But Agatha thought it would be betraying confidence to "set on the dragon"; and besides n.o.body ever could tell how much Vera's descriptions meant. She knew already that the sweetest countenance in the world and the loveliest dark eyes belonged to a fairly good- looking young man, and she could also suspect that the "squeeze of my hand" might be an ordinary shake, and the kneeling before the one he loved best might have been only the customary forfeit. On the whole, it would be better to let things take their course; it was not likely that either was seriously smitten, and it was more than probable that Hubert Delrio would be too busy to look after a young lady now in a different stratum, and that Vera would have found another sweetest countenance in the world.

All this pa.s.sed through her mind while Magdalen listened, and p.r.o.nounced -

"That is brilliant--a clever touch--only--"

"Yes, that is Vera--I know what you are noticing, but this is only amus.e.m.e.nt; she is not taking pains."

"It is very clever--especially as probably she has no music. But there--"

"Polly's? Oh, yes; she is really steady-going. That is just what you will find her. This is a charming room, sister; thank you very much."

"Make it your home, my dear."

But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the conference.

CHAPTER VII--SISTER AND SISTERS

"Have we not all, amid earth's petty strife, Some pure ideal of a n.o.bler life?

We lost it in the daily jar and fact, And now live idly in a vain regret."

ADELAIDE PROCTER.

Agatha was so much absorbed in her preparation for St. Robert's that she did not pay very much heed to her younger sisters or their relations with Magdalen. She had induced them to submit to the regulation of their studies with her pretty much as if she had been Mrs. Best, looking upon her, however, as something out of date, and hardly up to recent opinions, not realising that, of late, Magdalen's world had been a wide one.

Perhaps, in Agatha's feelings, there was an undercurrent inherited from her mother, who had always felt the better connected, better educated step-daughter, a sort of alien element, exciting jealousy by her companionship to her father, and after his death, apt to be regarded as a scarcely willing, and perhaps censorious pay-master.

"Your sister might call it too expensive." "I must ask your sister."

"No, your sister does not think she can afford it. I am sure she might. Her expenses must be nothing." All this had been no preparation for full sisterly confidence with "Sister," even when a sort of grudging grat.i.tude was extracted, and Agatha had been quite old enough to imbibe an undefined antagonism, though, being a sensible girl, she repressed the manifestations, kept her sisters in order and taught them not to love but to submit, and herself remained in a state of civil coolness, without an approach beyond formal signs of affection, and such confidence.

It was the more disappointing to Magdalen, because Agatha and Paulina both showed so much unconscious likeness to their father, not only in features, but in little touches of gesture and manner. She longed to pet them, and say, "Oh, my dears, how like papa!" but the only time she attempted it, she was met by a severe, uncomprehending look and manner.

And Agatha went away to Oxford without any thawing on her part.

The only real ground that had been gained was with little Thekla, who was soon very fond of "Sister," and depended on her more and more for sympathy and amus.e.m.e.nt. Girls of seventeen and sixteen do not delight in the sports of nine-year-olds, except in the case of special pets and protegees, and Thekla was snubbed when a partner was required to a.s.sist in doll's dramas, or in evening games. Only "Sister" would play unreservedly with her, unaware or unheeding that this was looked on as keeping up the metier of governess. Indeed, Thekla's reports of schoolroom murmurs and sneers about the M.A. had to be silenced. Peace and good will could best be guarded by closed ears. Yet, even then, Thekla missed child companionship, and, even more, compet.i.tion, the lack of which rendered her dull and listless over her lessons, and when reproved, she would beg to be sent to school, or, at least, to attend the High School on her bicycle. Not admiring the manners or the attainments of the specimens before her, Magdalen felt bound to refuse, and the sisters' pity kept alive the grievance.

She had, however, decided on granting the bicycles. She had found plenty of use for her own, for it was possible with prudent use of it, avoiding the worst parts of the road, to be at early celebration at St. Andrew's, and get to the Sunday school at Arns...o...b.. afterwards; and Paulina, with a little demur, decided on giving her a.s.sistance there.

At a Propagation of the Gospel meeting at the town hall, the Misses Prescott were introduced to the Reverend Augustine Flight, of St.

Kenelm's, and his mother, Lady Flight, who sat next to Magdalen, and began to talk eagerly of the designs for the ceiling of their church, and the very promising young artist who was coming down from Eccles and Beamster to undertake the work.

The church had not yet been seen, and the conversation ended in the sisters coming back to tea, at which Paula was very happy, for the talk had something of the rather exclusive High Church tone that was her ideal. She had seen it in books, but had never heard it before in real life, and Vera was in a restless state, longing to hear whether the promising young artist was really Hubert Delrio, and hoping, while she believed that she feared, that she should blush when she heard his name. However, she did not, though Mr. Flight unfolded his rough plans for the frescoes, which were to be of virgin and child martyrs, Magdalen hesitating a little over those that seemed too legendary; while old Lady Flight, portly and sentimental, declared them so sweet and touching. After tea, they went on to the church. Just at the entrance of the porch, Vera clutched at Paula, with the whisper, "Wasn't that Wilfred Merrifield? There, crossing?"

"Nonsense," was Paula's reply, as she lingered over the illuminated list of the hours of services displayed at the door, and feeling as if she had attained dreamland, as she saw two fully habited Sisters enter, and bend low as they did so.

