The Lovely Mrs. Pemberton E-Book

Florence Warden

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

And Peter, as he looked up dreamily, with his coffee cup in one hand, and with the other hand marking his place in The Law Times, was evidently quite at a loss to understand his aunt’s excitement.
But Miss Pemberton had already risen from her seat at the breakfast-table, and walking across the room to the window, which indeed was only a few steps away from the small table in the small room, stood in the shelter of the dingy wire blind furtively wiping her eyes before she could read to the end of the black-edged letter in her hand. She did not, therefore, at once reply to her nephew; not, indeed, until he had waited for her to fold the letter, when he repeated his question.

Leseprobe

TABLE of CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER I.

“Good gracious! Peter, what do you think? William’s dead!”

“Who’s William?”

And Peter, as he looked up dreamily, with his coffee cup in one hand, and with the other hand marking his place in The Law Times, was evidently quite at a loss to understand his aunt’s excitement.

But Miss Pemberton had already risen from her seat at the breakfast-table, and walking across the room to the window, which indeed was only a few steps away from the small table in the small room, stood in the shelter of the dingy wire blind furtively wiping her eyes before she could read to the end of the black-edged letter in her hand. She did not, therefore, at once reply to her nephew; not, indeed, until he had waited for her to fold the letter, when he repeated his question.

Miss Pemberton wiped her eyes again and came back to the table.

“Why, Williamlnce, the husband of my poor Cousin Marion. She was not a Pemberton; I don’t suppose you ever heard of her.”

“No, I don’t think I ever did,” said Peter, sympathetically.

Miss Pemberton did not seem in the humor to say anything more, and her nephew looked at her, still with his hand on The Law Times, as if undecided whether she would prefer to confide in him further or keep her own counsel and let him go on with his reading. It was characteristic of the man that he so waited. For Peter Pemberton was a kind-natured fellow, innately courteous and considerate for others.

Although he was not more than seven or eight-and-twenty, he had taken life so seriously, and devoted himself to the business as a country solicitor which his father had left him so earnestly, that he looked some years more than his age. His shoulders were rounder than they should have been, and there were already white hairs in his light brown hair. His clean-shaven face, indeed, was unwrinkled as yet; but his blue eyes had the thoughtful look of a man constantly immersed in business, and there were not wanting signs about the mouth to indicate that the furrows might be expected early.

He had just lowered his eyes once more upon his paper when his aunt heaved a deep sigh.

“Poor Marion! And with all those girls!”

Then Peter felt that he was bound to speak.

“Lancashire people? “he asked gently, not being able to think of any form of words more appropriate.

“Yes,” said Miss Pemberton, solemnly. “William Ince was a curate in Preston, and now his poor wife is left with three girls, one of them little better than an invalid. She has a little money of her own, but not enough, not nearly enough. I’m sure I don’t know what they’ll all do. May and Anne will have to be governesses, I suppose!”

Peter looked slightly more interested.

“Oh, but that’s such a beastly life for a girl,” said he. “Perhaps they’ll marry. Are they pretty?”

At this last question Miss Pemberton pursed up her lips with the instinctive gesture of the spinster of mature years.

“I am sure I don’t know,” she said quickly. “Poor Marion was never a beauty, and I don’t suppose her daughters are particularly handsome.”

“You haven’t seen them for some time, I suppose?”

“Not for years. When I remember them, Lilian, the invalid, was a fragile-looking little creature with very sweet blue eyes. But Anne and May were not good-looking; they were only fat, commonplace little things. Not that it matters. The great thing is whether they are capable, self-reliant girls, able to fight the world for themselves.”

“Poor things!” said her nephew, as he rose from the table and stood on the worn hearth-rug, with his back to the fire. The October sunshine streamed in through the small panes of the window and showed up the bare simplicity of the little room. “Couldn’t you invite them down here, aunt ? It would be livelier for you, wouldn’t it, to have girls about? And it would take them off the mother’s hands. And perhaps we could marry them off down here; you ladies delight in match-making, don’t you?”

But the glance of horror which Miss Pemberton threw at her nephew as he let these suggestions slip out of his mouth in the easiest way imaginable, while he rolled his after-breakfast cigarette, showed that if indeed match-making were a favorite pursuit with the rest of her sex she herself was wholly free from that vice. She drew a long breath before she couid answer him; he looked up, and, perceiving the expression on her face, began to laugh a little.

