"IT'S getting to be a regular storm! What a lot of storms we have had lately, to be sure! Just hark to the wind," said Jessie Perkins. "And I do believe I can hear the waves down at the Point. I do believe I can."

Miss Perkins sewed on solemnly. She was seated at the round deal table, with her shoulder towards the light.

"Aunt Barbara, you just listen. . . Can't you hear the waves? I can! . . . Mrs. Mokes will have it that nobody's ever heard them as far off as this; but I know better. I've heard them many a time at night, when it's rough; and I declare I can now. You just hark!"

"There isn't over much chance of anybody hearing anything, except your clapper, when you're in the room," Miss Perkins observed with severity.

"But I stopped talking twice on purpose, and you wouldn't try to listen. There it is again—a regular boom!—as clear as can be. And it's getting so dark. I can't think how ever you can manage to see at all, away there at the table. It's all I can do to thread my needle here."

"I'm not so desperate fond of staring out o' windows as some folks," snapped Miss Perkins.

Jessie sighed audibly, and took another peep through the clustering plants which intercepted her view of the outside world. It was not easy to see anything clearly, with so substantial a screen in the way. She had, however, a distinct glimpse of the shop opposite, beyond the wide and irregular village street, also of a group standing on the flagged pathway in front of the said shop.

"Something is the matter. I am sure something is the matter," she murmured, deeply interested.

Jessie allowed her work to fall upon her knees, whence it slid to the ground. Her pretty little short face, neatly rounded and rosily coloured, became altogether absorbed in what was going on across the road.

"I'll have that window blocked up some day,—see if I don't,—the bottom half of it," burst out Miss Perkins. "That's what I'll do."

Jessie had perhaps heard the threat before. "But where's the hurry?" she asked. "I've heaps of time, aunt Barbara. You said yourself I shouldn't need those night-dresses till next winter; and March isn't out yet. Just hear the wind! What a howl! I wish I was out in it . . . Something has happened somewhere, I'm quite sure. Mr. Mokes is all in a taking. And there's Mr. Gilbert, and a sailor,—I think it's Robins,—and—and there's Ben too."

Jessie's face grew more pink. Not that she cared a brass farthing for Ben Mokes; but he was one of her admirers, and she did care for admiration.

"Ben Mokes is as idle and useless a young spendthrift as ever lived," commented Miss Perkins. "I wonder at his parents for letting him go on as he does. I wouldn't! I'd make him work, or I'd send him about his business. Old Mokes just slaves, and Alice Mokes like another; and Ben don't do a single hand's turn that he isn't obliged. But there! They've spoilt him all through, and they've got to reap as they've sowed. He'll come to no good, nor nobody else that he has to do with."

This outburst seemed to amuse Jessie immensely. She had to bite her lips to keep in laughter.

"Poor Ben! Oh, he's well enough, aunt Barbara. He isn't handsome, and he's awfully lazy and rather stupid, but I don't see how he can help that. People can't help being stupid when they are made so. Can they?"

Miss Perkins did not feel herself competent to answer this question. It involved too much. She sewed in a persistent and combative fashion, the droop at the end of her thin pinched nose very near indeed to her needle. Perhaps her sight had begun to fail a little, for she was well over fifty; besides, it was uncommonly dark and dull for only half-past four o'clock on an afternoon in the end of March. Twice she looked round with indignant protest at the window, as if somehow it were to blame.

"I can't possibly see to work any more. I couldn't if you paid me for it," Jessie observed. "I'll wait till we have lights, or till it gets clearer. It's hours too early for lights yet. I don't see the good of sitting here doing nothing . . . Aunt Barbara, there is something wrong, and I'm going to see what it is. Don't hinder me. I must go."

Miss Perkins gazed in grim disapproval after the girl's retreating figure, and said nothing. She pretty well knew the extent of her own restraining power, and she did not often risk a battle where she could not be secure of victory. But, oh, the ways of these giddy young folks! Miss Perkins shook her head over them all, including Jessie.

Even while Jessie chattered the wind had been audible enough, and now nothing hindered her from listening. It came in rushes, with a roar each time as of a great gun, swirling round the cottages, bending trees like reeds, shrieking in the chimney, and making Jessie's light figure stagger as she struggled across the road. She had caught up a small woollen shawl, wrapping it round head and shoulders. Though Jessie wanted greatly to know what was wrong, she was not in the least alarmed or anxious. It only formed a nice excuse for getting away from the needlework which she abhorred.

But other people viewed the matter after a more serious fashion, and Jessie speedily found herself close to a troubled and intent group; far too much troubled and far too intent to pay any attention to her little self.

The village shop, outside which they were gathered, stood back, country-wise, in its own garden, where in summer stray ramblers from the neighbourhood were wont to sit and have their tea. On the front flagged pathway, between door and gate, stood Mokes himself, a man of elderly middle age, bareheaded and aproned. His manners were marked by mild suavity and by an air of proper dignity. His face was all over of a reddish tan, the nose thickish, but well-shaped; the light-tinted eyes, under bushy brows, keen and benevolent; the grey hair brushed upwards, converging to a point. Gusts of wind creeping round a corner of the house blew his apron to and fro in vehement jerks; but Mr. Mokes stood with an unruffled air and an expression of solemn concern.

Mrs. Mokes, having no customers on hand, was peering out of the front door; and Ben Mokes, her hopeful youngest, a limp lanky youth, lounged in his father's rear. Only Alice remained within. Somebody had to see to things, and Alice, as a matter of course, was that somebody.

Before Mokes stood a weather-beaten sailor, or rather fisherman, in blue jersey and sou'-wester; and beside him was a boyish-looking smooth-shaven individual, in black coat and white necktie, the new Vicar of Old Maxham. Judging from appearances, he might have been under one-and-twenty; but since he had already filled two Curacies, remaining in each about two years, and since no man can be ordained under the age of twenty-three, it is obvious that in his case looks were deceptive. The youthful features of the Vicar showed excitement.

"And you actually mean, Mr. Mokes, that there is no lifeboat nearer than twelve miles off!" Mr. Gilbert gave vent to these words, just as Jessie arrived on the scene, in an extraordinarily deep voice, which no one would have expected from his boyish appearance. "Twelve miles off, with such a coast, such rocks, such currents, as yours!" He had not been in the place a fortnight, and the pronoun "our" did not yet come readily.

"That's so, sir," admitted Mokes, with an air of regret. "It hadn't ought to be; and times and again we've talked over what could be done. But there's a lot of difficulties in the way."

"Talked! Ah, I see! Every time a ship goes to pieces on your rocks, you talk about a lifeboat. And then, when the storm is over, you forget it all,—till next time! That's it: eh?"

Mokes shook his head mildly. He "supposed it had ought to be seen to, but he didn't know; it didn't seem to be nobody's business in particular."

"It's everybody's business," declared Mr. Gilbert. "And it's a disgrace to Maxham to have no lifeboat. I don't care who hears me say it. A disgrace to Maxham!" The speaker's fair boyish face flushed, while his deep tones rolled down the street. "See now, if, instead of talking, you had all clubbed together and bought a boat, those poor fellows who are coming to their death upon the rocks might have been saved, one and all of them. Do you think the people of Maxham won't be reckoned accountable for the untimely death of those poor men? I tell you it's everybody's business, and everybody has a share in the responsibility."

Mokes could have been offended; but he remembered that it was the Vicar who spoke, and also that the Vicar was young.

"At all events, that reproach shall not lie upon Maxham much longer. I'll start a subscription for the boat next Sunday." Mr. Gilbert came from a large town, and, as everybody knows, a subscription list in a town is the panacea for all evils. "Why it hasn't been done before passes my comprehension. Well, but look here—what's to be done now? We can't leave those poor fellows to rush on their death without an effort to save them. Women on board, too, you say."

"Adams was sure he see'd one, sir, through his glass. But he doubted no boat could live in this sea, without it was a lifeboat."

"We can try; always possible to try. Better to die doing our duty than to live with the duty left undone!" The "our" came naturally enough here. "Out of the question that the lifeboat should arrive in time. She'll be on the rocks in less than an hour, and it will be short work then. Whose is the best boat? And who can row?"

Mokes gently rubbed the side of his head, surveying the speaker with dubious eyes.

"Come! Whose boat shall it be? And who will man it? I'm the first volunteer."

"Then I'm the second," added Robins. "I'll never be the one to hold back, though I doubt it'll be no good. They're doomed, poor chaps."

"No man is doomed while life remains—at all events, so far as our knowledge is concerned. Here are two of us ready, and we may count upon Adams. He is old, but he knows every inch of the rocks, and he must steer. Adams will be the third, I don't doubt. Who's fourth?"

"Here's your fourth, sir," a voice said behind; and at the sound Jessie clasped her hands under the shawl which she wore. A lithe well-built young fellow stood outside the gate. At sight of him Mokes' face fell, and on the younger Mokes' brow might be noted an unpleasant scowl.

"Right, my lad! And your name?"

"Jack Groates."

"Good at an oar?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know what it's for? A work of danger."

"Yes, sir, a barque drifting on to the rocks."

"She's disabled, and she'll be on them in less than an hour. If she doesn't break up with the first crash, we may get off the crew. But it will be a ticklish job. Ready?"

Jack Groates nodded.

"Then the sooner the better. Any more volunteers?" Mr. Gilbert looked towards young Mokes. "Are you good at rowing in rough weather?"

Ben Mokes knew himself to be probably as good as Jack Groates, but he said nothing, and a shrill voice sounded in his rear,—

"Not our Ben! Ben's not to go. You hear, Ben! You ain't going!"

Ben shuffled sheepishly from one foot to the other. Jessie's eyes sparkled, as the three started off at a swinging pace, and Mrs. Mokes came out with a red face of indignation.

"I never heard of such a thing in all my born days! To be wanting our Ben, the only boy we've got! Why, they'll all be drowned, as sure as fate."

"It's as bad for others, I s'pose, if they are," burst out Jessie. "Jack Groates has a mother too."

"He's one of seven; that's all the difference," retorted Mrs. Mokes. "You go home, Jessie, and don't be talking of things you can't understand. And you just tell your aunt—"

"Not yet. I'm going to take a look at the shore first and see what's doing."

"Of all idle girls—" began Mrs. Mokes. "Well, I'm sure Miss Perkins has a handful of her, and no mistake."

Jessie did not wait to hear the latter half of this utterance. The wind was cold as well as boisterous but she folded her shawl more closely round her, and set off at full speed for the nearest part of the distant shore—that jutting rock which was known among them as "Reef Point." Many and many a good vessel had come to grief on those rocks.

CHAPTER II

A BRAVE VENTURE

THE fishermen's cottages near Reef Point were strictly an outlying part of Maxham, possibly a more ancient part than even the village; but they were commonly distinguished as being simply "down at the Point."

Despite the perilous nature of the coast, these very rocks would, when the wind was westerly, make something of a sheltered semi-harbour between themselves and the shore. In fair weather it was no such bad place for fishing; and when rough weather came on from the east, the boats which were out made no attempt to get back to Maxham. They would take refuge in the next fishing village, and await a favourable change. The fishermen of Maxham were a hardy race; and their wives had grown used to a life of suspense. If a storm broke, they were well pleased not to see their husbands' boats near land.

An unwonted stir was created when the young clergyman, with his two companions, dashed into the hamlet, demanding volunteers. Attention was already, of course, wide awake on the subject of the unhappy barque; though nobody supposed that much could be done. The men at first held back, and the women threw their influence into the safe side of the scale. But when it dawned upon them who was the first volunteer, when they looked into Mr. Gilbert's face, and heard his deep eager indignant voice, opposition wavered. How could they continue to hold back, when a clergyman and a shopman were willing to go?

It might be just possible that a boat could approach near enough, when the barque drifted on the rocks, to save any men who threw themselves overboard, or who could be hauled in with a line. All agreed that to attempt to get beyond the reef, through one of the narrow openings in it, would, in such a sea, be worse than madness. But at least it was worth making the venture of doing what they could. In a very short time the crew was complete, and the chosen boat was down at the water's edge in readiness.

By this stage Jessie had arrived on the spot, cold and blue-lipped, despite her run, with a chill at her little heart. She stood somewhat apart, looking on forlornly; and there Jack Groates caught sight of her.

He dropped a rope, and sprang to her side. The attention of everybody else was bent upon the tossing helpless barque, dimly seen at intervals in the offing. In Mokes' garden Jack Groates had barely acknowledged Jessie's presence, partly because his mind was full of another matter, partly because he knew what the Mokes family felt about his family, and he did not wish to draw blame upon Jessie. Now, however, there was not the same restraint.

"Jessie! You here! Whatever did you come for?"

"I wanted to see—" Words failed, and she clutched a corner of her shawl between two chilly hands.

"Don't stay. Go back straight home. It isn't fit for you to be here. You're like ice."

"You won't—won't—" she struggled to say, "won't get into danger?"

"I'll do my duty, I hope. Danger may take care of itself."

"I don't want you to get hurt."

He just caught the words.

"Now look here, Jessie, you're to go back home directly. It's no good your staying, not one scrap. I've got to be off; and you can do something for me. Go and tell mother about it. Tell her I'm come because it's right, and I hadn't a moment to look in and see her. If she'd a boy on board, she'd want folks to try and save him; and there's some mothers have got boys on board. Tell her to think of that. Promise me you'll go."

"Yes," faltered Jessie.

"This very minute?"

"Yes."

"And you won't look back?"

"I'll—try not."

"Groates!" shouted a voice.

"Mind! You've promised!" And he was gone.

Jessie kept her word. She turned her back upon them all, and went swiftly up the rugged road, with furze bushes on either side, never pausing till a higher spot was reached, whence she knew she could command a good view of the sea she had left. Jessie hesitated then; and the temptation proved too strong. She had not actually promised to give no backward glance.

One look, and she stood rooted to the spot. At that instant the boat, just launched and not two strokes from the beach, was caught in the grasp of a huge swell, which turned her round broadside to the land, and flung her back, bottom up. Her crew was scattered right and left.

No sound left Jessie's lips. She only stood like an image, staring, till one and another swam or struggled to shore. All were there, safe so far and apparently unhurt. Another trial would be made; Jessie saw so much. Then, remembering her promise, she once more turned away and went on along the lonely road, with a weight pulling at her heart. Who could say whether she would ever again look Jack Groates in the face?

It seemed, oh, such a pity for Jack to risk his life. Not that she would have liked Jack to be willing to hold back. Jessie thought with scorn of Ben Mokes, lazily safe at home. And yet it did seem such a pity!

Jessie had hardly known till to-day how much she cared for Jack. Barely nine months had elapsed since first the elder Groates had set up his shop in Old Maxham, and Jessie had learnt very gradually to know the family. She knew them now well, and she liked them all, unless the father were to be excepted; but certainly Jack stood first in her estimation.

And perhaps he would be dashed to pieces on those cruel rocks. Jessie was aware that just such an attempt had been made before, with a common boat, some three or four years earlier; and she remembered too well the result. Not a man of the little crew had come back alive. Then she tried to comfort herself by murmuring that that storm was worse than this.

Jack's message had to be taken to his mother the first thing. So she made her way to the western end of the main village street, and was soon standing outside the rival establishment, which was distinguished from Mokes' "shop" by the more Yankee name of "store." Jessie waited a moment. Then she slipped softly in, passing without a pause to the room behind. Business being slack that afternoon, Mr. Groates stood alone at the counter, and since he was occupied in lifting down a big canister from a high shelf, he did not even see Jessie's entrance.

In the back room was Mrs. Groates, a plump genial blue-eyed little body, with a smile like Jack's own and a motherly tenderness which had quickly won Jessie's heart. Of the seven children, six were still at home. The boy next after Jack had gone to sea. Then came Mimy, a girl of fifteen, three more boys, and one little girl. The four youngest were at school when Jessie stumbled into the room. A sudden realization of what she had to say almost overcame her.

"Why, Jessie, so it's you!" exclaimed Mrs. Groates. "We haven't seen you for days. Dear me, what an afternoon it is, to be sure! Come along and sit down by the fire, and tell us all the news. How is Miss Perkins? Why, child, you're as cold as anything. What's come to you, and where have you been?"

Jessie could not utter a word. She could only shiver. Mrs. Groates pulled her closer to the fire, and set a kettle on the glowing coals.

"I'll make you a cup of tea as sharp as can be. Just to think of you walking out in this bitter wind, and nothing on but a little thin shawl! You don't half take care of yourself, child."

She began rubbing the girl's chilled fingers between her own plump cushion-like palms; and Jessie had difficulty in checking a sob. It was dreadful to think of bringing a cloud upon that cheery face.

"I shouldn't wonder but Miss Perkins has been scolding her for something or other," thought Mrs. Groates. "It's too bad, though folks do say that her bark is worse than her bite; and she's really fond of Jessie." Aloud, Mrs. Groates asked, "Nothing gone wrong, I hope! Eh, dear?"

Jessie faltered and had a struggle to get out the words. "It's a barque," she said. "It's got dismasted; and its coming right upon the rocks."

"Dear, dear! That is bad! I don't wonder you're upset. And in this storm I s'pose there's scarce a chance for any of them. Poor things!"

"The lifeboat has been sent for; but they say it can't be here soon enough to do any good. And a boat's gone off from down at the point."

"Well, now, that's plucky, ain't it? Right enough, too! But it must be an uncommon rough sea. I hope no harm 'll come to any of them. You don't know which of the sailors is gone?"

"Adams—and Mr. Gilbert—and—"

Jessie turned her face away, and an anxious look crept into the other's eyes.

"Poor little dear!" she said, and she kissed Jessie's cheek. "You're quite upset with it all. Now, now, I wouldn't cry; there's no need, and I dare say it'll all come right. Mimy, that kettle's on the boil; it hasn't been long took off. Get out the teapot quick. Jessie will be a deal better when she has had a hot drink. Don't you fret, dearie! Things often aren't half so bad as we expect, you know. Come, cheer up! Now you shan't say another word till you've had your tea."

After a few sips Jessie was able to master the inclination to cry whenever she tried to speak. "I oughtn't to have been so silly," she said; "but I didn't know how to say it. I'm so very very sorry for—" and a break—"for you."

"Finish that cup first, Jessie . . . That's it! Now you'll be better . . . Sorry for me, are you? Then it's something to do with Jack. What has he been doing? Nothing wrong, I know."

"Oh no, nothing wrong! Only Mr. Gilbert persuaded them to try having the boat out; and he asked for volunteers. And—Jack—"

"Jack was one of the first, wasn't he? Why, of course he was! Of course he was! He wouldn't be my Jack, if he was one to hold back!" Mrs. Groates spoke bravely, though her lips twitched.

"He's a brave boy; he always was; and always ready to help other people, specially if it's a woman or child. Perhaps there's women on board."

"Yes, there is one," said Jessie, "and Jack knew. And he told me—he told me to tell you—" Jessie could not get on.

"Yes; he told you to tell me—You must tell me, Jessie. I've waited patiently till now; and I can't wait any more." The little plump woman spoke almost sternly. "Tell me, dear; you can cry afterwards."

"He said—said—" sobbed Jessie, "he was going—going—because it was right. And he said, if—if you had a boy on board, you'd want him to go. And he said some mothers had got boys on board."

"He's right, too."

Then Mrs. Groates took down her bonnet from inside a cupboard, where it hung on a nail.

"Mimy, you'll have to keep shop. I'm going, and I shouldn't wonder but father 'll want to go too. Whatever happens to Jack, I'll be there to see, and you must stop here. Maybe Jessie 'll keep you company for a while. There won't be many come in to buy. Folks' heads will be full of this. Jack's a dear brave boy; that's what he is."

"And you don't mind?" sobbed Jessie. "I didn't know how to tell you."

"Mind! Is that all you understand? I'd mind if my boy was afraid to do his duty! But—all the same—Jack's the apple of my eye—and if anything was to go wrong with him—"

Mrs. Groates for a moment hid her face in both hands, and her whole frame heaved and shook.

"Don't, please," entreated Jessie.

"I'm not going to,—not now! There's time enough by-and-by. I've got to see what they're doing now, first. Anyway, I know one thing: my Jack 'll be doing his duty."

Mrs. Groates smiled with the words, though it was a smile nearer akin to tears than to laughter; and by this time her face was quite white all over. Then she walked off, folding her shawl around her; and the girls could hear her voice in the shop, saying firmly,—

"There's a vessel drifting down upon the rocks, Jim, and a boat has gone out to help the sailors; and our Jack's gone in the boat."

Something in Groates' hand fell clattering to the ground.

"Jack!"

"Yes, our Jack. Why, of course he'd be the first to go, if he had a chance. And he's as good as anybody with his oar. I'm off straight to the Point. And if you want to come too, Mimy 'll keep shop."

"Jane, you'd best stop here. I'll go!"

"I'm not going to stay, not for anybody," was the resolute answer. Then there was silence.

"Jessie, I do hope nothing 'll happen to Jack," sighed Mimy. "I don't know how ever mother would bear it."

CHAPTER III

UPON THE ROCKY REEF

ADAMS had been in the right when he thought he saw a woman on board the barque "Sunlight." There was a woman, the Captain's sister; and there was also a little baby girl, the Captain's child.

They had come in for very bad weather this voyage. A heavy gale, lasting two days, had carried away the masts and gear. Jury-masts had been rigged, but another terrible storm carried these also by the board, and washed away a great portion of the gunwale. Somewhat later both the rudder and the boats were swept clean away, and three of the crew went with them. After this the disabled barque could do little more than drift whither wind or current should bear her. A brief lull succeeded: but before any other vessel could be sighted and summoned to her aid, the weather again changed for the worse, a fresh gale coming on. The damaged ship was now steadily nearing the shore, and a long white gleam of breakers ahead spoke of hidden rocks.

On the deck stood a young woman, probably under thirty, her serious eyes bent landward, and one hand resting on the head of a large powerful Newfoundland dog, while the other held fast to a rope, as she swayed to and fro with the heaving of the ship. She looked both grave and sad. A dark ulster clothed her from head to foot, and she wore a round sailor hat, with a black ribbon.

Mildred Pattison had lost both her parents in one week, shortly before starting on this voyage with her brother and his wife; and only two weeks before this date her brother's wife had been left below the deep Atlantic waters. No near relative remained to her on earth save her brother and his little one. Now death stared them all in the face. Captain Pattison, a bronzed and kind-faced man, many years older than herself, made his way to her side. He too looked sad and anxious.

"It's a bad look-out, Millie."

"If we go on like this, we shall soon be on those rocks," she replied. It was not easy to make him hear, though she had a penetrating voice.

"We're setting for them straight. The wind and tide are carrying us fast to leeward."

"And nothing can be done?"

He made a negative sign. "They see us from the shore. Perhaps they'll try something or other. But look at those breakers. Not much chance for us when we get among them!"

"I'll bring Louey on deck. She was sound asleep, and I left her for ten minutes. Poor little dear!"

The Captain sighed. "I'm glad to think Lucy passed away as she did—so peacefully. Do you remember what a still day it was, just before all our troubles began?"

Millie nodded, with moist eyes.

"She wasn't frightened to go, but she'd have been frightened at this. Louey's too young to understand, and that's a mercy. Well, going Home early means being spared a lot of trouble."

His strong voice, well used to making itself heard against boisterous winds, reached Millie more easily than hers reached him.

"I wonder if Lucy sees us now," she murmured.

"I shouldn't wonder if we're all together again this evening—you and me and Lucy and little Lou—up there." For an instant the Captain half bared his head, despite the bitter blast, with a reverent upward glance, and a light of hope sprang into the bronzed features. "So long as One is aboard, it don't much matter which way we get into port."

"Is HE aboard?" questioned Millie to herself. Then aloud, "I don't seem to feel anything much, Phil, good or bad. I'm stupefied with all I've gone through this last year."

The Captain's hand came on her shoulder. "Poor Millie! Poor old girl! But HE knows what's best for us, Millie."

"Hadn't I better get Louey on deck?"

"Don't wake the child. If she's asleep, let her sleep."

"Yes, but, Phil, I can't stay down there any longer, boxed up." Millie shuddered. "I must see what's coming. And, Phil, listen to me. Phil, remember one thing: you are to look to Lou. If anybody can do anything for me, Hero will do it. You've got to save little Lou, for Lucy's sake."

"God bless you, Millie. You're a brave woman."

"Am I?" A smile flickered, as she thought how little he could guess at the deadly heart-sinking below. "I hope I know what is right, at all events."

Perhaps he failed to catch her words. His eyes were strained shoreward as the barque swayed and lurched under their feet, tossed to and fro by the surging billows, which again and again broke over the deck. It was marvellous how Millie managed to stand at all.

Each minute the broad irregular line of breakers seemed to draw nearer; each minute their angry crests seemed to leap higher. The very terror of the sight was fascinating, for in a short time they would themselves be in the grip of those furious waters. The rudderless vessel could not be guided, a makeshift attempt at a rudder having proved valueless; and in any case she could not, without masts, have escaped from the clutch of the strong current which dragged her onwards to her fate. But whatever Mildred Pattison felt below the surface, she remained outwardly composed. She was not one of the shrieking and hysterical kind.

Apathetic indifference seemed to have settled down for a while upon the crew, only seven of whom remained. Nothing further could be done. Not even a boat was left to them, or they would no doubt have tried launching it, however hopelessly.

Nearer, and nearer, and yet nearer, they drew to the rocks. It was worse, waiting thus for the final crash, than if the crash had come unexpectedly; worse in some respects. The end was so sure, yet so gradual.

True, time was given them for thought and prayer, and for this they might well be grateful. But Millie felt herself unable either to think or to pray. This may have been a mistake. She did think unconsciously; and while definite words or sentences of petition were impossible, the whole attitude of her heart was a despairing cry for help. She had not, perhaps, sufficiently practised habits of steady prayer in happier hours, and during late months she had yielded herself too much of a victim to a spirit of heavy repining. Now, in dire danger, she could not shake herself free from the clog which she had hung round her own neck. She seemed to be dulled, wordless, helpless.

Was Christ indeed on board this barque, as He had been on board the boat which crossed Galilee's waters, not in Bodily Form, but none the less absolutely present? To Captain Pattison, a man of childlike trust, it was so undoubtedly. But to Millie Pattison? If things spiritual are verily to us "according to our faith," then, according to Millie's lack of trust, she had not that Divine Presence to bear her through the bitter hour, not consciously and comfortingly at all events.

The Captain would not let her go down below. He had noted her shudder at the thought, and crossing the deck was no easy or safe matter. He went himself, and brought the fair-haired child of two, still half asleep, wrapped warmly in a thick shawl and folded in his arms.

"Shall I take her?" asked Millie.

"No, no; you keep yourself free. I've told Bill Jonson to mind and see if he can do anything for you, and he will. They're trying on shore to launch a boat."

"It's been thrown back twice. And how can they get to us, with those rocks between?"

"They won't try. There's a break in the line of rocks some way off: But in this sea—no, they won't try. They'll just keep near, if they can, and pick up some of us. That's the one chance. Time for your lifebelt!"

She put it on obediently, only murmuring, "What is the use? It may just mean longer torture."

In the distance they had glimpses of the boat, which, after two failures, was at length fairly off. It seemed a mere cockle-shell, tossed from billow to billow, and its advance in the teeth of the rising tide was of necessity slow. Millie saw it, and lost it, and saw it, and lost it anew. Was it afloat still, or had it gone down?

In the distance they had glimpses of the boat.

Then she found that the shore was blotted out as by a veil, the air around having grown thick with flying spray; and the thundering crash of breakers was suddenly close at hand. She had not known that they were quite so near. The barque seemed for a moment to pause, almost to draw back, and to plunge forward with a fearful crash.

Millie was dashed flat on her face by the concussion, and when she slowly struggled to her knees, clinging for support to rope and bulwark, she found the deck so slanting that to stand upright was no longer possible. The barque was lying over almost on her side, and Millie was alone. Even Hero had vanished, and through the masses of flying spray, which half blinded and half stifled her, she could catch no glimpse of her brother or the child.

For one instant the veil of spray was flung aside by the wind, and she saw two of the crew, clinging to the vessel as she herself clung; but the Captain was not there. A faint whining next became audible, and Hero struggled, dripping, to her side, to seize her dress in his jaws, with an evident determination that they two should not be again separated.

The barque seemed to be settling slowly over, and every plank quivered with the shock of those heavy seas, which swept her from stem to stern. Millie held on determinately; but she knew that it would not be possible to hold on long. Breath and strength were fast failing.

Yet somehow she no longer felt afraid. In the booming rush of billows and the blinding dash of spray, a vision had come to her eyes of a distant lull and a Cross thereupon, and ONE whom she knew hanging patiently on the Cross; and her whole soul leapt up in a passionate prayer for pardon, because she had doubted His love.

"I shall never doubt Him again. He will take me now Home," she thought.

And when another momentary break allowed her to see something swept to and fro in the surge below, which she recognised as her brother, almost a smile came.

"It is over for him! It will soon be over for me too."

Then her hand went to the dog's rough coat. "Dear old Hero! You can't do any more for me. Poor old fellow! It's nearly over!"

A mountainous wave rushed past, and Millie was all but torn away. She held on, gasping, and knew that she could not withstand such another. The return rush of water swept a small bundle to her very feet, and Millie quitted her hold to grasp it. As she saw, close to her own, the white still face of Louey, fixed in eternal peace, it was torn away by the next giant billow, which came crashing up from behind.

On Millie's part there was a momentary sense of helplessness, of whirling noise and darkness and bewilderment, and then she remembered no more. When the great green mass of water had passed by, neither Millie nor Hero remained on the deck. They had together been lifted clean over the rocky reef, and swept far into the troubled waters beyond. With this last shock the barque parted amidships.

The Maxham boat, in imminent danger each moment of being capsized, was drawing slowly nearer, and old Adams, at the stern, witnessed what had happened. He said nothing at first, till Mr. Gilbert, glancing round, exclaimed,—

"She's gone!"

"Ay, she be gone, sir. Broke up like a bit of matchwood. And I'm afeared them aboard be gone with her."

"The tide is coming in. Some of them may be carried this way. We'll not give up yet," shouted Gilbert.

"No, sir."

Again they bent to their oars, rising and falling as one big wave after another swept under them. But for the practised skill of Adams, they would soon have found themselves struggling in the water.

Another shout from Gilbert. "See there: something yonder!" And soon to one and another became apparent a small dark object, half swimming, half borne along, and a larger object, floating or dragged with it.

"A dog, and he's got hold of something. Steady, boys, steady! Ease a bit! Now then!"

Another minute, and they were beside the almost exhausted Hero, whose teeth held firmly still a portion of Millie's dress. With difficulty they hauled her in—a dripping senseless figure, perhaps past recovery—and Hero was helped to climb in after.

Millie was laid in the bottom of the boat, and for a few minutes still they lingered, but in vain. No other body could be seen. Longer delay might mean the certainty of death for the one whom they had rescued; and soon they turned towards the shore.

This was quicker work, for now the incoming tide was in their favour, and wave after wave carried them on. The worst was, or seemed to be, over, when, near the land, a heavy swell caught the boat, carried it forward, turned it as before broadside to the beach, then, as if with a last expiring effort dashed it, bottom up, upon the shingle.

CHAPTER IV

OLD MAXHAM

MR. MOKES' shop was the general and long-established shop of Old Maxham, a shop which had existed when Old Maxham was Maxham whole and entire, with no brisk young growing town of the same name to cast it into the shade, and when no other shop of any kind was to be found for nearly a couple of miles in any direction.

Things now were different. New Maxham, hardly a mile distant, possessed shops in plenty; but Old Maxham, though no longer a place of one shop, was still a primitive village, very much behind the age.

How much longer it could remain so was doubtful. Already lengthening arms of red houses in rows stretched affectionately outwards from the younger town, threatening by-and-by to engulf in their embrace the whole parent village. However, this consummation lay yet in the future; and the shop of Old Maxham, while partly supplanted by young aspirants, still held its own, as an institution venerable through antiquity and altogether reliable after generations of honesty.

It was only to be expected that, as the place grew, fresh shops should be started. Mr. Mokes was a reasonable man in most respects; and he viewed the question on the whole reasonably.

He did not expect his family—ancestors and descendants, inclusive of himself—to retain through ages a complete monopoly of Old Maxham trade. That a butcher should start his little shop was only to be looked for; he never had taken to that branch of trade, and people had gone to a neighbouring village or to New Maxham for their meat. A fishmonger was equally right; and a greengrocer, a small ironmonger, even a draper, came one and all in the natural course of events.

But when a man from New Maxham, Groates by name, chose to set up in the same street with himself a rival house to his own—a second "general," following in almost every respect his own particular lines, with the one exception of the Post-office—then Mr. Mokes, mild-tempered though he might be, did "turn" like the proverbial worm. He could not stand with patience such barefaced competition—grocery on one side and everything else on the other side; and outside shady seats among trees, with little tables for tea and fruit! The whole thing was a careful imitation, with improvements, which made the matter worse.

