Heriot's Choice: A Tale. Rosa Nouchette Carey

felt a warm flush come to her face, as though she had been discovered in a fault. It added to her annoyance also to find on inquiry that Olive had been shut up in her room all the evening, 'over Roy's socks,' as Chrissy explained, while the others had been wandering over the fells at their own sweet will.

      'This will never do; you will be quite ill, Olive,' exclaimed Mildred, impatiently; but as Richard entered that moment, to fetch some wine for his father, she forbore to say any more, only entering a mental resolve to kidnap the offending basket and lock it up safely from Olive's scrupulous fingers.

      'I am coming into your room to have a talk,' whispered Polly when supper was over; 'I have hardly seen you all day. How I do miss not having my dear Aunt Milly to myself.'

      'I don't believe you have missed me at all, Polly,' returned Mildred, stroking the short hair, and looking with a sort of relief into the bright piquant face, for her heart was heavy with many sad thoughts.

      'Roy and I have been talking about you, though; he has found out you have a pretty hand, and so you have.'

      'Silly children.'

      'He says you are awfully jolly. That is the schoolboy jargon he talks; but he means it too; and even Chriss says you are not so bad, though she owned she dreaded your coming.'

      Mildred winced at this piece of unpalatable intelligence, but she only replied quietly, 'Chrissy was afraid I should prove strict, I suppose.'

      'Oh, don't let us talk of Chriss,' interrupted Polly, eagerly; 'she is intolerable. I want to tell you about Roy. Do you know, Aunt Milly, he wants to be an artist.'

      'Richard hinted as much at dinner time.'

      'Oh, Richard only laughs at him, and thinks it is all nonsense; but I have lived among artists all my life,' continued Polly, drawing herself up, 'and I am quite sure Roy is in earnest. We were talking about it all the afternoon, while Chrissy was hunting for bird-nests. He told me all his plans, and I have promised to help him.'

      'It appears his father intends him to be a barrister.'

      'Yes; some old uncle left him a few hundred pounds, and Mr. Lambert wished him to go to the University, and, as he had no vocation for the Church, to study for the bar. Roy told me all about it; he cannot bear disappointing his father, but he is quite sure that he will make nothing but an artist.'

      'Many boys have these fancies. You ought not to encourage him in it against his father's wish.'

      'Roy is seventeen, Aunt Milly; as he says, he is no child, and he draws such beautiful pictures. I have told him all about Dad Fabian, and he wants to have him here, and ask his advice about things. Dad could look after Roy when he goes to London. Roy and I have arranged everything.'

      'My dear Polly,' began Mildred, in a reproving tone; but her remonstrance was cut short, for at that instant loud sobs were distinctly audible from the farthest room, where the girls slept.

      Mildred rose at once, and softly opened the door; at the same moment there was a quick step on the stairs, and Richard's low, admonishing voice reached her ear; but as the loud sobbing sounds still continued, Mildred followed him in unperceived.

      'Hush, Chrissy. What is all this about? You are disturbing my father; but, as usual, you only think of yourself.'

      'Please don't speak to her like that, Cardie,' pleaded Olive. 'She is not naughty; she has only woke up in a fright; she has been dreaming, I think.'

      'Dreaming!—I should think so, with that light full in her eyes, those sickening German books as usual,' with a glance of disgust at the little round table, strewn with books and work, from which Olive had evidently that moment risen. 'There, hush, Chrissy, like a good girl, and don't let us have any more of this noise.'

      'No, I can't. Oh, Cardie, I want mamma—I want mamma!' cried poor Chrissy, rolling on her pillow in childish abandonment of sorrow, but making heroic efforts to stifle her sobs. 'Oh, mamma—mamma—mamma!'

      'Hush!—lie silent. Do you think you are the only one who wants her?' returned Richard, sternly; but the hand that held the bedpost shook visibly, and he turned very pale as he spoke. 'We must bear what we have to bear, Chrissy.'

      'But I won't bear it,' returned the spoilt child. 'I can't bear it, Cardie; you are all so unkind to me. I want to kiss her, and put my arms round her, as I dreamt I was doing. I don't love God for taking her away, when she didn't want to go; I know she didn't.'

      'Oh, hush, Chriss—don't be wicked!' gasped out Olive, with the tears in her eyes; but, as though the child's words had stung him beyond endurance, Richard turned on her angrily.

      'What is the good of reasoning with a child in this state? can't you find something better to say? You are of no use at all, Olive. I don't believe you feel the trouble as much as we do.'

      'Yes, she does. You must not speak so to your sister, Richard. Hush, my dear—hush;' and Mildred stooped with sorrowful motherly face over the pillow, where Chrissy, now really hysterical, was stuffing a portion of the sheet in her mouth to resist an almost frantic desire to scream. 'Go to my room, Olive, and you will find a little bottle of sal-volatile on my table. The child has been over-tired. I noticed she looked pale at supper.' And as Olive brought it to her with shaking hand and pallid face, Mildred quietly measured the drops, and, beckoning to Richard to assist her, administered the stimulating draught to the exhausted child. Chrissy tried to push it away, but Mildred's firm, 'You must drink it, my dear,' overcame her resistance, though her painful choking made swallowing difficult.

      'Now we will try some nice fresh water to this hot face and these feverish hands,' continued Mildred, in a brisk, cheerful tone; and Chrissy ceased her miserable sobbing in astonishment at the novel treatment. Every one but Dr. Heriot had scolded her for these fits, and in consequence she had used an unwholesome degree of restraint for a child: an unusually severe breakdown had been the result.

      'Give me a brush, Olive, to get rid of some of this tangle. I think we look a little more comfortable now, Richard. Let me turn your pillow, dear—there, now;' and Mildred tenderly rested the child's heavy head against her shoulder, stroking the rough yellowish mane very softly. Chrissy's sobs were perceptibly lessening now, though she still gasped out 'mamma' at intervals.

      'She is better now,' whispered Mildred, who saw Richard still near them. 'Had you not better go downstairs, or your father will wonder?'

      'Yes, I will go,' he returned; yet he still lingered, as though some visitings of compunction for his hardness troubled him. 'Good-night, Chrissy;' but Chrissy, whose cheek rested comfortably against her aunt's shoulder, took no notice. Possibly want of sympathy had estranged the little sore heart.

      'Kiss your brother, my dear, and bid him good-night. All this has given him pain.' And as Chrissy still hesitated, Richard, with more feeling than he had hitherto shown, bent over them, and kissed them both, and then paused by the little round table.

      'I am very sorry I said that, Livy.'

      'There was no harm in saying it, if you thought it, Cardie. I am only grieved at that.'

      'I ought not to have said it, all the same; but it is enough to drive one frantic to see how different everything is.' Then, in a whisper, and looking at Mildred, 'Aunt Milly has given us all a lesson; me, as well as you. You must try to be like her, Livy.'

      'I will try;' but the tone was hopeless.

      'You must begin by plucking up a little spirit, then. Well, good-night.'

      'Good-night, Cardie,' was the listless answer, as she suffered him to kiss her cheek. 'It was only Olive's ordinary want of demonstration,' Richard thought, as he turned away, a little relieved by his voluntary confession; 'only one of her cold, tiresome ways.'

      Only one of her ways!

      Long after Chrissy had fallen into a refreshing sleep, and Mildred had crept softly away to sleepy, wondering Polly, Olive sat at the little round table with her face buried in her arms, both hid in the loosely-dropping hair.

      'I