“Don’t you think it’s a good idea?” said he.

“No. Emphatically I don’t,” said the lady, in most decisive tones. I think it would be madness for them to delay starting on their new life. After all, they must have become governesses sooner or later, even if their father had lived. And I don’t at all agree with you that it’s such a hardship for a well-brought-up, energetic girl to have to earn her own living.”

She ignored the marriage-making suggestion, and preferred to treat it as an indiscretion which ought never to have been uttered.

“Well,” persisted Peter, with unexpected doggedness of purpose, “let’s have them here at any rate, and find out whether they are the sort of girls who could take to governessing.”

“They’ll have to take to it,” retorted his aunt, rather sharply. “There’s nothing else, you know.”

Peter rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“I wonder,” he said musingly, after a short pause, “which we ought to be sorriest for—the children who get dumped down with a governess who isn’t cut out for that sort of thing, or the girl herself who is dumped down among a lot of children and who can’t teach them anything, and hates having to try?”

“I don’t understand you this morning,” said Miss Pemberton, turning upon her nephew a look of almost agitated inquiry.

And Peter flushed a very little, conscious that he did, indeed, as a role, show so little interest iu social questions that he could not touch upon one without giving the impression of doing something remarkable.

“Oh, I don’t know what made that come into my head,” he said, almost apologetically, as he took up his paper and walked across to the door. There, however, he stopped a moment, and after staring at the panels for a moment in silence, said, without turning his head, “After all I suppose this place would seem duller to the girls than their own home.”

“Of course it would,” said Miss Pemberton, dryly. And he went out and across the narrow passage which divided the small sitting-room from that larger one which was his office, as it had been that of his father before him.

But the idea he had once got into his head came back to him again and again. In the course of his dull morning’s work among his parchments and papers the thought of the poor, harassed mother, and of the girls who had to earn their own living whether they liked it or not, returned to him so often that at last he went in search ’ of his aunt, and without preface said:

“Aunt, I want you to write to Mrs. Thing and tell her to send the girls down here for a month.”

Miss Pemberton was aghast. She was standing in the middle of the big, stone-flagged, old-fashioned kitchen, which was out of all proportion to the size of the rest of the little house in St. Dunstan’s, Bredinsbury, where she and her nephew resided.

“My dear Peter—” she began.

But she had not got further before she saw on the young solicitor’s face that dogged look which, in a quiet, undemonstrative man of his type, signifies that he has made up his mind. Miss Pemberton had had enough experience of his unworthy sex to know that she must give way.

“Oh, very well. Of course, if you wish it—” she began coldly.

But Peter did not wait to hear more. He just gave her a nod by way of acknowledgment and promptly returned to his work.

She was wise enough to make no sort of further opposition to her nephew’s unaccountable whim; and he himself made no allusion to it when they met at their early dinner.

But there came a certain curious change over both aunt and nephew in the course of the next few days. Both felt that some change in their lives was impending. Miss Pemberton, who had kept house for her brother in his lifetime, and for the last two years had performed the same service for his son, felt uneasy at the prospect of this disturbance.

Peter was so quiet in his habits, and had taken so little notice of such youth and beauty as Bredinsbury boasted, that she had had a comfortable feeling that he was absorbed in the dull routine of his work, and that he would be content with quiet bachelordom to the end of his days.

Now, however, she had an inkling that this whim of his for bringing a couple of girls into his little household portended a certain restiveness, which might lead to awful consequences if either of the Ince girls should prove at all attractive. She could only trust, poor, dear lady, that May and Anne had inherited the large features and gaunt figure of their father, or the snub nose and undistinguished countenance of their good mother. Happily, too, there were two of them coming —if they should come. And there is safety in numbers.

Now while these doubts and fears were agitating the aunt, the nephew, quite innocent of any intention of permanently altering his way of life, was only conscious that a little change from the monotony of his existence would be pleasant while it lasted. A little youth about the place would give a fresh stimulus, he thought, both to himself and to his aunt; and as he had no such sinister intention of taking to himself a wife, as Miss Pemberton half credited him with, the fact that he had been warned not to expect beauty in his guests caused him no uneasiness.