Flesh and blood could not be expected to endure such conduct. Mr. Mokes objected strongly, and his indignant dislike to the man extended to the man's whole family. When Groates was so impudent as to rent a pew in Church exactly in front of the Mokes' pew, Mr. Mokes actually quitted the pew of his forefathers, and went to another as far removed as possible.

By this means he lost one of his Sunday pleasures: the attentive perusal of a long and wordy inscription upon a certain stone slab, detailing all the virtues of his deceased Mokes' grandfather, who apparently had been a benefit to the neighbourhood, a blessing to his acquaintances, a model man, and an ideal tradesman. Mr. Mokes had always rejoiced in the reflected glory of that esteemed monument. But to sit and see just below it the row of Groateses, big and little, was too much for his equanimity. He couldn't do it, he avowed, and "feel like a Christian."

Of course Jessie Perkins knew all the ins and outs of Old Maxham society and politics. She had lived at Periwinkle Cottage ever since she became an orphan, at the age of four. Miss Perkins had adopted and brought her up. Miss Perkins was practically very good to Jessie, and no doubt was sincerely fond of her. Unhappily, the fondness was not apparent, and the goodness was far from attractive in its manifestations. And Jessie was not very fond of her aunt.

It was the same thing over again as with Jessie's father—Miss Perkins' only brother. Miss Perkins would have worked her fingers to the bone to serve him, but somehow she had not managed to keep his love. She had too many angles and corners, too testy and jealous a temper, to be lovable. Two or three friends or cronies she did possess, but then they had never lived under the same roof with Miss Perkins. There were many who pitied Jessie; and while she tried to be patient and dutiful to her aunt, her affections turned elsewhere.

Among the girl's oldest friends, after a sort, were the Mokeses opposite; among her newest were the Groateses, down the same main village street to the west.

Miss Perkins just knew the Groateses civilly, and no more. She did not like them or care to know them better. Jessie, on the contrary, had somehow slipped into a fast-growing intimacy, and, after the frequent fashion of young people, she gave much more ardent love to the new friends than to the old.

Perhaps this was not altogether surprising, since she had chosen the new friends for herself, while the others had been chosen for her. But she seldom spoke of the Groateses to the Mokeses or even to her aunt: not from any wish for secrecy, but simply because such speaking was apt to produce a snubbing. The growth of her new friendship was not fully understood therefore by others.

Mokes' shop was a genuine country concern, of a mixed and heterogeneous nature. Country shops are like country doctors: they go in for all round treatment. Specialists are a growth of town necessities.

The droll little old-fashioned windows—Groates' plate-glass panes were no copy of these—showed an astonishing assortment of articles within. On one side were groceries, using the word in its most elastic sense; on the other side were drapery goods, fancy articles, toys, wools, stationery. At the back was the Post-office. So Mokes had a good deal to attend to in his calling,—even with the help of his wife, of one very capable daughter, and of one most incompetent son. He had only two children, not seven like Groates.

Exactly opposite Groates' Store was a creeper-grown cottage, much after the model of Periwinkle Cottage, which stood in like manner just opposite Mokes' shop; and on the little gate of the tiny front garden, a more slip of bed and gravel, was a plate intimating that here resided "The Misses Coxen, Dressmakers."

On this particular afternoon the two sisters sat, as indeed was their usual habit, close to the prim little bay-window, one on either side, occasionally moving their respective needles, but on the whole more intent upon the outer than upon the inner world.

They were a well-meaning pair of little women; and they took an enormous interest in their neighbours' concerns,—not an unkind interest, though at times a degree meddlesome in kind.

It was no doubt natural that they should take this interest, since they really had no concerns of their own, beyond the new dress for the butcher's wife, or the latest frock for the linen-draper's little girl, or the question of how many darns were needed in the household linen each week, or the fluctuating health of their dearly beloved tabby cat, of Persian breed, the pride of the whole village.

CHAPTER V

TWO LITTLE DRESSMAKERS

IT was whispered that the Misses Coxen, or at least the Miss Coxens' parents, had seen better days, and that they themselves had been by no means originally intended for dressmakers.

If it were so, they had, like a wise pair of little women, settled down cheerily into the position where they found themselves; and after thirty years of dressmaking in Old Maxham, they had probably ceased to wish very keenly for anything more distinguished in the way of a career. A small annuity, left to each of them by a thoughtful relative, had lately placed them both, after years of struggling, in a position of comparative ease. Dressmaking was still to some extent necessary, or at least desirable; but they now sewed for butter and jam to their bread, not for the bread itself, which makes all the difference in the world. They might safely indulge in many a peep out of the front window, or even in an occasional whole holiday, instead of having to toil with might and main to hold soul and body together.

"It seems such a Providence, you know," Miss Coxen would remark to her friends, "such a Providence, the money coming just when it did, when my sight had begun to fail a little—only just a little, of course—and when poor dear Sophy getting so rheumaticky in her hands. It really seemed quite a special Providence to us both; I am sure I hope we are properly grateful. I am sure we try to be."

The pair talked much of their legacy, and always carefully avoided stating the amount which they had received. Reports therefore varied much, Mrs. Mokes setting down the annual sum-total as £40 or £50, while Miss Perkins believed it to be at least £60 or £70.

"Of course we shouldn't like not to work, you know," Miss Sophy would chime in mildly. "It would be so bad for us to be idle, and such an example, too, to the neighbourhood! And then dresses have got to be made, and there isn't a single person here who knows how to do it properly, except sister and me. I suppose if her sight quite went, and my hands too,—I mean if they got so rheumaticky that I couldn't work,—why, then I suppose Providence would send another dressmaker to Old Maxham. Things generally come when they are wanted, you know,—" which axiom would, perhaps, not be fully endorsed by everybody.

The two sisters were good little women after their kind; but they had odd impersonal ideas on the subject of "Providence," as of some hidden machine, which kept matters going, and supplied people's needs.

"And that will not be yet, I hope," Miss Coxen would add. "At present we get along pretty well—on the whole pretty well—though somehow we don't seem able to work so hard as we used to do."

On this particular afternoon they did not work hard at all. It became evident that something unwonted was stirring the air of the village, over and above the gale that had hitherto kept the sisters prisoners in fear of possible chills.

Nobody had happened to call and to tell them what had befallen the place. They saw Jessie Perkins arrive, breathless and troubled, to vanish inside the opposite door. And they saw Mrs. Groates, resolved and pale, come out; and a minute later they saw Mr. Groates himself hasten away in rear of his wife. At this, the Miss Coxens exchanged glances full of meaning.

The elder sister, who was bony and thin, with corkscrew curls and blank eyes, murmured, "Dear me! Dear me! What can it mean?"

And Miss Sophy, who was plump and loose-lipped, with thicker and larger curls, began to wax restless.

"It's a strong wind, to be sure," she remarked, "and rather boisterous—at least, it sounds so—but not so very cold, sister. March isn't so cold as January; and I generally get out even in January. I haven't been outside the door once to-day."

"No, Sophy; you haven't."

"I almost think I should like to get just a breath. It's so refreshing. You mustn't, because of your eyes; but for me it is different. I can wrap up warmly. There's Mimy taking a look down the street. And Jessie is there still: because we haven't seen her go away. They are nice girls. I always do like Mimy, and her mother too, though it doesn't do to say so to Mrs. Mokes."

"I wonder what Jessie Perkins has got to do with the matter," debated Miss Coxen, letting her work lie on her knee. "Seems to me she's a great deal with the Groateses, slipping in and out. I don't believe Miss Perkins half knows how often. It's no business of yours or mine, of course; but still I do wonder if Miss Perkins knows."

"She's a funny woman, Miss Perkins, though it wouldn't do to say so to everybody."

"And she's done a lot for Jessie. Why, if it wasn't for her, Jessie might just have gone into the Union. The girl ought to be grateful. But young people in these days don't trouble their heads to be grateful. They only want to have their owns way. And Jessie's like the rest of them."

"Well, well!" sighed Miss Sophy, in deprecating tones. She was burning to get out, but did not see her way to doing so, unless Miss Coxen should take up her suggestion.

"I don't believe it ever so much as comes into that girl's mind how much she owes to her aunt. She takes it all as a matter of course. That's the way. I don't say,—" and Miss Coxen shook her little ringlets,—"I don't say Miss Perkins is one to make a young girl fond of her. She's sort of cold in her ways, you know. But there's duty to be thought of."

"And really, sister, I can't, for my part, see that Jessie is wanting in her duty to Miss Perkins. I really can't! I'm sure she's as steady and nice a girl as you could wish; and she always does as her aunt tells her. And if she does find her home a little dull, and makes friends outside, isn't it natural? And that young Groates is as nice a young fellow as anybody can come across; as good to his mother as a daughter."

"He's not bad," murmured Miss Coxen.

"I don't say much for Mr. Groates. It wasn't pretty of him to come and set up an opposition shop to Mr. Mokes, after all these years and years that Mokes has had everything his own way. But I suppose Mr. Groates has got to make his way in life; and seven children aren't so easily provided for as two. And I know one thing,—though I wouldn't say it to everybody,—I know Groates' cotton is ever so much better than Mokes'. I've done nothing but snap my cotton every other minute. It's that reel from Mokes, you know."

Miss Coxen slowly swallowed the bait. She looked up at Miss Sophy, then at the shop opposite. "Well, I don't mind," she said. "If you want a breath of air, Sophy, and don't feel afraid of the wind, I shouldn't mind a reel of No. 36 and a reel of No. 30 from opposite. It's uncommonly good cotton Groates supplies, almost as good as we get from London. And Mr. Mokes couldn't expect us to go so far as to his shop in such a wind."

At this moment, as if to lend additional weight to her words, the small and not very tidy girl, who acted as their maid-of-all-work, burst into the room.

"O mum!—" with eyes and mouth equally wide—"O mum! Only to think!"

"Do you know what is the matter, Susanna?" asked Miss Coxen, retaining her self-control, while Miss Sophy gasped audibly.

"O mum, it's a ship on the rocks, and the sailors all drownded—every one of 'em drownded. And the boat what went out 's got turned top side down, and every man jack of 'em's drownded too. And young Groates is one of 'em."

"You shouldn't say 'every man jack,' Susanna. It's a foolish expression." Then Miss Coxen looked at Miss Sophy. "Dear me, how melancholy."

"You are quite sure, Susanna?" panted Miss Sophy.

"The doctor's been sent for all of a hurry, mum; and he 've gone down to the Point. But Tim, he says it's no manner of good. And all the bodies is laid in a row like, and every one of 'em dead, every man jack of 'em, Tim says."

"Tim Robins isn't always a perfectly truthful boy," remarked Miss Sophy.

This was a mild way of stating the fact that Tim was known far and wide to be an arrant liar.

"How came you to see Tim, Susanna?"

"Oh, please, mum, I was only just a-peeping out, and he went by, and he told me, and he'd been for the doctor, and all of 'em was drownded, he says."

"I'm afraid it must really be true," sighed Miss Coxen. "Well, you may go, Susanna; and mind, you are not to peep out any more."

Whereat Susanna vanished.

There could be no further question as to the propriety of Miss Sophy dressing with all speed and hastening across the road. Not only were the two reels of cotton found to be an urgent necessity, but also "that poor dear girl Mimy" would need comforting for her brother's death.

So the little woman bustled herself as fast as possible into a superabundance of wraps, and then pitter-pattered over to the opposite door, being vary nearly blown clean away by the blast which assailed her half-way. However, she just managed to keep her equilibrium, and in two or three more seconds she was under shelter.

"I've come for some reels of cotton, Mimy; No. 30 and No. 36, the best make."

Mimy had appeared at the sound of the bell.

"We like your cotton so much, sister and I. But, oh dear, isn't this bad news! I'm so sorry for you all; I am really."

Miss Sophy had no intention of being unkind; but she never could resist talking, and it did not so much as occur to her that silence would be the kinder course, until at least she was sure of her facts. There was no need to say anything yet.

Mimy's rather stolid face looked straight at her, with a blunt "What?"

"About the ship on the rocks, you know. Of course you've heard all that. And a boat went out to save the sailors, and they're all drowned; and I'm told your brother was in the boat."

A reel slipped through Mimy's fingers. "Who told you?"

"Tim Robins was sent for the doctor, and he says so—every one of them, he says. Poor things! It's too dreadful."

"I don't believe it," Mimy responded, turning scared eyes to the door of the back room, whence came a hoarse murmur,—

"Jack drowned!"

Mimy forgot her duties as saleswoman. Leaving the cotton reels to take care of themselves, she went towards Jessie.

"I don't believe it," she repeated. "Tim isn't to be trusted. I don't believe a word of it."

"Jack drowned!"

The words seemed to be forced from Jessie's white lips. Then she turned her back, went gropingly into the room once more, and crouched down in the big arm-chair, with her face hidden. They could see her through the open door.

"Dear me, poor girl! Who ever would have thought she'd mind it like that?"

Mimy flashed out upon the visitor. "Mind it! Who wouldn't mind it that knows our Jack? You don't know him, and Jessie does! And if Jack is dead, it'll kill mother; I know it will. And you to come and tell it in such a way, as if it was just nothing at all! Our Jack to be drowned! I don't believe it, and I won't believe it. If you'd just go away and leave us! Cotton! Oh, I'll see to the cotton. Make haste, please, and don't go near Jessie. You don't know anything about it."

"Really, Mimy!" faltered Miss Sophy. She hardly knew whether to be offended or unhappy. To receive such a rebuke, especially from a young girl, was not what she was accustomed to. Resentment strove with regret; and when she turned her back upon the shop, she was very nearly in tears.

Mimy hurried into the room behind, where Jessie still crouched in a silent heap.

"Jessie!" she whispered.

No answer came. Mimy put her arms round the other girl.

"Poor Jessie! Don't mind. I don't believe it's true. That Tim is a regular story-teller. It isn't likely, you know,—all of them to be drowned."

"I don't see why not," moaned Jessie.

Then she pulled herself together, and sat up.

"I can't think why I'm so silly. Isn't it silly of me! I'm cold, I think,—all of a shiver! It's you that ought to cry, not me. There's nobody belonging to me in danger."

Mimy said nothing. She only hold Jessie fast.

"And you mustn't say anything to anybody, not one word, about how stupid I've been. Promise me, Mimy—not one single word to anybody. I've no business to be so silly."

"No, I won't," Mimy answered. She would not remind Jessie of what was evidently forgotten,—the presence of the little dressmaker.

"I ought to go home. Aunt Barbara will wonder what ever has become of me."

"But mother asked you to stop here, just till somebody comes. It won't be long now."

Nor was it long. As the two girls clung together, each hiding her face from the other, approaching footsteps became audible. Another moment, and the shop-bell rang sharply with the opening of the door. That was no customer, however; and Mimy did not stir. Mrs. Groates walked in, her face agitated, yet joyous. A variety of feelings seemed to be striving for the mastery.

"Mother, is it true?"

"Poor boy! Yes. But it might have been worse; it might have been a deal worse, Mimy."

"Then Jack isn't drowned!"

"Drowned! No. What's put that into your head? Not but what he might have been. I did think—one minute—but he isn't killed. He's got a broken leg, and that's all."

"Miss Sophy came and told us that Tim said they were all drowned, every one of them."

"Miss Sophy needn't have been in such a mighty hurry with her news!" It was seldom that Mrs. Groates gave utterance to so tart a remark; but her eyes had fallen upon Jessie's woe-begone visage. "There's some folks can't be happy without they can make other folks miserable. No, it isn't true, Mimy. But it might have been. They got back close to shore, and then a big wave caught the boat and threw it on the beach upside down. And Jack's leg is broken; and Mr. Gilbert's arm is crushed; and old Adams was stunned."

"And nobody killed?"

"The ship broke up, and all the sailors were lost. Poor fellows! Not a single one saved except a woman! And she was kept afloat by a big dog, till the boat picked them both up. She hasn't come round, but they say she's alive, and maybe she'll do well yet." Mrs. Groates collapsed into a chair, and into a flood of tears. "I didn't think when I got there that we'd have any of them back alive; that I didn't! It was a sight! O dear me!" Then she jumped up again. "And now we must get things ready for Jack. They are bringing him on a shutter; and Dr. Bateson 'll come to set the bone. Poor Jack! He's a brave boy; isn't he, Jessie?"

Jessie had not spoken a word, simply because she lacked the power to do so. When Mrs. Groates looked her in the face, with wet proud eyes, Jessie just stooped to kiss her, and ran away.

"Poor dear Jessie!" murmured Mrs. Groates.

Mimy began impulsively to tell about Jessie's distress on hearing that Jack was drowned. Then came a recollection of her own promise; and she pulled herself up sharply. Mrs. Groates was too much occupied to notice what had or had not been said.

"Yes, she's a nice girl, Mimy. I always do like Jessie Perkins. And so feeling, too! Only think, there was Miss Perkins herself down at the beach. And when everybody was wondering what to do with the poor woman from the wreck, if Miss Perkins didn't up and say, 'I've got a bedroom as she can have!' I wouldn't have expected it of Miss Perkins, and that's a fact. But there, nobody ever knows. Folks has got their good and their bad sides, and the very tiresomest people has mostly got some soft spot or other, I do believe, if only it can be got at. Now, Mimy, we've got to brisk up and make things ready. Jack 'll soon be here."

CHAPTER VI

WHAT WOULD BE SAID?

"WELL, I never!" uttered Miss Perkins as Jessie stepped in. "So that's what you call just going across the road, is it?"

Jessie had not the faintest recollection of any such words as coming from herself; but she seemed to have lived through a small lifetime of feeling since last crossing the threshold, and memory was confused.

"I couldn't help it," she made answer meekly.

Miss Perkins still sat in the self-same chair where Jessie had seen her last, with the self-same piece of work in her hands, exactly as if she had been glued there throughout the time of Jessie's absence. Only her sewing had made scant advance; and a bonnet and shawl lay near, where they had not been earlier.

Jessie observed neither fact, being painfully conscious of the scrutiny which she was herself undergoing. The colour in her face came and went. Miss Perkins gave vent to a sniff, which Jessie supposed to intimate displeasure, though possibly it may have meant concern.

"I couldn't help myself, aunt Barbara—I mean partly. Mrs. Groates asked me to stay with Mimy."

"Oh, it's the Groateses, is it?" with unmitigated disdain. "I might have guessed you were after the Groateses. And how ever came you to see Mrs. Groates at all, I wonder?"

Jessie dropped upon a chair, with her back to the window, and murmured, "I went there."

"What for?"

"Jack Groates asked me. He hadn't time to see his mother. And he wanted me to tell her he was gone in the boat."

"What boat?"

"The boat that tried—tried—" Jessie could not finish her sentence.

"Jack Groates didn't speak to you over the way at Mr. Mokes'. I know he didn't, for I could see quite well from here. He didn't say a word to you."

"No."

"When did he?"

"I—ran to the shore; I wanted to see. Jack sent me back. He wouldn't let me stay."

"That's one sensible thing he's done, anyway." Miss Perkins continued to sew, with lowered eyes, as if her existence depended on getting the seam done within a given time. "And I s'pose you wanted to catch your death o' cold. Done your best, anyhow, running all that way to the beach, in this wind, with nothing but a cobweb of a shawl! I wonder at you, Jessie! At your age."

Jessie was silent.

"Mrs. Mokes told me you'd gone. 'Silly girl, too!' says she. As if you could ha' done a scrap o' good to anybody by all your going! Why, they might have been all drowned before your eyes; and I s'pose you'd just ha' sat and cried. Much use that would have been."

Jessie tried to speak, and produced only a clatter of shaking teeth.

Miss Perkins glanced up in astonishment. "Eh?" she said.

The girl was clinging to her chair, white as a table-cloth. She met her aunt's eyes, and tried to laugh; but the chair shook beneath her.

"That's the sort of thing, is it?" quoth Miss Perkins, with a certain grim satisfaction. "Didn't I say you'd catch your death o' cold? Shouldn't wonder but you've done it now. You'll just come straight upstairs this minute, and get into bed, and have a basin of gruel, and not stir till I give you leave. I'm not going to have you ill on my hands too, if I can help it."

"Please—" protested Jessie.

But she was in no state for effective resistance; and Miss Perkins hauled rather than helped her up the two flights.

Midway, as they passed the open door of the spare room on the first landing, Jessie exclaimed, "Why, there's a fire!"

"Well, why not?"

Jessie stared in bewilderment.

"The room wanted airing," Miss Perkins condescended to explain. "And I thought of a fire,—all of a sudden. Come, make haste. I've got a lot to see to."

"If only I needn't go to bed—And then I could see to something too."

"You see to things,—a quaky piece of goods like you! You're best out of the way. Leave other folks more room."

Jessie noted suddenly the creaking of her aunt's walking boots, and remembered the words, "Mrs. Mokes told me." She exclaimed again, in her surprise, "Why, aunt, you've been out."

"And if I have, what then? And if I choose to go out again, what's that to anybody? Some who ain't quite so spry as others in running after other folks' business maybe do as much in the world. I shouldn't wonder if my going out had been a deal more use than yours."

This was crushing; for Jessie could not honestly feel that she had done much good to anybody by her going. She drooped her head, and was mute, offering no further resistance.

Ten minutes later saw her tucked up in her little white bed, in the front attic, a cosy small bedroom with sloping roof, scrupulously clean.

The "spare room," so called, which in summer was often let to a single lady, desirous of some few days or weeks by the sea, lay under this attic, and over the front sitting-room. Behind the said sitting-room was the kitchen; over the kitchen was Miss Perkins' bedroom; and over Miss Perkins' bedroom was an attic box-room. Miss Perkins, being an indefatigable worker, kept no servant-girl, but only had a woman in for two or three hours twice a week, to "scrub down."

The warmth and rest were comfortable, and Jessie's shivering fit soon subsided. She turned her face from the light, and felt very thankful for Jack's escape, as well as somewhat ashamed of having been betrayed into showing what she felt about him. For who could say with certainty whether Jack cared for Jessie?

"But Mimy promised; Mimy won't tell anybody how silly I was. I'm sure Mimy will take care."

Then in a moment she remembered the little dressmaker, forgotten hitherto. A rush of hot blood suffused Jessie's face. Miss Sophy Coxen had seen, and Miss Sophy Coxen would talk. Not a man, woman, or child in Old Maxham would fail to receive from Miss Sophy a full and detailed description of precisely how Jessie Perkins had looked, had spoken, had acted, upon that notable occasion when she was informed that Jack Groates had met his end.

Jessie could easily picture to herself what would be said. "That poor dear girl Jessie!" Miss Sophy Coxen would remark. "Now would you have thought it? I shouldn't! I didn't know she cared for young Groates any more than for anybody else. But she does! O yes, it is quite certain. I can answer for that. You see, I was told that poor young Groates had been drowned, and when Jessie heard it, why, the poor dear was like a thing demented. She kept saying, 'Jack Groates drowned!' over and over again and she hid her face, and didn't seem half to know where she was. And of course anybody can guess what that sort of thing means!" And so on, and so on.

"It's horrid! Horrid! How could I be so foolish?" cried Jessie. One burning blush followed upon another. "Oh dear, oh dear, what ever shall I do? What can I say? How can I put things right? And if it should come to Jack's ears! Oh! And it will; I know it will! Everybody tells everything to everybody in this horrid place."

Jessie groaned aloud, and another rush of crimson came.

Miss Perkins chose this instant to enter with the promised "basin" of steaming gruel. A dubious expression crept into her long narrow visage as she surveyed Jessie's face. Had she been anything of an experienced nurse, she would have known quickly that the heat was moist in kind, not fever heat. As it was, she took alarm.

"I declare you're as feverish as can be. You weren't that colour downstairs."

"I'm not a scrap feverish." Jessie accentuated the assertion by an added glow. "It's nothing of the sort. I'm not ill one bit, only just nicely warm."

"If I was you, I'd speak the truth another time, and not go along making believe. Your face is es hot as fire; and if that isn't fever, my name isn't Barbara Perkins." A rather rash assertion, since she possessed no other name.

Jessie broke into a nervous giggle.

"It's a chill you've got; and you'll just lay quiet in bed till it's gone. I'll have no more rampaging about, without I give you leave."

"Aunt Barbara, do you know who's hurt?" asked Jessie.

Since blushing was to be taken for fever, and since she was already about as crimson as it was possible to be, the question might be ventured upon.

Miss Perkins offered no response.

"Because the boat was thrown up on the beach, and all of them were tossed out. And some were hurt, I know—poor Mr. Gilbert, and old Adams, oh, yes, and Jack Groates too. Was there anybody else? I do want to know how they're all getting on. And the poor woman off the wreck—was she killed?"

"She wasn't dead an hour ago. That's about all I know. And Adams was come to; and Mr. Gilbert's arm was enough to make a body sick to look at it. And Jack Groates is a silly fellow."

"Oh-h!"

"A silly fellow! That's what he is. He ought to have thought of his family." Miss Perkins always took a peculiar pleasure in saying exactly the opposite to what was expected of her. "A nice expense for them it'll be, to have him laid by with a broken leg for nobody knows how long. Shouldn't wonder if he never was able to walk straight again."

Jessie giggled anew faintly, as a picture arose in her mind of Jack sidling along, crab fashion.

"Well, I shouldn't. It's what they call a compound fracture. The bone was sticking right out," pursued Miss Perkins, with the relish of one who loved to deal in horrors. "Right out! And the setting of it 'ud be awful, they say. Serve him right, too! What must he meddle for? If he was a sailor—but he isn't! Ben Mokes is a deal more sensible."

"Ben Mokes is a horrid lazy selfish creature, and I can't bear him," Jessie cried, with almost a sob. "And Jack has behaved like a man; and you know he has, aunt Barbara."

Miss Perkins sniffed. "If he isn't a man, I don't know what else he is. Folks has their different sorts of ways of thinking, though; and my way of thinking isn't yours by a long chalk."

Then she quitted the room, and Jessie, pushing aside the basin of gruel, tossed restlessly to and fro for a long while, divided between distress at Jack's sufferings and poignant regrets for her own betrayal of feeling. She ended by dropping sound asleep.

When, two hours later, she woke up, things did not look quite so desperate. Flushes and shivering had departed; and Jessie felt altogether more like her ordinary self. After all, everybody knew the ways of little Miss Sophy Coxen; and people would allow for probable exaggerations; and nobody could wonder at a certain amount of feeling shown at such a moment; and besides all this, Jessie herself could do much to set matters right, by assuming on air of high-and-mighty indifference whenever Jack was named.

Having arrived at these conclusions and consoled herself therewith, Jessie began to debate whether she might not get up and dress. She decided, however, that this would be venturing too far, in the face of her aunt's prohibition. The act might draw unpleasant consequences.

Something of a mysterious nature seemed to be going on below. Was Miss Perkins airing the room still? And why should she take to airing it thus abruptly, without any especial reason, in the middle of an afternoon? Jessie listened intently, and presently made out subdued voices—a man's voice, she was sure. Curiosity rose high.

CHAPTER VII

MISS PERKINS' NEW INMATE

MILDRED PATTISON'S coming to, out of her long unconsciousness, was a slow and tedious affair. Not only had she been three-fourths drowned before the brave crew of rescuers dragged her into their boat, but also, when the rising tide, with a final effort, dashed the boat bottom up on the shingles, smashing Mr. Gilbert's right arm, stunning Adams, and breaking Jack Groates' leg, Millie received a blow upon her head, sufficient to have rendered her senseless, apart from other calamities.

She was taken first to old Adams' cottage, the most roomy of all the small cottages "down at the Corner." Every effort was there made to bring her to, and enough success rewarded the efforts to show that she was living. But though more than once Millie opened her eyes and gazed vaguely about, it could scarcely be called "consciousness." In after-days she had no recollection of this time, or of being conveyed to Old Maxham.

The question soon arose: What was to be done with her? Adams' family had enough to do in looking after himself; and they were very poor; and space was scanty. But for Mr. Gilbert's severe injuries, he would doubtless have had her taken to the Vicarage, and placed under the care of his old housekeeper. That plan now was impossible; at all events, he was too ill to think of it, and the old housekeeper counted that her hands were sufficiently full.

For a while no one else came forward. Few indeed were in a position to do so. Most of the Old Maxham people were more or less poor; and not many could boast the possession of an unused room,—the doctor least of all, since he had not only six small children, but one or two permanent invalids as patients.

Then it was that Miss Perkins astonished everybody by stepping into the breach. She had been present for a short time, had heard everything, had listened to what everybody had to say. And when the world in general, as represented down at the Point, had reached the end of its wits, Miss Perkins spoke.

She had a spare room, she said; and she didn't suppose any lodgers would be likely to come yet awhile. The poor woman might come and sleep in that room just for a few days, till she was well enough to go on her journey to her home. Of course she'd got a home somewhere, and friends expecting her. Yes, it meant a lot of trouble, of course. Folks had got to take trouble sometimes. Miss Perkins didn't know as she was one who minded trouble particular. Anyway, if the woman hadn't got nowhere else to go to, why, there was the bedroom ready.

"That's splendid of you, Miss Perkins!" the village doctor said impulsively.

Miss Perkins twitched the end of her long nose, and sniffed. She didn't know as there was anything out of the common, she said, in letting a room be used, when it wasn't wanted, by a poor thing as hadn't got anywhere else to go.

"Only, it may mean—Well, of course I can't tell you exactly how soon she'll be fit to move," suggested the doctor. "That blow on the head might mean mischief; and if fever set in—"

Miss Perkins didn't see as she had any call to be expecting evils.

"No, no; I only thought it right to warn you about possibilities. But at the worst she could be taken to the hospital. I'm afraid so long a drive in her present state would be a serious risk." The doctor might well fear this, since the nearest hospital was fifteen miles off. "Well, I can only say you're a splendid woman, Miss Perkins."

Miss Perkins might have been inwardly gratified; but she received the praise with outward disdain. And when one or two minor arrangements had been made, she set off to make things ready at home.

She would have found it difficult to explain why she had offered her room: still more why, having offered it, she should feel positively ashamed of her own generosity, and should shrink from telling her niece. Something in the pale face of the unconscious half-drowned woman, friendless and forlorn, had appealed to the softer side of her nature, and to some extent she had acted on impulse. Certainly, no one would have expected Miss Perkins so to rise to the needs of another; and perhaps it was this very knowledge of having done the unexpected which made her feel bashful.

More than once, while hurrying along the rough road, she regretted her own precipitation, wondering whether she might not find herself to be "in for" a good deal more than she had calculated on. It was a positive relief to her mind to find Jessie absent, and not at once to have to confess what she had done. Not that she supposed Jessie to be likely to object, or that she would have cared if Jessie had objected, but only that she shrank oddly from appearing in a more benevolent character than her wont.

She threw off bonnet and shawl, lighted a fire in the spare room, made the bed, which was always kept well aired, and put a hot bottle between the sheets. Then, under a queer sense of shyness, she resumed her seat and her work, to be found by Jessie, as already described. And there can be no question that Miss Perkins was charmed to seize upon an excuse for putting her niece to bed out of the way, and so deferring for a time the need to tell her news.

Mildred Pattison's arrival happened opportunely, when Jessie was sound asleep. Still secrecy could not be long preserved; and when Miss Perkins, after long delay, made her appearance anew in the attic bedroom, it was to find Jessie sitting up in bed, listening with all her ears.

"Aunt Barbara, I'm positive there's somebody in the room below."

"You didn't eat that gruel, Jessie."

"Oh, I couldn't. It was so horrid. And I'm not ill,—not in the least ill. Is there somebody in the spare room? Why mayn't I know?"

"There's no reason why you mayn't, I suppose."

"Then who is it? Do tell me."

"Nobody of consequence to make a fuss about. It's just the poor creature off the wreck."

"Oh-h-h!" Jessie's eyes and mouth widened in sympathy.

"She hadn't got any place to go to . . . So they've just brought her here for a day or two. Lodgers ain't likely to turn up yet . . . And if they do, they'll have to wait, I s'pose."

Jessie did what she had not done for at least ten years past. She sprang up on her knees in the bed, and clutched Miss Perkins round the neck in a hearty hug.

"Aunt Barbara! O how kind! How very very good of you!"

"There's no call to rumple my capstrings."

Jessie released her, but wore a look of delight.

"How lovely of you! I never should have thought you'd be the one to do anything of the sort."

Yes, that was it. Nobody expected good deeds from Miss Perkins. Anybody, rather than Miss Perkins. The fact caused a sense of injury. Why might not she do a kindness naturally and simply, like other people, without uplifted hands and amazed eyes to follow? If Mr. Gilbert had taken the poor woman to the Vicarage, no one would have been in the least degree surprised.

