. She would have been glad to have had wings and flown to carry joy to her child; but she could not go fast for the burden and heaviness of her thoughts. Meanwhile Jack crossed the road briskly, and went up the avenue under the big soft lambent stars. If it was at him in his character of lover that they were looking, they might have saved themselves the trouble, for he took no notice whatever of these sentimental spectators. He went home, not in a lingering meditative way, but like a man who has made up his mind. He had no sort of doubt or disquietude for his part about the acceptance of his love. He knew that Pamela was his, though her mother would - He knew he not let him see her. should see her, and that she belonged to him, and nobody on earth could come between them. He had known all this from the first moment when the simple little girl had told him that life was hard; and as for her mother or his father, Jack did not in his mind make much account of the opposition of these venerable personages-such being his nature. What remained now was to clear a way into the future, to dig out a passage, and make it as smooth as possible for these tremulous little feet. Such were the thoughts he was busy with as he went home not even musing about his little love. He had mused about her often enough before. Now his practical nature resumed the sway. How a household could be kept up, when it should be established, by what means it was to be provided, was the subject of Jack's thoughts. He went straight to the point without any circumlocution. As it was to be done, it would be best to be done quickly. And he did not disguise from himself the change it would make. He knew well enough that he could not live as he had lived in his father's house. He would have to go into lodgings, or to a little house; to have one or two indifferent servants-perhaps a "child-wife"perhaps a resident mother-in-law. All this Jack calmly faced and foresaw. It could not come on him unawares, for he considered the chances, and saw that all these things were possible. There are people who will think the worse of him for this; but it was not Jack's fault-it was his constitution. He might be foolish like his neighbours on one point, but on all other points he was sane. He did not expect that Pamela, if he translated her at once into a house of her own, should be able to govern him and it on the spot by natural intuition. He knew there would be, as he himself expressed it, many "hitches" in the establishment, and he knew that he would have to give up a great many indulgences. This was why he took no notice of the stars, and even knitted his brows as he walked on. The romantic part of the matter was over. It was now pure reality, and that of the most serious kind, that he had in hand. CHAPTER XXIV.-A NEW CONSPIRATOR. "I don't say as you're to take my advice," said Mrs Swayne. "I'm not one as puts myself for ward to give advice where it ain't wanted. Ask any one as knows. You as is Church-folks, if I was you, I'd send for the Rector; or speak to your friends. There ain't one living creature with a morsel of sense as won't say to you just what I'm saying now." 66 Oh please go away-please go away," said Pamela, who was standing with crimson cheeks between Mrs Preston and her would-be counsellor; "don't you see mamma is ill?" "She'll be a deal worse afore all's done, if she don't listen in time; and you too, Miss Pamela, for all so angry as you are," said Mrs Swayne. "It ain't nothing to me. If you like it, it don't do me no harm; contrairaways, it's my interest to keep you quiet here, for you're good lodgers-I don't deny it—and ain't folks as give trouble. But I was once a pretty lass myself," she added, with a sigh; "and I knows what it is." Pamela turned with unfeigned amazement and gazed upon the big figure that stood in the doorway. Once a pretty lass herself! Was this what pretty lasses came to Mrs Swayne, however, did not pause to inquire what were the thoughts that were passing through the girl's mind; she took a step or two farther into the room, nearer the sofa on which Mrs Preston lay. She was possessed with that missionary zeal for other people's service, that determination to do as much as lay in her power to keep her neighbours from having their own way, or to make them very uncomfortable in the enjoyment of the luxury, which is so common a development of virtue. Her conscience was weighted with her responsibility; when she had warned them what they were coming to, then at least she would have delivered her own soul. "I don't want to make myself disagreeable," said Mrs Swayne; "it ain't my way; but, Mrs Preston, if you go on having folks about, it's right you should hear what them as knows thinks of it. I ain't a-blaming you. You've lived in foreign parts, and you're that silly about your child that you can't a-bear to cross her. I'm one as can make allowance for that. But I just ask you what can the likes of that young fellow want here?_ He don't come for no good. Poor folks has a deal of things to put up with in this world, and womenfolks most of all. I don't make no doubt Miss Pamela is pleased to have a gentleman a-dancing after her. I don't know one on us as wouldn't be pleased; but them as has respect for their character and for their peace o' mind "Mrs Swayne, you must not speak like this to me," said Mrs Preston, feebly, from the sofa. "I have a bad headache, and I can't argue with you; but you may be sure, though I don't say much, that I know how to take care of my own child. No, Pamela dear, don't cry; and you'll please not to say another word to me on this subject-not another word, or I shall have to go away." "To go away!" said Mrs Swayne, crimson with indignation. But this sudden impulse of self-defence in so mild a creature struck her dumb. "Go away!--and welcome to!" she added; but her consterna tion was such that she could say no more. She stood in the middle of the little dark parlour, in a partial trance of astonishment. Public opinion itself had been defied in her person. "When it comes to what it's sure to come to, then you'll remember as I warned you," she said, and rushed forth from the room, closing the door with a clang which made poor Mrs Preston jump on her sofa. Her visit left a sense of trouble and dismay on both their minds, for they were not superior women, nor sufficiently strong-minded to laugh at such a monitor. Pamela threw herself down on her knees by her mother's side and cried not because of Mrs Swayne, but because the fright and the novelty overwhelmed her, not to 'speak of the lively anger and disgust and impatience of her youth. "Oh mamma, if we had only some friends!" said Pamela; "everybody except us seems to have friends. Had I never any uncles nor anything? It is hard to be left just you and me in the world." "You had brothers once," said Mrs Preston, with a sigh. Then there was a pause, for poor Pamela knew and could not help knowing that her brothers, had they been living, would not have improved her position now. She kept kneeling by her mother's side, but though there was no change in her position, her heart went away from her involuntarily-went away to think that the time perhaps had come when she would never more want a friend,-when somebody would always be at hand to advise her what to do, and when no such complications could arise. She kept the gravity, even sadness of her aspect, with the innocent hypocrisy which is possible at her age; but her little heart went out like a bird into the sunny world outside. A passing tremor might cross her, ghosts might glide for a moment across the way, but it was only for a moment, and she knew they were only ghosts. Her mother was in a very different case. Mrs Preston had a headache, partly because of the shock of last night, partly because a headache was to her, as to so many women, a kind of little feminine chapel, into which she could retire to gain time when she had anything on her mind. The course of individual history stops when those headaches come on, and the subject of them has a blessed moment to think. Nothing could be done, nothing could be said, till Mrs Preston's head was better. It was but a small matter had it been searched to its depths, but it was enough to arrest the wheels of fate. Pamela," she said, after a while, we must be doubly wise because we have no friends. I can't ask anybody's advice, as Mrs Swayne told me to do. I am not going to open up our private affairs to strangers; but we must be wise. I think we must go away.' 66 "Go away!" said Pamela, looking up with a face of despairaway! Mamma, you don't think of-of-him as she does? You know what he is. Go away! and perhaps never, never see him again. Oh mamma!" "I did not mean that," said Mrs Preston; "but we can't stop here, and live at his father's very door, and have him coming under their eyes to vex them. No, my darling; that would be cruel, and it would not be wise." "Do you think they will mind so very much?" said Pamela, looking wistfully in her mother's face. "What should I do if they hated me? Miss Brownlow, you knowSara-she always wanted me to call her Sara- she would never turn against me. I know her too well for that." "She has not been here for a long time," said Mrs Preston; "you have not noticed it, but I have, Pamela. She has never come since that day her father spoke to you. There is a great differ |