Almost by return of post Miss Pemberton got an answer to the letter in which she had, somewhat perfunctorily and grudgingly, given her nephew’s invitation. She read the letter through with a perceptibly lengthening countenance, and then passed it to her nephew with a rather frigid word or two of explanation.

Peter read it from beginning to end, and smiled as he gave it back.

“The old lady seems pleased, doesn’t she?” said he, with a slight air of triumph. “Says she will never cease to be grateful for your kindness.”

“It’s not my kindness,” said his aunt, icily, “if it’s kindness at all.”

Amiable as Peter was, he did not like this tone of cold opposition to a plan of which he felt rather proud.

“If I had thought you wouldn’t be kind to them, aunt,” he said, with as much anger as he ever showed in domestic matters, “I wouldn’t have asked you to send for the girls.”

“There’s no question of that,” said Miss Pemberton, instinctively relaxing her austerity a little. “But you yourself said they’d be dull here, didn’t you?”

“Well, so soon after their father’s death they will hardly expect to be very lively anywhere,” retorted Peter, aptly enough. “There’s the cathedral for them to see, and we can hire a trap for you to show them the country; that’s quite as much gayety as they’ll care about.”

“Oh, yes, of course, but we’ve only this one small sitting-room, you know—”

“Well, there’s a good big bedroom unused since my father died. Perhaps we could rig it up with a writing-table and a sofa, and make a bed-sitting-room of it for them?”

He was so obstinate that Miss Pemberton wisely put no more obstacles of any sort in the way. She even entered with an appearance of good humor into the preparations for the coming of the girls, and expressed some civil disappointment on learning that they would not be able to pay the projected visit for some weeks. Mrs. Ince and poor feeble Lilian had broken down under the blow of their loss, and the other two girls would not leave them until they had recovered a little from it.

Peter took the postponement very quietly, and said little about the proposed visit until Christmas came, and with it a letter from Mrs. Ince, saying that, if it was now convenient for dear Ellen and Ellen’s dear nephew to receive them, May and Nannie could come to Bredins-bury without further delay.

So a day was fixed, the big double-bedded room was got ready, and a turkey, jellies and a magnificent dessert were provided for a banquet of welcome to the young strangers.

They were to arrive by the train which left London at 4.20 and reached Bredinsbury at 6. I 8. As the little house in St. Dunstan’s was not more than five minutes walk from the station, Miss Pemberton suggested that she would meet the girls herself, and that they would walk back to the house, leaving the luggage to be brought round by a porter on a barrow.

“No, we won’t do that,” said Peter. “It doesn’t look hospitable enough. I’ I I go and meet them while you superintend arrangements indoors. Don’t you think that would be best? ’’

As he said it in a way that showed he had made up his mind, his aunt acquiesced in this arrangement, and on the day fixed Peter put on his best overcoat and was at the station some minutes before the train was due.

As it was a foggy night, and as the line was the South-Eastern, of course the train was very late. When it did at last steam into the station a disappointment was in store for Peter.

He knew the girls would travel third-class for economy’s sake, and he had anticipated no difficulty whatever in identifying them, especially as they had been told to look out for him. But although he eagerly scanned the passengers, both before and after they got out of the carriages, it was all in vain. No two girls in black, looking out for some one to meet them, could he discover from one end of the train to the other.

What had happened? Had they been detained at Preston at the last moment? Had they lost the train they had to catch at Charing Cross?

Peter grew quite excited as the crowd on the platform began to thin without his having found the two girls in black of whom he was in search. As he went quickly up and down at a pace much brisker than his usual sedate trot, carefully examining each group, he presently got a little shock of surprise and doubt on finding himself face to face, not with two girls, but with two women who could not, he thought, be less than thirty-five years old, both wearing an air of rusty dowdiness which caused him uneasy qualms. He had not expected beauty in his guests, but at least he had looked forward to youth.

Yet this was the only pair of travelers who appeared to be waiting about, and the expression with which they did so seemed to augur badly for their reception of the person who was to meet them. Could it be that these two somewhat sour-looking spinsters—

As he framed half a question to himself, with some inward trepidation, Peter turned abruptly, and going in the opposite direction at a great pace, looked about him more assiduously than ever. And as he did so, his eyes fell upon a young girl, fresh-faced, innocentlooking, bright of eye and plump of cheek, who, wrapped round with an old-fashioned gray shawl, stood in the light of one of the station lamps and looked about her.