"Never!" repeated Jessie, without the smallest intention of hurting Miss Perkins' feelings. "That poor thing! How glad she must be!"

"She isn't. She doesn't know anything."

"Hasn't she come round yet?"

"Not she. Just opened her eyes, and that's all. I've got a fine peck of work before me, looking after her. As like as not, she'll be ill and die."

This was not quite consistent with her own observation to the doctor; but few people are consistent all round.

"Oh, I don't believe she will. You'll nurse her so beautifully, she's sure to get well."

The intended compliment fell flat. Miss Perkins wore a lugubrious expression, and was not to be cheered. Having told her tale, however, she no longer opposed Jessie's desire to be up and dressed; and really she had enough to do to require her niece's help.

CHAPTER VIII

HERO

IN receiving the new inmate into her home, the big Newfoundland dog was a difficulty upon which Miss Perkins had not counted. She objected to dogs, especially to large ones. They were apt to leave footmarks on a clean doorstep, and to scratch holes in a tidy garden-bed; and Miss Perkins looked upon them as undesirable members of society.

But Hero had saved his mistress' life; and nobody had the heart to keep him from her side, if indeed such keeping were possible. He was gentle as a kitten to everybody, except when they tried to coax him away from the unconscious Mildred; and then his hair rose, and a suggestion of white teeth, with a faint under-ground rumble, warned people to be careful.

Somehow Miss Perkins, in her pity for the woman, had overlooked the dog; and when Millie Pattison, swathed still in the shawls which had been wrapped round her chilled frame after the removal of her own soaked clothes, was laid upon the spare room bed of Periwinkle Cottage, Hero was there also. Bruised and battered by his struggle with the waves, he had not once left his mistress; and he took up his station close beside the bed, as one who had a right to be there.

Miss Perkins protested at once. She couldn't have that beast in the house, not for nothing nor nobody! But remonstrances, commands, exhortations, coaxings, offered pieces of meat, proved all alike unavailing. Hero declined to stir an inch. When a hand was laid on his collar by one of the men who had carried Millie upstairs, there was again a gleam of white ivory and a soft gurgle; and the man beat a quick retreat.

"You'd best let him be for a time, mum," Robins suggested. "He'll come away by-and-by. If it wasn't for he, she wouldn't be ashore now."

Miss Perkins objected extremely, but for the present she had no choice. Though brave enough in a general way, she had a fear of dogs, and she dared not touch him; neither did any one else dare.

So long as Hero was left alone, he remained perfectly passive and gentle, resting his great head against the end of the bolster, and watching with troubled brown eyes everything that was done. To move and lift and attend to his mistress, under those watchful eyes, was at first rather nervous work; and Miss Perkins kept two women helpers to assist her through the ordeal. It soon became evident to her, as it was already evident to others, that Hero entirely understood their benevolent intentions. He interfered in nothing; only he would not be driven away.

"I don't know whatever in the world I'm to do at night," Miss Perkins uttered despairingly. "I wouldn't be left alone with her and that brute, not if I was paid for it ever so! That's a fact."

Unexpectedly Jessie came to the rescue. Jessie was a born lover of animals, dogs especially, and Hero of course knew it in a moment. When she crept into the room after Miss Perkins, her first glance fell, not upon Millie, but upon the massive dark head of Hero; and her first exclamation was a subdued, "O you beauty! You dear dog!"

"Jessie, take care. He'll bite you. Look out."

"Oh dear, no, he won't." Jessie fearlessly patted and soothed Hero, and he leant against her with a confiding air. "You dear creature! Why, your poor paw is all hurt. You must come with me and have it bathed. I wish I could know your name, doggie. Come along with me, and I'll bathe your paw. Come."

She took firm hold of his collar, and, strange to say, Hero offered no resistance. A fresh warning from Miss Perkins was nipped in the bud. Jessie passed out of the room with a face of triumph, leading the dog away.

"Well, I never!" broke simultaneously from Miss Perkins and from the one other woman who still remained.

"Dogs always come to me. They know I love them," Jessie declared.

She took Hero down into the kitchen, bathed the injured paw in warm water, and gave him a plateful of scraps: after which Hero went upstairs again, lay outside the bedroom door, and slipped in on the first opportunity. He no longer proved unmanageable, however; and for Jessie, though for no one else, he consented at night to go downstairs and to be shut into the little scullery, with a mat to sleep on.

"But I'm sure, if I'd known it meant having that brute too, I'd never have offered to take her in," sighed Miss Perkins. "I've always said I wouldn't have a dog in the house, not for nobody; and I've meant it, too."

"And I love dogs!" was all the expression of sympathy she could obtain from Jessie.

When the dripping clothes of the half-drowned woman were dried and examined, a small Church Prayer-Book was found in the pocket of the dress, so tightly clasped that, though greatly damaged, it was still possible to make out part of a written inscription: "For Mildred; from her brother, Phil P—," the remainder being illegible. Her clothes were marked with the initials "M. S. P."

So "Mildred" was the name by which she became known during the next ten days. Fever ran somewhat high, though not to a dangerous extent and she wandered dreamily. Sometimes she would call, "Hero!" suddenly, in a clear voice, and the instant response of the dog, starting to her side showed this to be his name. She was always soothed by his touch; and if he were long absent from the room, her restlessness increased. Other names often on her lips were "Phil," "Louey," and "Lou;" and sometimes she would vaguely ask, "Were they saved?" It was never needful to answer her.

Not till fully ten days had passed since the wreck, did Mildred Pattison steal from the shadowy land of dreams back to the everyday world of clear consciousness. Even then she was at first too weak for connected thought; but gradually, as strength returned, recollection came, and past and present began to take definite shape.

It fell upon the young and inexperienced Jessie to break to her how matters were. Everybody had dreaded having to do this, and hoped that it might fall to the lot of some one else. And, after all, it so happened that Jessie was alone in the room when Millie for the first time looked with steady and questioning eyes and whispered,—"Tell me, please!"

Jessie was aware of a shock of alarm. "You mustn't talk yet," she said. "Aunt Barbara will be back directly."

"Who is aunt Barbara?"

"My aunt, Miss Barbara Perkins. This is our house, you know."

"I don't know—I want to understand."

"We live in Old Maxham, and I live with my aunt. Never mind. You'll know soon. And I mustn't let you talk?"

"It will not hurt me. Where is—?" She paused, and seemed to think painfully. The sound of her voice aroused the dog, asleep in a corner. He came to the bedside, with his soft padding step, and poked a cold nose into her hand. "Hero!" she said, and she burst into tears.

"Don't! Please don't!" entreated Jessie. "You'll feel better soon. What a beauty Hero is!"

"Dear old Hero! He—I suppose he saved my life. I have been trying to remember. He was—on the deck with me. After that—" and a break, "I can't remember anything else."

"He kept you afloat; and they took you into the boat."

"Ah!"

"I've got to give you some medicine now."

Mildred received it with a quiet "Thank you." Then she said, "I suppose I have been ill?"

"Yes. But you are getting on nicely. Couldn't you go to sleep now?"

"Not yet. I want to know—what boat was it?"

"One of our Maxham boats. It went out to do what it could."

"And who else—?"

"Please wait a little till aunt Barbara comes in. She'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Who else was saved?"

"Another day, when you are a little stronger."

"My brother—Philip? He was the Captain. And little Lou?"

Jessie was silent.

"Tell me the truth. I have to hear. Were they saved?"

Silence still; but two drops fell upon Mildred's wrist. She looked up, faintly smiling.

"Thank you. How sweet of you! I didn't know there was anybody left to care. Then I was the only one? All the rest drowned?"

"I wish you wouldn't ask me," Jessie said, with a sob.

"No; I know now. I think I knew before. I—saw them dead, you know. Only, I couldn't quite believe it! To be left so alone as this!"

"Don't, please!"

"Poor old Hero!" She sighed, and closed her eyes. "Only you and I now, Hero! I wonder why I was saved."

She lay very still for a while, not as if sleeping. Her brows were knitted, and presently a few hot tears crept slowly out from the shut lids. Jessie sat watching sorrowfully. The light-hearted girl was having a glimpse of the darker side of life, which hitherto she had not known.

A step made her look up. Miss Perkins stood gazing at Mildred.

Jessie whispered under her breath, "She's been asking questions."

"And you've told her?"

"Yes."

"Well, it had to be done. It's a good thing over."

If Mildred heard, she made no sign. An hour and more passed before she again stirred or opened her eyes. Then she encountered, not Jessie's face, but that of Miss Perkins.

"Aunt Barbara, I suppose?" she murmured.

"My name's Barbara Perkins. I'm Jessie's aunt." Miss Perkins always spoke in a possibly combative style.

"Is that Jessie? I like her."

"She's a middling sort of girl. Nothing particular."

"How good of you to take me in."

"Somebody 'd got to do it. And I'd got a spare bedroom,—just till you could go on to your home."

"I have no home."

Miss Perkins experienced a sense of dismay.

"No home, and no one belonging to me! All are gone. Phil and little Lou were the last."

"Well, well, I wouldn't think about it now. You've got to get well first," said Miss Perkins, her duty as nurse rising uppermost.

CHAPTER IX

WHAT WAS TO BE DONE NEXT

THOUGH Miss Perkins might say to Mildred, "Don't think," with reference to her isolation in the world, Miss Perkins made no effort herself to refrain from thinking. Without friends, and without a home. Did that also mean, without any means of livelihood?

It might easily do so. Miss Perkins was greatly exercised in spirit on this question. She had offered, under a sudden gust of pity, to take the shipwrecked wanderer for a few days, looking upon the arrangement as a transitory one; and when Millie, instead of rallying quickly, became worse, needing constant attention, she had buckled bravely to the task, devoting her time and her energies, with really few complaints.

She had received a cheque for five guineas from Mr. Gilbert, given out of his own slender resources; but five guineas would not cover the additional outlay in which she was involved; and though she know that others might come forward, she knew also that such coming forward was doubtful. People in general are glad enough to put off trouble and expense upon another. Money in Old Maxham could not be regarded as a plentiful commodity; and those who possessed any considerable amount of it—Mr. Mokes, for example, was credited with large savings—were by no means too fond of parting with the same.

For a few days, or for two or three weeks, Miss Perkins had met her responsibilities pluckily. But Mildred's words had now opened out a new vista. If Mildred had no home, no friends, no money, no means of livelihood, would Miss Perkins be expected to make her a permanent inmate of Periwinkle Cottage, without remuneration? That was the question.

Miss Perkins had begun to view her own action in the matter as foolish and impulsive; though she would have been the last to acknowledge as much to anybody else; and though, it is to be hoped, she would have done precisely the same over again, had the condition of affairs been repeated.

For a while these doubts only troubled her when she was away from Millie. In Mildred's presence such sensations had no weight. But as days went on, a feeling of provocation even there sometimes assailed Miss Perkins. Mildred was very feeble still, with no energy to arouse herself, or to think of plans and ways and means; and day after day she lay, spiritless and pale, just moving from the bed to an easy-chair, apparently content with her shelter and not in the least degree anxious as to how or by whom her needs were supplied. She was too utterly saddened to have room in her mind for personal cares. Miss Perkins began to think that the time was come when Mildred ought to bestir herself and ought to be troubled.

Another element also was entering into the question. Jessie had always been a light-hearted maiden; partly because life had hitherto shown to her chiefly its sunny side; but she was by no means without a share of that true womanliness, which happily few women entirely lack, and which means being drawn by the sight of suffering.

Only the most spoilt and the most selfish of women are repelled by sickness and sorrow; for in true woman-nature, there is a natural craving to give help where help is needed.

Miss Perkins had pitied most when Mildred lay powerless and unconscious. Jessie pitied most now that Mildred was awake to her own lonely and forlorn condition. And Jessie not only pitied, but loved. She gave her warm girl-heart first to Hero, and then unreservedly to Hero's mistress. Not many days passed from Millie's first awakening into full sense, before Jessie found an absolute delight in knowing her. To be left in charge of Mildred, it did not matter how long, was the best thing that could happen.

Miss Perkins perceived this, and the iron entered into her soul. She had done much for Jessie—had kept her from destitution, had given her a home, had supplied her requirements, had provided her with necessary teaching; but with all the amount of her practical kindnesses, she had never won her niece's heart after this fashion. If Jessie loved Miss Perkins, it was with a duty-love. There was no real clinging affection, no delight in Miss Perkins' presence, no craving for Miss Perkins' smile. The most Jessie commonly hoped for was to avoid a "fuss," to please her aunt so far as not to be scolded or grumbled at.

To see this passive stranger winning in a week what Miss Perkins had failed to win in fourteen or fifteen years was a bitter pill. Miss Perkins did not make allowance for the eccentricities of a young girl's fancy; still less did she allow for the repellent effects of her own dry manner and uncertain temper. She said nothing, and only nursed her annoyance in private; but the jealousy threatened to colour her after-relations with Mildred. As the invalid grew stronger, Miss Perkins became more tart; reverting to the mode of speech and action usually characteristic of her, with some added acidity from the cause above mentioned.

Jessie saw the change, and did not divine its root. She never dreamt of such a possibility as that Miss Perkins could be greedy of warmer love from the niece whom she systematically snubbed, and whom she always seemed to regard as an unwelcome burden.

"Aunt Barbara care!" she would have exclaimed, had the idea been suggested to her. "Oh, that isn't her way at all. She only wants not to be bothered."

But it was very much Miss Perkins' way, only always below the surface.

Mr. Gilbert was still entirely laid aside, able to sleep little with the ceaseless pain of his crushed arm, and altogether in a state of great exhaustion. His sister had come from a distance to assist in nursing him; and though he had repeatedly inquired after Millie, and had sent many kind messages of interest in her condition, he was not yet fit for callers; so nobody had seen him except his own household and the doctor. The "mending" in his arm was exceedingly slow; and he had had a succession of relapses.

Jack Groates, on the contrary, although it was true that his leg had sustained a compound fracture, was doing well, lying in bed to be nursed by his cheery little mother. The bones were joining nicely, and he had had no "drawbacks" at all.

One way and another Jessie heard of Jack often; but naturally she was very busy at home, and after what had passed, she was sensible enough to know that it would not do for her to be perpetually running down to the Groates' Store with inquiries after him. Jessie had a due amount of self-respect, and she felt that she had to act with circumspection and with girlish reserve. She had thus far escaped an encounter with Miss Sophia Coxen. No whisper of gossip about herself and Jack had as yet reached her ears. It might be that for once Miss Sophia Coxen was restraining her love of talk. Jessie earnestly hoped that this was the case. But between Millie, Hero, and Miss Perkins, she found small leisure at this date.

"Folks 'll begin to think soon about coming to the sea," Miss Perkins one day remarked tentatively to Jessie. She had not made up her own mind what steps to take next, and a talk might clear the air of difficulties. In her present mood, if Jessie took one side of a question, Miss Perkins would instantly take the other side, out of sheer perversity. "And I shall be wanting my spare room."

"But—Millie!" Jessie exclaimed. Mildred's surname was now, of course, known, and people were trying to get into the way of calling her "Miss Pattison," after for two or three weeks thinking of her only as "Mildred." Jessie and her aunt had, at Mildred's particular request, kept to the Christian name, and Jessie had soon adopted the shortened form.

Miss Perkins' answer came with a snap. "Well, I s'pose she'll have to go. She'll be fit to travel soon, I s'pose."

"I don't believe she's got anywhere to go to."

Jessie's opposition was as good as a sign-post to Miss Perkins, who immediately took the reverse road to that indicated.

"She'll have to find somewhere, then. Anyhow, she isn't going to stop here. Don't you be a goose, Jessie. She's got letters this very morning. Of course she knows people. And she don't belong to us; and I'm not going to keep her, neither. It's little enough I've got to live on—and you to keep as well as myself."

Jessie was for the moment silenced. She did not believe that Mildred had any idea of moving at present; yet it could hardly be expected that Miss Perkins should undertake the support of this stranger, as she had undertaken the support of her own niece.

Miss Perkins had a nice little life-annuity of her own, the fruit of her father's careful savings in past days; and so long as she lived, Miss Perkins and her niece were secured from destitution. But the annuity was scarcely enough to keep them in comfort without the help of occasional lodgers; and since it would die with Miss Perkins, any small sum that could be saved she might naturally wish to lay by for Jessie's future. A third person could hardly subsist upon the annuity, and then, Hero's appetite was not small.

Curiously, though not so curiously as might seem at first sight, Mildred herself opened the subject less than two hours later. It was not so curious because the cause which had led to Miss Perkins' utterances was the same which led to her own. Millie had received two letters by that morning's post, and Miss Perkins was aware of the fact.

When Miss Perkins entered the spare room, big with ideas which contracted her face into a grim solemnity, speech on her part was forestalled. Millie took the initiative, saying, in her slow spiritless voice, the very words which Miss Perkins had been debating how to speak.

"Isn't it almost time for us to talk a little about my plans? I don't think—" with a faint tinge of colour—"that I ought to let things go on so any longer. Only I have dreaded having to face life again. Everything is so changed for me."

Miss Perkins was not good at the expression of sympathy, especially in one of her perverse moods. She cleared her throat, and stood gazing at Millie, sorry below, grim above.

"It did not seem as if I could let myself think sooner. But I know time is getting on, and I must not be a coward. Things have to be arranged. You have been very good to me, Miss Perkins."

Miss Perkins sniffed, and hoped she'd done her duty.

"More than your duty." This was a needless assertion, since no man can do more than his duty in any walk of life. Duty includes the utmost, and the utmost cannot be surpassed.

"But," continued Millie, "the spring is getting on, and I suppose—"

Millie came to a pause. Miss Perkins felt that the opportunity was not to be lost.

"It'll soon be the time of letting, if it isn't that now," she said.

"Yes; so I thought. How much do you get for this room generally?"

Miss Perkins replied with due caution. The price differed at different seasons. It was more in August than in June. It was more for a short let than for a longer let. She at length named two or three prices.

"And if the room were taken for the whole year round?"

Miss Perkins looked dubiously at Millie.

"I have not much of my own, but there will be a little—rather more than I have expected. I heard that this morning. Enough to pay for all my expenses lately, and—"

A murmur of disclaimer came. The better side of Miss Perkins rose uppermost. "She had not expected repayment."

"I am sure you have not; but that is a matter of course. I could not let you suffer for all you have done for me. This will not make any difference to my feeling of gratitude. I might have been penniless; you did not know that I was not; and it has made no difference to your action. But I am thankful to say that you will at least not be the poorer for what you have done."

"I couldn't take all you've got. I couldn't, and I wouldn't, and that's flat." Miss Perkins spoke in the tone of a deeply injured individual. If she had been uneasy before at the pull to which her generosity might be subjected, she was disappointed now to find that it would be no question of generosity at all, except as to the matter of intention.

"O no, you will not take all. I shall have a tiny income of my own—not much, but enough to pay for a room, and even to keep me going for a time with care. I must try to find work of some kind, so as to add to it, and perhaps to lay by a little. It may or may not be possible here, and I don't know what I may do by-and-by; but for the present I would rather stay quietly where I am. Will you let me do so? I shall feel that I am among friends, and I am not strong enough yet to fight my way in a new place. I am quite willing for the next few weeks to pay just what you would have had from other lodgers. If, a little later, I should decide to make it my home, we could come, perhaps, to some arrangement. You must not be a loser, of course; but I think it might repay you better to have a permanent lodger, even on rather lower terms, than to let only for two or three months in the year."

Miss Perkins had so often said exactly the same herself, that she could not contradict Mildred, dearly as she loved to contradict everybody. She hardly knew whether to feel pleased or not.

"An old friend of my father's, living in London, has asked me to go to him and his wife; but I do not think I could stand London, or life in a large noisy household. My home has always been in the country, and to go back to my old home would be too sad. Will you let me stay, at all events for a time?"

"It don't make any difference," began Miss Perkins: "but—but there's the dog."

"Ah, Hero! You don't like Hero, I'm afraid. Yet he does not trouble you, does he? If Hero goes, I go; but if you can put up with him, I shall be glad to stay. This room begins to look a little home-like to me. I must start afresh somewhere; I could not endure to go back to all the old surroundings. Everything would be so empty and changed. But Hero is the one thing left to me, and he saved my life. I could not part with him."

Miss Perkins was silent. In her heart she felt that if Millie could have parted with Hero, she would hardly have been worthy of the name of woman. Giving in was never easy, however, to Miss Perkins.

"Please think about it, and let me know," continued Mildred, after a break. "If you are willing, I shall send for the rest of my things from the south of Wales—just two or three boxes. The furniture was all sold before I went to sea."

CHAPTER X

JESSIE'S DECLARATION

"AND you'll stay here always, Millie! Won't you? Promise not to go away. Promise not to think about any other home."

Jessie had flown eagerly upstairs, two steps at a time, after lengthy confabulation with Miss Perkins. The state of affairs had gradually oozed out, in response to judicious squeezing; and Jessie had controlled her own ardent pleasure, lest from a sheer spirit of opposition, Miss Perkins should decide against having a permanent lodger. Difficulties lay in the path of an immediate settlement of the question. Hero was the ostensible stumbling-stone; jealousy of Jessie's love for Mildred was a more potent barrier.

Of the latter fact Jessie was ignorant, but she had abundance to say in defence of Hero. He was the dearest and sweetest of dogs! Always good, and always obedient. He never dug holes in the garden; and he was learning to rub his paws on the doormat whenever he came in. Had not aunt Barbara herself, seeing him at the occupation two days earlier, remarked that he did it "uncommon like a Christian"? Miss Perkins could not disavow so recent an utterance.

"Well, I don't know as I care—particular. It's got to be, I s'pose. Things has mostly got to be as nobody wouldn't ever choose," said Miss Perkins, In a mood of depressed philosophising. "But I'm not a-going to have a fuss made about Mildred, mind. She'll have to take things as she finds them; and if she don't like 'em, she'll have to go. And you'll have the doing of her room. I've enough of my own to see to, and it's time you should help. We shall find it a lot of bother, all the year round."

Jessie forbore to remind Miss Perkins of her oft-uttered longing for a permanent lodger. She forbore even to protest against the insinuation that hitherto she had not helped. In her eagerness to keep Mildred, she would have endured more than this.

"O I'll do the room all right," she made answer cheerfully. And the moment she could escape, she fled to Mildred's retreat.

"You will stay always, won't you, Mildred?" she reiterated.

"'Always' means a great deal. I should like to stay for a time, at any rate."

"Only for a time! Not to live here!"

"It must depend, partly, on whether I can find any work to do. I couldn't be idle, Jessie. I think I should go out of my mind. You don't know what the feeling of loneliness is—not a person in the world belonging to me; not one relation nearer than a cousin of my father's, and he is a crusty old man, who never even writes. I have no real ties now, and it is so strange."

Jessie listened seriously. "I haven't ties either, I suppose. Ought I to care, Millie? I don't think I do, very much. There are so many nice people in the world. Of course aunt Barbara is a tie; but I am not so very fond of her. I am much more fond of other friends,—of you!"

"And of the Groates', for instance?"

"Yes," blushing, "I do like Mrs. Groates. And so will you when you get to know her. But what sort of work do you want to find?"

Mildred explained slowly. She could teach, she said, if only the simpler branches of teaching were required; but she would very much prefer dressmaking. No, she had never been a dressmaker. Her father had had a good post in a country bank, and he had toiled to the last. Mildred had never had to work for her living, as a matter of necessity. She had, however, always loved work, especially dressmaking. She knew herself to be very good at cutting out and fitting. She had always made her own dresses, and often those of her friends.

Jessie listened with round eyes and exclamations barely suppressed. "It's the very thing," she could have cried, remembering the Miss Coxens, and their laments over the difficulty of obtaining any efficient help. Jessie restrained the first impulse to tell Millie her thought. It would be better to see the Miss Coxens first, and to lay the matter before them.

"I should think you might easily get dresses to make," she remarked judiciously. "We have not many dressmakers here, you know. And if you can, then you will make Old Maxham your real home! And now I've got to go out for something, and you must rest, because you look quite tired with so much talking."

Impulsive Jessie was half-way down the street, before a recollection surged up of the last time she had seen Miss Sophy Coxen. With the remembrance came an unpleasantly hot blush. But Miss Sophy Coxen had to be encountered some time; and the present hour was as good as any other. So Jessie hurried on.

"Dear me! Why, it actually is Jessie Perkins at last!" declared Miss Coxen, peeping out of the window. "I began to wonder if she ever meant to come near us again."

"And what a colour she has, to be sure!" chimed in Miss Sophy. "She hadn't that when I saw her over the way—you know, sister! She was as pasty as a tallow candle, and as shaky as anything."

"I wouldn't say one word to Jessie about that, Sophy, if I was you. Girls don't like to have it thought that they care for anybody in particular, you know; and I dare say it would vex her to know that we think what we do think."

"Ah, well, we know what we know, and nothing can undo that," sighed Miss Sophy oracularly. "But mum's the word, sister."

Miss Sophy spoke the word in happy oblivion of the fact that she had already told her story to at least fifteen individuals belonging to Old Maxham.

"Well, Jessie, how d'you do? Come in, my dear," Miss Coxen said with great cordiality, and both sisters squeezed Jessie's hands in affectionate style.

Jessie, still wearing a high colour, seated herself promptly with her back to the window, and proceeded to pour forth particulars of Mildred and of Mildred's prospects. This was a disappointment to the pair, for they wanted her to talk about Jack, not about Mildred, and Jessie refused to be turned aside from her subject.

She had so often heard them lament the absence of any good dressmaking in the place, except their own, that she was greatly disappointed to find her overtures on behalf of Millie met with blank looks and solemn silence. Miss Coxen smoothed her apron, and Miss Sophy pulled her ringlets, and neither uttered any response.

"I thought you'd be quite delighted," hazarded Jessie.

"My dear, you expect—really—too much!" Sophy took her cue from Miss Coxen's face. "That we should be delighted—" Miss Sophy began to sniffle, "delighted—to have the bread taken out of our mouths!" Another sniffle,—"By this interloper from foreign parts—"

"But—" protested the dismayed Jessie.

"She is no doubt quite an experienced dressmaker. O yes, and up in all the fashions! She will leave us far behind!" sighed Miss Coxen.

"And to think of Miss Perkins being the one to bring this calamity on our heads," wept Miss Sophy—"our old friend, Miss Perkins! And Jessie!—that I dandled on my lap, when she wasn't that high—" and Miss Sophy sniffled anew.

"But I thought you wanted help so much. I'm sure you have always said so."

"O dear, dear, how people do misunderstand one!" moaned Miss Sophy in mournful tones.

"A little moderate amount of help, my dear, just at pressing times, we might require; but not to be supplanted,—not to have the food taken out of our mouths by a London dressmaker," murmured Miss Coxen. "A first-class London dressmaker!"

No doubt, Jessie, in describing her friend's powers, real or supposed, had laid the colours on rather thickly, and Miss Coxen had immediately proceeded to deepen them still further.

"Millie isn't a London dressmaker. She isn't anything of that sort. Why, I told you she had always lived in the country, and had only done dressmaking for her own amusement. And I think you ought to be glad to help her,—all alone in the world as she is, with no home or friends. Other people have tried to help her, at any rate. She won't take the bread out of anybody's mouth; she is a great deal more likely to take it out of her own. Mildred isn't at all a sort of person to do harm to other people. And you have often and often told me that you might easily take in a lot more work, if only you had a third pair of hands to depend upon. And now that you might have the third pair, you just turn against it."

Jessie's little outburst was not without effect. The sisters looked one at another, shook their respective heads, and finally promised to "think about things."

"We couldn't always give her work, that is certain. Not when there isn't much doing, you know. But just now and then, perhaps. We might try what she is worth, you know. People so often say they can work who really can't put two breadths together. But of course we should like to do anything we can to help her. You ought to be sure of that, my dear. And if we find her capable and not pushing, and willing to do what she is told, why, then, just once in a way—"

CHAPTER XI

INNUENDOS

MISS COXEN came to a pause, and Jessie felt the prospect unsatisfactory. Her visions of great success and crowded time for Mildred had waxed dim.

She was, however, wise enough to be thankful for small things, and her neatly expressed thanks went far towards disarming the sisters of their spirit of opposition to the scheme. Again they promised to "think it over," each enforcing the other's words with repetitions, and Jessie had to say, "Thank you so much," at least six times in acknowledgment.

After all this, the temptation to recur to Jack Groates became irresistible. Miss Coxen looked across the road, opening and shutting her eyes with meaning, and Miss Sophy gave vent to little sympathetic gasps.

"And how is that poor young fellow getting on?" asked Miss Coxen in benignant tones.

Jessie's mother-wit came quickly to her aid.

"What poor fellow?" she inquired, with lifted eyebrows, and with scarcely so much as a blush. Necessity lent her self-control.

"What poor fellow? O now, Jessie, Jessie, as if you didn't know! The idea of pretending!" ejaculated Miss Sophy, shaking a pair of scissors at her. "And such friends as you and he are too!"

"He hasn't been here long enough," Jessie replied, with a coolness which astonished herself, though, indeed, her cheeks were no longer cool. "I like him, of course, but not so much as the old Vicar yet."

"Dear me! She means the Vicar, sister," in an audible aside.

"But we mean poor young Jack Groates, Jessie. How is he getting on?" asked the older sister with an indulgent smile.

"O well enough, I dare say," responded Jessie indifferently. "I'm too busy to go and ask; but they say he'll be walking soon."

"Brave young fellow."

"Was he? Other people were brave too. Aunt Barbara said he had no business to go at all."

"My dear Jessie!" ejaculated one sister.

And "Jessie, my dear!" echoed the other.

"That was what aunt Barbara said. I didn't say it. She said it wasn't Jack's business. Of course I don't know. They might all have been drowned, of course."

"Ah, it is easy to speak so now, Jessie, when the young fellow is all right in his own room. If he had been drowned, I know very well who would have broken her poor little heart."

"You don't know!" retorted Jessie indignantly, unable any longer to keep up a show of indifference. "I can guess what you mean, I suppose, and it is all nonsense. Of course I was sorry; anybody would be sorry to know of people being drowned—people they knew! But I think it is very unkind to make so much out of nothing, and to twit people with it afterwards. I'm very fond of Mrs. Groates, and it seemed so dreadful to think of what she would have to bear. And then to be accused—" Jessie broke down, nearly in tears.

"Yes, yes, my dear; of course that is all clear and right," pursued Miss Sophy, not in the least convinced, and smiling away in a manner which exasperated Jessie. "Of course it's quite proper and sensible to talk like that, and every one knows what it is worth. We'll all wait and see. And some day, when Jack Groates speaks out,—"

"Speaks out what?" cried Jessie angrily.

"Really, Jessie, I wouldn't give way to temper; I wouldn't really," expostulated Miss Coxen. "It is such a pity. You ought to be able to take kindly a little interest in your affairs from such old friends—such very old friends as we are. We are only pleased for your sake, because we know you so well, and because we are fond of you."

"Pleased about what?" asked Jessie tartly.

Miss Coxen hesitated; Miss Sophy did not hesitate. "About you and Jack Groates," she said, beaming.

"What about me and Jack Groates?"

Jessie was too wrathful now to remember her manners.

"My dear, of course you know what I mean."

"I don't; or if I do, nobody has any business to say such things. That's nobody's business except my own," declared Jessie. "Jack has never asked me to marry him; and if he did—"

Jessie came to a pause. Indignation had carried her on farther than she had meant to go. She found suddenly whither her words were tending.

"And if he did?" echoed Miss Sophy.

"I wouldn't have him, of course."

"Now, Jessie!"

"Why should I? You don't suppose I'm going to have the first man that wants me, if I don't care for him! Not I!" cried Jessie.

"You wouldn't marry that fine young fellow if he wanted to have you, Jessie?"

Jessie flung her head back, and stood up.

"Marry Jack Groates! Thank you! Not I!"

The sisters stared each at the other, aghast. "Aunt Barbara will want me. I've got to go home now."

Good-byes were brief, and Jessie was speedily hastening homeward. But she did not at once report herself to Miss Perkins, or go to Mildred. She ran upstairs to her own little room, shut the door, and stood still to think.

"How they do meddle, and how I do hate meddling! Was I wrong to say that? But what else could I say? And now they will go and repeat what I have said all over the place. And Jack will hear it too. Well, let him! If he really cares for me, he ought to understand; and if he doesn't, it's the best thing he can hear. Will he mind? Poor Jack! O I wish, I wish, people wouldn't interfere in what doesn't concern them. What does it signify to Miss Sophy whether I like Jack or don't like him? It's our business, not hers.

