A Hardy Norseman. Lyall Edna

I am quite strong, if you would only believe it.”

      “Well, well, I hope you are,” said Mrs. Boniface, with a sigh. “But any way it’s more than you look, child.”

      And the mother thought wistfully of two graves in a distant cemetery where Cecil’s sisters lay; and she remembered with a cruel pang that only a few days ago some friend had remarked to her, with the thoughtless frankness of a rapid talker, “Cecil is looking so pretty just now, but she’s got the consumptive look in her face, don’t you think?” And these words lay rankling in the poor mother’s heart, even though she had been assured by the doctors that there was no disease, no great delicacy even, no cause whatever for anxiety.

      “I am glad we have seen Doctor Royston,” said Cecil, “because now we shall feel quite comfortable, and you wont be anxious any more, mother. It would be dreadful, I think, to have to be a sort of semi-invalid all one’s life, though I suppose some people just enjoy it, since Doctor Royston said that half the girls in London were invalided just for want of sensible work. I rather believe, mother, that is what has been the matter with me,” and she laughed.

      “You, my dear!” said Mrs. Boniface; “I am sure you are not at all idle at home. No one could say such a thing of you.”

      “But I am always having to invent things to do to keep myself busy,” said Cecil. “Mother, I have got a plan in my head now that would settle my work for five whole years, and I do so want you to say ‘yes’ to it.”

      “It isn’t that you want to go into some sisterhood?” asked Mrs. Boniface, her gentle gray eyes filling with tears.

      “Oh, no, no,” said Cecil emphatically. “Why, how could I ever go away from home and leave you, darling, just as I am getting old enough to be of use to you? It’s nothing of that kind, and the worst of it is that it would mean a good deal of expense to father, which seems hardly fair.”

      “He wont grudge that,” said Mrs. Boniface. “Your father would do anything to please you, dear. What is this plan? Let me hear about it.”

      “Well, the other night when I was hearing all about those poor Grantleys opposite to us—how the mother had left her husband and children and gone off no one knows where, and then how the father had forged that check and would certainly be imprisoned; I began to wonder what sort of a chance the children had in the world. And no one seemed to know or to care what would become of them, except father, and he said we must try to get them into some asylum or school.”

      “It isn’t many asylums that would care to take them, I expect,” said Mrs. Boniface. “Poor little things, there’s a hard fight before them! But what was your plan?”

      “Why, mother, it was just to persuade father to let them come to us for the five years. Of course it would be an expense to him, but I would teach them, and help to take care of them; and oh, it would be so nice to have children about the house! One can never be dull where there are children.”

      “I knew she was dull at home,” thought the mother to herself. “It was too much of a change for her to come back from school, from so many educated people and young friends, to an ignorant old woman like me and a silent house. Not that the child would ever allow it.”

      “But of course, darling,” said Cecil, “I wont say a word more about it if you think it would trouble you or make the house too noisy.”

      “There is plenty of room for them, poor little mites,” said Mrs. Boniface. “And the plan is just like you, dear. There’s only one objection I have to it. I don’t like your binding yourself to work for so many years—not just now while you are so young. I should have liked you to marry, dear.”

      “But I don’t think that is likely,” said Cecil. “And it does seem so stupid to let the time pass on, and do nothing for years and years just because there is a chance that some man whom you could accept may propose to you. The chances are quite equal that it may not be so, and then you have wasted a great part of your life.”

      “I wish you could have fancied Herbert White,” said Mrs. Boniface wistfully. “He would have made such a good husband.”

      “I hope he will to some one else. But that would have been impossible, mother, quite, quite impossible.”

      “Cecil, dearie, is there—is there any one else?”

      “No one, mother,” said Cecil quietly, and the color in her cheeks did not deepen, and Mrs. Boniface felt satisfied. Yet, nevertheless, at that very moment there flashed into Cecil’s mind the perception of the real reason which had made it impossible for her to accept the offer of marriage that a week or two ago she had refused. She saw that Frithiof Falck would always be to her a sort of standard by which to measure the rest of mankind, and she faced the thought quietly, for there never had been any question of love between them; he would probably marry the pretty Miss Morgan, and it was very unlikely that she should ever meet him again.

      “The man whom I could accept must be that sort of man,” she thought to herself. “And there is something degrading in the idea of standing and waiting for the doubtful chance that such a one may some day appear. Surely we girls were not born into the world just to stand in rows waiting to get married?”

      “And I am sure I don’t know what I should do without you if you did get married,” said Mrs. Boniface, driving back the tears which had started to her eyes, “so I don’t know why I am so anxious that it should come about, except that I should so like to see you happy.”

      “And so I am happy, perfectly happy,” said Cecil, and as she spoke she suddenly bent forward and kissed her mother. “A girl would have to be very wicked not to be happy with you and father and Roy to live with.”

      “I wish you were not cut off from so much,” said Mrs. Boniface. “You see, dear, if you were alone in the world people would take you up—I mean the style of people you would care to be friends with—but as long as there’s the shop, and as long as you have a mother who can’t talk well about recent books, and who is not always sure how to pronounce things—”

      “Mother! mother!” cried Cecil, “how can you say such things? As long as I have you, what do I want with any one else?”

      Mrs. Boniface patted the girl’s hand tenderly.

      “I like to talk of the books with you, dearie,” she said; “you understand that. There’s nothing pleases me better than to hear you read of an evening, and I’m very much interested in that poor Mrs. Carlyle, though it does seem to me it’s a comfort to be in private life, where no biographers can come raking up all your foolish words and bits of quarrels after you are dead and buried. Why, here we are at home. How quick we have got down this evening! As to your plan, dearie, I’ll just talk it over with father the very first chance I have.”

      “Thank you, mother. I do so hope he will let us have them.” And Cecil sprang out of the carriage with more animation in her face than Mrs. Boniface had seen there for a long time.

      Mrs. Boniface was a Devonshire woman, and, notwithstanding her five-and-twenty years of London life, she still preserved something of her western accent and intonation; she had also the gentle manner and the quiet consideration and courtesy which seem innate in most west-country people. As to education, she had received the best that was to be had for tradesmen’s daughters in the days of her youth, but she was well aware that it did not come up to modern requirements, and had taken good care that Cecil should be brought up very differently. There was something very attractive in her homely simplicity; and though she could not help regretting that Cecil, owing to her position, was cut off from much that other girls enjoyed, nothing would have induced her to try to push her way in the world—she was too true a lady for that, and, moreover, beneath all her gentleness had too much dignity and independence of character. So it had come to pass that they lived a very quiet life, with few intimate friends and not too many acquaintances; but perhaps they were none the less happy for that. Certainly there was about the home a sense of peace and rest not too often to be met with in this bustling nineteenth century.

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