Peter was not impressionable where the other sex was concerned. But there was something that attracted him so much in this girl’s face that he found himself casting furtive glances at her again and again, while he continued his search for the two young ladies in black.

With a deep sinking of the heart, and at the same time a half-comical feeling that he was rightly served for his precipitate invitation, Peter had at last made up his mind that the two sour-faced women were indeed the Misses Ince, and was approaching them with a greeting on his lips, when he heard rapid steps behind him, and a voice saying:

“Oh, oh, I beg your pardon—”

The voice—it was a nice voice, a voice like a bell, that rang with youth—caused him to turn at once. With a most curious sensation which he cotfld not have defined he found that the owner of the voice was the pretty girl in the gray shawl.

“Oh,” said she again, “are you Mr. Pemberton?”

Peter stammered as he answered, raising his hat and looking down at the girl—for she was a little thing— with rising color.

“Yes. Er-er-er. You’re not one of the Miss Inces, are you?”

“Yes, I am. I’m Nannie—that is, I’m Anne. And oh, I’m so sorry to disappoint you and Miss Pemberton. But just at the last, you know, when it was too late to write or anything, May got asked to stay with Lady Capenhurst, to be a companion to her daughter. And mama thought it was such a good chance she didn’t like to refuse. I do hope yon don’t mind my coming by myself? ”

“N-n-n-not at all,” said Peter.

It was a stupid thing to say, but he couldn’t think of anything better just then.

CHAPTER II.

“Is this all your luggage?” asked Peter Pemberton, looking down upon the small trunk by Miss Ince’s side, and beckoning to a porter.

“Yes, that’s all except my bag.”

Peter took the bag from her and directed the porter to put the trunk on a cab. Then he took Nannie through the underground passage to the other side of the station, put her into the cab, and saying, “It’s only a very little way,” raised his hat to her again and got upon the box beside the driver.

He felt shy and awkward and altogether unlike himself. Conscious of this, he attributed the fact to his astonishment at finding only one girl instead of two. Not that he was disappointed; indeed, he told himself that he liked this arrangement far better than the other. And Miss Pemberton would be pleased, so he innocently thought, as one visitor would be easier to entertain, easier to dispose of, than two would have been. He felt sure she would be as much pleased as he with the fresh face and shy, girlish manners of “Nannie—that is, Anne,” as she had called herself.

Unfortunately, things did not turn out quite so well as he had expected. For, in the first place, Miss Pemberton was scandalized by the unnecessary expense he had incurred in taking a cab, “When a healthy girl would have been glad of a walk.” And, in the next, the fact that Nannie was wearing a gray shawl, when she should have been enveloped from head to foot in unrelieved black, shocked her sense of propriety.

However, she greeted Nannie with formal kindness, expressed somewhat qualified pleasure on hearing that May had already made a start in life, and took her visitor up-stairs to the room she was to occupy, with very few words to Peter.

Dinner was already laid, and Peter, as he stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, admired the effect of the heavy, old-fashioned epergne, which had been transferred from the sideboard to the dinner-table in honor of the occasion, and which, indeed, took up more than its fair share of available space. He had himself cut the chrysanthemums and ferns to put in the little glasses. His flowers were a hobby with him, tolerated rather than sympathized with by his aunt, whose tendencies were strongly utilitarian.

In a few minutes Miss Pemberton came down-stairs again and entered the dining-room, wearing a look of satisfaction which caused him—why, he did not exactly know—a certain vague uneasiness. In the uneventful domestic life aunt and nephew led together, looks and tones became important things.

“Well?” said Peter, cheerfully, eying the good lady askance as she cast a look of very qualified approval at the table and the preparations for the feast.

“’ M?” said she, as if inviting him to speak first.

Made suddenly aware that the ground was not quite safe, Peter did not ask the question which was upon his lips. He only said:

“Pity the sister couldn’t come, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know about its being a pity. It’s a very good thing that she’s found something to do, and I hope that Anne will follow her example as quickly as possible.”

‘“Well, give her a little time. She’s very young,” suggested Peter.

“Quite old enough to earn her own living, since she has to do it,” said Miss Pemberton. “ She’s eighteen; she told me so. She’s grown up curiously like what she was as a child; the same fat, commonplace face, and the same snub nose. Not that I think any the worse of her for not being handsome. She seems a pleasant sort of girl enough, as far as one can judge on a first acquaintance.”