"Aunt Barbara declared it was no business of Jack's to go and save the sailors, and I think that was his business. It was everybody's business. But I'm sure this isn't everybody's business. I do detest the way Miss Sophy goes on. And if Jack hears what I said! I wish I hadn't said so much! And yet if I hadn't, Miss Sophy would have gone talking everywhere, as if I wanted to marry Jack. And I don't—unless he wants it! Of course I don't. But if Jack hears, what will he think?"

Jessie's fears were not without foundation. So interesting a conversation could not possibly be kept by the sisters for their own private delectation, and it was whispered in detail to one acquaintance after another, always under injunctions to secrecy.

Such injunctions are not worth much, since each acquaintance was pretty sure to repeat the whisper to somebody else. In this manner the tale travelled in a very short time, not exactly across the road, but round by longer routes, till it arrived inside Groates' store. Had Jack's mother heard it, she would never have said a word to Jack; but unhappily Mimy was the recipient, and Mimy always told everything to Jack. She never thought of making this an exception. Jack listened with grieved eyes.

"Jessie said she wouldn't have me! Mimy, are you sure it isn't a mistake? What could have made her speak so? I've never told her yet in plain words that I do want her; but she must have seen. I thought she understood, and I thought she cared for me. I did really think it."

"I'm sure I did too, Jack. Jessie must be a heartless sort of girl to talk in such a way—just now when you are ill, too."

"We don't know what made her talk so. You're quite sure she really did say it?"

"Miss Sophy is telling everybody that she did. I don't see why Miss Sophy should make up such a story for nothing. And Jessie hasn't been here nearly so often the last few weeks, Jack. Mother and I could not think why. Perhaps she has changed somehow."

"I couldn't have thought it of her," muttered Jack. He hid his face, and actually groaned aloud. "I thought there wasn't another girl in the world like Jessie." Then he looked up at his sister.

"Mimy, don't tell mother. I can't talk about it yet, and she would be so sorry. Just leave it for me to tell her. I'll do it some day; not yet. But I did think Jessie was different. I did think she cared for me a little."

CHAPTER XII

WHAT LIFE LOOKED LIKE TO MILDRED

MILDRED PATTISON came out of Periwinkle Cottage with a slow step, and stood gazing up the village street. She wanted to go to the Churchyard, but she rather mistrusted her own powers. Miss Perkins was gone out and Jessie was not within sight, and a wish had come over Millie to find her way to the little mound of earth, already turning green, where slept the remains of Louey, washed up the day after the wreck. The Captain's body had never been recovered. Like his wife, he had found his grave below ocean waters.

Mildred had not yet been out alone for any distance. Her strength was tardy in its return, and she had only once been toward the Churchyard, just near enough to see the little mound in a quiet corner some way off under a walnut-tree. Then she had felt weak, and had turned homeward again. That day Jessie had been her companion: and this was her first attempt at a solitary ramble.

A heavy sense of being alone in the world weighed her down. She began to wonder whether she had done wisely in settling at Old Maxham, even for a time, where she belonged to nobody and where nobody belonged to her. Work was long in appearing, and time hung on her hands.

Jessie seemed very fond of Mildred, but during some days past Jessie had been absent in mind and apparently much wrapped up in some trouble or worry of her own; and this afforded the one little additional touch which was required to make Millie's state of isolation almost more than she knew how to bear.

What did it matter to anybody whether she stayed or did not stay? What did it matter to anybody whether she lived or died? If she were called away that very night, no one in Old Maxham would do more than drop a passing tear, with a half careless "Dear me, how sad!"

"If only somebody belonged to me," sighed Millie as she went languidly along the street, with Hero close behind. "If only I did not feel myself so alone."

A small girl in pink sunbonnet and pinafore, with clustering fair hair and blue eyes, smiled up in her face, and Millie had no spirit to return the smile. So the small child grew quickly grave again, and looked as if she had received a slight sprinkle of cold water. Mildred went wearily onward in her mood of sadness till she reached the old Church in its old churchyard. Then, feeling spent, she made her way to the tiny mound under the walnut-tree, and sat down upon a flat tombstone.

The little mound was just in front. Mildred meant soon to have a simple stone put there to the memory of her dear ones. Sitting here she seemed to be nearer to them than in Periwinkle Cottage, and it brought back the past vividly, that past which was seldom out of her mind.

"Not that they are in the graveyard," she murmured. "Louey herself—her dear little self—is not here under the soil. Phil is not under the sea. They are all together, at Home, as Phil said they might be that very night. Why was I the only one spared when no one wants me? Not a single being in all the world who really needs me, not one who would really care if I died to-night."

"Are you quite sure nobody needs you?" asked a voice close by.

Mildred looked up, hardly able at first to see through a mist of tears. She had not known herself to be speaking aloud. The mist cleared, and she found an elderly man to be standing beside the mound, his hands planted on a stick with a knob handle, his eyes bent pityingly on herself. He had long grey hair which curled naturally and fell almost to his shoulders.

"I wouldn't cry if I were you. Not so much at least. You look as if you had nearly cried your eyes out in the last few weeks. It would make your friends sorry if they knew; don't you think so?"

Mildred could scarcely reply, "I don't know."

"You were saved in the wreck lately, were you not? Ah, I felt sure it was so. And this is the grave of the pretty little one who was drowned? Your niece? Yes, yes! And you miss her very much? Yes, of course, that has to be so. But still I wouldn't cry too much. After all, they are happy; it isn't half so bad, don't you see, as if you were happy and they were unhappy. Don't you think I'm right?"

It was a new view of the question to Mildred. She did not quite know what to say.

"And if I were you, I wouldn't be too sure that nobody wanted me. How can you tell that?"

"Nobody is left who belongs to me. I am alone in the world." Mildred spoke rather coldly. She did not know who the stranger might be, and she could not even recall having seen him pass Periwinkle Cottage. Yet his face was full of goodness.

"You can't be alone. Look at all the people in Old Maxham."

"They don't care for me."

"Then you can care for them."

"None of them belong to me."

"But you belong to them."

Mildred was silent. She wished he would go, and leave her alone with her sorrow.

"Such a number of them as there are," he went on musingly. "And some of them need such a lot of looking after, and get so little."

A faint smile came to Mildred's lips. "If I could be useful to any one, I would be," she said.

"That's right. I thought you must be that sort from your face. Well, well, you won't wait long for somebody or other to be useful to. Can't do much here, can you?" And he glanced from one headstone to another. "They've gone through it all, poor dears, and they are free now.

"'Marianne Morris, aged seventy-three.' I dare say she had plenty to bear, off and on, in her life, and I dare say it doesn't seem very much to her now where she is gone. And 'Susan Willis, aged ninety'; she had long enough of it. But it's all over with them. You can't give them a helping hand in the land where they are now. It's to be hoped they don't need it.

"If all those nice texts are not put out of politeness, Old Maxham has had a lot of uncommonly good people. And here's a nice little grave, just like that of yours. 'Posie, aged three.' Little dear, she had no long fight. But there are thousands of children, like Posie and your little niece, who are in the battle still, and in danger of going down under water, just for want of a helping hand to keep them up. Thousands of little ones who want looking after. Little ones that our dear Lord would like you to help take care of for Him. Don't you see?"

Mildred's eyes were wet with soft tears. "Are there—here?" she asked. "Not in Old Maxham."

"Not thousands in Maxham, not even hundreds, I suppose. It isn't a big place. But I'm certain there must be some. Old Maxham isn't Heaven, by any manner of means."

"I don't know the people, and they don't know me."

"That's easily cured."

"And I don't belong to them, or they to me."

"You've told me that three times in these few minutes, do you know? And I think you are wrong, if you'll forgive such plain speaking. Lots of people belong to you, and you can't get out of it. 'All children of one Father.' Doesn't that make us all brothers and sisters? You know the lines—

"'No distance breaks the tie of blood,
Brothers are brothers evermore.'

"If I were you, I would begin to look upon other folks as brothers and sisters, and to treat them so. Never you mind if some of them are cantankerous. Perhaps they have had a good deal to make them cantankerous. Anyway, it doesn't un-brother or un-sister them. It only makes them a trouble and worry instead of a pleasure, and we all have troubles and worries of some sort to bear. You can do them good just the same, even if you can't exactly enjoy being with them. He who died for you died for them too, and He is their Brother just as He is yours. That makes a very close tie, eh?"

"I think I see," murmured Mildred. "Thank you. I—I'll try to remember."

He lifted his hat, uncovering the long grey hair, and moved quietly away, passing out of sight. Mildred stayed where she was, pondering his words. The feeling of utter isolation had vanished. She looked round upon the graves, meditating on the finished earthly lives of those who had been laid to rest; and then she gazed towards the village, trying to feel that in very truth she had many brothers and sisters living there, whose particular needs it was her duty to search out, perhaps even to supply.

Even she, Mildred Pattison, weak in body, and poor in money, she might supply some of those needs. For the most crying want of all, belonging to every heart of man, is the want of sympathy, and no man or woman ought to be so poor as to have no sympathy to bestow. That would be the worst and direst form of poverty, because it would be poverty, not merely of body, but of spirit.

The fact began to dawn upon Mildred, that the happiness of Old Maxham people was to some extent dependent upon herself. She might make some among them more happy or less happy. She had to take her choice which of the two it should be; but she could not refuse both alternatives. Each person in the world is always making those around either happier or unhappier than such individuals would otherwise be; and Mildred could be no exception to this rule. Every smile, every frown, every hasty utterance, every kind word, adds to the weight of the scale, one way or the other way, with respect to somebody.

And the happiness of each person in the world is the particular concern of all other persons who have to do with that one person. If all are brothers and sisters in the sight of our Heavenly Father, then each brother and each sister has some portion of the happiness of the rest in his keeping; and if one member of the family is in need or suffering, then it is everybody's business to help him.

Mildred did not say all this to herself in so many words; but a faint vision of the truth dawned upon her, and it was followed by a resolve. If something was due from her to others, even in Old Maxham, where nobody in a certain sense could be said to "belong to her," then she would endeavour to do that something. If she might not attempt much, she would be content to attempt little, but she would not remain idle and indifferent.

Rather curiously, the first suggestion which came to her mind was of the little girl who had smiled at her, and had had no smile in return. Mildred woke up to the fact of the child's disappointment, and was sorry for it. Looking back to her own childish days, she knew how small a matter could make a little one feel sad.

When she rose to go home, it was a positive relief outside the Churchyard to come across the very same child again, in her pink sunbonnet and apron. This time the blue eyes glanced up soberly, with the least possible edging of the tiny person away to a wider distance; but Mildred smiled her kindest, and the rosy lips parted instantly in response.

"What is your name, dear?" asked Mildred.

"I'm Posie. Posie Number Two. And they call me Pet, 'cause there was the other Posie, you know."

"And where is the other Posie?" Hardly a necessary question, for Mildred remembered the tiny headstone. Posie Number Two pointed with one small finger towards the churchyard.

"She's gone to bed there. Mother says Posie was so tired. And she don't never get up, you know, 'cause she's resting. I think I'd rather get up sometimes, it I was that Posie."

"What is your name, dear?" asked Mildred.

"Have you any other sisters or brothers?"

Posie Number Two shook her head. "I haven't got none," she said sedately.

"And where do you live?"

Posie thrust her hand confidingly into Mildred's. "I'll show you," she said.

Mildred offered no objection, though wondering where she might be led, and whether her strength would hold out.

She found herself guided along the road which led homewards; and the clasp of those warm little fingers seemed to put new life into her. Posie chattered fast as they went, and presently they reached a trim little cottage, nearly opposite Groates' Store, and next door to the Miss Coxens. At the gate stood a woman, with a pleasant but rather careworn face.

"Posie!" she exclaimed, and the child sprang into her arms.

"Posie and I have been making friends," observed Mildred.

"Posie's a dear," said the other. "She's all I have,—me and Joe,—and sometimes I don't hardly know how to bear to let her go out of my sight. I don't know whatever we'd do if anything was to happen to her, that I don't."

"One never does know—till it comes," murmured Mildred. "I have just been to the grave of my little one,—no, not my own, but my brother's child. They were drowned in the wreck."

"Yes, I know—I was sure!" and the woman looked with kind full eyes at Mildred. "It must be so dreadful to lose anybody that way. I've lost a little one of my own; not by drowning, but she died of fever. I almost thought at first I must have died too."

"The other little Posie, you mean. I saw her grave."

"Some folks didn't like us naming Posie after her. They said maybe Posie 'ud die too. But I didn't see it, nor I don't. Posie's all we've got left,—me and Joe,—and God won't take her from us. Surely He won't."

"Not unless it was needful for Posie's own good. If it was better for Posie to go, He wouldn't leave her on earth for anybody's sake, I suppose—it wouldn't be kind to do it; and if you love her, you couldn't really wish it either. But it wouldn't be because her name is Posie—that's certain."

"Then you don't mind—you don't think it was wrong of us to call her Posie?" The woman looked anxiously for an answer.

Mildred considered, leaning on the gate. "No, I don't know that I should call it wrong," she said. "I wouldn't do it myself, though."

"You wouldn't?"

"No. I mean, if little Louey had died before her mother's death, and if another little one had come, and I'd had a choice of the name given me, I wouldn't have called the second 'Louey.' There aren't commonly two of one name in one family, you know. And Louey isn't dead; nor Posie either. They are only gone to another home. I wouldn't name a second child after the first, who had just gone to another home. Would you?"

"I didn't see it that way before." The woman looked thoughtful. "It's true, though. I think I'll take to calling her 'Pet' mostly, instead of Posie, and keep 'Posie' for the other."

"Yes, I would! Keep thinking of her as your own little Posie still—only safe at home, safe in the Good Shepherd's arms, and being taken care of for you till you can go to her. You can go by-and-by, you know—if you will."

The words of quiet confidence passing Mildred's lips cheered her own heart strangely. She had hardly known before how very sure she felt as to Louey and Louey's father and mother being in that other Home, guarded and kept till she should be allowed to join them again. What she said had sprung unbidden to her lips; and when she had so spoken, her whole being cried out in eager assent. It was true; all true. They were only parted for a little while. A restful gladness came over her. She could at last be glad for their sakes.

The woman's eyes filled, and she put out a hand.

"Come again, won't you, some day? Come and see me indoors. I like to hear you talk. We live here—me, and Joe, and Pet. My name's Emma—Emma Stokes. Come and see me any time, only not just as late as this, because Joe 'll be back directly, and I've got to see to him."

"Yes, I will. I'll be sure to come. I won't forget."

Mildred was turning away, but she paused and asked, "Do you know who the elderly gentleman is that I saw just now in the churchyard? It's a kind face, with longish grey hair, quite curly."

"It'll be one of the doctor's patients. He's got a fresh one, come only two or three days ago, and Joe saw him. Joe said he was exactly like that. I hope he isn't very ill, poor gentleman."

"What is the matter with his patients generally?"

"Different sorts of things," Mrs. Stokes replied. "Sometimes it's what the doctor calls 'a mental case.' But I shouldn't think it was that this time. Joe said the gentleman looked as if he was all right in his head. Sometimes they only want change and rest, and a bit of extra looking after."

"No, I shouldn't think it could be that with him," remarked Mildred. "Well, good-bye. I'll come again some day before very long."

CHAPTER XIII

SOMETHING FOR MILDRED TO DO

MRS. STOKES went back into her cottage, hugging Posie No. 2, and Mildred was on the point of starting for home, feeling very tired, and ready for nothing but rest. Before, however, she could turn her face in the right direction, another front door was flung open—that of the next little house, which had upon a brass plate outside an indication of "The Misses Coxen, Dressmakers," as resident there—and a plump little woman, with eyes aghast and dropping under-lip, stood in an attitude of dismayed appeal to the world in general.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed. And in her extremity of excitement, she began to dance from one foot to the other, wringing her hands. "Oh dear! Whatever in the world shall I do?"

"Can I help in any way?" asked Mildred, wondering what would happen next.

"Will you really? How good of you. But I don't believe I know who you are." Miss Sophy was far too flustered to recognise anybody unfamiliar.

"Never mind. My name is Pattison. Tell me what has happened."

"It's my sister, poor thing. We've been ever so hard at work all day; and she just got up to cross the room for a pattern, and I suppose she went too fast. Her sight isn't good, and she fell over a stool. I was too far off to be any help, and I suppose she bumped her head against the fender or the coal-scuttle. She seems half stunned, and she doesn't get up, and her hand is hurt. I'm all in a shiver at the thought of touching her, and I've got nobody to send for the doctor, for our girl is out, and I don't know what to do."

"A helpless sort of person," Mildred said to herself. Aloud she only remarked, "You had better take me to your sister."

Miss Sophy backed before her to the front sitting-room, talking volubly as she went. The room was strewn from end to end with unmade and half-made dress materials. Her sister half lay and half sat upon the rug, supporting one hand with the other and moaning distressfully, while blood ran fast from a cut across her forehead.

"You are hurt, poor thing," Mildred said, bending over her.

"It is my hand that is worst, and the pain's most dreadful," groaned Miss Coxen.

"Your right arm too. Yes, you must have come down with all your weight on this hand. I dare say it has saved you from some worse hurt. The cut on your face doesn't seem to be very deep. I see you must have fallen against the edge of that old coal-scuttle; it's as sharp as a knife."

"It might have killed me outright. I wonder it didn't. And Sophy never doing anything but stand and stare."

"Well, yes, it might; but you see it hasn't. Now, we must help you into the arm-chair, and then will see to your forehead and hand. Perhaps the pain will be better for a little bathing."

To Miss Sophy she said, "You must give an arm too, please. I cannot lift your sister up alone."

Miss Sophy obeyed, but in so limp and clumsy a style, that Mildred might almost as well have acted without her. When at the first outcry of complaint, Miss Sophy started back, leaving her sister a dead weight upon the other, Mildred, weakened by illness, nearly came down with her burden.

"That was wrong of you," Mildred said gravely. "Now please go at once for the doctor, and I will stay here till you come back."

Tiredness had to be put aside for the present. Mildred saw Miss Sophy off the premises, and then brought warm water to bathe the cut, tying it up with a clean pocket-handkerchief of her own. The hand seemed to be a more serious matter, and Miss Coxen was crying with the pain. Mildred bathed it gently pending the doctor's arrival.

"I'm sure I can't think how ever I did it," Miss Coxen said plaintively more than once. "It was being in a hurry, I suppose. We'd promised a new dress to Miss Gilbert this week, and there was something else to finish off first; and Sophy is so slow. Oh! Don't touch—please don't touch me there. Just let the water run over my hand, that's all. Sophy could never do this. She always flusters and hurts people. I do hope the doctor won't touch my hand. I couldn't stand it, if he did; I should have to scream. I wonder how soon I shall be able to work again?"

When Mr. Bateson walked in, a certain amount of "touching" was of course inevitable; and not of touching only, since the thumb proved to be badly dislocated. Putting it right meant no doubt considerable pain, and Miss Coxen did not fail to carry out her promise of screaming.

"Come, come! That isn't quite needful," Mr. Bateson observed. "Rather bad at the moment, but soon over. You'll have to keep this hand in a sling for a while, and give it complete rest. How long? Oh, for some little time. I'll come again to see how it is getting on. Work in two days? Dear me, no; nor in two weeks. Of course a great deal depends on strict attention to orders. I shall look in soon; and meanwhile you've got to take a holiday."

Miss Coxen wore an expression of dismay, and Miss Sophy's loose mouth dropped open, while Mr. Bateson turned his attention to Mildred, who had long been his patient.

"When did you come in here?" he asked.

"Perhaps half-an-hour before you did."

"Well, you have to go home now. Any hot water handy?" he demanded of Miss Sophy. "Get a cup of tea for Miss Pattison, please, as quick as you can."

Mildred protested, but the doctor refused to listen; and Mr. Bateson waited till the feat was accomplished.

"That's right," he said. "Now you'll get back without collapsing. Best thing you can do is to go to bed and get rested. No particular use in falling ill again."

He stood drawing on his gloves, and Mildred remarked, "I think I must have come across a friend of yours to-day in the churchyard. A nice-looking man, rather old, with grey hair. Is he one of your patients?"

"What makes you suppose him to be so?"

"Somebody said that he was."

"Well, I shouldn't wonder if he is—one of my inmates, at all events. 'Patient' is an ambiguous term. Willoughby arrived two days ago, and it sounds like Willoughby. If he isn't old and benevolent, he manages to appear like both."

"What is the matter with him? Not a mental case surely?"

"Not what you mean by a mental case. Been working too hard, and come down for a week's rest. That's about all. I heard of him through a friend, and had a spare room to offer."

"Then he will soon be off again. I liked him."

"So do I, thus far. Now, Miss Pattison, I must be off, and you have to go straight home."

Mildred did not protest. The doctor turned to Miss Sophy with one or two parting directions for the management of her sister, and Miss Sophy listened with an air of hopeless incapacity.

"It doesn't matter; I understand," said Miss Coxen. "Sophy always was a goose about anybody being ill. But I shall do, somehow. I wish I had you to nurse me," she added to Mildred.

"You'll manage well enough," the doctor assured her. "It's chiefly a matter of keeping the hand quiet." Then he said good-bye and vanished, and Mildred rose to put on her mantle.

Miss Sophy indulged in another sigh, and wondered whatever in the world they were to do.

"There's that new dress for Miss Gilbert that isn't so much as begun to be cut out yet," she said; "and it was promised by the end of the week. I shall never manage it alone, I'm quite sure. And Alice Mokes' gown too, and Mrs. Mokes' old one that's got to be turned."

"Alice Mokes won't mind waiting, if her mother doesn't mind. Oh dear, my poor hand! But I know Miss Gilbert can't wait. She's leaving the Vicarage on Monday for a fortnight, and she wanted this dress particularly. Well, we shall just have to tell her that it can't be done."

"And then she'll go to somebody in New Maxham, and we shall lose a good customer," complained Miss Sophy. "And so pleased as we were to get her too!"

Miss Coxen looked towards Mildred, and Miss Sophy blinked.

"I wonder if it wouldn't do," cogitated Miss Coxen, and Miss Sophy began to dance anew with excitement.

Mildred roused herself from a fit of thought to the consciousness of being talked about.

"I think I could help you, if you like," she said. "I mean, if Miss Gilbert is willing. You could let me have the stuff and I would make it up for her."

"But perhaps you mightn't do it rightly, and we should be blamed," objected Miss Sophy.

Mildred smiled.

"I'm not afraid of the risk, if you are willing."

"Miss Gilbert was in a great hurry for the dress, and she might consent," admitted Miss Coxen. "She said her regular dressmaker in London was ill; and, dear me! It seemed quite a Providence for us. And now it's all upset. I can't think how ever I could do such a silly thing as to tumble over that footstool."

Miss Sophy could not think it either, and she said so in plain terms, whereupon Miss Coxen began immediately to defend herself.

"Do just as you like about it," broke in Mildred. "If you are willing, and if Miss Gilbert does not mind, I will do my best to have the dress made in time. I must go home now, and you can let me know to-morrow morning. Terms? I do not ask any payment. Of course I hope to find work by-and-by, and to be paid for it; but this is merely to help you through a difficulty. It will be a pleasure to me."

CHAPTER XIV

THE CHANGE IN JESSIE

THE sisters consulted seriously after Mildred was gone. She had undoubtedly made a very kind proposal. If they yielded to her offer, and allowed her to do the work, and if she did it well, she might receive payment of another kind, since success in that direction would be extremely likely to bring other work to her hands. The Misses Coxen rather shrank from this possibility.

Yet why not? Mildred, as well as the Misses Coxen, had her way to make in life; and if she were a capable dressmaker, she was sure, sooner or later, to find employment for her needle. The Misses Coxen could not expect always to enjoy a monopoly of dressmaking in the neighbourhood.

In point of fact, they had not done so: since any lady who was particular as to cut and style would certainly not go to them, unless for some very simple piece of work. Most ladies thereabout had procured all better dresses from London; really good dressmakers in Maxham being unknown.

It was surely unreasonable that Mildred Pattison, who had both the will and the power to work, should be expected not to exercise that power.

And if she did not set up in the place, somebody else would do so before long. Not only might many dresses now made in London be made in Maxham, but the two sisters found it increasingly difficult to get through even such work as fell to their share; and where a plain opening exists, it is likely before long to be filled. The Misses Coxen had long been aware of a growing need for another good workwoman in the village, and they reluctantly arrived at the sage conclusion that, on the whole, their wiser policy would be not to attempt to stand in Mildred's light, but rather to endeavour to use her—perhaps even to put her under obligation to themselves. This was not a lofty view of the question, though a good deal better than an opposite view would have been. At present, it must be confessed, the matter of obligation seemed to lie the other way.

An interview with Miss Gilbert ended in the dress material being handed over to Mildred.

"I'm only too delighted," Miss Gilbert confessed in an under tone. "I see that you know what you are about, and I was beginning to regret having tried the other quarter. My dress would have been an utter failure, of course, but I did not know that when I rashly went to them. Please follow your own devices in making this. I particularly want the dress to look nice, and I am not afraid about it—now."

The emphasis with which Miss Gilbert spoke showed that she had been very much afraid.

Four days of hard toil followed—hard at all events in Mildred's still weakly condition. Perhaps a little for her own sake, and certainly also for the Misses Coxen's sake, as well as under the pressure of a strong sense of duty which never allowed her to do less than her best, Mildred threw her whole energy into the task which she had undertaken, and the dress when completed proved to be, in its owner's eyes, "the very prettiest she had ever had in all her life."

"It is simply perfect," Miss Gilbert exclaimed, in her girlish manner, to Mildred. "I have never seen anything better done. You ought to set up in London, or in some large town. Positively you are thrown away in this little out of the way place."

"I don't think I should care to live in London, Miss," Mildred answered. "If I can get work to do in Old Maxham, I shall be quite content."

"You will not have to wait long for that. I shall take care to let my friends know at once that it has become possible to get a dress made in Maxham fit to be worn."

"But—" and Mildred hesitated; "I think it should be understood that I wouldn't on any account do anything to harm the Miss Cozens. I could not do it! They have been so long here, and I'm only a new-comer. I don't mean to make dresses for any of their old customers."

"Poor little women! I am told that they turn out the most wonderful sacks in the way of gowns! Of course I had no idea of that when I asked them to make my dress. They don't even know enough to be willing to improve." Miss Gilbert laughed and then she grow grave. "But you are right, Miss Pattison; quite right. My brother would say so. It is nice and good of you to think of them before yourself. Only people can't possibly send their better dresses to people who simply spoil the material. If they could turn out a dress looking respectable—but I'm told that they can't. The dresses that you will have to make will be those which otherwise would have been made in town. Don't you see?"

Mildred knew that it might be so, but she also knew that the sisters would not see it to be so, and in her kind-heartedness she felt a touch of pitying soreness for the pair who had always counted themselves such an important part of Old Maxham.

Jack Groates had begun to hobble about on crutches before the Vicar might come downstairs: and by the time that the Vicar could get out of doors, Jack had cast aside his crutches and had taken to a stick. He would soon be as "right as a trivet," the doctor said. The Vicar, having less strength of constitution, was longer in climbing the hill, and his arm was still good for little.

But the Vicar looked as joyous as a man could well look, while Jack Groates had a depressed aspect. An unaccountable cloud had arisen between himself and Jessie—unaccountable except to Jessie herself, and no doubt to Miss Sophy Coxen. It was a complete mystery to Jack's mother. He had never yet told her, or allowed Mimy to tell her, of the gossip which had reached his ears.

Mrs. Groates was not a person who would lend herself to the hearing of gossip, and people were rather careful what they ventured to say to her concerning Jack. She was apt to fire up, like a cat in defence of its kittens, if anything adverse were spoken as to any of her children—Jack above all. And though there was nothing exactly adverse to Jack in this particular tale, it was quite possible that her ire might be aroused at the very idea of any girl rejecting Jack, more especially before he had come forward with an offer.

Jessie seldom entered Groates' Store now to see Mrs. Groates, and when she did appear, her manner was constrained. She was by no means her old blithe little self; for the alteration in the condition of affairs was quite as much of a grief to her as to Jack.

She had, however, reluctantly made up her mind that Jack could, after all, have meant little, or he would not so soon have believed Miss Sophy's gossip. He too had grown cold and constrained; and she did not know how entirely this was caused by her own changed manner to him.

He said nothing, even to his mother; and Mrs. Groates would not try to force his confidence.

"If anything is wrong, it may come right again, if nobody meddles," she considered. "I don't hold with meddling in other folks' affairs in a hurry. Maybe they have had a bit of a quarrel, and maybe they'll make it up again. I'll wait and see."

But as days went by, and Jack's face grew longer, and Jessie's manner stiffer, Mrs. Groates found it increasingly hard to maintain silence.

"You're very busy nowadays, Jessie," she said one day, meeting her in the street. Jessie would have hurried by, but Mrs. Groates stopped her.

"Yes, I've a lot to do—helping Mildred," Jessie answered nervously, looking around, as if she wanted to escape.

"We're older friends of yours than Miss Pattison, but she seems to have stepped into our shoes with you, Jessie." There was a note of reproach in the voice. "You used to like coming to see us,—to see me and Jack."

"Of course I like going to see you. I don't see why I should care so very particularly for going to see—Jack!" with a slight break.

"Now, Jessie!"

"And I've got ever so much to do now. I'm learning dressmaking from Mildred Pattison, and I like it very much. I mean to be a dressmaker. Millie is getting heaps to do."

"And the Misses Coxen don't mind?"

Jessie's face had for a moment a curiously bitter look.

"I don't care if they do," she said shortly. "I mean, I don't care if Miss Sophy does. She can't expect to have everything always her own way. I don't mind if you tell her so too."

"Why, Jessie, you're not like yourself to-day, not one bit. What has come over you, I wonder?"

"Nothing. I'm just the same as I always was. Only I've got to hurry home, or I shall keep Millie waiting."

"Good-bye, then;" and Mrs. Groates turned away, very much hurt, while Jessie ran off with her eyes full.

It was hard to have to snub her kind friends, but what else could she do? If Jack had not the sense to understand and to come after her, things had to be thus. She at least would put it into the power of nobody to say that "Jessie had gone after Jack."

Mrs. Groates meanwhile walked on, thinking what a pity it was that so nice a girl should be so altered, and as she so considered, she met Miss Sophy Coxen.

"Good afternoon. It's a fine day," said Miss Sophy. "And how are you all getting on? I haven't seen much of you lately, but you must have had a deal to do with Jack laid by. He seems to be pretty nearly all right again now. I saw you talking just now to Jessie Perkins."

"Yes. How is Miss Coxen's hand?"

"Oh, pretty bad still. The doctor don't give any hope of its being fit for work for a long while yet. Just see what a time Mr. Gilbert's arm has been getting better. I don't think Mr. Bateson cures people as quick as he ought. He might do something or other, I should think."

"There's a good many things doctors can't do, and that's one, I shouldn't wonder," sagely remarked Mrs. Groates.

"Well, I don't know. I don't see why he shouldn't. It's very bad for us, I know; very bad indeed!" shaking her head till the curls danced. "I don't know whatever we shall do by-and-by. There's that Miss Pattison setting up herself for a fine London dressmaker, after pretending she wanted to help us, and getting all the work of the place into her hands. There 'll be nothing loft at all for sister and me to do, and however in the world we're to get along—. And that chit of a Jessie making believe to work too, as conceited as anything. They'll take the bread out of our mouths; and much they'll care."

"But I thought Miss Pattison was so good in finishing off that dress for Miss Gilbert that you couldn't get done, and not even wanting to be paid for the work," remarked Mrs. Groates, who pretty well understood the state of the case.

"O yes, I dare say. She's deep, that Miss Pattison. It sounded fine and grand, and it's brought her in a lot of work; and she knew what she was about all the while. I've got no patience with that sort of showing off. And now she'll do her best to ruin sister and me."

"I think you are wrong, Miss Sophy; I do think so really," Mrs. Groates answered, trying to control her indignation. "Miss Pattison isn't that sort, I'm sure. Not as I know her well; but I do like to be fair to people. And only yesterday Mrs. Mokes was in a regular taking because she says that Miss Pattison wouldn't have nothing to do with making dresses for her. She wasn't going to make dresses for none of your customers. And Mrs. Mokes was as vexed as could be."

"Yes, I dare say! That's the way. Setting up herself to make dresses for the ladies of Maxham Hall and Lee Court. She's doing both, I know. And they've never been to sister and me all the years we've done dressmaking here. Oh, I dare say Miss Pattison wasn't likely to make a dress for anybody so humble as Mrs. Mokes—I shouldn't wonder if she wouldn't! But as for her pretending it's for our sake,—no, no, I know better."

