"Oh no, Raymond; I am afraid that is impossible. My dear boy, it is such pain to me--to--to--"

Mrs. Wilton was in tears again, and Salome murmured, "How can you be so selfish, Raymond?" while Reginald, unable to control his indignation, went out of the room, shutting the door with a sharp bang.

"Oh, well, mother, I'll go to this Mr. Warde's, of course, and I daresay they will give me a good salary, and then I will get you some other lodgings the very first thing; see if I don't. I am not going to allow you to be shelved off here; and Ada! I daresay these Edinburgh Crescent people are jealous of her. There is not one of them half as good-looking."

"Oh, why did Ada smile and look pleased? Why did Raymond always get undeserved praise?" Salome thought. For Mrs. Wilton said, "It is very good and dear of you to think about us, Ray; I only hope you will be happy. My children's happiness is now the only thing I have to live for."

Salome bit her lip, as she listened to her brother for the next ten minutes, standing now with his back to the chimney-piece surveying the room, and interspersing his remarks on it, which were anything but complimentary, with stories of "Barington," and a fellow who had dined with them at "The Queen's."

"Shall we have prayers, mother?" Salome said at last. "You must be very tired, and--"

"Prayers! oh, not to-night, Sal; besides, who is to read them?" said Raymond.

Salome faltered a little as she said, "We can read a Psalm for the Evening in turn, and perhaps mother will say a prayer."

"Yes," Mrs. Wilton said; "you are quite right, dear. Call Reg and Stevens, and bring me my large prayer-book, for my eyes are so weak. I am in the evening of life, as Mrs. Pryor told me," she added with a sad smile; "and the last month has added ten years to my age."

"Why, mother, you look so young," said Ada. "I do dislike Mrs. Pryor talking in that whiny-piny voice; and how disagreeable she was about Puck."

Salome, who had gone to fetch the books, now returned with Stevens and Reginald, whom she had coaxed to come back. Then she found the places in the books, and the young voices read together the Psalm for the Seventh Evening. It seemed to bring its message of peace to the young, untried heart of the eldest daughter of those fatherless children.

"Fret not thyself because of the unG.o.dly.... Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good: dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. _Delight_ thou in the Lord: and he shall give thee thy heart's desire."

"I will try to delight myself--that means, be cheerful and patient,"

Salome thought. "I must take care not to be too hard on Raymond, as if I thought myself better than he. But I feel as if it would be a _fight_ now, and as if I should never be able to forget the troubles quite. I must set myself to be patient and cure my own faults, and be as happy as I can, that mother may see we are all trying to help her, and that we _like_ to help her. How far, far worse it is for her than for any of us."

Thoughts like these were in Salome's heart as she lay down to sleep that night, and there was a shining as it were from the "delight in the Lord"

upon her young, sweet face, as her mother, weary, yet sleepless, took her candle and went to look at her children as of old in the s.p.a.cious nurseries of Maplestone. The little boys lay in the profoundest slumber, and the mother's heart yearned over them with unspeakable tenderness. But as she left them and gently opened the door of the girls' room, and stood by the bed where the sisters slept, she felt as if the story of the last few weeks had left its trace on Salome's face.

The expression was changed, and though bright and sweet, it was the face of the woman rather than of the child. Salome had entered the school where G.o.d takes the text and preaches patience.

CHAPTER IX.

"SETTLING DOWN."

It is wonderful how the wave of a great storm carries us unresisting on its crest. We are, as it were, washed ash.o.r.e; stunned and bewildered for a time, but soon to find the necessity of struggling onward--to do our best. Stripped of all we have held dear,--however desolate, however bare, life must be faced and the burden must be borne.

Children like the Wiltons have youth and the freshness of spring-time to help them on; while women of Mrs. Wilton's age--in the autumn of her days--naturally clinging for support to others, are more likely to collapse, like the ivy when the prop on which it depended is removed.

A man so widely respected as Mr. Wilton had been was not without friends, and several of them came forward with valuable and substantial help. Ready money to meet the current expenses which were absolutely necessary was kindly offered; and Mr. De Brette wrote to Mrs. Wilton, after the sale at Maplestone, to say he had bought in one or two pictures, and some other little things, which she was to accept as a small token of grat.i.tude for services rendered to him by Mr. Wilton in past years. The arrival of these things in the van from the railway caused great excitement amongst the children, while the sight of them seemed to open afresh the flood-gates of poor Mrs. Wilton's grief. They were chosen with that sympathetic feeling of what she would care for most, which doubled the value of the gifts. Her own and her husband's portrait, painted by a good artist at the time of her marriage; a beautiful copy of the San Sisto Madonna; her own devonport; a certain chair which she had always used; and the table and chair from Mr.

Wilton's library; and a good many little odds and ends of familiar things. And a box containing enough plate for everyday use was brought by Mr. De Brette himself, and placed in Mrs. Wilton's hands.

The settling in of all these things was an interest and delight to the children, and Mrs. Wilton was glad for their sakes that it was so.

Mrs. Pryor could not be brought to admire anything. She was incredulous as to the ident.i.ty of the fair, graceful, smiling girl in the picture with the pale, careworn widow lady who sat beneath it. As to the poor gentleman, he might have been good-looking, but he was not fit to hold a candle to the doctor. But she had been used to such beautiful pictures at her dear departed lady's house--nothing could look _much_ after them.

Her bitterest shafts were hurled against the devonport, to make room for which an old mahogany what-not had to be removed: "A clumsy thing, and yet all gim-cracky, with a lot of little drawers--no use to anybody. She hoped she was not expected to dust all them things, for she just honestly said she wasn't going to do it."