Peter was wise enough to say nothing. He was, indeed, for a moment quite overwhelmed with amazement that anybody should take such a wholly different view of Anne Ince’s appearance from that he took himself. To him the fresh-colored, rounded cheeks, the bright eyes, the soft dark hair he had seen under her hat as he followed her through the tunnel, had formed a combination of charms which he found quite dazzling.

He had the sense to see, however, that a discussion on the subject was to be avoided. But his aunt was not satisfied with his silence. She had another little dart in store for him.

“It appears you were both looking for each other for a long time before she spoke to you?” she said, as she picked off some of the dead under petals of the late chrysanthemums.

“Yes,” said Peter, eagerly, quite glad to have got to a safe topic; “you see I was looking about for two girls, and I thought they would be all in black. Fd forgotten they might be wrapped up for a journey in shawls and things.”

“And I certainly think, if she had to wear a shawl, it should have been a black one,” said his aunt, rather sharply.

But Peter, with sane good-nature, made a shrewd suggestion as to this anomaly.

“I suppose,” he said, “that there wasn’t much money to spare for extras, and that Miss Ince had to use some old wrap of her mother’s to put round her knees and shoulders during the journey.”

Miss Pemberton shrugged her shoulders. After a short pause she laughed a little.

“I didn’t tell you, by the bye, how it was she didn’t recognize you sooner,” she said. “It seems she has seen a portrait of your father when he was a young man, and so she had got it into her head that she would recognize you by the likeness. Only you did not come up to the standard set by the picture.”

Now Peter was not a vain man, but he did not quite like this criticism passed upon his looks by the pretty visitor. He kept the slight vexation he felt out of his tone, however, and only said:

“I wasn’t handsome enough, eh?”

“Oh, of course Miss Ince didn’t say so in those words, but I think that was what she meant.”

“Well, I’m not an Apollo, certainly,” said Peter, modestly. “And my father was, I suppose.” Somehow Miss Pemberton wished she had not given her nephew this somewhat garbled account of what the girl had said about Peter’s appearance. Little anecdotes of this sort are apt to lead to explanations; and explanations between young persons of opposite sex were, Miss Pemberton thought, things to be avoided.

There was no time to say more, for they heard a footstep on the linoleum which covered the stairs, and then the door was opened timidly and the fresh face of Nannie Ince appeared at it.

“This way, didn’t you tell me?” said Nannie.

“Yes, this is right. Come in, dear.”

Peter was offering her the armchair below the fireplace near the window.

“This is a very modest establishment, yon know, Miss Ince,” said he, “and this is our only sitting-room. What ought to be the drawing-room is given up to me and my clerk for an office.”

“But there’s quite room enough for homely people like ourselves,” said Miss Pemberton, with a slight touch of severity, as if reprobating any hankering after gorgeous reception-rooms on the part of her nephew. “We lead a very quiet life—so quiet that I’m afraid you may find it rather dull.”

“Oh, no, I sha’n’t,” said Nannie, brightly, as she smiled at her hostess. “I think this place is lovely, and this pretty old-fashioned room just as cosy and delightful as possible.”

And her eyes roved from the old pine-wood paneling, which had been spoilt by a thick coating of yellow varnish, to the glories of the epergne and Peter’s flowers. She evidently felt all a young girl’s fresh delight in novel surroundings; and Peter thought, as he looked at her, that she had told the truth; she could never be dull anywhere, and she liked everything, because she carried her brightness about with her and because her vitality made living itself a joy. It was so new to him, this vivacity of temperament, that it dazzled as well as delighted him. This was the first young girl whom he had met in the intimacy of home life. Already he was steeped in the woman influence, was held fast in the woman fascination. He was quite thankful that she had got on a subject upon which he could speak, so that he might look at her, so that his own shy eyes might meet the brightness of hers.

“You like paneled walls, then? And you like flowers?” said he.

“Indeed I do. These chrysanthemums are very late, aren’t they? They’re all over near us, I think.”

”I kept those back,” said Peter, the enthusiasm of the amateur beginning to peep out in his tone. “When I knew you young ladies wouldn’t be here till after Christmas I did my best to have some to show you. But they’re very poor compared with those we had in November,” he added earnestly.