Mrs. Groates was silent. She really did not feel capable of answering this outflow of ill-will. That Miss Sophy was utterly in the wrong in her estimate of Mildred Pattison, Mrs. Groates had not the smallest doubt, but to convince Miss Sophy of the same would be a difficult matter. The outflow went on, unchecked:—

"There's carriages stopping at the door of Periwinkle Cottage, and ladies going up Miss Perkins' stairs to be tried on, and Miss Perkins thinking herself as grand as anything. And as for Jessie, why her head's fairly turned. If you don't see it, I do. Jessie used to be mighty good friends with your Jack, and folks did say something was to come of it, but now she'll scarce turn her head his way. Jack's nothing like good enough for her."

"How do you know?" demanded Mrs. Groates, her motherly heart aching for Jack.

"Why, anybody can see, I should think. It don't take much in the way of eyes. And it isn't seeing only. I said something to Jessie herself about Jack one day,—just in a friendly sort of way. And, dear me, didn't she give herself airs, and toss up her head.

"'Marry Jack Groates?' says she; 'not if I was to be paid for it!'

"'But you would if he asked you,' says I.

"'I wouldn't, though,' said she. 'Jack may get another sort of wife. He needn't look to have me. I hope I'll be able to look higher than that, anyway.'"

By which it may be perceived that Miss Sophy was not exact in her report of what had occurred, and that the story had gained in size.

"I'm sorry to hear that Jessie is such a little goose," Mrs. Groates replied, outwardly cool, inwardly burning. "Whether or no Jack ever wants to marry her, I'm sure of one thing, and that is that she'll never find a truer or better husband than my Jack would be. But he needn't be in a hurry. There's plenty of girls to be had."

"And plenty of young men, too, for the matter of that!" Miss Sophy retorted. "If Jessie likes to look higher, there's no particular reason why she shouldn't, I suppose. As for Jack choosing, everybody's known for a long while past that he's been wanting Jessie. But it don't seem likely that he'll get her."

CHAPTER XV

ENGAGED

MRS. GROATES went home, feeling very sorrowful; and that evening she noted afresh Jack's troubled look, and knew with certainty that the change in Jessie was weighing upon him. He sat and read quietly, hardly opening his lips, and when some one happened to mention Jessie there was no response from him. Later on, when Mr. Groates was gone out, and the younger ones had disappeared, she found herself alone with Jack, and took the opportunity to say,—

"I saw Jessie to-day."

"Did you, mother? Jessie hardly ever comes here now."

"No, I know she don't. I thought maybe you and she had had a bit of a quarrel."

"Not that I know of. She was all right that day of the wreck, when I saw her down on the beach. And the very next time, you know, when I came downstairs, and she happened to walk in, she was different."

"I don't hold much with what Miss Sophy says. She's a mischief-maker, and no mistake. But I do feel afraid that Miss Sophy has got hold of the truth for once."

Mrs. Groates recounted particulars of her two short interviews that day, and Jack listened with a sad face of acquiescence.

"That isn't the first I've heard of it," he said. "Some one told Mimy, and Mimy told me. And I said I wouldn't have her tell you, because it might be all a mistake; and I didn't want to talk about it then. But I'm afraid it isn't a mistake."

"I'm afraid not, Jack."

"I'll never like any other girl so much as Jessie. She's so nice and bright, and such a pretty way with her; at least, she was till lately. And so fond of you, mother. I couldn't marry a girl that wouldn't be good to you. And I did think she cared for me. She'd look so pleased, and get such a colour in her cheeks, if I was to come near; and the way she'd say 'Jack' under her breath made me feel sure. And now it's all changed. I didn't think Jessie was the sort of girl to cast off old friends, nor to go and put on airs. But I can't feel a scrap of hope now."

"Miss Sophy wasn't fair on Miss Pattison, and I said what I could for her, of course," remarked Mrs. Groates. "All the same, if Miss Pattison has done harm to Jessie and set her against us, I do think it's too bad, and I shan't like her any more. I'm sure Jessie hasn't got so much to be proud of that she need put on airs to you, Jack."

Mrs. Groates was not quick to take offence for her own round comfortable little self. An unintentional little slight would pass over her head unnoticed; and even an intentional slight would be received with a cheery, "Well, well, I dare say it wasn't meant." But she was very quick to resent a slight to Jack, whether intended or no; and she could not easily forgive Jessie for causing him pain.

So the next time she happened to encounter Jessie, Mrs. Groates held up her head, and pursed her lips, and was as distant and disagreeable in manner as Jessie could be to her.

Poor Jessie quite made up her mind that day that Jack did not wish to have anything more to do with her. She ran home and cried bitterly, but she entirely refused to tell Mildred the cause of her tears.

Thenceforward she avoided going to Groates' Store, for any kind of reason, and if she saw Mrs. Groates or Jack coming, she would escape down a side-road to avoid meeting them. All the while her heart was longing for Jack; only, after what had gone forth about her, she could not possibly take the first step towards bringing about a happier state of things.

Had Jack believed in her still, the cloud would soon have passed off; but for a while he was to ready to believe in the tale set going by Miss Sophy Coxen, and too slow to understand its effects upon Jessie herself.

Mildred meantime found herself to be fast gaining a position as the best dressmaker in the neighbourhood. Miss Gilbert had taken care, before going away, to mention in two or three directions the fact of a capable hand within easy reach, and work began to flow in upon her with speed.

Though she had never gone through a regular apprenticeship, she possessed a remarkable aptitude for dressmaking, an aptitude so great as almost to amount to a genius for it; and she had made the most of her gift. She was a capital hand at cutting out, her fit was excellent, her taste and skill were equal to those of a first-class dressmaker, and her terms were moderate.

Moreover, she never undertook more than she had a good prospect of being able to do. Far from being in danger of robbing the Misses Coxen of their old customers, not many weeks went by before she was obliged to decline more than one dress, from sheer lack of time to make all that was offered to her; and she was also able now and then to pass on a simple "job" to the sisters, when it was really simple enough. She was too conscientious to give them work which she knew to lie beyond their powers.

Life for Mildred was no longer empty, and her health improved under the now state of things. She enjoyed her work, she liked to give satisfaction, she was glad to make nice little sums of money, and to lay by for the future, as well as to be able to do present small kindnesses.

It had soon become needful that Mildred should have two rooms, and Miss Perkins had made no difficulty about fitting up the back attic bedroom, so that the good-sized front room might be entirely given to needlework. In consideration of this, Mildred now paid double terms: so Miss Perkins was no loser by her kind action towards the forlorn and shipwrecked woman of the past.

Openings for usefulness appeared on one side and another, to be gladly welcomed by Mildred. There were the two little dressmakers to be helped, whenever an opportunity offered itself. There was Mrs. Stokes, with her pretty wee "Pet," to be called upon. There was a Sunday School class of big girls to be undertaken at the request of the Vicar.

Most of all, there was Jessie, her first Old Maxham friend—She was plainly in some sort of trouble. At present, however, she shrank into herself, refusing confidence, and Mildred could only wait, trying to interest her in the now occupation of dressmaking, to which, indeed, Jessie took with avidity, as a relief from her own thoughts.

"She may as well learn it, and by-and-by can decide whether or no she shall become a dressmaker," Mildred had said, when first offering to teach her.

Miss Perkins accepted the offer with unusual gratitude. It had often been a trouble to her to think of Jessie's future, since the girl might or might not marry, and her own little income would die with herself. Here would be a means of self-support provided, if only Jessie would take to it.

To Miss Perkins' surprise, Jessie did take to it. Though not fond of strictly plain work, she loved pretty things; and she was soon found to have good taste in this new direction. The scheme seemed to be a hopeful one.

"Still, I should like to know what is wrong with Jessie," Mildred sometimes said to herself. The gossip about Jack and Jessie had never reached her ears.

So passed several weeks, and the time of blackberrying had come round. Jack had been thinking much of Jessie, and a new idea had entered his mind.

What if there should be some mistake as to her state of feeling towards him? Was it wise of him, was it even right of him, to make up his mind, without really knowing it, that she had turned against him? It did not sound like the Jessie whom he knew. Could Miss Sophy Coxen be so entirely relied upon, that all hope for him was at an end?

The wonder was that Jack had not taken this view of the question a great deal sooner. He came to it now, gradually and with a good deal of slow thinking, and at length he resolved that, on the very first opportunity, he would put matters to the test. If she cared for him no longer, if she had grown too grand to think of him, she should at least say so plainly herself. Like a sensible man, Jack was no longer going to be managed by other folks' chit-chat.

He went one day about this time for a ramble through some fields, as he often liked to do. He was all right again now, able to enjoy rapid walking without so much as a twinge in the leg which had been broken. As he went along at a good pace, he thought continuously of Jessie, debating how he should manage to get hold of her, so as to come to an explanation.

For weeks the two had scarcely spoken, the one to the other; but an interview now was necessary, if only to settle Jack's mind. It might be that a mistake had divided them, and in that case the sooner it was laid bare the better. If not, the sooner Jack knew what lay before him, the better also.

He stopped to pick and eat some fine blackberries, and noting a small branch, heavily laden with ripe fruit, he carefully severed it with his penknife—the idea of somehow presenting it to Jessie having come up. Then he shut his penknife, put it away, jumped the next stile, and found himself face to face with Jessie herself.

One little "Oh!" escaped her lips, and her face flushed. Before she could turn away, Jack was offering the blackberry branch.

"I got this for you, Jessie. Won't you have it?" he said beseechingly. "Don't run away yet. I—I'd like some words with you,—if you don't mind."

Jessie received the bough, gazing on the ground, and twisted it shyly in her fingers, murmuring a "Thank you."

After which followed a pause. They stood facing each other, neither knowing what to say.

"You haven't been to see us for ever so long, Jessie," Jack observed at length.

"Haven't I? I'm so busy—"

"I shouldn't think that was reason enough. It don't sound like you to forsake old friends for new ones. It don't really."

Jessie glanced quickly up at this, and Jack was encouraged to proceed.

"I can't imagine whatever in the world it is that's come between us; but I know there's something or other. And it isn't me. It isn't anything that I've done. I did hope, one time, that you cared for me—and lately I've pretty near given up hope. Since I've been up and about again, I mean."

Jessie was surprised into a confession. "Why!—I thought it was you that had grown different!"

"I! But how could you? I!—Why—why, Jessie, you know I'm not changed. You must know it. You know it quite well. You've kept out of my way, and wouldn't come near me; and if you saw me, you've just run off as fast as you could. And I couldn't think whatever it's been for. Somehow, it don't seem like you that you should think yourself too grand now for me, if you ever did care the least bit,—and I can't half believe it. And yet I don't know what to think—and they say you're different."

"Who says it of me, I wonder?"

"Miss Sophy Coxen does."

"And you can believe that woman! Jack, you just deserve to be turned off; that you do. If you're going to take for truth all the stories she tells, I'll have nothing more to do with you."

"Then it wasn't true? And you haven't turned against me?"

Jessie was silent.

"You do care for me—just a very little? Eh, Jessie? Say you do."

Silence still, but a small smile curled the corners of Jessie's mouth.

"I've never cared for any girl, like I do for you, and I never shall neither. I'd do my best to give you a good home—I would that—if only you'd have me. Don't you think you might now? Don't you think you could promise, Jessie?"

"Promise what?"

"Why—promise to marry me! That's the long and short of it. Won't you?"

"I'm not going to marry yet; not for ever so long. I'm going to learn dressmaking."

"But you'll promise you won't marry anybody else? I'll wait, as long as ever you wish, if only you'll be mine some day. Won't you? Nothing in the world would make me so happy. And I know what mother would say too."

Once again he had to say, "Won't you?"

And then at length, Jessie answered with a "Yes." At the moment she quite forgot a certain past declaration to the contrary. She only felt strangely happy. Jack's heart was true, after all her fears, and she no longer needed to hide her love for him.

But what would Miss Perkins say? That question came up, when a joyous ten minutes had gone by. Jack was for taking the bull by the horns at once. He was ready to do anything for anybody, if only he might have Jessie. His honest face beamed with delight, and he insisted on walking home there and then with Jessie, that he might at once ask Miss Perkins' consent.

When the matter was laid before her, Jessie blushing and Jack glowing, she made, wonderful to say, no objection. Miss Perkins had certainly grown softer of late—perhaps under Mildred's influence; and she no longer indulged her old dislike of the Groates family as a whole, while she had been heard to speak approvingly of Jack.

"But I'm not going to have any 'marrying in haste and repenting at leisure,'" she said with severity. "You're both of you full young; and you've got to make your way, Jack; and Jessie has got to make hers. She's taken to dressmaking, and I mean her to stick to it. By-and-by, when she has laid by something, and when you've laid by something too, and when you're both a few years older, it'll be time enough. I don't mind her seeing you sometimes, of course—so long as Jessie's a dutiful girl, and does what she's told. She's a deal improved lately, and I don't mind saying it neither."

Jack was glad to hear anything said in praise of Jessie, though, under the circumstances, he naturally did not imagine any improvement to be possible. "She's all I want her to be," he said ardently. Other people, perhaps, took a fairer view of the matter.

And so Jessie and Jack were engaged to be married.

"As I always said they would be, sister," declared Miss Sophy Coxen, who never could allow that she had made a mistake.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LIFEBOAT

"SEEMS to me—I dunno as I'm a judge—but seems to me, Mimy, that Miss Perkins is uncommon changed, some ways, from what she used to be when we first came here. And uncommon nicer, too," said Mrs. Groates, polishing her best plated teapot with a vigour which made it soon to reflect her own beaming visage.

Mimy was not a girl of many words; none the worse for that, perhaps.

"Yes, mother," she said.

"And seems to me, too, a lot of it is through Miss Pattison—if there is a difference, and I'm pretty sure there is. Miss Pattison's nice; and that isn't saying half. She does good to everybody and everything about her. It isn't Miss Perkins only; it's Jessie too."

"Jessie's a dear," Mimy remarked.

"Jessie always was that; a nice little dear, so pretty and smiling. And I always liked her. But, all the same, I wasn't altogether sure, once upon a time, that she was best fitted to make our Jack happy—not as happy as I'd wish him to be. No, I wasn't quite sure, Mimy. And now I've got no manner of doubt. I do believe she's a real good girl, and tries to do what's right; and I believe it's Miss Pattison's doing, a lot of it."

Mrs. Groates rubbed vehemently at the fat round side of her teapot, and thought of a certain stormy day in the preceding March, when a vessel had been descried bearing down upon the dangerous reef of rocks which lay outside Old Maxham; and when the new young Vicar—now new no longer—had called upon her boy, Jack, among others, to go to the rescue of the sailors. Jack had long ago recovered entirely from his share of hurts, and had now been for many weeks engaged to be married to Jessie Perkins; but the Vicar's injuries had been of a more serious and prolonged nature, and perhaps his strength of constitution was less than that of hardy young Groates. His recovery had been a slow one, and he was only this day expected to return to his parish, after more than two months of absence, ordered by the doctor as an ending to months of pain and weakness.

"And Mr. Gilbert 'll be back this very afternoon," continued Mrs. Groates. "I'm glad of it. I like Mr. Gilbert, and I hope he'll come back all right, and able for his duties. Dear me, I dunno whatever this spot is made of. It won't come off; do what I will. But I'll have to keep on till it does."

"Mother, I saw Miss Sophy Coxen when I went out for you."

"Well, and what did she say?"

"She said she wondered how soon Jack and Jessie were going to be married."

"I don't see as that's her business, nor anybody's business except Jack's and ours. Miss Sophy does love to meddle, that she does." Mrs. Groates could not easily forget that Miss Sophy's meddling had caused Jack a good deal of unhappiness already in the past. "Next time Miss Sophy says anything of that sort, you can just tell her that there isn't any manner of hurry. Miss Perkins means Jessie to be a good dressmaker before she thinks about marrying, and Jack means to lay something by in the Savings Bank too, and he's right. A man's got no sort of business to marry till he's a fair prospect of being able to keep wife and children in comfort."

"Jack says so too, mother."

"Jack always was a sensible boy, and he ain't selfish either, like a lot of young fellows, who think of nothing in the world but what they want for themselves. A man ought to look ahead, and think what life is going to be, and not go plunging blindly along, without a notion of what lies before him. I wouldn't for anything have those two marry all in a hurry, and settle down in one little poky messy room, and use up every penny they can earn, and then go on from bad to worse, getting poorer every year, just because they began too soon, and never had a fair start."

"Jack don't manage to lay by much now."

"No, I know; and I've been speaking to your father, and telling him things can't go on so. Jack's a good son, but it's time he should look-out for a better post for himself somewhere else, in a bigger shop. He ought to be making a deal more than his father can give him now. It's time Jack should act, for Jessie's sake."

"What did father say?"

"He don't say much, and I can't get him to say much. I don't know as I understand your father just now. He seems so down, and not like himself. He just said, 'If it must be, it must be,' and I could see he didn't like me saying what I did. But Jack has got to be thought about."

"And if Jack got a good post somewhere, and made a nice sum of money, they wouldn't need to wait so very long."

"Well, that must depend. Jack won't get so very much at first, you may be sure. He's only been in this little country place, and if he goes to London or some biggish town, he'll have to begin low down, and work his way up. But it's time he should do it. I don't like the thought of parting with Jack, but, all the same, he's got to do it. People can't always have things just as they'd like 'em; and I s'pose it wouldn't be good for us if we could.

"As for marrying yet awhile, Jack is young, and Jessie is younger, and there's no manner of haste. If they had to wait three or four years, that wouldn't be any sort of hardship—no, nor four or five years. Neither of 'em 'll be any the worse for having to learn patience. A deal better put off, and begin life, when they do begin it, in comfort and ease."

"Jack told me last week that he did wish he could get something to do in London. He said he wasn't wanted here, and he thought it would be right."

"No more he isn't. There's nothing that you and I can't manage by way of helping father. It's just wasting our Jack to keep him here. I mean to have a talk with Mr. Gilbert, and see what he thinks. Maybe that 'ud bring things to a point."

"Mother, there's the bells ringing. It's the Vicar come back."

Mimy flew out to the front of the house, and Mrs. Groates followed with hardly less speed. Old Maxham Church had a small but tuneful old peal of bells, and they were now clashing vigorously. A number of boys came racing along the street, and then an open fly from the railway station, with the Vicar seated inside, and his sister beside him. Both were nodding and smiling, and the Vicar leant out, as they passed, to call to Mrs. Groates, "How do you do? How do you do? Glad to see you again."

"And I'm sure we're glad," responded Mrs. Groates.

She finished the sentence, though he was out of hearing before she reached the end of two syllables. "Dear me, now, that is a nice man, Mimy. So kind and hearty, ain't he? Not a bit of pride in him."

But Miss Sophy, standing on the other side, was deeply injured because the Vicar had happened to turn his head towards the Groates' Store and not towards the Coxens' little dwelling. It would have been hard for him, poor man, to look both ways at once, or even to look both ways in succession, for the fly went fast, and there was very little time. But Miss Sophy, like a great many people who are much occupied with themselves, was not always reasonable.

"There is not a person in the place that I like better than that sunny-faced little Mrs. Groates," the Vicar remarked over his afternoon cup of tea. "She is the very essence of content and good-humour. If nobody ever grumbled more than Mrs. Groates grumbles, the world would be quite another sort of place."

"You had better preach a sermon on that subject."

"Something else must come first. Here we are, well on in the autumn, with winter storms near at hand, and not one penny laid aside for a lifeboat. It won't do. That must be my business."

"Who ought to have seen to it?"

"Anybody. That too often means nobody. So I mean to make it my business."

"It will be a troublesome one, I am afraid."

"And if so—what then? We are sent into the world to take trouble."

"How much do you suppose a lifeboat will cost?"

"Can't say exactly. I have to find out all particulars. Several hundreds of pounds, I should imagine. All the more need not to delay."

"You don't suppose you will get it in time for this winter?"

"I don't know in the least. All I want is to get it as soon as possible. I shall not be happy till Old Maxham has a lifeboat. The thing is an absolute necessity."

"And you expect this village to supply you with hundreds of pounds!"

"No, I don't; but Old Maxham must give its share. And so must New Maxham, and all the country round. When I have collected a certain amount, I shall apply to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and see whether they would be able to meet us half-way. Of course, if somebody would give a large round sum down, that would make all easy; but at the present moment, it does not seem likely. We can only do our best in the matter."

"Which means that you will wear yourself to a thread-paper, rushing after an impossibility."

"I don't admit the word 'impossibility' into my dictionary. If the thing ought to be done, it can be done. I mean to have that lifeboat sooner or later."

"And a house to hold it."

"Just so. And a carriage to carry it, and a crew to work it."

"And suppose you cannot find a crew?"

"I'm not afraid. While England is England, and while Englishmen are Englishmen, there will be no lack of men to work the boat—when once the boat is here."

On the very first Sunday after his return the Vicar gave out, in the course of his morning's sermon, his intention of starting forthwith a "subscription list" for the purchase of a lifeboat.

"The list will lie on my study table, and I shall bring it round to all of you in turn," he said in his own straightforward genial manner. "I want you to think beforehand—not how little it will do you to give, but how much you can manage to spare, for the saving of our fellow-creatures' lives on this dangerous coast. Remember, each shilling that you do not give may mean the death of a man who is not ready to die,—may mean the loss of a husband, father, bread-winner, who can ill be spared.

"We need a lifeboat sorely, and you all know it. Not many months ago you saw with your own eyes a barque go to pieces on the rocks; and you can recall how many lives were lost that day, which, with a lifeboat at hand, might perhaps have been saved.

"A boat did go out, and it went too late; and if it had not been too late, it could not have got near enough to save the men. Had a lifeboat been on the spot, there would have been no thought of delay, and some, or even all, of the crew might have been rescued. The shortening days of autumn are now upon us, and the long dark nights of winter are at hand; and with each week the perils of our coast to passing vessels will be increased. I call upon you all to buckle to with determination, and to do your very utmost that no more lives may be needlessly sacrificed.

"The rocks are yours; the danger is your concern. Friends of yours may one day be in dire need, requiring a lifeboat to save them; and if not actual friends, they will at least be brother men. This is a matter which does not concern only one or two in the place.

"Perhaps you will tell me that it is one of those things which of course ought to be done, but that it is nobody's business in particular, and therefore not your business. Be sure of this, as you go through life, that if you hear of anything which needs to be done, and which is 'nobody's business,' that thing is Everybody's Business, and more especially it is your business. If God does not call upon one man in particular to do the thing, He calls upon us all collectively. Shall we disregard that call?

"No, this matter of a needed lifeboat is the business of all of us. It is not a case of 'nobody's business.' It is your business—and yours—and yours—and yours—each one of you, down to the little children.

"Everybody may help, each in his or her degree. Those who cannot give much may give little; but all may give something. If you cannot afford five pounds, you can perhaps afford one pound. If you cannot afford one pound, you can perhaps afford ten shillings or five shillings. If you cannot afford five shillings, you can perhaps afford half-a-crown—or one shilling. Nobody, I think, is so utterly poor that at least a few pence could not be given for such an object as this. If you had only two mites in all the world you might, like the widow of old, give those two mites, trusting to your heavenly Father for more mites on the morrow.

"Only, don't do one thing, which sometimes is done in the present day—do not give two mites out of a well-filled purse, and then, having eaten a hearty dinner, dare to class them as 'widows' mites.' They are nothing of the sort. The widow when she gave her mites gave her all. If you have given less than your all—less than all the living that you have—you have not given widows' mites.

"The point of the story lay, not in their being mites, but in their being the only mites that the widow possessed. If our Lord were again sitting by, as He did in those days, and if He saw some well-to-do person, with more money at home or in the bank, give one or two very small coins to our collection, when that person could well afford to give more, you may be very sure that our Lord would not say of such a giver, 'He hath cast in more than they all.'

"Our Lord does stand by, and does see. He is always near, and He sees everything. You cannot hide from Him the contents of your purse, or the figures in your bank-book, or the amount that you have been spending upon yourself in the past week.

"In addition to all this, remember something else also. Whatever you give, see that you give it from the heart unto Christ. Not unto me, your Vicar; not unto the Churchwardens; not unto the opinions of your neighbours; not even unto the cause of suffering humanity; but unto Christ. He gave His Life to save the perishing. You are urged to give—not your lives, most of you, though some have been willing to give even their lives—but, a little of your money.

"It may be that some among you will yet give your lives in the effort to rescue drowning men, when the lifeboat has been bought with your help! If so, that is a grand thing to do. It is a grand and a Christ-like thing to die in striving to save. I can hardly call it a grand thing, but only a plain and simple duty, to give what you can towards this crying need. It would be a grander thing to give more than you could well spare—more than you could spare without self-denial and loss—and some of you will perhaps be equal to this effort."

Then the Vicar quoted impressively in his deep voice some simple lines beginning,—

"'Man the lifeboat! man the lifeboat!
Hearts of oak, your succour lend.
See, the shattered vessel staggers!
Quick, oh! quick! assistance send!'"

The congregation was throughout more or less moved by the earnestness and the pathos of the Vicar's appeal. He had himself been foremost in the rescuing work; he had caused the attempt to be made when others were hopeless; he had risked his life, and had suffered long and sorely in consequence; and one in that congregation would never have been there but for him. Mildred's head was bent, and her tears fell, at the thought of those who might have been saved and who had not been saved. Tears were also on Mrs. Groates' cheeks as she recalled her Jack's peril.

CHAPTER XVII

MAKING A COLLECTION

THE Vicar was not one who would allow grass to grow under his feet, as the saying is, or who would allow the heated iron to become cold before he struck it. No later than Monday afternoon he set forth upon a round through his parish, subscription list in hand, bent upon getting as many gifts as possible towards the needed lifeboat. He was very much in earnest, very eager in his quest; and, like all subscription collectors, he met with varying success, sometimes receiving more from a quarter where he had expected less, and sometimes receiving less where he had expected more.

The list was headed by ten pounds from himself. This, out of the Vicar's small stipend, after the expenses of his long illness, and considering that he had no private property of his own, meant a great deal more of self-denial than anybody in the Parish was likely to guess,—except indeed his old housekeeper, who "did" for him, with the help of one young girl. But the old housekeeper was no gossip, and Old Maxham was not likely to be the wiser for what she knew.

Mr. Bateson, the doctor, despite his large family, his limited number of paying patients, and his unlimited number of non-paying patients, followed up this donation with another of five pounds; and, to everybody's surprise, Mildred Pattison came forward with a second five-pound note.

Her wish would have been to give it silently, with no name, as a secret token of thankfulness for her own preservation. She could be thankful now, feeling that she had been kept to do some work in life which needed to be done. Sometimes, however, it may be a duty to make one's expression of thankfulness a public matter; and in this case the Vicar was anxious to have the influence of her example for others. Mildred yielded to his wish, simply saying, "I will do as you like."

Mrs. Groates, notwithstanding the pull of her boy's accident, persuaded Groates to offer a pound to the fund; and though he made a long face over it, he gave way. Miss Perkins offered another pound, and this again was a matter for general surprise, since she had never been regarded as of a liberal nature, but rather was reckoned to be parsimonious. Jessie, out of her small purse, bestowed half-a-crown; not without a sigh for the pink ribbon which she had intended to buy. And since the giving of the half-crown meant doing without the ribbon, and since she cared a great deal about having the ribbon, her contribution had the added worth which is involved in self-denial.

Old Adams and the fisherman, Robins, would not withhold their little gifts also, though they had already made the much greater offer of themselves for the work of rescue. Nor were Mrs. Stokes and her husband behindhand; and even wee Posie No. 2, with pink cheeks and much excitement, pushed a whole penny into the Vicar's hand. The young Vicar, who dearly loved children, took her into his arms, and kissed the soft little face.

"That penny will surely bring a blessing," he said.

"She's talked of nothing but the boat and the poor sailors, sir, since last Sunday," Mrs. Stokes remarked. "You wouldn't think it, to see her, how Posie listens to the sermons, nor how much she understands and remembers. She's such a little thing, but she's wonderful quick to take in things."

"She isn't too much of a babe to listen to the 'old, old story,' Mrs. Stokes," the Vicar said.

In certain quarters matters went less swimmingly. Mr. Mokes, who was credited with large savings, talked of "hard times," and averred the impossibility of going beyond five shillings; a sum which in his case could by no means be reckoned as anything approaching "widows' mites." The Misses Coxen declared themselves to be unable to give anything at all. Work had been slack lately, they said, and money was short, and it wasn't they who were to blame, but other people who ought to have known better; and if those other people liked to give, the Misses Coxen had nothing to say to it, but as for themselves they just couldn't, and that was all about the matter. Other individuals offered more or less, according to their means, according to the claims upon their purses, and according to the spirit of generosity or the reverse which happened to be theirs.

Mokes' very small gift was a disappointment to the Vicar. It might be that Mokes had not so much laid by as was supposed; but as the longest-established and most successful tradesman in the place, he might have given a good deal more than two half-crowns without being a sufferer from his own liberality. The Vicar had looked for at least five pounds from that quarter; perhaps even ten. He spoke rather plainly to Mokes.

And Mokes rubbed his hands deprecatingly and talked anew of "bad times." "He couldn't afford more," he said, "not just then. Perhaps by-and-by—"

The Vicar knew what that was worth.

So the list grew irregularly, as such lists do grow, and the Vicar met with a good deal to encourage him, as well as with a certain amount that was saddening.

He did not, however, depend upon the neighbourhood alone, but wrote to friends and acquaintances and strangers too, in all parts of England, asking them to contribute towards the same object. So vigorously did he exert himself, that in a few weeks he was able to announce good success from the pulpit. He was indeed far from having gained the whole sum, but he had received actually as much as three hundred and fifty pounds; and if he could collect one hundred pounds more, that would suffice. He had been in correspondence with the National Lifeboat Institution; and that Society having just received an unexpected legacy of six hundred pounds towards the purchase of a lifeboat in some locality, where it might be needed, was willing to use this legacy for the needs of Old Maxham.

"The cost of a lifeboat, fully equipped, with carriage and boat-house, amounts to about one thousand and fifty pounds," the Vicar said. "That six hundred, with the three hundred and fifty which we have collected, gives us nine hundred and fifty pounds; and I have undertaken, if possible, to get the remaining hundred pounds. When the boat is actually started, there will of course be a certain amount of annual outlay, to keep it in an efficient state,—repairs, salaries to the men, and so on,—amounting to about one hundred pounds a year. For this we shall have a committee and collect what we can, and the rest will be undertaken by the Society.

"And now, my friends, I want you all to help me. Some of you have done much already, I know; and most of you have done something. Still, perhaps you may be able to do just a little more. Think how much the boat is wanted. Think,—if a storm should come,—what a difference the presence or absence of that boat would make!"

And the very next day a storm did come. The winds raged, and the waves leaped in fury over the outlying range of rocks known to Old Maxham as "the reef." All through the evening hours matters grew worse and worse, till only a strong man could stand upon the shore, facing the blast. And in the darkness, those who were there believed that they heard an awful cry, as of human beings in the last extremity of danger. One wild wail, and a pause; then another wilder wail, and a longer pause; then a third—and no more. Some said it was only the shrieking of the gale, and others hoped it might be fancy.

"Even if a barque was on the reef, we couldn't have heerd them here," it was declared.

But the older sailors shook their heads, and said that the thing was not impossible, for such a sound had been heard before, when a wreck had taken place, the wind blowing direct from the reef. Nothing could be done, however; for no ordinary small boat could keep afloat in such a sea as was running that night.

And when the morning dawned, and the fury of the wind had grown less, and the frantic waves had died into a sullen swell, fragments of a broken barque were borne in by the next rising tide, and with the fragments came two drowned bodies of sailors, stark and stiff. Only those two. The rest were gone, and the barque itself had vanished.

They were taken up and were reverently buried in the churchyard, and the Church's prayers were read over them, a large crowd having assembled around.

The Vicar officiated, and he used the opportunity to say a few more words upon the subject which lay near his heart. Many words were not needed, for those two drowned men had cried with a loud voice to the people of Old Maxham. But the Vicar could not quite pass the matter by. He looked round with sorrowful eyes as he said,—

"My friends, if we had had a lifeboat ready, it might be that we could have welcomed these sailors living, in our midst, instead of only giving them a corner of cold earth for their resting-place.

"Who can say? You all know that cries were heard in the night,—cries for help,—and no help could be given. No boat except a lifeboat could have floated yesterday night.

"And whose fault is it that we had not a lifeboat? It is certain that one ought to have been procured, long long ago. I am not going to reproach you now for the past. That which is done cannot be undone; and that which has been undone in the past must remain undone in that past. In the present and for the future it can be done, and it ought to be done, and till it is done we are one and all blameworthy. How many more poor fellows are to die thus, for want of our brotherly care?"

Then a flush came to the Vicar's face. "It is nobody's business, perhaps," he said. "Nobody's business, in particular; therefore, everybody's business in general. What!—Nobody's business, when we are here, when you and I are here, when God expects us to do what we are able to do!