The church was very elaborately ornamented, small, but showing that no expense had been spared, though there was something that did not quite accord with Magdalen's ideas of the best taste; so that when they went out she answered Paula's raptures of admiration somewhat coldly, or what so appeared to the enthusiastic girl.

The next day, meeting Miss Mohun over cutting out for a working party, Magdalen asked her about the Flights and St. Kenelm's.

"He is an excellent good man," said Jane Mohun, "and has laid out immense sums on the church and parish."

"All his own? Not subscription?"

"No. He is the only son of a very rich City man, a brewer, and came here with his mother as a curate, as a good place for health. They found a miserable little corrugated-iron place, called the Kennel Chapel, and worked it up, raising the people, and doing no end of good till it came to be a district, as St. Kenelm's."

"Very ornamental?"

"Oh, very," said Jane, warming out of caution, as she felt she might venture showing city gorgeousness all over. "But it is infinitely to his credit. He had a Fortunatus' purse, and was a spoilt child--not in the bad sense--but with an utterly idolising mother, and he tried a good many experiments that made our hair stand on end; but he has sobered down, and is a much wiser man now--though I would not be bound to admire all he does."

"I see there are Sisters? Do they belong to his arrangements?"

"Yes. They are what my brother calls Cousins of Mercy. The elder one has tried two or three Sisterhoods, and being dissatisfied with all the rules, I fancy she has some notion of trying to set up one on her own account at Mr. Flight's. They are both relations of his mother, and are really one of his experiments--fancy names and fancy rules, of course. I believe the young one wanted to call herself Sister Philomena, but that he could not stand. So they act as parish women here, and they do it very well. I liked Sister Beata when I have come in contact with her, and I am sure she is an excellent nurse. They will do your nieces no harm, though I don't like the irregular."

Of this a.s.surance Magdalen felt very glad, when at the door of the parish room, where the ladies were to hold a working party for the missions, Carrigaboola Missions at Albertstown, she and her nieces were introduced to the two ladies in hoods and veils; and Paula's eyes sparkled with delight as she settled into a chair next to Sister Mena. She looked as happy as Vera looked bored! Conversation was not possible while a missionary memoir was being read aloud, but the history of Mother Constance, once Lady Herbert Somerville, but then head at Dearport, and founder of the Daughter Sisterhood at Carrigaboola. To the Merrifields it was intensely interesting, and also to Magdalen; but all the time she could see demonstrations pa.s.sing between Paula and Sister Mena, a nice-looking girl, much embellished by the setting of the hood and veil, as if the lending of a pair of scissors or the turning of a hem were an act of tender admiration. So sweet a look came out on Paula's face that she longed to awaken the like. Vera meantime looked as if her only consolation lay in the neighbourhood of a window, whence she could see up the street, as soon as she had found whispers to Mysie Merrifield treated as impossible.

The party at the Goyle had begun to fall into regular habits, and struggles were infrequent. There was study in the forenoon, walks or cycle expeditions in the afternoon, varied by the lessons in music and in art, which Vera and Paula attended on Wednesdays and Fridays, the one in the morning, the other after dinner. It was possible to go to St. Andrew's matins at ten o'clock before the drawing cla.s.s, and to St. Kenelm's at five, after the music was over. Magdalen, whenever it was possible, went with her sisters on their bicycles to St. Andrew's, and sometimes devised errands that she might join them at St. Kenelm's, but neither could always be done by the head of the household. And she could perceive that her company was not specially welcome.

Valetta, the only one of the Clipstone family whose drawing was worth cultivating, used to ride into Rockstone, escorted by her brother Wilfred, who was in course of "cramming" with a curate on his way to his tutor, and Vera found in casual but well-cultivated meetings and partings, abundant excitement in "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," and now and then in the gift of a flower.

Paula on the other hand found equal interest and delight in meetings with Sister Mena, especially after a thunderstorm had driven the two to take refuge at what the Sisters called "the cell of St. Kenelm,"

and tea had unfolded their young simple hearts to one another!

Magdalen had called on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain provincial tw.a.n.g in her voice. She had a vehement desire for self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience. She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which she was acquainted, wore a dress of her own device, and with Sister Mena, a young cousin of her own, meant to make St. Kenelm's a nucleus for a Sisterhood of her own invention.

Sister Mena had been bred up in a Sisterhood's school, from five years old and upwards, and had no near relatives. Mr. Flight was Saint, Pope and hero to both, and Mena knew little beyond the horizon of St. Kenelm's, but she and Paula were fascinated with one another; and Magdalen saw more danger in interfering than in acquiescing, though she gave no consent to Paulina's aspirations after admission into the perfect Sisterhood that was to be.

CHAPTER VIII--Sn.o.bBISHNESS

"Why then should vain repinings rise, That to thy lover fate denies A n.o.bler name, a wide domain?"--SCOTT.

The friendship with the Sisters was about three weeks old when, one morning, scaffold poles were being erected in the new side aisle of St. Kenelm's Church, and superintending them was a tall dark-haired young man. There was a start of mutual recognition; and by and by he met Paula and Vera in the porch, and there were eager hand-clasps and greetings, as befitted old friends meeting in a strange place.

"Mr. Hubert! I heard you were coming!"

"Miss Vera! Miss Paula! This is a pleasure."

Then followed an introduction of Sister Mena, whose elder companion was away, attending a sick person.

"May I ask whether you are living here?"

"Two miles off at the Goyle, at Arns...o...b.., with our sister."