Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice. Oliphant Margaret

look to the house. Nor had any precautions been taken to amend this. Trees and shrubs before the door grew rough and unkempt as nature had let them grow. The grass upon the lawn waved high and rank, great rows of hollyhocks and sunflowers shed their withered leaves and ripe seed below the windows. The much-trodden path, at the further end which led to the stables, and the presence of one or two lounging grooms, told the enjoyments of the Laird of Falcon’s Craig, and explained, in some degree, the inferior cultivation of the neighboring fields – fields over which Mr. Coulter, of Harrows, with a good-humored desire to see all around him as prosperous as himself, shook his head and groaned.

      The visitors alighted, and were shown into Miss Falconer’s heterogeneous drawing-room. The lady herself lay upon a sofa near the fire, with a newspaper in her hand. Alice Aytoun did not like the appearance of the reclining figure, in its bold, manlike attitude, and kept close to Anne’s side.

      “Anne Ross!” exclaimed Miss Falconer, springing up with an energy which made the room ring; “why, I should as soon have thought of Merkland coming to see me bodily, as you. How do you do? How are you, little Miss Aytoun? Tired of the Tower yet?”

      “No,” said Alice, drawing back, instinctively.

      “Don’t be afraid; I won’t hurt you,” said Miss Falconer, with a laugh. “Well, Anne, how do you get on in Merkland? Mrs. Ross will be good and dutiful now, when Lewis is at home.”

      “You must ask Lewis himself,” said Anne; “he is here now, is he not?”

      The face of Alice, which had been somewhat in shadow, brightened.

      “Oh, yes, Lewis is here,” said Miss Falconer; “gone with Ralph to these everlasting stables. Take notice, Miss Aytoun, that when gentlemen come to Falcon’s Craig, it is Ralph’s horses and dogs they come to see, and not his sister. I say this, that you may not be jealous.”

      Little Alice blushed, and drew up her slight young figure, with some budding dignity. “I have nothing to be jealous of, Miss Falconer.”

      Miss Falconer laughed again. “Well, we will not say anything before Anne. Anne is taking lessons from Mrs. Catherine, in state and gravity. How did you come? In that little phæton, I declare, with these two sober ponies, that I have known all my life. You never ride now, Anne?”

      “I do not remember that I ever did,” said Anne. “We keep few horses in Merkland; and besides, Marjory, there are not many ladies of your nerve and courage.”

      “Miss Aytoun,” said Miss Falconer, gaily, “do you ever flatter? Anne, you see, knows my weak point, and attacks me accordingly. She thinks I rather pride myself on these two unsafe qualities of nerve and courage. Well, and why should we be cooped up within four walls, and sentenced to do propriety all our lives? The bolder a man is, the more he is thought of; but let one of us hapless women but stir a step beyond the line, and we have ‘improper, indecorous, unwomanly,’ thundered in our ears from every side.”

      “Then you will not acknowledge the proverbial truth of what everybody says?” said Anne.

      “Not a bit,” said Miss Falconer, boldly. “Why should not I follow the hounds as briskly, and read that political article,” she pointed to the paper she had thrown down, “with as much interest as my brother? I do, it is true; but see how all proper mammas draw their pretty behaved young ladies under their wings, when I approach. You all desert me, you cowards of women; I have only men’s society to fall back upon.”

      “But did you not tell us just now that you liked that best?” ventured little Alice Aytoun.

      “No, not I. Perhaps I do, though; but I did not say it.”

      “Then, after all,” said Anne, “the mistake is not in what we quiet people call decorous, and proper, and feminine; but only that you, with your high spirits and courage, have the misfortune to be called Marjory, instead of Ralph; that is all; for here, you see, are Miss Aytoun and myself, and all the womankind of Strathoran to back us, who have no ambition whatever to follow the hounds, nor any very particular interest in the leading article. It is merely an individual mistake, Marjory. Acknowledge it.”

      “Not I,” exclaimed Miss Falconer; “it is a universal oppression of the sex. They try to reason us down first, these men; and failing that, they laugh us down: they will not be able to accomplish either, one of these days. There! how you turn upon me, with that provoking smile of yours, Anne Ross. What are you thinking of now?”

      “Do you remember a little poem – I think of Southey’s,” said Anne, smiling – ”about the great wars of Marlbro’ and Prince Eugene, long ago? I was thinking of its owerword, Marjory – ‘What good came of it at last? said little Wilhelmine.’ ”

      “Ah, that is just like you,” said Miss Falconer; “coming down upon one with your scraps of poetry, when one is speaking common sense. Oh, you need not raise your eyebrows! I tell you I am speaking quite reasonably and calmly; and we shall see, one day.”

      “But, Miss Falconer,” inquired Alice, timidly, “what shall we see?”

      “See! Why, a proper equality between men and women, as we were created,” said Miss Falconer, vehemently. “No more bandaging up our minds, as they do the feet of the poor girls in China – oppressing us for their own whims, everywhere! No more shutting us out of our proper share in the management of the world – no more confining us in housekeepers’ rooms and nurseries; to make preserves, and dress babies!”

      “Are the babies to be abolished, then?” said Anne. “For pity’s sake, Marjory, do not sentence the poor little things to masculine nurses. Farewell to all music or harmony, then. If we are to dress babies no more, let it be ordained, I pray you, that there shall be no more babies to dress!”

      “Nonsense, Anne!” exclaimed Marjory Falconer, loudly; “you want to ridicule all I say. You are content with the bondage – content to be regarded as a piece of furniture, a household drudge, a pretty doll.”

      “Hush!” said Anne; “spare me the abjective. I am in no danger of your last evil. And see how Miss Aytoun looks at you.”

      “Never mind,” said Miss Falconer; “Miss Aytoun will sympathise with me, I am sure; every true woman must. See how they smile at our opinions – how they sneer at our judgment – ‘Oh, it’s only a woman.’ I tell you, Anne Ross, all that will be changed by-and-bye. We shall have equal freedom, equal rights – our own proper dignity and standing in the world.”

      “And how will it change our position?” said Anne.

      “How obtuse you are! Change our position! Why it will make us free – it will emancipate us – it will – ”

      “Particulars, particulars, Marjory?”

      Miss Falconer paused.

      “We shall not be thought unfit any longer to do what men do; our equal mental power and intelligence shall be recognised. We shall have equal rights – we shall be free!”

      Anne looked up smiling.

      “ ‘And what good came of it at last? said little Wilhelmine.’ ”

      Miss Falconer started from her seat in anger, and walked quickly through the room for a moment, Alice looked on in wonder and alarm. At last Marjory approached the table, looked Anne in the face, half smiling, half angry, and replied, in a burst:

      “ ‘Nay, that I cannot tell,’ quoth he,

      But ’twas a glorious victory?’ ”

      Conversation less abstract followed, when Lewis and Ralph joined them; and not long after, Anne and Alice resumed their places in the phaeton, and turned homewards, Lewis riding by their side. Anne’s spirits had wonderfully lightened during their drive, and now she defended Marjory Falconer, almost gaily, against the laughing and half-contemptuous attacks of Lewis.

      “Marjory arms all the silly lads in the parish with flippant impertinences about women and their rights, Miss Aytoun,” she said. “I did not mean you, Lewis, so there is no occasion for drowing yourself up. Yet Marjory has some strength, and much kindliness of spirit. And when she has once