"Nobody's business! Will that excuse serve, do you think, when we stand face to Face with our Lord, and He searches into our actions and motives and the use that we have made of our time and money and talents?

"Will it do then for us to say, 'It was nobody's business, and so it was not mine!' I think His answer would be, 'The blood of thy brothers crieth unto Me from the ocean.' I think He would ask of us, not, 'Have you bought the lifeboat?' but 'Hast thou done what thou couldst?'

"I cannot judge for one or another of you, whether you have or have not 'done what you could.' But He, your Lord, knows. He never makes a mistake. He never misjudges. He searches into all the underlying motives.

"If you have honestly done your utmost, then you may be at rest in spirit. If you have not, then think of those two poor fellows whom we have laid in the earth: think of all the others who have gone down in the night in an unnamed watery grave. Think of the many more who will yet come to our dangerous coast, and see what you can do, even beyond what you have already done, for their safety."

Tears were in the Vicar's eyes when he stopped, and some of the women present were sobbing aloud. And the Vicar went home and added two more pounds of his own to the collection, resolving to spare them somehow, at the cost of some added self-denial, though he was hardly yet in a condition of health for severe treatment of himself as to food or comforts.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHO COULD HAVE SENT IT?

THAT afternoon the front door of the Vicarage had a busy time of it, and the old housekeeper-cook, Mrs. Maggs, had a busier. No sooner did she get into her kitchen than she had to walk out again.

"There wasn't no getting anything done," she declared. "One had need to be made of two, ta answer that there bell, and keep everything going besides."

For the girl was after some rough cleaning and therefore was not presentable for the front door. Still, though Mrs. Maggs complained a little, she was as much pleased as anybody could be, that more money should flow in for the lifeboat. Whether she cared very greatly or no for the lifeboat, she did care for anything that made the Vicar happy, and this lifeboat lay very near to his heart.

First came a succession of notes, or little packages, containing coins; small coins, most of them, perhaps, but none the less welcome for that! Half-a-crown, two shillings, three shillings, one shilling, a sixpenny piece—one after another dropped in, done up in paper or in an envelope; each with name or initials attached, and each given in "for the lifeboat collection." Each in succession was carried by Mrs. Maggs to the study, to gladden the Vicar with fresh hope.

He was trying to get an hour's work over his next Sunday morning's sermon; but the effort seemed likely to be a fruitless one. Note after note arrived, and had to be opened; and then people began to arrive.

Miss Perkins was the first. She had brought ten shillings, and she expressed herself glad to give the extra donation, but she didn't want her name down nor anything said.

"It ain't that I'm making believe to be humble," she avowed with delightful frankness; "but I don't want a lot of talk made, nor the neighbours all wondering however in the world I can manage it. And it isn't nobody's business, except my own."

"You are sure you can afford so much, Miss Perkins?" The Vicar put this question involuntarily. He knew that Miss Perkins had a penniless niece dependent on her.

"I'll make shift to afford it somehow," Miss Perkins responded grimly. "I ain't going to have none of them drownded men laid to my score!" And there was the sound of a suspicious sniffle.

Miss Perkins had been present at the funeral of the nameless strangers; and when other people had wept, she had remained stolidly composed. Now her eyes were red, and her pocket-handkerchief was rolled in one hand, ready for emergencies.

"You know best, of course, Miss Perkins. I'm most grateful for your kind help,—and every mother in the land, with a sailor-son at sea, would be the same if she were here now. But I don't ask anybody to give more than can rightly be spared. That would be unreasonable."

"Shouldn't think there wasn't overmuch danger of that, sir!" Miss Perkins sniffled afresh.

"If others respond as quickly as you have done, I don't think we shall wait much longer for the lifeboat," hopefully remarked the Vicar.

Hardly had Miss Perkins vanished, before Mildred Pattison appeared on the scene.

"I've brought another pound," she said simply. "And I'm afraid that's the most I can manage."

"I think you have done your share already, Miss Pattison—I really do," protested the Vicar. "I wasn't thinking of you when I spoke to-day."

"No, sir. But you made me think of myself. If anybody ought to do more, I'm that one. Saved as I was from out of the waves."

Mildred had brought her invariable companion, Hero, who was always admitted into the Vicarage. He had grown to be an immense favourite in the place; and with nobody was he more of a favourite than with the Vicar. Mr. Gilbert's hand rested on the dog's great solid head, as he talked with the dog's mistress.

"But you lost your all on the rocks when you were saved from the wreck. If any one had a reason not to give, some would say that you were that one," the Vicar added impulsively.

In the churchyard he had seen only the other side of the question. Now he was realising how much was meant in the lives of Old Maxham people by the self-denying gifts for which he had pleaded so strongly.

"I don't see it so, sir. And if you don't mind me saying it, I doubt if you do either."

The Vicar smiled. "No, you are right," he said. "I do not really, perhaps. It was no hardship for your dear ones to be called home as they were. The only hardship was for you—not for them. We may be very sure that they would not wish to come back here, if the choice could be given them. It has been a sore trial for you to lose them, but you may indeed be thankful,—both for them and for yourself."

Mildred's eyes were full. She wiped away the tears, and said simply,—"I do try."

After Mildred's departure, in walked the doctor.

"Now, I say, Gilbert, this sort of thing won't do," Mr. Bateson. "You're enough to worm a toad out of a stone. As for giving more, I can't afford it, of course,—but there's no resisting you. Here,—" and he slipped a gold coin into the Vicar's hand. "You may have that, and that's all. Can't do more. There's no end of broth and good things wanted just now among my poorer patients. Glad to do all I can, but limits must exist. Well—I hope you'll succeed in the end. Nothing like perseverance. I've tried to stir the sensibilities of a patient of mine, just come down from London; perhaps I ought to call him a 'paying guest,' rather than a patient. One might as well try to rouse a log to generosity. He really isn't badly off, and he might have spared you at least a few shillings. He didn't seem to look upon the matter in that light: and one man can't see with another man's eyes. Good-day, and don't make yourself ill over this business."

Then was ushered in Alice Mokes, the silent and useful daughter whom everybody liked and few knew well. She had no message from her father, but she brought two shillings out of her own little store. "I wish it was more," she said sadly. "I haven't much."

"That makes the more of the little that you can give, Alice."

"I'd make it more if I could," she said, hardly grasping his meaning. "I did think father might—but—"

"No hope in that direction, I suppose?"

She shook her head. "If father once makes up his mind, nothing turns him from it," she said. "And he has made up his mind."

"Was he at the funeral?"

"No, sir. He said he couldn't spare the time."

Alice had a class in the Sunday school, and she stayed to ask a question on some point that had puzzled her. The Vicar explained her little difficulty with clearness, and she tripped off smiling, only to make way for Mrs. Groates.

"Come in, Mrs. Groates, come in. I'm glad to see you," the Vicar said, with his heartiest welcome. "How are you getting on? Jack all right?"

"He is; thank you kindly, sir. And I've brought just half-a-crown for the lifeboat, and I wish it was ten times as much."

"So do I, Mrs. Groates, because that would show your husband's business to be prospering particularly well. However, I hope it does prosper. Of course you are a large party, and you have a good many expenses. Sit down, and tell me all about yourselves. Stop a minute; I'll note this down. 'Mrs. Groates, two and sixpence.' That's right. I didn't think your husband looking well the other day?"

"No, sir. Nor happy." Mrs. Groates spoke with emphasis.

"Sorry for that. I hope nothing is wrong—You are such a happy-looking woman yourself—"

"I'm glad to say I've always been blessed with good spirits. But Jim, he's more of an up-and-down sort; and it's been all down lately, not up. He don't and won't tell me why, and I thought I'd just mention it to you, sir, thinking maybe you might some day have a bit of a talk with him. If anything is gone wrong, he'd tell you, perhaps, when he won't tell me."

The Vicar thought this doubtful, but forbore to say so.

"We've had a lot of talk lately about my boy Jack—our boy I mean. Jack's always been a good boy to me, sir; the best boy a mother ever had. I've never had a hard word from Jack, not since he was a baby. But you know he's engaged to be married now."

"I know. To Jessie Perkins. Nice girl too."

"Yes, she's a very nice girl, sir; I wouldn't wish a nicer for my Jack; and nobody could wish a better young man for her than him. Jessie always was nice, but she's ever so much nicer since Miss Pattison went to live in that house. She's done a lot of good to Jessie. But it was about Jack that I wanted to ask you, sir. I do think, and so does Jack, that he'd ought to be in some other place, and doing something better than he's doing now. It's all very well his helping in our shop, but that won't lead to nothing better by-and-by; and there ain't no real need for Jack to help. Mimy and me can do all that's wanted. It isn't as if the shop was so very big, nor as if the business was getting to be more and more, for it don't; and I don't mind saying that to you, sir, though I wouldn't like it to be farther."

"No, no, I'm safe. You may trust me. Perhaps that is what troubles your husband."

"Maybe so, sir. I couldn't say. He won't allow that things ain't all just as they should be—and maybe they are better than I think. But I do know Jack had ought to get something better to do. He'd ought to be in some biggish town, where he can learn his business thoroughly, and hope to rise by-and-by. I've always told them so, and Jim wouldn't listen, and Jack didn't mind. Jack's easy-going, you know: and he's a good home-boy too, and didn't want to leave us all. But now he's thinking of getting married, it makes all the difference. He don't like the thoughts of going, but all the same, he knows it's got to be, and wants it as much as anybody."

"Yes, yes, I see. And what does your husband say?"

"He don't seem over well pleased, sir, but he don't say much. He's sort of gloomy-like, and don't talk much about nothing. He says he s'poses Jack 'll have to do as he chooses."

"And you want me to help you. I'll think about the matter. Perhaps I could write on his behalf to one or two large houses of business, where I am well-known. Worth the trial, at all events."

A little more talk on the subject, and Mrs. Groates decamped, to be followed by somebody else.

So the afternoon wore away; and by the time darkness settled down upon the land, the lifeboat collection had made sensible advance. More than seven pounds had been added to it since lunch.

Seven pounds! But one hundred pounds were needed!

"It will come. We shall get it," Mr. Gilbert said aloud, cheerily. "I must send out fresh appeals by post. And now, positively, I must get half-an-hour's reading."

It was early in the week, but the Vicar generally liked to fix upon his next Sunday's subjects in early days, so as to allow time for thought.

A modest little ring presently sounded, and he glanced up to murmur,—"Another half-crown, probably. It is nice to see the dear people responding as they do. Up to and even beyond their ability, I do believe—in some cases. Yet, others could give more," and he thought of Mr. Mokes.

Mrs. Maggs brought another envelope; just a common envelope of cheap white paper, addressed to "The Vicar."

"Who left this, Mrs. Maggs?"

"I really couldn't tell you, sir. There wasn't any name said; and I couldn't even see what sort of a person it was. It gets dark so soon at that back door. Yes, he came to the back door, and he had a sort of woollen muffler up to his face, and he didn't scarcely look at me. He just poked that into my hand, with a sort of a queer grunt, and was of in a moment, before you could say so much as 'thank you.'"

"What sort of man?"

"I couldn't tell the very least, sir. I didn't get a proper look at him at all."

"One of my working-men friends, perhaps,—a little shy of being seen to do a generous act. Another half-crown most likely. Or let us hope for five shillings. Perhaps the name will be inside. Wait, and I will tell you. I really do believe you are as much interested in this lifeboat affair as I am myself. Eh, Mrs. Maggs?"

The Vicar beamed up at her with his bright boy-like smile, and Mrs. Maggs said, "Yes, sir," decorously, with an affectionate glow at her heart. There was not the least need to specify how much she cared for its own sake, and how much for his sake. Perhaps she did not know herself.

A folded blank sheet was within, and inside that sheet were three or four thin papers, at sight of which the Vicar stared in amazement. Across one corner of the blank sheet was written, in a very minute neat hand, "For the lifeboat fund." Nothing more; and no name. The Vicar flushed, and his heart beat fast.

"Bank-notes, sir!!!" said Mrs. Maggs.

"Yes, bank-notes, Maggs! For how much do you think? Maggs, how much do you think?" The Vicar was so excited as to go back to his earlier style of designating Mrs. Maggs, forgetting that he had taken of late to always calling her "Mrs. Maggs," by way of inducing proper respect for her in the village. "How much do you think?" he repeated.

"I couldn't guess, sir." Mrs. Maggs smoothed down her apron.

"Ninety pounds, Maggs! There are bank-notes here for no less than ninety pounds!"

"Sir!"

"It's true! Ninety pounds!" The Vicar sprang to his feet, and waved the notes over his head, with a hearty "Hurrah!" which rang through the house. Then he stopped, bent his head, and said reverently,—

"Thank God. Now we can do it."

"Ninety pounds!" repeated Mrs. Maggs.

"Ninety pounds, Maggs! Not one penny less."

"But who—?" both voices exclaimed together.

"Who, indeed?" Mr. Gilbert's mind was already running over the list of his friends and acquaintances in Old and New Maxham, rejecting the thought of each in turn. Most of them simply could not have offered such a gift; and the very few who perhaps could, he felt sure would not. Or if they would, he saw no reason in their case for secrecy.

"It is extraordinary. I have not the vaguest idea who the money can be from. Most singular. Somebody in the place; that seems certain. He must have been at the funeral, or else he must have heard about it from others. This plainly comes as a response. On Sunday—only this last Sunday—I gave out that one hundred pounds more would be required; and the giver of this has evidently reckoned that the neighbourhood might make up ten pounds of that amount. He has reckoned rightly too. Seven of the ten we have already; less than three more wanted. A mere nothing! But ninety pounds! And brought to the back door in such a quiet way. No fuss or ostentation. I am utterly at a loss. And we shall have to be at a loss. The good man does not mean it to be known—whoever he is and of course we cannot try to find out. He has a right to his secret if he chooses."

The Vicar was unable to settle down to any more sermon-preparation that afternoon. He put his books and papers away, and went off to tell his people the good news. Many of them would rejoice heartily with him; not least among them the inhabitants of Periwinkle Cottage.

CHAPTER XIX

JESSIE'S WONDERINGS

"I WONDER, I do wonder, who it could have been. Don't you, Millie? Who ever could have given such a lot? Only fancy—ninety pounds! And this isn't like a big town, where a lot of rich people live. Why, there's hardly anybody in Old Maxham with any money at all to spare. Unless it's the Mokeses. Mr. Mokes wouldn't give ninety pounds, nor ninety shillings, for anybody in the world, except himself. You needn't look so grave, because I've known Mr. Mokes pretty nearly all my life, and I know just exactly what he is. It isn't Mr. Mokes that's given the ninety pounds. And who else it can be, I don't know. Even in New Maxham there's nobody really rich. And nobody likely to give such a lot, all at once, without a word. Who do you think it can have been? What do you think?"

"I think—that skirt has to be finished," Mildred said in tranquil tones.

"I'm getting on with it; I am really. But I'm not like you, and I do get a little excited sometimes. And this is exciting, I am sure. Mr. Gilbert was excited. I never saw him with such a colour."

"Yes; he is very glad indeed. I don't think it is for himself, though. He was thinking of all the poor fellows who might be wrecked upon our rocks; and that now they might be saved."

"And you don't think I am thinking of the sailors too?"

Mildred's grave eyes looked across with a meaning expression. "No," she said. "I don't, Jessie dear."

Jessie was silenced for several minutes, and her sewing-machine went fast. This was the next morning after Mr. Gilbert's call, with news of his unexpectedly large contribution towards the lifeboat fund, and perhaps Jessie's eagerness was not surprising. Mildred's feelings were deeper, and did not easily find vent in words.

"There!" Jessie said at length, bringing the machine to rest. "I've got round that whole skirt, and it's done. It hasn't taken me long either. I should like to go out, and see what people are saying."

"Does it matter what they say?"

"Oh, but I like to know. And perhaps some one may be able to guess who can have given the money."

Mildred was silent.

"Millie, why did you say that just now; you didn't suppose I cared about the sailors? I do care."

"I don't think I said anything about your not caring. It was only a question whether you were thinking of them just then. And whether your being so excited was only for their sake."

"Why should you think it wasn't?"

"I'm not setting myself to judge you," Mildred answered, putting another piece of work into Jessie's hands. "Just hem these, dear;—no, not with the machine; and it must be your best work. If you can tell me that you care as Mr. Gilbert cares, I'm bound to do my best to believe you. But it didn't look like that."

"I don't suppose I do, exactly." Jessie spoke in subdued tones. "I do care about the sailors being saved, really and truly; but just to-day I suppose I want more to know who has given the money."

"And that is what you are not meant to know. Whoever gave the money intends nobody to know his name, and it is no business of ours to try to find out. Didn't you see? Mr. Gilbert will not try. He may wonder, as you and I do, but he will not stir a finger to find out anything about it."

"Only, if one could just guess—"

"You have been guessing for the last hour. That doesn't do much good or much harm. If you tried deliberately to find out, I think you would be wrong."

"Millie! You didn't give the ninety pounds?"

Mildred laughed. "No, I did not," she said. "I have not the ninety pounds to give. All the same, I think you were wrong to ask me, if you had the least idea of such a thing being possible."

"I know one thing," Jessie exclaimed. "I wish I hadn't given my half-crown."

"Why?"

"Why, what's the use? Two and sixpence! And ninety pounds! Think of the difference. The person who gave ninety pounds could easily have given another half-crown. And I dare say his ninety pounds were nothing to him, and my two-and-six pence was a great deal to me."

"I don't see why you should suppose his ninety pounds to be nothing to him. It may be just as much to him as your half-crown was to you. If not—that would only mean that in one sense your gift was the larger of the two."

"Millie!"

"I mean it really. Did you not understand the Vicar when he preached about the widow's mites? Her gift was actually more than what the rich men gave."

"Now, Mildred! More in a sort of way, I suppose, but not really more."

"I mean what I say. The way God looks upon a thing is the real way, and our way of looking is often wrong. Which do you suppose is most, the half of a thing or the whole of a thing?"

"The whole, of course. At least—well, of course half-a-sovereign is more than a whole five-shilling piece."

"Ah, but that is the wrong way of measuring. It isn't the question, how much a sum of money will buy, but, how much it is out of what a man has. The half of what a man has is always less than the whole of what a man has. If one man has a hundred pounds, and gives ten pounds out of it, then he gives one-tenth of what he has, and he keeps nine-tenths. And if another man has one pound and gives one pound, then he gives his all and keeps nothing for himself. Don't you see? The ten pounds is more in man's sight, but the one pound may be more in God's sight. It is a very simple sum, if one takes it in the right way. I'm not talking now about one's reasons for giving. Only God can know what they are, and we have no business to judge one another's motives."

"But one pound isn't more than ten pounds!"

"It might be very much more to the man himself; and if so, it would really be the larger gift. The man who gave away ten pounds and kept ninety, would not miss so much what he gave, as the man who had only one pound, and who gave that pound, and kept nothing at all for himself. Of course if he was sure of food and clothes and comforts, when he gave his pound, one could not say that he had really had nothing more—even though it might have been the last coin in his pocket."

"And it mightn't be right for a man to give away all he had, if he had children depending on him."

"Certainly it might not."

Jessie worked busily for some time, not talking.

"Do you know about Jack?" she asked suddenly.

"What about Jack?"

"He wants to go away to get work somewhere else. He says he can never get on here. And Mrs. Groates spoke to Mr. Gilbert yesterday—I was there in the afternoon when she came in—and Mr. Gilbert is going to try to help Jack to find something."

"I think Jack is right. It has seemed to me for a good while that he ought not to stay here. There is no chance of his getting on."

"That's what they all say. And Jack wants to begin to lay by. He says he ought."

"Of course he ought. No man has any business to think of marrying, until he has a good hope of giving his wife a comfortable home. If Jack and you were to marry, with nothing laid by, and only just making enough to carry you on from week to week, you would have very little comfort. Loss of work or of health would mean misery at once."

"But it will be so horrid to have him go away from Old Maxham—so dull."

"Not horrid at all, if it is the right thing for him to do. You are both young enough not to mind waiting. Jack will never make his way in Old Maxham."

"He might, if the shop did as well as it ought," meditated Jessie. "So Mr. Groates says. He says he has no chance against the Mokeses."

"You see Mr. Groates is comparatively new to the place, and the Mokes family has been here for at least three generations. That makes all the difference."

"I shall be so dreadfully dull," sighed Jessie again.

"O no, you will not. You will be brave and sensible, and make the best of things. You and Jack will meet sometimes, and you can write to one another. And you will both work hard, and not spend all you earn in pretty things to wear."

Jessie blushed a little, and said, "No; but I do like pretty things."

"Most people do. But you are not a child any longer, Jessie. You and Jack are thinking of being married some day; and with that before you, you ought to think of the future. You ought to deny yourself now for the sake of by-and-by. It isn't only yourself that you have to think of—nor even only yourself and Jack."

"Jessie!" called Miss Perkins.

Jessie sprang up and ran out of the room, Mildred following; for something in the tone of that cry was unusual.

"Jessie!"

"I'm coming, aunt. What is the matter?"

The voice was broken and appealing. Miss Perkins stood at the foot of the stairs, holding the baluster with one hand, and holding her side with the other. She breathed hard, as if she had been running up-hill, and her face was yellow-white. The first impression made upon the minds of them both was that Miss Perkins had been taken ill.

"Let me help you into the dining-room," Mildred said kindly. "Lean upon me—so—don't be afraid. You will feel better presently."

"Can't I get anything?" asked Jessie.

"It isn't—it isn't—me! I'm all right," gasped Miss Perkins. "At least—I'm only—only—it gave me a turn—made me feel like—" and she hid her face in her handkerchief.

"What was it that gave you a turn?" asked Mildred, she and Jessie exchanging glances.

Miss Perkins shuddered.

"Come in here, and sit down. Jessie, get a glass of water, dear. Thank you. Now, Miss Perkins, take a sip or two. Has anything happened?"

Miss Perkins groaned.

"Tell me what it is. Anybody hurt?"

"Killed!" whispered Miss Perkins.

"Who was it?" Both Mildred and Jessie grew paler.

"Killed outright," moaned Miss Perkins. "And not a moment's warning! O dear me!"

CHAPTER XX

RUN OVER

"WHO is killed?" asked Mildred.

Miss Perkins shivered, and Jessie stood gazing in a vague dismay.

"Tell us what has happened, and who is killed," repeated Mildred, pressing her hand gently upon Miss Perkins' shoulder. "I might be some help perhaps. Where did it happen? Near here? Who is it, Miss Perkins?"

Miss Perkins preserved a resolute silence.

"It would be better to tell us at once," Mildred said gravely, and at the same moment Jessie murmured, "Jack!"

"Poor Jack!" sighed Miss Perkins.

Jessie broke into a frightened sob.

"No, no, not that; she does not mean that," said Mildred. "Jack is not killed, Miss Perkins! No, I thought not," as Miss Perkins shook her head. "Then who was it? Not the Vicar?"

Another shake, and Mildred drew a breath of relief.

"Just out in the street," Miss Perkins began, suddenly finding her voice. "And I'd been talking to him only one minute before. He said it was a fine day, and I said yes, it was. And he said he didn't think it would be so fine to-morrow, the clouds were gathering up so. O dear, never thinking that there wasn't to be no to-morrow for him! And I said what a wonderful thing it was about the money for the boat, and didn't he wonder who it was that had given it? O dear me!" with another gasp. "And he said he wouldn't have thought there was a person in the place as had got anything like as much to spare; and he only knew he hadn't.

"'Times is bad,' says he, with a sort of a melancholy smile, 'and it's hard enough to make both ends meet nowadays,' he says.

"And then I said, 'Good-morning.'

"And he says 'Good-morning.' And then he turned back as I was turning away, and he says, 'So Jack's going to leave us.'

"And I says, 'A very sensible plan too.'

"And he says, 'I'm not so sure about that either.'"

A faint "Oh!" had escaped Jessie's lips, and she looked imploringly at Mildred.

"And then—?" said Mildred.

"And then Mr. Gilbert came up, and he stopped to speak to me; and Mr. Groates was standing in the road, close to the corner, and he stopped to look our way, and nodded to Mr. Gilbert, and I saw Mr. Bateson coming along the road quick. And that very moment Stobbs' cart dashed right round the corner. Nobody could have seen it coming, nor warned Mr. Groates. He was just knocked down flat, and it went over him, and his head struck on the curb-stone. And I was looking, and I saw it all," added Miss Perkins, with unnecessary pity for herself.

"I'm sure it gave me such a turn . . . I don't know whenever I'll get over it. It's made me feel all a sort of upside down. And I couldn't move, no more than if I'd been turned into a stone; but I had to hold on to the lamp-post. And they all came running, and the boy jumped down, and he did look frightened, and no wonder, to see Mr. Groates lying there on the ground. But nobody hadn't time to see to him, though I'm sure he deserved a scolding, tearing round corners at that rate. It's a shame the way those butcher boys do go about. I wonder people aren't killed every day. The boy said the horse was running away, and he couldn't hold it in; but there's no knowing whether he spoke the truth.

"And Mr. Bateson stooped over Mr. Groates, and looked into his face and felt his pulse, and we all waiting round, not knowing whatever was going to happen. And Mr. Gilbert said something quite low, so as I couldn't catch it, and Mr. Bateson shook his head, and said, says he, 'Quite dead!' That's what he said, as plain as I'm speaking now. 'Dead!' says he, and he seemed mighty sorry too."

"Jack's father dead!" Jessie broke out in bewilderment.

"That's what the doctor said; and Mr. Gilbert asked if he was sure, and if there wasn't just a chance, for I heard him. And Mr. Bateson said, no, nothing could be done, and Mr. Groates was killed. It was the blow on the head had killed him, he said. And then Miss Sophy Coxen came and asked if I wouldn't have her arm home, and I'm sure I don't know how I'd ever have got home without. It does give one a turn to see anybody killed like that. But she wouldn't come in, because she'd got to go and tell her sister, and she said maybe she'd be wanted. And Mr. Gilbert, he ran after me, and he says, 'This is awfully sad,' says he, 'and you can tell Miss Pattison,' says he."

"Yes, I will go to them at once." Mildred said, as if in answer to a call. Then she looked at Jessie. "Unless you wish it," she added. "Dear Jessie, you have a sort of right,—but I think I could be of more use, just at first. If you will stay and take care of your aunt."

"Oh I couldn't help—with him," Jessie said, with a shudder. "I should be afraid."

"Not if there was need! No woman who is worth anything will hold back when there is need. You would not be a coward then. But I have had so much more experience, that it is better for me to go now. It will be a sad household."

Mildred ran upstairs and was down again almost immediately, in bonnet and cloak. She kissed Jessie's pale and dismayed face, told her to give Miss Perkins some hot tea, and advised Miss Perkins to lie down for an hour. Then she hurried away.

There was a general air of oppression in the place. A sudden death in a small village is felt by everybody; and Groates, if in no especial sense a favourite, was generally respected and to some extent liked. At all events, his wife and eldest son were liked, and that in no common degree. And this ending to the life of one of themselves had come about with frightful suddenness, without the smallest warning. One moment well and healthy, talking lightly about the morrow's weather, the next a poor helpless body lying in the road, no longer a living man.

Anything so terrible had not happened for a long while. When the drowned sailors were washed ashore, and were buried in the old Churchyard, people had been forced to feel a little more vividly than usual the very narrow line which divides this existence from the next. Still, those sailors had been strangers, men unknown to any one in Old Maxham. Groates was known personally to them all. It was the grim hand of death descending into their very midst, and taking away one of themselves.

Was he ready for the great change? People asked this question with bated breath. Happily it is a question which we are not called upon to answer, one for another. No time at the last had been allowed him, if he had not used the time at his disposal before. It was "fearfully sudden," one and another said. But if he were ready for the call, the suddenness would be nothing. To those who live in daily communion with God, a sudden call Home means only sudden rejoicing.

Mildred might have spent a long time talking in the street, had she been so minded. Several tried to stop her, to see how much she had heard, to find out whether she could give information: but Mildred would not be delayed. Those who wished for a brief talk had to keep pace with her rapid footsteps.

Outside Groates' Store she was literally seized upon by Miss Sophy Coxen, and to escape instantly was beyond even Mildred's power.

"Do tell me how that poor dear Miss Perkins is," panted Miss Sophy, in vehement excitement. "She did look bad, and no mistake. And you're going to ask about them over there? O well, I can tell you all you want to know. I've been to the door, and they wouldn't let me in. They won't let anybody in. So it's no manner of use your going. You'll only just give them the trouble of answering the door again. The shop's shut up, and nothing going on. Mr. Bateson and Mr. Gilbert are both there, and I should have thought they'd have wanted a woman to help, but it's no good saying anything. Those Groateses are such queer people, there's no getting hold of them. Then you mean to go just the same! O well, it isn't my fault if you are turned away from the door. That's all I have to say."

Or rather, perhaps, it was all that she had the opportunity of saying, so far as Mildred was concerned.

Mildred attempted no argument, but quietly withdrew from Miss Sophy, went to the door, rang, and was admitted.

"Now, I wonder what that's for?" demanded Miss Sophy in dudgeon. "I should have thought I was as good any day as Miss Pattison, and I've been used to turn my hand to things, and I could have been a help. She won't be no sort of good. Well, I do think it's an ungrateful sort of world. The times I've spoken kindly to the Groateses, and the times we've bought things at their shop, just to give them a bit of encouragement, because they didn't seem to be getting on; and then to be turned off like this, and Miss Pattison let in! Pretty near a stranger to the place as she is, and we who've been here for years and years and years! I do think it's a shame. I shan't go to Groates' shop again in a hurry, I can tell them."

Then she remembered that Groates himself was no longer head of that shop, that Groates had passed away from their midst, and her mutterings died away under a sense of awe.

Meanwhile, Mildred passed into the darkened house, and was met first by the Vicar's kind hand grasping hers.

"This is good of you," he breathed. "I felt sure you would come. I've had to refuse Miss Sophy Coxen; the poor things seemed to dread seeing her. But somebody is wanted."

"How is Mrs. Groates?"

"Wonderful! I never saw such courage. Took it all in at the first moment, and had him laid on the bed, and insists on doing all that is needed for him herself. She's there now, and I've been thinking who to get to help her."

"I'll go, sir, at once. I can help."

The Vicar looked questioningly.

"Yes, I have done it before. I know what to do."

"Then come this way, please."

Mr. Bateson met them, coming from the bedroom door, and his face gained a look of relief the moment his eyes fell on Mildred. "That's right," he said. "I can't get Mrs. Groates away, but she must have somebody with her. You can do it?" questioningly, like the Vicar.

"Yes, sir."

"True woman, ready at a pinch!" murmured the doctor.

"According to that definition, a good many women in the world are not true women," the Vicar remarked, in a tone of consideration.

"Very much the other way. It all depends," the doctor said. "If a woman thinks first of herself, she is useless; if she thinks of others, she is able to do anything."

"Sad day for these poor Groateses!" sighed the Vicar. "Everybody will feel for them. I don't fancy many knew Groates well, but his wife has won golden opinions, and Jack. By-the-bye, where is Jack?"

"Gone to the farther end of New Maxham. I don't think he is expected back for another hour or two,—unless the news reaches him. Stobbs ought to take warning from this, and not let his lads drive at such a reckless pace. If the poor fellow's head had not struck the curb-stone, he might have got off with broken ribs. I suppose there is no more I can do now. I'll look in by-and-by, just to see how Mrs. Groates is. She may suffer later from her courage now."

Mr. Bateson disappeared, and the Vicar waited for what seemed to him a long time. At length the bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Groates came out with Mildred.

"It's all done, sir, now," Mrs. Groates said, facing the Vicar. She was very pale, and her eyes had a curious fixed look, as if she hardly knew how to open them properly; but her voice and manner were composed. "Miss Pattison says she'll stay and have a cup of tea with me."

"Yes, yes, quite right. I knew you would find Miss Pattison a help. And . . . one question, Mrs. Groates,—if you don't mind. Can you tell me where Jack has gone?"

A kind of startled cry escaped her. She seemed suddenly to remember that Jack was still is ignorance of the loss which had befallen them. Her hands were wrung together.

"Don't try to say much. Only a word, to tell where Jack might be found. I should like to go after him at once."

"I'm sure it's very kind," faltered Mrs. Groates. "Everybody is so kind. He was going to the old windmill, sir, beyond New Maxham, to see about flour. Yes, walking,—he meant to walk both ways. And he was to come home by the sea-road, because Mimy meant to meet him, if she could get there in time."

"Then I will meet him, instead of Mimy. That is better. I will take care how he is told."

"Thank you, sir, kindly;" and Mrs. Groates looked at him with a glimmer of tears in her eyes. She had not yet wept at all. "It will be a comfort when my Jack comes back."

CHAPTER XXI

THE TELLING OF THE NEWS

"LET her to have a good cry, poor thing, if you can. Much better for her," the Vicar said to Mildred in a low tone, as he was going away.

