A Perilous Secret. Charles Reade Reade

complied; but not at all impetuously. She lowered her long lashes, and put out her hand timidly, and said, "Good-by, Cousin Walter."

      He held her hand a moment, and that made her color directly. "You will come over the farm. Can you ride? Have you your habit?"

      "No, cousin; but never mind that. I can put on a long skirt."

      "A skirt! But, after all, it does not matter a straw what you wear."

      Mary was such a novice that she did not catch the meaning of this on the spot, but half-way to the inn, and in the middle of a conversation, her cheeks were suddenly suffused with blushes. A young man had admired her and said so. Very likely that was the way with young men. No doubt they were bolder than young women; but somehow it was not so very objectionable in them.

      That short interview was a little era in Mary's young life. Walter had fixed his eyes on her with delight, had held her hand some seconds, and admired her to her face. She began to wonder a little, and flutter a little, and to put off childhood.

      Next day, punctual to the minute, Walter drove up to the door in an open carriage drawn by two fast steppers. He found Mr. Bartley alone, and why? because, at sight of Walter, Mary, for the first time in her life, had flown upstairs to look at herself in the glass before facing the visitor, and to smooth her hair, and retouch a bow, etc., underrating, as usual, the power of beauty, and overrating nullities. Bartley took this opportunity, and said to young Clifford:

      "I owe you an apology, and a most earnest one. Can you ever forgive me?"

      Walter changed color. Even this humble allusion to so great an insult was wormwood to him. He bit his lip, and said:

      "No man can do more than say he is sorry. I will try to forget it, sir."

      "That is as much as I can expect," said Bartley, humbly. "But if you only knew the art, the cunning, the apparent evidence, with which that villain Monckton deluded me—"

      "That I can believe."

      "And permit me one observation before we drop this unhappy subject forever. If you had done me the honor to come to me as Walter Clifford, why, then, strong and misleading as the evidence was, I should have said, 'Appearances are deceitful, but no Clifford was ever disloyal.'"

      This artful speech conquered Walter Clifford. He blushed, and bowed a little haughtily at the compliment to the Cliffords. But his sense of justice was aroused.

      "You are right," said he. "I must try and see both sides. If a man sails under false colors, he mustn't howl if he is mistaken for a pirate. Let us dismiss the subject forever. I am Walter Clifford now—at your service."

      At that moment Mary Bartley came in, beaming with youth and beauty, and illumined the room. The cousins shook hands, and Walter's eyes glowed with admiration.

      After a few words of greeting he handed Mary into the drag. Her father followed, and he was about to drive off, when Mary cried out, "Oh, I forgot my skirt, if I am to ride."

      The skirt was brought down, and the horses, that were beginning to fret, dashed off. A smart little groom rode behind, and on reaching the farm they found another with two saddle-horses, one of them, a small, gentle Arab gelding, had a side-saddle. They rode all over the farm, and inspected the buildings, which were in excellent repair, thanks to Walter's supervision. Bartley inquired the number of acres and the rent demanded. Walter told him. Bartley said it seemed to him a fair rent; still, he should like to know why the present tenant declined.

      "Perhaps you had better ask him," said Walter. "I should wish you to hear both sides."

      "That is like you," said Bartley; "but where does the shoe pinch, in your opinion?"

      "Well, he tells me, in sober earnest, that he loses money by it as it is; but when he is drunk he tells his boon companions he has made seven thousand pounds here. He has one or two grass fields that want draining, but I offer him the pipes; he has only got to lay them and cut the drains. My opinion is that he is the slave of habit; he is so used to make an unfair profit out of these acres that he can not break himself of it and be content with a fair one."

      "I dare say you have hit it," said Bartley. "Well, I am fond of farming; but I don't live by it, and a moderate profit would content me."

      Walter said nothing. The truth is, he did not want to let the farm to Bartley.

      Bartley saw this, and drew Mary aside.

      "Should not you like to come here, my child?"

      "Yes, papa, if you wish it; and you know it's dear Mr. Hope's birth-place."

      "Well, then, tell this young fellow so. I will give you an opportunity."

      That was easily managed, and then Mary said, timidly, "Cousin Walter, we should all three be so glad if we might have the farm."

      "Three?" said he. "Who is the third?"

      "Oh, somebody that everybody likes and I love. It is Mr. Hope. Such a duck! I am sure you would like him."

      "Hope! Is his name William?"

      "Yes, it is. Do you know him?" asked Mary, eagerly.

      "I have reason to know him: he did me a good turn once, and I shall never forget it."

      "Just like him!" cried Mary. "He is always doing people good turns. He is the best, the truest, the cleverest, the dearest darling dear that ever stepped, and a second father to me; and, cousin, this village is his birth-place, and he didn't say much, but it was he who told us of this farm, and he would be so pleased if I could write and say, 'We are to have the farm—Cousin Walter says so.'"

      She turned her lovely eyes, brimming with tenderness, toward her cousin

       Walter, and he was done for.

      "Of course you shall have it," he said, warmly. "Only you will not be angry with me if I insist on the increased rent. You know, cousin, I have a father, too, and I must be just to him."

      "To be sure, you must, dear," said Mary, incautiously; and the word penetrated Walter's heart as if a woman of twenty-five had said it all of a sudden and for the first time.

      When they got home, Mary told Mr. Bartley he was to have the farm if he would pay the increased rent.

      "That is all right," said Bartley. "Then to-morrow we can go home."

      "So soon!" said Mary, sorrowfully.

      "Yes," said Bartley, firmly; "the rest had better be done in writing. Why, Mary, what is the use of staying on now? We are going to live here in a month or two."

      "I forgot that," said Mary, with a little sigh. It seemed so ungracious to get what they wanted, and then turn their backs directly. She hinted as much, very timidly.

      But Bartley was inexorable, and they reached home next day.

      Mary would have liked to write to Walter, and announce their safe arrival, but nature withheld her. She was a child no longer.

      Bartley went to the sharp solicitor, and had a long interview with him. The result was that in about ten days he sent Walter Clifford a letter and the draft of a lease, very favorable to the landlord on the whole, but cannily inserting one unusual clause that looked inoffensive.

      It came by post, and Walter read the letter, and told his father whom it was from.

      "What does the fellow say?" grunted Colonel Clifford.

      "He says: 'We are doing very well here, but Hope says a bailiff can now carry out our system; and he is evidently sweet on his native place, and thinks the proposed rent is fair, and even moderate. As for me, my life used to be so bustling that I require a change now and then; so I will be your tenant. Hope says I am to pay the expense of the lease, so I have requested Arrowsmith & Cox to draw it. I have no experience in leases. They have drawn hundreds. I told them to make it fair. If they have not, send it back with objections.'"

      "Oh! oh!"