"Ah me!" exclaimed Mrs. Dale, as soon as Hopkins had taken himself off.

"What is it, mamma? He's a dear old man, but surely what he says cannot make you really unhappy."

"It is so hard to know what one ought to do. I did not mean to be selfish, but it seems to me as though I were doing the most selfish thing in the world."

"Nay, mamma; it has been anything but selfish. Besides, it is we that have done it; not you."

"Do you know, Lily, that I also have that feeling as to breaking up one's old mode of life of which Hopkins spoke. I thought that I should be glad to escape from this place, but now that the time has come I dread it."

"Do you mean that you repent?"

Mrs. Dale did not answer her daughter at once, fearing to commit herself by words which could not be retracted. But at last she said, "Yes, Lily; I think I do repent. I think that it has not been well done."

"Then let it be undone," said Lily.

The dinner-party at Guestwick Manor on that day was not very bright, and yet the earl had done all in his power to make his guests happy.

But gaiety did not come naturally to his house, which, as will have been seen, was an abode very unlike in its nature to that of the other earl at Courcy Castle. Lady De Courcy at any rate understood how to receive and entertain a house full of people, though the practice of doing so might give rise to difficult questions in the privacy of her domestic relations. Lady Julia did not understand it; but then Lady Julia was never called upon to answer for the expense of extra servants, nor was she asked about twice a week who the ---- was to pay the wine-merchant's bill? As regards Lord De Guest and the Lady Julia themselves, I think they had the best of it; but I am bound to admit, with reference to chance guests, that the house was dull. The people who were now gathered at the earl's table could hardly have been expected to be very sprightly when in company with each other. The squire was not a man much given to general society, and was unused to amuse a table full of people. On the present occasion he sat next to Lady Julia, and from time to time muttered a few words to her about the state of the country. Mrs.

Eames was terribly afraid of everybody there, and especially of the earl, next to whom she sat, and whom she continually called "my lord," showing by her voice as she did so that she was almost alarmed by the sound of her own voice. Mr. and Mrs. Boyce were there, the parson sitting on the other side of Lady Julia, and the parson's wife on the other side of the earl. Mrs. Boyce was very studious to show that she was quite at home, and talked perhaps more than any one else; but in doing so she bored the earl most exquisitely, so that he told John Eames the next morning that she was worse than the bull.

The parson ate his dinner, but said little or nothing between the two graces. He was a heavy, sensible, slow man, who knew himself and his own powers. "Uncommon good stewed beef," he said, as he went home; "why can't we have our beef stewed like that?" "Because we don't pay our cook sixty pounds a year," said Mrs. Boyce. "A woman with sixteen pounds can stew beef as well as a woman with sixty," said he; "she only wants looking after." The earl himself was possessed of a sort of gaiety. There was about him a lightness of spirit which often made him an agreeable companion to one single person. John Eames conceived him to be the most sprightly old man of his day,--an old man with the fun and frolic almost of a boy. But this spirit, though it would show itself before John Eames, was not up to the entertainment of John Eames's mother and sister, together with the squire, the parson, and the parson's wife of Allington. So that the earl was overweighted and did not shine on this occasion at his own dinner-table. Dr. Crofts, who had also been invited, and who had secured the place which was now peculiarly his own, next to Bell Dale, was no doubt happy enough; as, let us hope, was the young lady also; but they added very little to the general hilarity of the company. John Eames was seated between his own sister and the parson, and did not at all enjoy his position.

He had a full view of the doctor's felicity, as the happy pair sat opposite to him, and conceived himself to be hardly treated by Lily's absence.

The party was certainly very dull, as were all such dinners at Guestwick Manor. There are houses, which, in their every-day course, are not conducted by any means in a sad or unsatisfactory manner,--in which life, as a rule, runs along merrily enough; but which cannot give a dinner-party; or, I might rather say, should never allow themselves to be allured into the attempt. The owners of such houses are generally themselves quite aware of the fact, and dread the dinner which they resolved to give quite as much as it is dreaded by their friends. They know that they prepare for their guests an evening of misery, and for themselves certain long hours of purgatory which are hardly to be endured. But they will do it. Why that long table, and all those supernumerary glasses and knives and forks, if they are never to be used? That argument produces all this misery; that and others cognate to it. On the present occasion, no doubt, there were excuses to be made. The squire and his niece had been invited on special cause, and their presence would have been well enough. The doctor added in would have done no harm. It was good-natured, too, that invitation given to Mrs. Eames and her daughter. The error lay in the parson and his wife. There was no necessity for their being there, nor had they any ground on which to stand, except the party-giving ground. Mr. and Mrs. Boyce made the dinner-party, and destroyed the social circle. Lady Julia knew that she had been wrong as soon as she had sent out the note.