Mildred did not find the advice easy to carry out. Mrs. Groates sat down, indeed, by the fire, when desired to do so, and dropped into a waking dream, with the same fixed look in her eyes, and hands clasped forlornly on one knee; but she showed no signs of breaking down.

It so happened that nobody else was in the house. Jack was away on business: the second boy, Will, had been at sea during many months past; the two next boys were at school; while Mimy had taken the youngest boy and girl for a ramble. So there was nothing to rouse Mrs. Groates; and she remained seated, half-stupefied, gazing into the fire.

"Try to take a little tea," urged Mildred.

Mrs. Groates looked at her with blank eyes.

"Just a few sips!"

"Tea,—O yes; thank you, my dear."

But when the cup was raised to her lips, she turned from it. "I don't think I can just now. Seems as if I couldn't swallow. I'd rather wait."

Again she sat, lost in thought. Mildred's hand stole into hers, and was gently pressed.

"You're kind to stay with me. It's very good of you. I do feel strange,—it's come so sudden."

"It is terrible for you, poor thing!"

"It don't seem long since that day—when he asked me to marry him. All those years ago. I used to think he'd outlive me—such a strong man."

"No one can ever tell. The strongest are often taken first." Tears were running down Mildred's cheeks, and Mrs. Groates looked at her in a kind of wonder.

"I can't cry," she said. "And you can. I wish I could. It seems to have dried away all tears. Poor Jim!"

"He was a good husband to you."

"Yes,—he's been a good husband. Not as he ever was one to say a great deal. But he's been a good husband, and he always meant more than he'd say." Then a thrill of recollection passed over her, and her face changed.

"Yes,—what is it?"

"Something he said only last Sunday,—and I'd forgotten till this minute. I wonder what made him say it?"

"Tell me what he said."

Mrs. Groates' lips were trembling now, and her fingers plucked nervously at her apron. She shook her head as if words failed.

"Tell me. I want to know. What did he say last Sunday? Don't mind crying, but just tell me," begged Mildred. "Last Sunday he said,—"

"He said—he didn't know—how ever in the world he'd have managed—if he'd had a different sort of wife. He said—said—'I'm a crusty sort, Jane,' says he,—'but you've been the best thing in my life.' And he says too, 'A good wife is something to thank God for.'"

Mrs. Groates broke down, and sobbed.

"Cry away, poor dear. That will do you good," Mildred said, putting kind arms round her.

And when Mrs. Groates could again look up, her face, though blistered with tears, had lost its strained and unnatural expression.

"Now I am going to make you lie down for a time on the sofa, and you must not talk," said Mildred. "Never mind about the children. I will see to them. And Jack shall come to you,—yes, I promise that he shall. I want you to keep quiet. Try not even to think a great deal. Try to feel that you are in the hands of One Who loves you."

"I'll try. My head don't seem as if it could think," Mrs. Groates murmured.

And Mildred hoped that it might be so for a while.

The Vicar had in some respects a harder task than that of Mildred. He went a good distance along the sea-road before descrying Jack. And then he had plenty of time to note Jack's vigorous walk before the two drew near together. Jack was perhaps absorbed in his own thoughts, for he did not see the Vicar until they were only about twenty yards apart. Jack's honest cheerful face lighted up with a hearty smile, and he quickened his pace, but was surprised to have no smile in reply.

"Had he done anything to vex the Vicar?" This idea came to Jack first. "And if so, what could it have been?"

"I have come to meet you, Jack. On purpose to meet you. We will walk back together." Mr. Gilbert hoped that Jack would inquire why he had done so; but Jack made no such inquiry.

"That is kind of you, sir. My mother said she'd been telling you about what I wanted to do. I've been wishing to see you. If there was any chance that you could help me, sir,—"

"Yes, we must think about that—another day. Not to-day. I have, just at this moment, something else to say."

"Nothing I have done wrong, I hope, sir. There's nothing I know of,—there really isn't."

"There is nothing wrong whatever, Jack, of that kind." The Vicar laid a little stress upon the word "that."

He hoped Jack might ask a leading question, by saying, "What kind?" but again Jack failed to carry out his expectations.

"Well, I'm glad to hear you say so, sir, for I did feel afraid, when I saw you so grave. Nor nothing to do with Jessie, I hope?"

"No, not Jessie."

"That's righter still. If one of us was to vex you, I'd sooner it should be me than Jessie. She's a good girl, though, isn't she, sir? And she'll make a good wife. To see her working away now at those dresses,—and doing it all as clever as can be. Why, she's making quite a pretty penny; and that's enough to make me all the more impatient to get away and be doing for myself. You see, father doesn't really need me at home. Mother and Mimy can give him all the help he wants. It isn't as if he was an old man. He's in hale middle age still, and he may live another twenty years, for all we know. I hope he will, too. But it wouldn't do for me to stay on in Old Maxham all that time. I've got to make a home for Jessie and me."

The Vicar almost groaned aloud. "Jack, don't go on so."

"Did I say anything wrong, sir?" Jack's tone showed surprise. "I thought you'd be one to approve. You have said many a time that you wished men would look forward, and prepare a little, and not marry all in a hurry."

"Jack—I've something to say to you."

"Yes, sir. I'd be glad to have any sort of advice. Mother said she hoped you would advise me."

"It's not advice. It's something else."

"Well, sir,—anything you like to say,—I'm sure I'll listen attentive, and I'll try to do it." Jack seemed proof against alarm.

"It's not what you have to do. It is—that something very sad has happened. And I have to tell it to you."

Jack seemed at last a little concerned. "Dear me, I'm sorry for that. Nothing very bad, I hope, sir."

"Yes,—very bad, as we men count things to be bad. Not bad, really, for it is God's will; and what He sends is good—even when we cannot see it to be so. It is a great and unlooked-for sorrow."

"Yes, sir;" and Jack waited expectantly.

"There has been an accident."

"Not my mother? Not Jessie?"

"No, neither. But—your father—"

"Something happened to my father!" Jack drew a quick breath. "An accident, you say, sir. He has been hurt then?"

"Yes. Very much."

"Any broken bones, sir?" Jack was trying not to show how much he was moved.

"Worse. He was run down by a butcher's cart, dashing round a corner. Your father had no time to get out of the way. He was thrown down, and the cart passed over him."

"Has the doctor seen him?"

"Mr. Bateson was going by at the moment,—and I was there too. It was a sad sight."

"And he's been taken home, of course. Poor mother! That's soon for another accident." Jack's words bore evident reference to his own broken leg in the previous spring. "And what does the doctor say, sir? Does he think father will soon be up and about again?"

"No, Jack!" The words, and still more the manner, startled Jack.

"So bad as that!"

"I have not told you the worst. Not only did the cart go over him, but also—his head struck the curb-stone, as he fell. And—"

A long pause followed, which the Vicar would not break. They walked steadily, side by side; Jack's face turned away. The Vicar wondered how far he yet understood.

"If anything could have been done, it would have been done,—with Mr. Bateson there, on the spot. But,—nothing could."

"Yes, sir; I see!"

Another long pause.

"Your mother is a brave woman. You will have to be her stay and comfort now."

"Yes, sir," Jack replied mechanically. The thought arose unbidden,—How about Jessie? And how about his plans for getting away, and for laying by? This would make a great change in his life. How much of a change he could not yet measure or realize; but he would now be the one to whom his mother would look, upon whom she would lean, who would have to take his father's place. How about Jessie?

"Poor fellow!" the Vicar said voicelessly, more than once, noting the young man's absorbed face.

CHAPTER XXII

DIFFICULTIES

THE death of Groates was, of course, accidental; and no other verdict could well be returned by the coroner's jury; but the butcher boy came in for severe reprimand for his reckless driving, despite his excuse that he could not hold in the horse; and Stobbs himself was blamed also.

Steps were about to be taken to enforce, if possible, the payment of some amount of damages to the widow; but Stobbs was a sensible wan, and in view of perhaps finding himself liable for a good deal more, he voluntarily offered, by way of compensation, a sum which it was thought advisable to accept. Mrs. Groates did not move in this matter; and she seemed to shrink from the notion of "compensation," as if the loss which she had sustained could in any manner be "compensated for" by money. When told, however, that it was right for her children's sake, she submitted.

Everybody agreed that it was a melancholy affair altogether, and much sympathy was expressed, which no doubt was a comfort to Mrs. Groates. She needed comfort, for trouble was pressing hard upon her and Jack. Groates had been a singularly reserved man as to his business matters,—very much "shut up," his friends were wont to say; and no one, not, even his wife, knew the precise condition of those affairs. They only knew that money had seemed to be very short, and that the business had not of late increased; and the true state of things broke upon them gradually.

For years past, it seemed, Groates had been getting into deeper and deeper difficulties, had been running further and further into debt. It came as an absolutely new sensation to Jack, when he found that they had been actually living upon borrowed money; money borrowed, of course, at a heavy loss.

The first thing to be done was, if it might be, to clear off liabilities, to settle unpaid bills, and to meet the heritage of debt and confusion which the unhappy man had left to his family. It was extraordinary how he had managed to hide the state of matters from them so long; but no doubt he had buoyed himself up with hopes of improving business; hopes never realized. Had he lived, things might only have grown worse.

They were bad enough already. It soon became evident that one course alone lay before them. The business would have to be sold, and whatever sum they might obtain by that means would have to go in liquidation of Groates' debts; after which Jack would have to begin life anew with a family dependent on him. Will indeed was at sea, pretty well provided for; and Mimy might go out to work in some direction or other; but of the three next boys and the younger girl, only one boy was nearing an age to leave school and begin to "do something" for his livelihood.

All this had to be faced, and Jack did face it bravely. But one thought rose again and again in the midst of other perplexities,—

What about Jessie?

At first he tried to put the question aside. His father's affairs had to be thoroughly looked into; bills had to be examined; plans had to be formed—and the consideration of Jack's own future had to wait, dependent as it was upon the future of others.

Yet in the midst of all that had to be done, this thought would push itself anew to the front, refusing to be silenced,—

What about Jessie?

True, they had had no idea of marrying yet awhile. Jack and Jessie had both meant to work steadily, and to lay by a nice sum each, before they should become husband and wife. Jack had not been willing to condemn his wife in the future to such a bare and squalid existence as too often results from a hasty marriage, upon barely enough for daily food and lodging. He meant Jessie to know comfort in her home; he meant to provide beforehand for probabilities; he meant to have somewhat to fall back upon when the inevitable "rainy day" should occur.

All this had now become impossible. Jessie might work as she willed for the needs of by-and-by; but he was no longer free to do so. The utmost that he could hope to earn, perhaps for many a year, would do no more than keep his mother and the children afloat.

Could he ask Jessie to wait, in the hope that some day he might be free? That "some day" might lie far ahead. What if it should mean eight years, ten years, twelve years of waiting? Would Jessie be willing?

True, there was another mode of action which some young men in his position might have adopted. He might simply please himself in the matter. He might put his engagement to Jessie first and the claims of the widow and orphan second.

But the widow was his mother, and she had been the best and most loving of mothers to him. Jack's heart was set upon Jessie; but he loved that mother dearly, and he was also under the sway of a strong sense of duty. He knew well in what direction lay his plain duty for the present; and even apart from duty, he could not have neglected his mother. Jack would not have been Jack if such a thing had been possible to him. If Jessie did not wish to wait so long as might be necessary, he could set her free. Nothing could set aside the claims upon his strong young arm of his widowed mother.

In the midst of those cogitations Mokes came forward with an offer. He had talked much of "bad times" of late, and had, as we know, professed himself to be unable to give more than five shillings, to the lifeboat fund. It now appeared that he had a little more money somewhere within easy reach. He offered to buy up the whole contents of "Groates' Store," and even to take the house off the widow's hands, if she wished to move quickly into a less expensive domicile. He would pay down, for house and contents and custom, a certain round sum which, if not too liberal, might yet be looked upon as fair under the circumstances. At all events, it was more than would have been expected from Mokes.

Nobody who knew Mr. Mokes was deluded into supposing this to be an act of pure generosity. It might be granted that Mokes was sorry for the sudden death of his rival, and was concerned for the widow.

But, on the other hand, if Mokes himself neglected to purchase the goods and the custom and the remainder of the lease, somebody else might be expected to do so, and this would mean a continuance of opposition to Mokes' shop. Nay, it might mean a much more successful opposition if the shop should chance to fall into the hands of a better business man than Groates had proved to be. So Mokes was killing two birds with one stone when he made his offer.

"Seems to me it's the best thing we can do," Jack said to the Vicar, who had been throughout a kind adviser. "That'll help us to clear off a lot of things, and we'll be able to start freer. And Mr. Ward has offered to take me on, with better pay than I'd hoped to be able to get."

"Ward, the grocer, at New Maxham?"

"Yes, sir. He's got the biggest business for twenty miles round, and everybody trusts him. Mother's very pleased. She says she'd sooner have me with him than with anybody, and they say he's offered it me for mother's sake."

"Well, you'll make it worth his while to have done so, Jack. If he is taking you now for your mother's sake, he will keep you by-and-by for your own. And we shall have you with us still. Only a mile off."

"Some ways I'd sooner have been farther off than New Maxham."

"You would? What, you want to see more of the world?"

"No, sir; it ain't that. Though mother did say a while ago that perhaps I'd ought. But I think I'd sooner have begun afresh in a new place. Mother wants to have a cottage here, and me to walk into New Maxham every day. She says she'll feel it more home-like."

"I dare say she will. And the walk is nothing for a hale young fellow like you. Do you good."

"Only, sir, there's Jessie."

"True, there is Jessie. What of her?"

"I shouldn't be right to let Jessie think I'd be free to marry her as soon as we'd thought of—and maybe—"

"Maybe she won't want to wait. Is that it? I don't think commonly that it is the woman who won't wait, do you? Try her, Jack."

"I couldn't leave mother with no one to take care of her. She's been a good mother to me, and I couldn't do it. Not for Jessie's sake even."

"I should have a very poor opinion of you if you could! Your mother ought to be your first consideration. The young folks will be able soon to fight their own way in life; but your mother will be getting older, and she will need your care. But what then? If you and Jessie have to wait longer than you had intended where is the harm? Just tell Jessie frankly how things are, and see what she will say. That is my advice. What does your mother think?"

"I haven't bothered her much, sir. She's been but poorly, and she's left things mostly to me. I'll have to tell her all soon. She knows we've got to part with the shop and live in a smaller house, and she knows about Mr. Mokes' offer and Mr. Ward's. She seems to cling-like to the thought of Old Maxham, and not to want to go away. But if things are to be up between me and Jessie, I'd sooner be a good way off."

"Have a talk with Jessie first, and see what she will say. I fancy you will see ahead more clearly then. After that you can go into things with your mother. But don't hurry on arrangements too fast. She has had a heavy blow, and you must give her time. People who are very brave at the first often suffer more afterwards."

"Yes, I think that's mother's way, sir. She seems sort of dazed, as if she couldn't take it all in."

"Don't force her yet. Mokes will not hurry you out of the house I am sure. No—so I thought. He really is kind-hearted at the bottom. Jack, I am going to give you back the sovereign that was your father's donation to the lifeboat fund. We can do without it now, and I think your mother's needs are greater. You needn't say anything about it to her, unless you wish. Since that gift of ninety pounds came in, it has all gone swimmingly, and I hope to have no further difficulties. The boat is to be sent as soon as it can be ready. So you need have no scruples."

Jack's hand went behind him.

"I couldn't, please, sir; I couldn't do it. Don't ask me. I know father liked to give that sovereign, and I shouldn't be happy to take it back. Please let it be."

"Well, if you choose. I must not insist. But if you change your mind in the course of a week or two, mind you tell me."

"And you've no notion who it was as gave the ninety pounds, sir?"

"I have had a good many notions, but no certainty. Nothing beyond conjecture, and conjecture isn't worth much. Besides, it really isn't our business if the good man wishes to keep his secret."

CHAPTER XXIII

WHAT JESSIE WOULD SAY

JACK felt that matters were coming to a crisis. He would do as the Vicar had advised. He would see Jessie, and would put before her the state of affairs, and would ask her to decide.

If she were willing to wait until he should be free to marry her, so much the better. Jack felt that he could wait any number of years, with a prospect of Jessie as his wife at the end. If she were not willing, then he would have to give her up. He could not in either case fail towards his mother. She was and had to be the first claim upon him.

It was not quite easy to get hold of Jessie alone. She was busy over her dressmaking, and he was busy over plans and accounts; and by a kind of tacit agreement, they had put off confabulations upon their own affairs until other people's affairs should be settled. But Jack now felt that a quiet talk with Jessie must come off before those affairs of other people could be entirely settled. The question of the future home of his mother and of himself might hang upon that quiet talk.

When once a person sets himself to have a thing done, it is usually not long in being brought about. Despite business and other difficulties, Jack found himself only two days later walking with Jessie outside Old Maxham, through a muddy field under a grey sky.

Jessie was unusually silent, seeming more disposed to listen than to talk, and Jack was desperately puzzled how to begin. He had conned over so often beforehand what he had to say that it had grown to look quite easy; and now he could remember nothing of it. So he and Jessie marched along together in solemn silence.

"I thought you wanted particular to speak to me," Jessie at length said.

"I thought you'd talk to me," Jack answered, cowardly still as to what he had to say.

"Me talk! Yes, of course, if you like." Then she started off full swing, and chattered on every variety of subject. She allowed Jack no loophole for his say, and this was worse than her previous silence. For some minutes Jessie rattled on about the lifeboat, and the anonymous gift, and who could have been the donor; and then she slid off to her own work, and said how nice it was, and how well she was paid, and how kind Mildred was in teaching her. Next she was skipping off to some fresh subject; but she had afforded Jack an opportunity, and Jack at last had the courage to avail himself of it.

"That's just what I'm thinking about."

"What, my dressmaking?"

"Yes, about what you've been saying. Things aren't the same now as they have been, and I want you to see it."

"I don't see the good," pouted Jessie. "Look! Is that a chaffinch?"

"You've got to listen to me, Jessie, and I've got to say it. Don't you see, you can go on making money now and laying it by, and I can't. I shan't be able for ever so long. Every penny that I earn will have to go to keeping my mother in comfort, and the children. They'll just all depend on me."

"Well?" Jessie said. She hung her head so that he could not see her face, and the tone sounded cold.

"I can't tell how long it may be. And it don't seem to me—I should be right—to let you go on—not knowing—nor—"

Jack's faltering suggestions were nipped. Jessie raised her head, looked him in the face, and said tersely: "So you want to break it off? Very well."

"Jessie!" Jack had not expected this, and he was dumbfounded. He knew now how certain he had felt in his heart of what her answer might be, and the disappointment was great. A black cloud seemed to have settled down upon him.

Jessie said no more, and they walked on side by side. Jack's shoulders were rounded, and he dragged his feet like an old man. Jessie hung her head once more, and a keen observer, glancing under her hat-brim, might have detected a small smile quivering at the corners of her mouth.

"Well, you haven't said all you meant to say," she presently remarked.

"I told you—" Jack's voice was too husky to proceed.

"And I suppose you thought I'd want you to leave your mother to manage for herself, while you just went on working for me? A nice thing to think!"

Jessie's tone was full of scorn. This was not what Jack had expected her to say, either. He ventured to look in her direction, and saw two bright eyes sparkling with tears.

"Jessie—"

"Jack, you're a donkey; that's what you are! I wouldn't have thought you could have been so stupid!" Jessie stamped her foot upon the grass. "I wouldn't! You ought to have more sense."

"I've got mother and the children to see to," Jack said helplessly.

"As if I didn't know that! And as if I'd ever look at you again, if you could go and leave your mother to get on as she could, while you were only thinking of yourself—well, and of me, if you like! That 'ud mean the same thing. If you could, I should despise you, Jack."

"Then you think I'm doing what's right?"

"You couldn't do anything else. I only wish I had a mother to work for. But I have—almost," she added, under her breath.

"Only, you know, it may mean putting off our being married for ever so long. I can't tell how long."

"There's no need to tell. Let it be put off. So much the better," declared Jessie. "I'm in no hurry to get married. Why should I be? Girls like a bit of freedom first. And I'm comfortable as I am. As for your mother—if you and me ever do get married, why then she'll be my mother as well as yours, and I shall have a right to work for her too. And if we have a home, that home will be hers as well as yours and mine. So there!"

Jack was not to be at once pulled up out of despondency. "And you're quite sure, Jessie—you don't think—you wouldn't rather give me up and take somebody else?"

"Yes, of course I would! That's just what I should like, most particularly," declared Jessie, with tartness. "Get rid of you and take up with the first man I can find instead! It wouldn't matter who—not one bit! O no, anybody would do. I'm not difficult to please, am I?" Jessie broke into a queer laugh with a sound of tears in it. "O dear, you men are funny! As if that was my way!"

"I don't want you to give me up. I'd wait any time for you. Only, it may be years and years."

"It won't be, though. I'm going to make lots of money, and I shall work all the harder now, thinking about your mother. Why, Jack, don't you know I'm pretty near as fond of her as you are, and I'd like nothing better in all the world than to give her a home and to make her happy. I've never had a mother of my own—anyhow, I can't remember her—and to be always with your mother would be lovely. She's the dearest thing, and she never grumbles. She isn't a scrap like aunt Barbara. The only thing is that you might get jealous. I'm not sure, but I almost think I love her more than I love you; and I don't mind telling you so, either. And as for giving you up,—if you are tired of me, I'll give you up this minute, and I'll say good-bye, and I'll tell you not to cross my path again in a hurry. And if you're not tired of me—why—then—things can go on as they have gone on. And if you can't lay by yet for me, I can lay by for your mother, and we can wait a while longer and make the best of it. So you needn't be a donkey again, Jock—that's all."

Jack's answer to these various "ifs," though wordless, was unmistakable.

He told his mother about his talk with Jessie. Jack had not meant to do so at first, only he was used to telling her everything that touched him closely. He tried not to let her know that the question of her support had played a prominent part; but her womanly penetration was a great deal too much for Jack's duller wits. A few adroit questions drew the whole from him, including Jessie's hot little speeches and loving words about herself. A curious light came into Mrs. Groates' face, and her eyes, which had of late been dimmed with tear-shedding, shone again with almost their old look.

"And you think I'm going to sit with my hands before me, Jack, and you do all the work?"

"Why, no; you'll keep things going in the house, and there 'll be the children to see to. You'll find plenty to do,—no fear!"

"I shall take a share of earning money too. I can tell you that. I don't mean to be a useless burden on anybody. Not even on you."

"You'd never be useless, come what might. And it isn't only me that's going to work. Miss Pattison has offered to teach Mimy dressmaking, so that by-and-by she can get work in some of the New Maxham shops. We didn't mean to bother you about it for a day or two, but Mimy likes the notion, and I don't think you'll have anything against it. Just like Miss Pattison, isn't it? And Ted will be through his schooling in less than three months, and then we'll have to find something for him to do too. He's a handy little chap, you know. But you and the three little ones are going to be my charge,—till they can begin to work for themselves too, which won't be yet awhile. And you will be my charge always, mother,—mine and Jessie's too, in time, for she says so."

"Bless you both for meaning it! All the same, I'm going to take my share."

"I'll not have you go out charing. Nothing of that sort. You're not fit for rough work."

"There's things enough to be done. I'm used to turn my hand to most things. I'm good at fine needlework; and I can cook first-rate; and I shouldn't mind a spell at nursing now and then. You won't keep me in idleness, Jack; thank you all the same. And I'll try to get some needlework."

Jack protested in vain; and as days went by, he became convinced that his mother would really be the happier for having a certain amount of employment. The children would be away a great part of the day, except in holiday time, and the tiny cottage which was to be their home would scarcely afford scope enough for so active a little person in mind and body as Mrs. Groates.

It was quite true, as she had told Jack, that she was not only a very good needle-woman, but also an efficient cook, and a reliable nurse—not trained up to full modern requirements, but experienced in divers illnesses. These gifts might in coming months be turned to good account.

Meanwhile, the move out of the old home into a new one had to be done. A small cottage, on the outside border of Old Maxham, had been found for a moderate rent; and enough furniture to make it habitable was taken thither from "Groates' Store," the rest being parted with to Mr. Mokes, together with the stores of grocery and aught else that the shop held.

The act of removal, and settling in, helped to rouse Mrs. Groates, and to give her new interests in life. It was a pretty little cottage, with small but not inconvenient rooms, and a tiny garden behind, which Jack proposed to cultivate in leisure hours.

Since Jessie had not taken him at his word, and had not wished to break off the engagement, he was glad still to make his home in Old Maxham. He was by nature very much of a "home-boy," and he did not love change or novelty. To be within easy reach of Jessie was cheering; and the daily walk in and out of New Maxham would do him no harm. As Mr. Gilbert had foretold, Jack gave great satisfaction at the grocer's where his work now lay; and very soon, from having been taken on for his Mother's sake, he was highly valued for his own.

"The fact is, I can always trust Groates," Ward was heard to say to a friend. "There's no shilly-shally about him. He don't pretend to be out of the way clever; but give him a thing to do, and you may be sure that thing 'll be done, without any more bother. And the time that's due to me, he don't spend in amusing himself. I'd trust Jack Groates with a five-hundred-pound note, and not a doubt in my mind. Yes, it was a good thing for myself that I ever got him here, and I don't mind saying so, though it wasn't for my sake, nor for his, that I did get him."

Somebody took the trouble to repeat the main part of this speech to Mrs. Groates; and any mother will know how pleased she was to find Jack so well understood.

Jessie heard the same tale, and Jessie took it rather differently, as girls will. She tossed her head, with disdain. "Anybody might know that of Jack. He is honest enough, dear old fellow. But he is awfully stupid sometimes, and there's no denying it."

Jessie was thinking about a certain walk in muddy fields, one dull afternoon, not far back; and she quite forgot that if Jack had followed a different tack, and had shown himself too confident, she herself would have been the first to blame him for conceit.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

"SUCH a little while since I came, and yet Old Maxham feels quite a home to me now! I suppose we are like creeping plants, putting out tendrils wherever they chance to be, and clinging fast. Only a few months ago I felt so alone and friendless in the world, and now it's all different,—isn't it, Hero?"

Mildred paused to pat the dog's head, as he followed close behind her. "Less than a year, and so much to have happened."

She looked down at her black dress, not yet discarded. Close upon eleven months had passed since the death of her brother and his child; and the earlier months of those eleven had dragged by very slowly while the later months, being full of work and interest, had fled three times as fast. It was difficult to believe that one year ago she had never heard of Old Maxham, or of Jessie, or of Miss Perkins.

The afternoon was keen and cold, but very still. Old Maxham had been a good deal excited during the last few days; for the long-wished-for lifeboat had at last arrived, and was now installed in the boat-house, built beforehand in readiness to receive it.

Some time might elapse before a storm should arise, and longer still, it was to be hoped, before a wreck should call out the boat; but here it now was, ready for need, a possible ark of refuge for drowning sailors or passengers, no longer to be vainly cried for in a last despair.

Already a full crew had been enrolled, double the number actually needed to man the boat; and more than one practice had taken place, by way of getting their hands in. Old Adams had been appointed coxswain, with a fixed salary of eight pounds a year, with Robins for bowman at a salary of thirty shillings. There would also be regular additional payments; four shillings usually to each man of the crew, when they went afloat for exercise; ten shillings to each by day, and one pound to each by night, when going to save life, whether or no they were successful in the effort; and these sums would be increased by one-half during the winter months, from the beginning of October to the end of March.

Such and other expenses would be undertaken by the National Lifeboat Institution, out of its regular funds; but collections were to be made annually in the neighbourhood, managed by a small local committee, to do what might be possible in the way of helping to support their own lifeboat. All Maxham was delighted with this new possession, and certainly not least so the Vicar, who had had so much to do with getting it.

Mildred had lately been very hard at work, with her two helpers, Jessie and Mimy. She seemed always to have her hands more than full; and, indeed, she might easily have kept two or three more assistants employed. But this would have meant a change of abode, as no room in Periwinkle Cottage was large enough for more than three workers, spending many hours of the day together.

A fourth might sit with them occasionally, but not as a regular thing: and Mildred was not anxious to make a big concern of her dressmaking business. She preferred to undertake no more than she could herself cut out and properly overlook; and she did not at all wish to quit Miss Perkins' little house, which had become a home to her.

This afternoon she meant to treat herself to a lonely ramble; lonely, except for the companionship of Hero—and she never went for a walk without taking him. Hero had saved her life; and he was the one link which bound her present to her past life.

Everything and everybody else was new; dating not so far back as the shipwreck which had swept away her belongings. Hero alone had been in her former life. Much as Mildred cared for Jessie, and for other Old Maxham friends, not one of them could be to her what faithful Hero was; and she loved now and then to get away with him into the country, there to indulge in dreams of the past, which were not all sad, because they were mingled with dreams of the future.

Solitary as she might be in a sense, that solitariness was not for ever. Those who were gone she had not lost. They had only passed before her into the fairer Land. By-and-by she would join them there; and all her best hopes were anchored on that reunion. It helped her sometimes to pass out of reach of other people's chit-chat, and to lose herself in thought of the future.

"Come, Hero, we'll go through the fields," she said, speaking to the dog as to a friend of her own standing.

Hero always seemed to understand.

The ground was dry, because frozen; and a slight fall of snow had taken place. Each tiny twig bore its little clothing on the upper side, of delicate whiteness; and the ground sparkled, as if strewn with diamonds, in the sunshine. A good many clouds were scattered over the sky, one and another passing from time to time over the face of the sun; but each brief shadow was followed by renewed brightness.

"Not a bad day," Mildred decided. "And winter cannot last much longer now. A few weeks will see us well into spring."

She walked on, musing after her favourite fashion, keeping up a good pace, and covering a greater distance than she quite realized.

Hero walked close at her heels, after his usual fashion; and with him she never minded where she went, for no man would ever have dared to molest her while Hero was at hand. Gentle as the dog looked and was, he would have made short work of anybody who should have threatened harm to his mistress. He would let a little child tug his hair and poke its fingers into his eyes, with unlimited patience; but his grip could be deadly, if occasion called for it. This was understood in the country round, since one day when Hero found that a man in a lonely lane had evil intent towards Mildred. That man had a narrow escape of his life.

Mildred suddenly woke up to the fact of how fast and how far she had walked. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and the air had begun to gain an extra sharpness, suggestive of approaching night.

"I must be going back," Mildred said aloud; but she felt rather tired, and paused, to lean against the low parapet of a bridge, where the road passed over a stream.

She determined to give herself three minutes' rest, and then to return as fast as she had come.

Hero laid himself down at her feet, to await her pleasure.

It was singularly still. Hardly a breath of air stirred; hardly a twig of any bush moved. The brightness of sunlight, causing snow-sparkles all around, had now vanished, and the whole landscape lay under a grey shadow, which momentarily deepened. She would scarcely get back to the village before dark; but with Hero at her side, this did not matter; and Mildred enjoyed keen cold. It braced her up, she said.

The water of the sluggish little stream below ran quietly, with barely power to make itself heard. It was not a singing brook, though the water moved. Such frost as there was had not been able to bind it into stillness; but a little harder frost would succeed with so slow a brook.

Somebody was coming along the road, from that direction towards which she had been walking; that is to say he was on the way to Old Maxham. Not a tramp or a beggar. Mildred knew this at once, while he was still distant. She knew it from the quick step, the purposeful onward motion, which spoke of another class of man, though what class she could not yet conjecture.

In general outline the figure did not recall any one with whom she was acquainted in the neighbourhood; yet there was about it a curious suggestion of familiarity, as if she had known the person once upon a time, she could not recall when. She watched with a dreamy interest the gradual approach of the figure, as it came onward steadily, never swerving, nor hastening, nor slackening, but gradually increasing in apparent size as it filled a larger and larger space in her eye.

Then she began to see that it was an elderly man, or at least that he looked elderly, and that he had longish loose grey hair, curling, and falling almost to his shoulders. The kind benevolent face under his hat brought back in a flash a certain day, when she had been in the Churchyard, alone and lonely and well-nigh hopeless, and a stranger had spoken to her words of comfort.

"I thought I should see him again some day," she said to herself, and she went a step or two forward to meet him.

"How do you do?" she said, putting out her hand, with no hesitation. "We have met before, you know."

"Yes, I know," he replied pleasantly. "I remember you well,—very well indeed."

"We have only met once. It was one day in the Churchyard. You told me some truths, and made me feel how wrong I was. It did me a great deal of good. I am glad to be able to thank you for it now."

He smiled, as if recalling what had passed.

"You are Miss Pattison, who was saved last year from the shipwreck. When the Vicar behaved so gallantly, and all the other good fellows too. And your brave dog, not least of them all. Yes, yes, of course I heard all about that. The place was very full of the story when I came. And when I was here last, you were all trying hard to get enough money for a lifeboat."