But at last all was settled down, and except for the standing grievance of Puck, peace was proclaimed. Puck had made a pretence of living at the shop, but this stratagem did not avail for long. He was continually rushing to and fro, and was oftener at Elm Cottage than at the baker's shop; but Mrs. Pryor thought more highly of him than at first, for he waged war against a large cat that Mrs. Pryor had convicted of killing a canary, and still occasionally dared to haunt the back premises to look for another victim! Puck's growls succeeded so well, that Mr. Tom contented himself with sitting on the low red-brick wall, with his back raised to a level with his head, and his tail swelled to the size of the boa Mrs. Pryor wore round her throat in winter.

Her son Frank, who left most of the conversation necessary to his wife, was heard to say, at the end of the first week of the Wiltons taking up their abode at Elm Cottage: "We live and learn. If any one had told me my mother would take children as lodgers, and those children with a little dog at their heels, I shouldn't have believed them. We shall see her with a monkey from the 'Zoo' next."

Lady Monroe was not slow to fulfil her promise of calling on her old friend, bringing Eva with her; and it so happened that Mrs. Loftus Wilton, Louise, and Kate arrived on the same day. The little square drawing-room was filled; and Hans and Carl, rushing up to the room where Salome sat with her old music portfolio and her ma.n.u.script, shouted out,--"Two carriages full of people are come to see mother. Go down, Salome."

"Ada is there," Salome said, telling the children not to talk so loud; and then she looked ruefully at her inked forefinger, and wished she had mended the c.r.a.pe on the skirt of her dress before she put it on that day.

"Miss Wilton--Miss Salome--my dear, do make haste; your mamma will be so pressed and worried. There's Mrs. Doctor Wilton, with a train of black silk long enough to reach from here to the gate almost. Do make haste, Miss Salome, my dear. If there isn't another knock! Dear me, I can't abide answering the door; it has never been my business." And Stevens bustled down, exhorting the children not to peep through the banisters, and signing to Salome to follow her, she disappeared to answer the door to Mr. and Mrs. Atherton. But happily Mrs. Atherton had seen the two carriages at the gate, and was just giving the cards to Stevens, saying she would come again, when Salome appeared.

"We hear your mother has visitors," said Mrs. Atherton, in one of those voices which ring with the clear sweetness of truth,--the voice which is so different from the "put on" or company voice, or the voice which regulates itself to the supposed requirements of the moment. "We will come again very soon. I hope your mother is pretty well?"

"Yes, thank you," said Salome. "Won't you come in?"

"No; we are near neighbours at the vicarage," Mr. Atherton said. "We were your predecessors here," he said with a smile; "so we know the rooms will not hold large levees. I want to know your brothers. I saw two elder ones at church with you on Sunday. If they care for cricket, we have a game going on every Sat.u.r.day in the field above the church."

"Reginald is at the college now; but I will tell him, thank you."

And then, as Mr. and Mrs. Atherton said good-bye, Lady Monroe and her daughter came into the little pa.s.sage with Ada.

"We shall only tire your mamma if we stay now," she said; "but I have made her promise to drive with me to-morrow if it is fine, and either you or your sister must come also."

Salome and Ada, after a few more words, went together to the little sitting-room, where their mother sat, flushed and ill at ease, with their Aunt Anna, Louise, and Kate.

Kate sprang up when Salome came in and kissed her affectionately; while her mother said, "How do you do?--is this Salome?" and then, with a very light salute on her cheek, went on in the same even current of talk which the entrance of the girls had checked, not stopped.

"I want to see your little brothers," Kate said to Salome; "may I come with you and find them? Louise can talk with Ada; they are certain to get on."

Salome glanced at her mother, who looked so worn-out and tired and sad, and wondered at her Aunt Anna's conversation, which all concerned herself and her friends, and her own interests and amus.e.m.e.nts. But it seemed hopeless to help her, and she left the room with Kate.

Hans and Carl were painting pictures in the dining-room, and Kate had soon finished with them.

"Why, they are twins, aren't they? Have you got to teach them? What a bore for you! Now show me your room. It is not so bad, really; and I like the look of your sitting-room--it has a home-like air. What a smoke! Where does that come from?" she said, looking from the window of Salome's room.

"That is the bake-house," Salome said. "Mr. Pryor is our landlady's son; and the garden is separated from ours by that wall."

"I smell the bread," Kate exclaimed; "it's rather nice. And what is this?" she said, pausing on the heap of foolscap paper lying on the chest of drawers. "Essays--papers? 'Chapter I.' Why, I believe it is a story. Have you actually written a story? You look like an auth.o.r.ess.

Digby says he never saw a cleverer face than yours, and he quite admires you. Read me a bit of the story; tell me the names of the people."

Poor Salome was suffering all this time the pangs which sensitive natures like hers can only understand. To have her secret hopes and fears thus ruthlessly dragged to light--to see her sheets, which, alas for her wonted carelessness, ought to have been hidden in one of those deep drawers, fingered by strange hands, was misery to her. She tried to take them from her cousin's grasp; but she held them fast, and began to read:--

"'Under the shadow of a spreading cedar-tree, two little--'"

Salome was now really angry; her eyes flashed, and she said, "Give me the ma.n.u.script directly, Kate. It is excessively rude; I hate it; I--"

"Oh, I am only in fun. I don't see anything so wonderful in writing a story. Hundreds of people write now-a-days. I hope you will get fifty pounds for 'Under the shadow of the cedars.' Dear me, I did not think you could 'flare up' like that."

"I hope you won't tell any one about what you have seen," said poor Salome in a trembling voice. "I hope--"