“I think they’re beautiful.”

“I hope you don’t mind dining as late as this?” said Miss Pemberton, as Hannah brought in the turkey.

“Oh, I like late dinner much better than early dinner. I’m so glad you have it here.”

“Oh, we don’t generally,” Miss Pemberton explained, somewhat scandalized by the suggestion. “ We generally dine in the middle of the day.”

“But we can always dine late while you’re here if you like it better,” put in Peter, readily. “I like it better myself—much better. Then there’s no smell of mutton through the house if a client comes in about three. That’s the worst of such a small house as ours; three times a week, for three or four hours, the place is steeped in mutton.”

Peter did not generally express himself with so much vivacity of phrase, and Miss Pemberton was bewildered both by his tirade and by the burst of delighted girlish laughter with which the bright-eyed visitor received it. It was quite a new sensation for Peter to be making little jokes, and a sensation newer still to find them laughed at. So he joined in the girl’s merriment with a subdued laugh of his own, having caught the infection of her enjoyment.

But the infection did not extend to Miss Pemberton.

“Of course, if you wish it, Peter, I can turn all the household arrangements upside down immediately, though I’m quite sure Hannah will give warning when she finds she’s expected to find late dinner every day, instead of our going on in the simple fashion which was considered proper by your father, and by you till this moment.”

As these chilling words fell from the lady’s lips a horrid silence seized the two young people. Nannie became conscious that the atmosphere of the cosy old-fashioned house left something to be desired, and Peter for once felt sullenly rebellious.

“Of course I yield to your convenience, aunt, as I have always done,” said he, with such an unexpected accession of quiet dignity that that austere lady understood that she was going too far, and began instantly to make amends.

“I’m sure Anne will cheerfully put up with our arrangements, Peter,” she said in a gentle voice.

“Oh, yes, yes, I never thought—’ began Nannie, in quite a frightened tone.

Peter gave her a reassuring look, and Miss Pemberton hastened to add:

“I quite agree with you that late dinner is best in great houses where a large staff of servants is kept, and for those who have always been used to it. But here it really is, as I think you’ll admit, my dear, out of the question. And the clients expect the smell of mutton about three; they find it in the houses of other solicitors, and they’re used to it.”

Peter was still rebellious.

“I never get used to it,” said he, under his breath, as he took his place at the table.

After this rather unfortunate beginning, things improved a little. Nannie perceived that she would have to keep a watch upon her tongue, and upon her sense of fun, and devoted herself to the task of answering Miss Pemberton’s long string of questions about her mother and her family with due fulness and discretion. Peter was left out altogether, and ate his dinner almost in silence.

There was a piano in the corner of the room, and when the table was cleared, Nannie was requested by Miss Pemberton to give them a little music. The girl, however, could not play from memory, and had earned some small sarcasms about modern methods of education, when Peter produced from a cupboard a bound volume of simply-set arrangements for the piano of old English airs, and asked whether she could read them.

Saying modestly that she would try, Nannie sat down to the instrument, which was none of the best, and played the old-world melodies with so much taste and charm that even Miss Pemberton was disarmed, and it was with genuine kindliness that she kissed Nannie’s forehead when, after prayers, she saw a tired look on the girl’s face, and suggested that she should go to bed.

As for Peter, her conquest of him was complete. He said very little in answer to his aunt’s comments on the guest, on her having very little to say for herself, on her smallness of stature, and on her ridiculous affectation of being pleased with everything. But when he was left by himself in the little old-fashioned room he sat for a long time looking at the chair in which the girl had sat, picturing her sunny face with its electric smile, and asking himself whether Nannie Ince had for others, as she had for him, an aureole of girlish attractiveness that made her enchanting.

Certaiuly she had produced no electric effect upon Miss Pemberton, but Peter was inclined to think she didn’t count.

On the following morning, at breakfast-time, Nannie Ince was more effusive in her admiration of her surroundings than ever, and Peter quite dreaded the effect upon his aunt of the girl’s genuine delight in the ancient city, and particularly in a very old timberframed house a little way down the street, on the opposite side, the gables of which could be seen from the Pembertons’ windows.

She was most anxious to go out and inspect the house more closely; and Miss Pemberton, who thought her alert interest overdone and absurd, promised to take her for a walk as far as the cathedral as soon as her household duties were ended. Peter, as he looked at the bright young face, which he thought daylight made prettier than ever, wished he dared to offer himself as an escort, but of course that was out of the question.