"Have you been here a second time? I did not see you."

"No, I ran down for a week only. In fact, I only stayed three or four days. I had to hurry back to London. So I promised your good doctor to come again, and to stay a little longer. He and I are firm friends. Now, do you think you are wise to stay here in the cold?" This question came in a half-coaxing tone of remonstrance, as to a child.

"No, perhaps not; but I wanted a minute or two of rest, before starting for home."

"Then we are both going the same way. You will let me see you safely to the village. You are excuse me—hardly old enough to wander alone in these lonely roads."

"I feel very old! And I have no fear, with Hero. No one dares to touch me when he is here. He does not seem to mind you."

"I have spoken to Hero several times,—meeting him in the village. He is a fine fellow."

"I owe my life to him. But for Hero, I could not have escaped from the wreck."

"So I was told. And you are of course very grateful to him. You could not be otherwise."

Mildred walked silently for some seconds. "Yes," she said at length, "I am grateful now. I see that life is worth keeping, that it must be worth keeping, no matter how lonely or how sad one may be,—because there is always something to be done for somebody, and because it is God's gift to us, and meant to be valued. But that day, when you found me in the Churchyard, I was not grateful at all. It seemed to me that it would have been so very much happier, if only I had been taken too, with my brother and the little one. I had no one left, and life seemed to have no object."

"I remember. That was what you felt; one could see it. I wished that I could make you see how close a tie there really is between all brother men, and—" with a slight break,—"'specially those who are of the Household of Faith.'"

"You did help me to see it. I began to understand from that hour. You did not say much, but what you did say took hold of me."

"Come, that's cheering," and he smiled. "One likes to be made use of sometimes, in a stray sort of way. I am very much alone in the world, too, after a fashion: that is to say, I have no one belonging to me in the way of near relations. But I have been used to comfort myself with thinking that everybody belonged to me, and that I might always be doing something for somebody or other."

The speaker paused, and began afresh,—"I wonder whether you remember a certain sermon or address of your good Vicar, when he said something about Nobody's Business being commonly Everybody's Business. That struck me, just because it was a favourite thought of my own. Odd, how much one is impressed by what a man says in the pulpit, if one has happened to have that very same idea in one's own mind before. Why should one think better of it, merely because it has been one's own notion? However, so things are; and I had often said to myself,—

"'Now, John Willoughby, you haven't got much business of your own to attend to, so the best you can do is to look about and see whatever happens to be "nobody's business," and then just take that up and make it "your business."'

"And when I heard your Vicar say pretty much the same thing, I was delighted. No reason for being so, but I was, and I suppose most people would have been in my place. Man's an odd being, you know. But here am I chattering on, and letting you have no time to put in a single word."

"No; I like to hear you. Please go on," Mildred answered quietly. "Tell me how you carry out that plan."

"Not much difficulty. There's always something wanting to be done, or somebody needing to be helped. And though I haven't kith or kin, I have no lack of money. So the question is—how to use my money to the best advantage. Not always in the regular channels, you know, but in doing things that perhaps nobody else is quite able or quite willing to do. No end of things turn up, one way and another."

Then another pause.

"I had a very good business in the second-hand book trade for years; and when health showed signs of failing, I disposed of that, and money came to me unexpectedly from another quarter. So, of course, the question arose, what to do with myself and my money, to the best advantage? I'm no advocate for reckless giving to anybody that asks,—just pauperising those who ought to work for themselves. But very often one may help those who are down to get up again, or those who are in difficulties to get out of them. I can't go in for regular hard work, but I can see to that sort of thing."

A sudden thought had come to Mildred, making her eyes brighten. She looked round at him, and said, "And perhaps, sometimes, if you find a collection being made for something that is very much wanted, you give a check to help it on."

"Sometimes, yes,—if that seems to be the right thing to do."

He showed no particular signs of consciousness, and Mildred added,—

"You say you were here once, since that time that I saw you. And that must have been when Mr. Gilbert was preaching for the new lifeboat. That was the time, I think, when he said so much about Nobody's Business. Mr. Gilbert was in great difficulties about getting all the money he wanted. And some one generously gave ninety pounds towards it." Mildred forgot that she had once condemned any attempt to find out the donor. People are not always consistent.

"Ah!" Mr. Willoughby answered gravely. "That was quite right of somebody." Then, as he met Mildred's smile, "You are a little too keen in putting two and two together. I ought to have kept clear of these subjects,—but—the fact is, I had a wish to know you better, after the curious beginning of our acquaintanceship. So it seemed natural to tell you frankly a little about myself. But if I do not deny what you suggest, I shall ask you to keep my secret."

"May I some day tell the Vicar? He would be so much interested. It almost seems as if he ought to know."

"I don't see the need; but I won't make a fuss and tie you down too closely. If you have no especial reason for telling him, please say nothing. If you have, then ask him to let it go no farther. There is too much in this day of making everything public that one does. And, after all, what was it worth? I did not want the money for myself. I had enough besides for every need of my own."

CHAPTER XXV

THE NEW LIFEBOAT

NOTHING at this time gave greater pleasure to the Vicar than to get hold of some outsider, not yet up in the subject of lifeboats, and to display to him, or at least to pour out to him all particulars connected with the now possession of Old Maxham. A school-boy with a new bat is not more eager over that bat, than was Mr. Gilbert over the new boat; only, his was joy on behalf of others, while the schoolboy's delight is on behalf of himself.

One afternoon, two or three days after Mildred's encounter with Mr. Willoughby, the Vicar had paused in a road just outside the village, for a few words with the doctor; and as they talked, a figure could be descried coming along the road at some distance.

"There comes one of my friends," Mr. Bateson naturally remarked. "Mr. Willoughby."

"I saw him in Church on Sunday. A rather striking-looking man. One of your patients?"

"Well, not precisely. Hardly a patient, in the proper sense. He runs down here for rest and change, once in a while, and I prescribe for him if needful. A thoroughly nice fellow. Rich, too, if a man may be accounted rich because he has more money than he wants for himself. He is one of the best men that I ever came across; simple and true-hearted as a child; not an atom of nonsense about him. I've known him for years,—used to be a London bookseller in a large way. He rose to that from small beginnings; and I should think there never was a time when he wasn't one of 'Nature's gentlemen.' He'd be that if he were driving a plough."

"In business now?"

"No; he gave up, on account of certain symptoms of head-weakness. He had been working too hard, and was suffering from it; and he was able to retire on a small competency. Then he came in unexpectedly for a fortune from a distant cousin,—what, at least, was a fortune for him, with his simple tastes. So he took to spending time and money in philanthropic directions, and is one of the busiest people I know. Gets done up once in a way, and comes down here."

"Generous, I suppose?"

"After his own fashion. Odd, rather, in his way of doing good. If you beg him for some pet object, ten to one he'll refuse to give a penny; and then, perhaps, for a thing you don't count half so important he'll hand over twenty pounds. I tried to interest him in your lifeboat scheme last time he was here, and he showed no more concern than if I had been speaking about a pop-gun."

"When was that?"

"He has been twice before. First time he stayed a week; last time only three or four days. That was just about when we had that severe storm, and the two bodies were washed up. Yes,—just then. This time he means to stay longer; told me yesterday, he thought of taking a month off work. I don't know why, for he seems well; but I am glad, for he is pleasant in the house."

The Vicar was deep in thought, "Time of that Storm," he murmured. "Ah! When somebody gave the ninety pounds."

The doctor's lips took a queer set, and the Vicar laughed slightly.

"Well, as I say, I tried to interest him in the subject, and he apparently wouldn't be interested. Possibly, afterwards, on thinking it over—"

"And you have never given me a hint till this moment?"

"It wasn't my business," Mr. Bateson answered. "And it isn't my business now. Of course, I drew my own deductions; and you are at liberty to draw yours. That's all. I don't say he did it."

"No, of course. I understand. But—well, here he comes. I've never spoken to him yet."

"You were ill the first time, and last time he was here no time worth mentioning."

Mr. Bateson waited till Mr. Willoughby drew near, and then named him to the Vicar, who raised his hat. The doctor went off, and in three minutes Mr. Gilbert was in eager converse with Mr. Willoughby.

He had been speaking to the doctor about the lifeboat, newly received. Had Mr. Willoughby seen it yet? And did Mr. Willoughby feel any interest in lifeboats generally?

Mr. Willoughby confessed to an interest in everything that benefited his fellow-men.

This set the Vicar off afresh. Was Mr. Willoughby engaged elsewhere? If not, would he like to come and see the lifeboat there and then? Mr. Gilbert would be delighted to escort him, and they could call on their way for the key. The distance was not great.

Mr. Willoughby demurred, and suggested that another day might do as well. He had walked rather far already, and he was not disposed to do quite so much in addition; moreover, the Vicar's time was doubtless valuable. He would turn and go with the Vicar for a short distance, and so hear about the boat instead of immediately seeing it. Mr. Willoughby studiously abstained from showing any special interest in the matter.

He asked rather carelessly, Was it not the Vicar who had set the affair going in the first instance? He could recall hearing a mention of the boat as wanted, in the Vicar's address at the funeral of the two sailors. And, by-the-bye, was not Miss Pattison the sole survivor of the wreck which had first, perhaps, put it into the mind of the Vicar that a lifeboat ought to be had?

So composed and indifferent was the speaker's manner, that the Vicar began to question the truth of his own late surmise. He fell in, of course, with Mr. Willoughby's mood, and refrained from the faintest hint that he had ever supposed Mr. Willoughby to be the donor of the ninety pounds.

Yes, certainly, he said, he was glad to say that he had had a hand in first starting the motion—not that the people of Old Maxham had not in earlier years felt the need of a lifeboat, but only that they had failed to come to a point in the matter. Perhaps he had helped to bring them to a point. But once aroused, the people of the place had responded nobly to his appeal.

They were dear people, the Vicar said warmly, with a touch of boyish enthusiasm, at which the older man smiled with pleasure. The Vicar went on to say that he was proud of his people. And—yes, it was Miss Pattison who had had so remarkable an escape from drowning, and whose escape had partly made him think about a lifeboat.

Then, just as Mr. Willoughby was hoping to hear more about Mildred Pattison, the Vicar swerved off again to the subject of the lifeboat itself, and dashed into an eager explanation of its make and its merits.

He described the wonderful self-righting power of a lifeboat; the air-cases to which it owes its buoyancy; the tubes through which may escape any water shipped by the boat; the life-lines hanging outside, in readiness to be caught and clung to by any man overboard.

Then he congratulated himself and his Parish on the transporting carriage which had also been provided, by means of which the lifeboat could be quickly conveyed to the water's edge, and launched in heavy surf.

He had much also to say as to lesser equipments,—anchors, cables life-buoys, grapnels, rockets; and, above all, the cork lifebelts to be worn by the crew, the buoyant and flexible make of which had greatly delighted him.

"With one of those belts on, a man wearing heavy clothing may not only float safely, but may keep another person afloat also," he said. "It's a marvellous invention. One wonders how the world managed to get on before all these things were found out."

"Not quite such an amount of shipping in earlier times," suggested Mr. Willoughby.

"That's true. But no doubt many a poor fellow lost his life in those days, who in these days might be rescued. Why, only think, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has in charge over three hundred lifeboats on our coasts. It's a splendid work,—grand! And they are grand men who carry it on. Not many of us realise what some of those noble fellows have to go through, tossing about for hours on a bitter winter night, drenched with rain and spray, half-drowned and half-frozen, yet never giving in, so long as they have a hope of saving a life. It's magnificent!"

Mr. Willoughby assented warmly, and he would have assented a great deal more warmly if he had not feared, by a show of too much sympathy, to betray the generous part which he had himself taken in procuring this very lifeboat.

He did not suppose the Vicar's suspicions to have been already aroused, and he had no wish to arouse them. After listening a little longer, he made an attempt to turn the talk into another channel.

"The shipwreck of last year seems to have done good to Old Maxham in more ways than one."

"By bringing about the presence of a lifeboat? Yes, indeed."

"Not that only. I said, 'in more ways than one.' I was thinking that it had also brought about the presence of Miss Pattison in the place. That must be a gain."

"You are quite right. It is a gain. I have the greatest esteem for Miss Pattison. I believe she does good wherever she goes."

"I have not, of course, seen very much of her yet," remarked Mr. Willoughby, drawing the point of his walking-stick through the dust. "But the little that I have seen,—I confess she seems to me to be a woman among a thousand. We are perhaps better off than King Solomon was. He didn't manage to find one woman among a thousand. I am inclined to think that I—have!"

The Vicar stopped short, and looked full at Mr. Willoughby.

"I am inclined to think that I have," repeated Mr. Willoughby, with deliberation. "I may be mistaken; but I think not."

"You mean—" began the Vicar.

"Yes. I've never been married yet; but there is no especial reason why I shouldn't marry. I am not quite so old as I look, perhaps. How old should you guess me to be? 'Sixty?' Some would have guessed sixty-five. No; I am just over fifty-four—not old at all for a man. And she is over thirty. Nothing out of joint as to age, you see. I have enough money to keep a wife in comfort, and still to be able to give away. Moreover, I am much alone in the world, and she is the same. Why should we not—?"

Mr. Willoughby came to a pause, and the Vicar said heartily, "Why not, indeed?"

"That is the question. It is only an idea in my mind at present; and I can't tell if she could ever care for me. But I want to see more of her, and it is not easy to manage. So I thought I would ask your help. If in the end she isn't willing,—why, I'm no worse off than I have been before."

"Well, I wish you good success; and if there is any way in which I can help matters on, you only have to command me. I wish my sister were here just now, but she isn't. Your best plan really is to interest Mrs. Bateson. She could help you, I don't doubt. I mean, as to arranging for you and Miss Pattison to meet."

"That's an idea worth consideration," Mr. Willoughby remarked.

CHAPTER XXVI

MR. WILLOUGHBY'S AFFAIR

"IF I might offer a word of advice, it would be—not to make too much haste," were the parting words of Mr. Gilbert. "Best not to be in a hurry, you know."

Mr. Willoughby resolved to follow this counsel, and on no account to give in to a spirit of impatience.

Nor did he; if the degree of haste were to be measured by the degree of desire on his part. It was astonishing how that desire grew, when once the notion of marrying Mildred Pattison was fully admitted to his own mind.

The first time that they had met, Mildred had made a strong impression on him; the second time that he had visited Old Maxham, though he did not exchange a word with her, that impression had been deepened by various facts casually told him about Mildred. And the next interview that he had with her convinced him that, if time and opportunity could be found, she might become to him what no other woman had yet been. The time he resolved to take; the opportunities he determined to make.

Mildred sometimes wondered over the length of his stay in Old Maxham. Weeks passed by, and, still he remained at the doctor's, as a "paying guest," but certainly not as a patient, for he made no pretence to be an invalid, or in need of sea-air. None the less, he stayed on.

She began also to wonder how it was that she so often met him, and why it was that he should seem always so pleased to see her. He managed to ingratiate himself with Miss Perkins, so that Miss Perkins actually asked him to come in now and then to tea. Mildred always had her meals with Miss Perkins and Jessie, therefore by this means, he saw her often.

Mildred felt some astonishment at so unusual a step on the part of Miss Perkins, not knowing aught as to certain invisible wires set in motion by the doctor's wife; and she felt yet greater astonishment at the readiness and frequency with which Mr. Willoughby availed himself of the invitation.

Soon a third wonder arose in the mind of Mildred. She was puzzled as to the warmth of her own liking for Mr. Willoughby,—puzzled that his presence should be so agreeable to her, puzzled to find out that if for two or three days she saw nothing of him she felt dull.

"It really is ridiculous," she said one day to herself. "I have known him such a little while, and very soon he will be going back to London, and then none of us will see anything more of him. At least, not for months. Perhaps some day he may come again to Old Maxham. I hope he will; he is a nice men. One can't know him and not like him. But it is rather absurd to care too much, when he is a mere bird of passage,—isn't it, Hero?" Mildred patted her dog and smiled as she spoke.

Not long after this she was one day going off for another afternoon ramble alone with Hero, when Mr. Willoughby happened to come up just before she started. He was always "happening" to meet her wherever she might chance to go; and it never occurred to Mildred that the "happening" might sometimes be due to a private hint bestowed upon Mr. Willoughby by Miss Perkins or Jessie.

Time had been when Miss Perkins would have set herself in opposition to anything so far from advantageous to herself as the possible marriage of Mildred Pattison. But Miss Perkins had had some lessons in self-forgetfulness during the last year; and now that the danger of having to part with her permanent lodger loomed upon her, she was able, amid regrets, to think of what would be for Mildred's good, and to endeavour to further that good, even though it should mean loss to herself. Jessie, too, though not without a struggle, took the same view of matters.

A late equinoctial gale seemed to be setting, but Mildred did not mind a struggle with the wind, now that she was again in good health and spirits. She had put on an old dress, and had tied a gauze veil tightly over her hat, so that it was in no danger of being carried away. And at the moment when she was starting, Mr. Willoughby made his appearance.

"Are you going for a walk? May I come part of the way with you?" he asked. "There are one or two things that I—well, that I rather wish to say. This might be a good opportunity. And really—" as a gust twisted her half round,—"it is rather a boisterous day for you to go alone."

"I'm not afraid of the wind, thank you; and I am used to taking care of myself." Mildred felt shy, which was not usual.

He had walked with her before, and she had not been shy in the least; but she was now quite glad of a thick veil, behind which she could blush comfortably.

"But you do not mind my coming, for at least part of the way?"

"O no; not at all."

Then they set off, and Mr. Willoughby talked on everyday subjects, and Mildred had little to say in reply. Most of her attention seemed to be given to the effect of the wind upon her dress, which certainly was discomposing.

Once or twice she spoke to Hero, and when necessary she answered briefly some question or remark of Mr. Willoughby; but for the first time conversation flagged between them. Generally he and she had any amount to say one to the other; and Mildred had often thought how pleasant a man he was to talk with, because he always understood at once what she meant. Some people were so dense, she used to say to herself, comparing them with him.

It began to dawn upon her, as they trudged along, that although Mr. Willoughby talked, he too was embarrassed, no less than she was. Yet he was not given to shyness, any more than was she.

She tried to think of something to say, which should put them at ease, and tried in vain. Nothing seemed to be exactly the right thing for that moment; and the feeling of constraint lasted till they were outside the village.

Then Mr. Willoughby asked, "Which way were you going?"

"I had not made up my mind."

"Don't you think we had better keep to this lane? We shall not have so much wind. Unless you wish for a good blow."

"No. I like the lane."

"Pretty, is it not? How fast the hedges are budding! We don't see that in London. I sometimes think, as years go on, that I should like to have a little cottage in a place like Old Maxham, and run down to it often for change. What do you think?"

"I should think it would be very nice for you."

"I have been looking at one or two. It wouldn't be a bad plan. My main work lies in London, and part of the year I must be there; but it isn't needful all the year round. And I think I get more fond of the country. Are you the same?"

"Very fond."

"Too fond ever to live in London?"

"I don't know," whispered Mildred. She happened to glance up, and met his eyes fixed upon her with so earnest a gaze that she was disconcerted.

"I'm not asking that question for nothing," observed Mr. Willoughby. "I have an object. There was something particular that I wanted to say to you, was there not? I told you that there was."

"Yes; you told me so."

"The only doubt on my mind is whether perhaps I may be saying it too soon. That's the doubt. But I don't want to wait longer. I want you to understand. But, remember, if I speak out now, I don't press for a hurried answer. If you cannot at once reply as I wish, I am willing to wait. I will give you any length of time to think it over—to get used to the idea. Perhaps it may be a now idea to you—and yet I have some hopes. You have been very kind to me lately."

"I think it is you who have been kind to me," Mildred said unsteadily, glad once more of her veil.

"My wish is to be kind to you, not now only, but always—through life. I should like to have it in my power to make yours a very happy life, so far as one has power over another's happiness. This is not a new thought with me. Even that first time that we met, when you were so sad, and I tried to comfort you, I found—not at the moment but afterward—that I could not shake off the recollection of your face. When I came down here again last autumn, I made no effort to see you, though once or twice I had a glimpse without trying. But every one spoke of you. It was singular, in those three days, how often your name came up, and how many warm words were said. Then, this time we met by accident—at least, with no effort on your part or mine—and that one walk decided me. I have known ever since how things might be with me. I made up my mind then to stay on here for several weeks, and to see as much of you as possible. And—I have done so."

"It has been very good of you," Mildred said in a low tone.

"I don't know about the goodness. I have pleased myself in doing it. But the question has arisen now—shall I stay longer, or shall I go back at once to London?"

Mildred was silent.

"And I am going to ask you to settle that question for me. I should like to stay—if you have not seen too much of me. Will you let me? Or would you rather that I should go? If I stay, I shall want to see a good deal of you—as much as can be managed. Do you think you would miss me at all, if I were to go, Mildred?"

He had never before called her by her name. She caught her breath slightly, and then said, "Yes, I think I should."

"That gives me hope. And if I stay, it will be for a purpose. I want to win you to be my wife. Perhaps you cannot yet promise. You may want to see a little more of me first. When you know me better—"

Mildred made no answer.

"You would rather wait for that, perhaps. You would rather not give an answer just yet. I shall leave you free as long as you wish."

They walked in silence for some distance. Mr. Willoughby would not break it. He saw that Mildred was deep in thought, and one or two side-glances showed him that her colour came and went fitfully behind the veil.

Presently she said,—

"May I have just a few hours?"

"Days, if you wish."

"No; a few hours. I think I should like that. I think that will be enough. I think—" in a softer voice—"I am very nearly sure—already."

"I hope I know what that means," he said as softly.

She gave him one glance.

"You don't know what a difference it would make in my life—if it might be. I am alone in the world now, just as you are. Then, we should neither of us be alone any longer."

A faint smile stirred her lips. "You told me once that I ought to be content with—other relationships. With mankind in general."

"I suppose I did say something of that sort. The thought has often been a comfort to me in hours of loneliness. But the nearer tie is not wrong. If that can be, I at least shall not be lonely any more, or in need of comfort."

"And I too—"

The three little words slipped out involuntarily and were checked. Mr. Willoughby waited in vain for more.

Again they walked in silence, reaching a piece of open common, where the wind was so strong as to make walking difficult, and speech almost impossible. Getting beyond it, they were again in a sheltered lane, with high banks, and Mr. Willoughby said, "Would you rather be alone, or may I walk with you still?"

"If you like," she said shyly.

"Then I like to stay. Perhaps I ought to tell you something else, and that is that I am well off as to money. I have a comfortable house in Bloomsbury, and if you like it we will set up a little cottage in the country—here or elsewhere. You should see your old friends as often as you wished. Of course there would be no more dressmaking—except for your own amusement."

"I am fond of dressmaking. I should like to teach others how to do it, to help them on—perhaps some poor girls in London," Mildred said dreamily, unaware how much the words would mean to him. It was almost an admission of what her answer would be. "And Jessie—I have undertaken to teach Jessie. I cannot leave that half done."

"There would be no need. She should learn still—either from you or from some one else. Whatever you wanted done, in the way of giving help to others, I would try to manage for you."

Mildred stood still. "I think I should like to go home now," she said, and they turned.

She was silent again, lost in thought.

The common had to be once more crossed, which meant another struggle with the wind. Mr. Willoughby would not interrupt her thoughts. They reached the long lane, and traversed half of it, with few words.

Then, suddenly, Mildred stood still. She put up her veil, and turned her face towards her companion.

"Mr. Willoughby—"

"Yes."

A bright colour came into her cheeks.

"I think—I hardly think it is right to keep you longer in uncertainty. I mean—it is not needful. I find that I shall not need to wait—that I do not need more time. I think I know now."

The flushing cheeks, the brightening eyes, filled him with gladness. No one was within sight, and he took her hand in his.

"Will you be my wife, Mildred?"

"If you think I can make you happy—yes," she answered.

CHAPTER XXVII

ANOTHER GALE

THAT night a terrific gale blew; and, from the howling of the blast and the thunder of waves upon the shore, few of the inhabitants of Old Maxham could get much sleep.

Many lay wide awake, picturing to themselves the dismal state of sailors on their heaving craft; some sat up, refusing to undress; and a few spent the night upon the shore, watching the distant white gleam, which told of the line of breakers foaming on the reef.

With the coming of early dawn a water-logged ship could be seen in the offing, drifting towards the reef. Her masts were gone, and several men might be detected, holding on as best they might. Nothing could check the steady drift of that disabled vessel towards the rocks; and to be once on them in such a sea would mean a speedy end. All then would be up with the crew.

There was an instant rush for lifebelts on the part of the lifeboat crew, which consisted of double the number required. Not a man among them had any thought of holding back. Not one among them but would gladly have gone to the work of rescue.

As quickly as might be the boat was down at the water's edge, and then the launching had to take place—no light matter in such a surf. The storm from which Mildred had been saved, almost as by a miracle, had not been so heavy as this gale.

No time was lost, for indeed there was none to lose. Everything depended on speed and promptitude. The crew, ready for action with their lifebelts on, hauled with all their might and main at a strong rope which was attached to an anchor buoyed some little way from shore. And while they thus pulled, dozens of men on the beach pushed hard with a long spar at the stern of the boat. Among them might be soon the Vicar, as eager as any, and regardless of possible injury to his weakened arm. Jack too was there, of course.

A great wave came towering on, and instantly the lifeboat was full of water; but like a living creature, the gallant craft shook herself clear and rode bravely out amidst the breakers.

Now it became a race for life between the lifeboat and the drifting vessel. If the ship reached the rocks before the lifeboat could get to her, small hope remained for any one on board. Had it not been for the presence of the lifeboat, nothing could have been done. No ordinary boat could have lived, could even have been launched, in such a sea as this.

Mildred stood upon the shore, where most of the people of Old Maxham had already gathered, and Mr. Willoughby stood by her side.

For herself life had gained, within the last twelve hours, new hope and new happiness; but how could she think of herself, while those poor sailors were drifting to death, while those other gallant fellows were out on the stormy waters, risking their own lives that they might save men in direst need?

The very consciousness of impending happiness for herself was almost repellent at such a time. Even with John Willoughby by her side, she seemed to herself to be on that drifting vessel, awaiting rescue or death; so intense was her sympathy with the men who were there.

For she had gone through the same. She too had stood upon a heaving deck; she too had seen the line of wild white breakers drawing nearer and nearer. She too had watched a boat struggling through the rough water, vainly trying to get near in time. She too knew what it was to look drowning in the face, with small hope of being saved.

All this was vividly present to her imagination, and she felt as she knew that the men must feel on yonder dismasted vessel. Only this time the struggle might not be in vain; for the gallant lifeboat rose splendidly again and again from breaking waves and sheets of spray, and still the rescuers pressed onward.

Nearer and nearer the helpless vessel drew to the rocks; nearer and nearer the lifeboat drew to the vessel. It was fearful work to stand on the beach, helpless except that all might pray,—to stand in safety, hoping and fearing what each moment might bring.

By this time all the village was down on the shore, watching their lifeboat, bought partly with the fruits of their own little self-denials. Everybody realized that, had the boat not been procured, they could only have stood to look upon a terrible tragedy, powerless to give any help. Not even the sanguine young Vicar would have proposed taking out a common boat into such a sea as they looked upon this morning. The thing would have been simply an impossibility.

At length it was seen that the lifeboat was winning—would win—had won, the race. Before the vessel was yet on the rocks, the lifeboat drew near; and then, one by one, slowly and with difficulty, the crew of the vessel were taken off.

Some who had glasses could watch the perilous work being done; and cheer after cheer broke from those on shore, as one sailor after another was reported to be safe on board the lifeboat. This work accomplished, the dismantled vessel was left to drift to its fate; and the laden lifeboat turned to struggle landwards, again and again to vanish momentarily under rush after rush of breaking waves, yet again and again to rise, like a bird shaking itself free, gallantly riding the watery hills.

"It's a wonderful thing to see! Thank God that we have that boat!" murmured the Vicar.

To land at the same spot whence they had started proved to be impossible; but the crowd on shore followed the boat, and when it at length came in, friends were at hand to give a hearty welcome.

A rush was made, and strong arms helped to haul it in. The pale foreigners, snatched from the very jaws of death, were eagerly taken care of, fed and warmed and guarded. And old Adams, the coxswain, vigorous as any young man, despite his years, received such an ovation as he had never known yet. He deserved it well.

"And oh, John, if you had not given that money, the lifeboat might not be here yet!" Mildred said, her face glowing as she turned to speak to him.

Then she found the Vicar to be a listener also.

"Some of us have suspected this," Mr. Gilbert said, warmly grasping Mr. Willoughby's hand. "Forgive me for hearing; I did not intend to hear what was not meant for me. But I am glad to know it; very glad. And you may well be thankful to have helped in bringing this about. I'll say no more as to that, if you would rather not."

"I am thankful," John Willoughby said quietly. "And I am thankful for something else too. A great happiness has come into my life. You may congratulate me upon that, if you wish."

"Eh! What is that?" asked the Vicar. For the moment he forgot what had passed between himself and Mr. Willoughby as to Mildred. Then he remembered, and a smile crept into his face. "Ah!" he said. "Yes; I think I understand."

"This dear woman has promised to be my wife."

"Then I do congratulate you most heartily; and I am only sorry to think that we shall lose her from our midst."

"But perhaps it will not be losing, sir," Mildred said softly.

"Not if I can get a little cottage here, and if we spend part of the year always in Old Maxham," added Mr. Willoughby.

"Is that to be it? Why, I know the very cottage for you," exclaimed the Vicar.

Mildred's first intention was not to be married in a hurry. She saw no need for it, she said, and she wanted to turn out Jessie an accomplished dressmaker, which might not be so easy when she had a husband claiming her attention.

Mr. Willoughby, however, demurred as to this. It was not as if he were a very young man, or had to make his way. He was over fifty years old, and he had abundance of money.

Moreover, if Mildred was in no hurry, the same could not be said of himself. He was in a very great hurry; and his impatience waxed stronger every day. Jessie should learn her business from somebody, at his expense but he did not quite see why Jessie's dressmaking was to keep him longer without a wife, now that he had found a wife exactly to his mind.

A good deal of urging was needed to make Mildred see things as he did; but she became slowly convinced, and even at last confessed that she had really no wish for delay, except for the sake of Jessie's dressmaking and Miss Perkins' convenience. When it was decided that Jessie should go to London for six months' good instruction, and when another lodger was found for Miss Perkins, and when Mr. Willoughby undertook that she should be in no sense a loser by Mildred's departure or by Jessie's absence, Mildred had no longer any real difficulties to propose.

The wedding took place in June, from Miss Perkins' house; and Old Maxham came together to see it. Everybody was invited afterwards to a tea on the Vicarage lawn, where Miss Gilbert dispensed tea and coffee and cakes; and the Vicar managed to have a few words with each individual present; and many kind things were said both to Mr. Willoughby and his wife.

Mr. Willoughby, in consideration of its being his wedding day, had cut his hair—or had had it cut—a good deal shorter; and if the effect was less picturesque, it was also less aged. People ventured to hope that his new wife would insist on making this improvement permanent, as it was not necessary that he should as yet look patriarchal. Mildred herself, in a soft grey dress and grey bonnet with white flowers, looked very nice and happy. No two opinions were heard as to this.

They went into Devonshire for their honeymoon, and afterwards spent much time in London, with a month now and then in Mr. Willoughby's little cottage at Old Maxham. Mildred had always thought that she would dislike London; but she soon became so deeply interested in the various benevolent works taken up by her husband, that it was easier to win him away than to persuade her to go.

Jessie and Jack had to wait much longer for their marriage, which was only reasonable, since they were so very much younger.

Between four and five years passed, Jack making a home for his mother and the children, while Jessie lived with Miss Perkins, did dressmaking, and laid by a nice sum of money.

By that time the Groates children were getting old enough to begin to work for themselves; Jack himself was in a good enough position under Mr. Ward to have been for two years laying something by out of his earnings; and Mrs. Groates was known far and wide as one of the most useful of little women in any kind of emergency, as to work or cooking or health, so that really she was seldom at home for a month at a time.

Under these circumstances it was thought reasonable that Jack and Jessie should become man and wife. Mrs. Groates wanted to live apart, but neither Jack nor Jessie would hear of this.

A larger cottage was taken, and Mrs. Groates and her youngest girl had their home in it; Mrs. Groates still going out often to work in homes round about. The elder children also had a general welcome, coming and going as need arose; so that Jack's house became a kind of family home to them all; and Jessie turned out, not only a first-rate dressmaker, but also a notable housekeeper, and a loving daughter to her husband's mother.

And neither of them was any the worse for a few years of patient waiting, before having exactly what he or she wanted.

THE END

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