Nothing was said on that evening which has any bearing on our story.

Nothing, indeed, was said which had any bearing on anything. The earl's professed object had been to bring the squire and young Eames together; but people are never brought together on such melancholy occasions. Though they sip their port in close contiguity, they are poles asunder in their minds and feelings. When the Guestwick fly came for Mrs. Eames, and the parson's pony phaeton came for him and Mrs. Boyce, a great relief was felt; but the misery of those who were left had gone too far to allow of any reaction on that evening. The squire yawned, and the earl yawned, and then there was an end of it for that night.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE SECOND VISIT TO THE GUESTWICK BRIDGE.

Bell had declared that her sister would be very happy to see John Eames if he would go over to Allington, and he had replied that of course he would go there. So much having been, as it were, settled, he was able to speak of his visit as a matter of course at the breakfast-table, on the morning after the earl's dinner-party.

"I must get you to come round with me, Dale, and see what I am doing to the land," the earl said. And then he proposed to order saddle-horses. But the squire preferred walking, and in this way they were disposed of soon after breakfast.

John had it in his mind to get Bell to himself for half an hour, and hold a conference with her; but it either happened that Lady Julia was too keen in her duties as a hostess, or else, as was more possible, Bell avoided the meeting. No opportunity for such an interview offered itself, though he hung about the drawing-room all the morning. "You had better wait for luncheon, now," Lady Julia said to him about twelve. But this he declined; and taking himself away hid himself about the place for the next hour and a half. During this time he considered much whether it would be better for him to ride or walk. If she should give him any hope, he could ride back triumphant as a field-marshal. Then the horse would be delightful to him. But if she should give him no hope,--if it should be his destiny to be rejected utterly on that morning,--then the horse would be terribly in the way of his sorrow. Under such circumstances what could he do but roam wide about across the fields, resting when he might choose to rest, and running when it might suit him to run. "And she is not like other girls," he thought to himself. "She won't care for my boots being dirty." So at last he elected to walk.

"Stand up to her boldly, man," the earl had said to him. "By George, what is there to be afraid of? It's my belief they'll give most to those who ask for most. There's nothing sets 'em against a man like being sheepish." How the earl knew so much, seeing that he had not himself given signs of any success in that walk of life, I am not prepared to say. But Eames took his advice as being in itself good, and resolved to act upon it. "Not that any resolution will be of any use," he said to himself, as he walked along. "When the moment comes I know that I shall tremble before her, and I know that she'll see it; but I don't think it will make any difference in her."

He had last seen her on the lawn behind the Small House, just at that time when her passion for Crosbie was at the strongest. Eames had gone thither impelled by a foolish desire to declare to her his hopeless love, and she had answered him by telling him that she loved Mr. Crosbie better than all the world besides. Of course she had done so, at that time; but, nevertheless, her manner of telling him had seemed to him to be cruel. And he also had been cruel. He had told her that he hated Crosbie,--calling him "that man," and assuring her that no earthly consideration should induce him to go into "that man's house." Then he had walked away moodily wishing him all manner of evil. Was it not singular that all the evil things which he, in his mind, had meditated for the man, had fallen upon him. Crosbie had lost his love! He had so proved himself to be a villain that his name might not be so much as mentioned! He had been ignominiously thrashed! But what good would all this be if his image were still dear to Lily's heart? "I told her that I loved her then," he said to himself, "though I had no right to do so. At any rate I have a right to tell her now."

When he reached Allington he did not go in through the village and up to the front of the Small House by the cross street, but turned by the church gate and passed over the squire's terrace, and by the end of the Great House through the garden. Here he encountered Hopkins.

"Why, if that b'aint Mr. Eames!" said the gardener. "Mr. John, may I make so bold!" and Hopkins held out a very dirty hand, which Eames of course took, unconscious of the cause of this new affection.

