The Pillars of the House, V1

'And that founded your friendship?'

'No, not quite, for we had a worse fight because I shut his Bible up in his face when he tried to look over the Lessons in the Cathedral.'

'Why, you all do,' said Robina.

'Yes, now; but before Nixon came we were a horrid set of little ruffians. Do you remember, Lance, how Roper offered you a bull's-eye in the Cathedral, and thrashed you afterwards because you wouldn't have it?'

'O Lance! but that was persecution!' cried Robina. 'Who would have thought you went through things like that?'

'Ay,' said Bill, 'you believed in the little cherub chorister boys, that sing and look out of their great violet eyes, till they die of declines.'

'Ah!' said Lance, who was leaning on his arm rather wearily, 'Jack will do for himself if he tells Wilmet her eyes are violet; it is like a red rag to a bull.'

'Yes,' said Robina, 'she says nobody ever had eyes the colour of violets, and they would be hideous if they were.'

'I have seen them,' said Willie, gravely.

'Oh! where?' cried Robina. 'Darker blue than Edgar's?'

'It's generally only one at a time.'

'After a cricket match, eh?' suggested Lance.

'But, depend upon it,' said Bill, while Robina was recovering her laughing disgust, 'he may tell her her eyes are any colour he pleases by this time.'

'How do you know that?' sharply protested Robin; 'as if she would care for him more than for all of us, who can't spare her either!'

'I thought you were thick and plenty up the country?'

'Not of that sort,' said Lance.

'I don't believe it,' insisted Robina; 'why, she had never seen him a few weeks ago; she can't have had time to get to like him.'

'That's your simplicity,' said Bill. 'Now ain't that oracular-I mean ocular-demonstration? There they are, very moral of people making fools of themselves in books.'

I wish they'd have done with it, then,' sighed Lance; 'my legs won't hold out much longer.'

'Yes, you must go in,' said Robin, bringing her sturdy shoulders for his other arm to rest on.

'But those two!' said Lance. 'Some one must stay to make it respectable. Don't laugh, you vagabone, you shake up the marrow of my bones; I'm her brother, and bound to see to her.'

'I'll stay out with Willie if that will make it right,' said Robina, 'only you must go to bed, and you have to be up so early too.'

So they saw him to the Bailey door, beyond which he declined further assistance, saying he could tumble into bed alone, and leaving them to their pleasant task of making propriety.

It was made after this sort. Bill delivered himself of a deep sigh, and observed, 'Well! if she's done for, I suppose I must take up with you; and after all, you're the jolliest.'

'I shall never be jolie, like Wilmet, if that's what you mean,' said Robina, not quite understanding whether it were jest or earnest.

'Well, if you ain't a regular stunner like her, it doesn't much matter. I never did see a face that I liked better than your round one, and I know I shall like it more and more. Won't you have me, Robina, one of these days?'

'O Willie! oughtn't one to wait till we are old enough to think about it?'

'I don't see why. I shall always be thinking I'm working for you, and I don't see why you shouldn't think the same of me. Won't you?' again he repeated. 'At least, of course I shall do all the work for you.'

'Oh no! I should not like that. I had rather be doing something for you, Willie. Look here, I am learning all I can now, and when I go out-'

'Go out?'

'For a governess.'

'Murther! I'll hinder that!'

'But, Willie, you can't make a fortune in five years, and I shall go out at eighteen. I think I shall begin the fortune soonest;' and she laughed merrily.

'Mother didn't make a fortune.'

'I didn't mean that exactly; but I'm learning all the superior branches, and if I got a hundred a year! Think of that, Will! If I went on with that till you are a clergyman and have a living, how nice it would be! There would be plenty to give away; and if we were poor, I would take girls to teach.'

'Do you think I shall ever let you do all the work that way?' said Will, strong in boyhood's infinite possibilities. 'I don't know how it's to be, but I'll keep you out of slaving, though you're a dear girl to think of it. Any way, Robin, you and I will hold together- always.'

'I am sure I shall never like anybody half so much,' said Robin.

'Shall we break a sixpence and keep the halves? That's the thing, ain't it? I believe I've got one-or fourpence, which is all the same.'

'No, no,' said Robina, backing; 'I don't think Mettie would like it. It doesn't seem right.'

'But aren't you in earnest. Robin?'

'Oh yes, indeed, indeed I am;' from the depths of a very earnest childish heart that little knew to what it pledged itself.

'And so am I! I'll never care for any one else, Robina-never.'

'Nor I, William. Here they come!'

The other two had not got near so far, though Captain Harewood was talking, and Wilmet listening, as would never have been the case without the influence Willie asserted; but the special charm that enchained Wilmet was entirely unapprehended by her, till just as the first star brightened, and the hues faded from the landscape, she bethought her of her patient, and perceived that he had gone in. 'How late it must be! I must go and see after him. I hope he is equal to the journey.'

'I will come and bring you an account of him on my way home, if I may.'

'Oh, thank you; but it is taxing your goodness too-too much.'

'Cannot you believe how glad I am to have a good excuse?' and the tone gave Wilmet a sudden thrill, so that she answered not; and he continued, 'I am going to beg leave to be sometimes at Bexley.'

'When Felix is at home,' faltered Wilmet.

'I can hardly afford to wait. My time at home is so short. I shall, I hope, make friends with him to-morrow, and perhaps you will neither of you forbid me to come again. I am asking nothing now, only opportunity to try to make you-'

'Oh, don't!' hurriedly broke in Wilmet, standing still in consternation.

'Nay,' he said in a pleading voice, 'I know it would be presumption to think so short an acquaintance could suffice, but you see I have so little time, and all I want is leave to use it in coming to see you.'

'Oh, don't!' she repeated. 'Indeed you had better not. It would be only pain. I couldn't! and I can't have Felix worried,' and there was a startled sob in her voice; but he answered with the strength and sweetness that had upheld her in Lance's most suffering moments.

'I would not distress you or Felix for more than words can utter! I would not have breathed a hint of this most earnest wish of my heart till you had had some preparation, if it were not so impossible otherwise to have any chance of being with you and striving-'

'Please,' entreated Wilmet, 'that is just what should be avoided; it can never come to anything, and the sooner it is stopped the better.'

'Why should it never come to anything?' he asked, encouraged by detecting tears in her voice.

'Because you know-no, you don't know, or you never could think of such a thing-how wrong and impossible it would be for me!'

'No, I don't know. That is what I want to have the opportunity of knowing.'

'I can tell you before,' she answered, faintly. 'Oh, if you would but take my word for it, it would save so much-'

'No, that I cannot do,' he repeated. 'I must see for myself your preciousness at home.'

She broke in again. 'Please, please, I'm saying what I ought not; but it is to hinder distress. Don't want to let us get to like each other any better, for as yet it can't be more than what could be got over, and it is only making pain to let it grow.'

'That I deny. So far as I am concerned, the thing is done. If you wanted to save me that pain, you should have turned me out the moment I saw you call the boy back to life. A month like this is not so easily got over.'