"I'm just going to call at the Small House, and I thought I'd come this way."

"To be sure; this way, or that way, or any way, who's so welcome, Mr.

John? I envies you; I envies you more than I envies any man. If I could a got him by the scuff of the neck, I'd a treated him jist like any wermin;--I would, indeed! He was wermin! I ollays said it. I hated him ollays; I did indeed, Mr. John, from the first moment when he used to be nigging away at them foutry balls, knocking them in among the rhododendrons, as though there weren't no flower blossoms for next year. He never looked at one as though one were a Christian; did he, Mr. John?"

"I wasn't very fond of him myself, Hopkins."

"Of course you weren't very fond of him. Who was?--only she, poor young lady. She'll be better now, Mr. John, a deal better. He wasn't a wholesome lover,--not like you are. Tell me, Mr. John, did you give it him well when you got him? I heard you did;--two black eyes, and all his face one mash of gore!" And Hopkins, who was by no means a young man, stiffly put himself into a fighting attitude.

Eames passed on over the little bridge, which seemed to be in a state of fast decay, unattended to by any friendly carpenter, now that the days of its use were so nearly at an end; and on into the garden, lingering on the spot where he had last said farewell to Lily. He looked about as though he expected still to find her there; but there was no one to be seen in the garden, and no sound to be heard. As every step brought him nearer to her whom he was seeking, he became more and more conscious of the hopelessness of his errand. Him she had never loved, and why should he venture to hope that she would love him now? He would have turned back had he not been aware that his promise to others required that he should persevere. He had said that he would do this thing, and he would be as good as his word. But he hardly ventured to hope that he might be successful. In this frame of mind he slowly made his way up across the lawn.

"My dear, there is John Eames," said Mrs. Dale, who had first seen him from the parlour window.

"Don't go, mamma."

"I don't know; perhaps it will be better that I should."

"No, mamma, no; what good can it do? It can do no good. I like him as well as I can like any one. I love him dearly. But it can do no good.

Let him come in here, and be very kind to him; but do not go away and leave us. Of course I knew he would come, and I shall be very glad to see him."

Then Mrs. Dale went round to the other room, and admitted her visitor through the window of the drawing-room. "We are in terrible confusion, John, are we not?"

"And so you are really going to live in Guestwick?"

"Well, it looks like it, does it not? But, to tell you a secret,--only it must be a secret; you must not mention it at Guestwick Manor; even Bell does not know;--we have half made up our minds to unpack all our things and stay where we are."

Eames was so intent on his own purpose, and so fully occupied with the difficulty of the task before him, that he could hardly receive Mrs. Dale's tidings with all the interest which they deserved.

"Unpack them all again," he said. "That will be very troublesome. Is Lily with you, Mrs. Dale?"

"Yes, she is in the parlour. Come and see her." So he followed Mrs.

Dale through the hall, and found himself in the presence of his love.

"How do you do, John?" "How do you do, Lily?" We all know the way in which such meetings are commenced. Each longed to be tender and affectionate to the other,--each in a different way; but neither knew how to throw any tenderness into this first greeting. "So you're staying at the Manor House," said Lily.

"Yes; I'm staying there. Your uncle and Bell came yesterday afternoon."

"Have you heard about Bell?" said Mrs. Dale.

"Oh, yes; Mary told me. I'm so glad of it. I always liked Dr. Crofts very much. I have not congratulated her, because I didn't know whether it was a secret. But Crofts was there last night, and if it is a secret he didn't seem to be very careful about keeping it."

"It is no secret," said Mrs. Dale. "I don't know that I am fond of such secrets." But as she said this, she thought of Crosbie's engagement, which had been told to every one, and of its consequences.

"Is it to be soon?" he asked.

"Well, yes; we think so. Of course nothing is settled."

"It was such fun," said Lily. "James, who took, at any rate, a year or two to make his proposal, wanted to be married the next day afterwards."

"No, Lily; not quite that."

"Well, mamma, it was very nearly that. He thought it could all be done this week. It has made us so happy, John! I don't know anybody I should so much like for a brother. I'm very glad you like him;--very glad. I hope you'll be friends always." There was some little tenderness in this,--as John acknowledged to himself.

"I'm sure we shall,--if he likes it. That is, if I ever happen to see him. I'll do anything for him I can if he ever comes up to London.