It was Saturday, and a busy morning; Nannie, who begged to be allowed to help her hostess, was quite content to wait till the afternoon, and at luncheon Peter said that he would try to go with them if they would wait till half-past three.

So the ladies put on their hats soon after three, and went into the office to see whether he was ready to escort them.

It was Nannie’s first introduction to that rather austere and dull-looking apartment, but she spied the little greenhouse in the garden from the back window, and was much interested in it.

Peter had come with her to the inner end of the room, where behind a partition which cut off aboat one-third of the room for him and his big desk, he passed his days. He had just promised Nannie to show her his flowers, when Miss Pemberton’s voice, speaking in tones of great alarm, interrupted him from the other side of the partition.

“Good gracious, Peter, here’s Lord Thanington! Come, Anne.”

And before Nannie exactly understood what was the matter, Miss Pemberton had seized her by the arm, and was dragging her across the passage into the diningroom, when the front door opened, and a tall gentleman, with white hair and mustache, wearing a single eyeglass, almost ran into them.

“Good morning, Miss Pemberton,” said he, as he raised his hat, with a glance at Nannie, just as her hostess succeeded in pushing her into the room.

“Good morning, my lord,” said Miss Pemberton, much disturbed by this trifling incident, for she thought the earl would look upon it as somewhat unbecoming the dignity of the legal precincts.

“Is Pemberton in? I want to see him.”

The good lady hastened to assure him that her nephew was in his office, and discreetly disappeared into the little dining-room, where Nannie was sitting in the armchair, from which she was able to see, through the wire blind, the mail phaeton standing at the door. Miss Pemberton was flushed and vexed.

“The idea of his lordship catching us like that!” said she, her face wrinkled with annoyance.

Nannie said nothing. She could not see that anything very dreadful had happened, so all she could do was to try to look appropriately sympathetic. Then she ventured to admire the horses attached to the phaeton.

“Of course they’re handsome. Everything Lord Thanington has is of the best,” said Miss Pemberton, rather sharply.

“And what a nice face the other man has—his friend, I suppose?” ventured the girl.

But this was an unfortunate remark. Miss Pemberton pursed her lips and remarked icily that that was Mr. Shirley Brede, and that she saw nothing particularly nice about him. And she advised Nannie to “sit further away from the fire in her outdoor things,” which entailed the catting off of the young girl’s view of the handsome, well-dressed man waiting in the phaeton.

“There,” she presently said below her breath, with excitement, “his lordship’s going out.”

The door of the office had indeed opened, but Lord Thanington, expressing his intention of paying his respects to Miss Pemberton, came across the passage to the dining-room, the door of which Peter threw open for him, and sat for some minutes talking to the two ladies, “a thing,” as Miss Pemberton innocently remarked when he had taken his leave, “which he had never done before.”

As Peter stood at the front door with his distinguished client, the latter said with a sly smile:

“Going to get married, eh, Pemberton?”

Peter blnshed not red, but a purplish tint.

“Oh, no, no, my lord,” he said nervously.

“Why not, eh?” and the earl turned to face him squarely, and spoke with a certain emphasis. It’s better for a business man to be married—much better,” and he gave the young solicitor a nod of meaning. “Take my tip,” he added, as he got into the phaeton and drove off.

CHAPTER III.

Peter Pemberton’s face had not yet got back to its Usual pallor when he returned to the sitting-room. Miss Pemberton was still in a flutter of excitement over the earl’s visit.

“He came on business, didn’t he?” Peter nodded. “And it’s the first time he’s been here since your father’s death. I thought he’d given us up altogether,” said she in a tone of great satisfaction.

“Yes. I was very glad to see him,” said Peter, slowly. “He gave me some advice.” He paused a little, and then, in answer to her inquiring look, went on: “He seems to think I should do better to establish myself in rather more commodious premises.”

Miss Pemberton’s face fell.

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with him,” she said with some asperity. “It’s always dangerous, so I’ve heard, for any old-established business to make a change of that sort. Your father held an excellent position, and nobody thought of complaining that the place was small.”

“I’m only telling you what Lord Thanington said,” said Peter. “He seemed to imply that, with a change of person, the right time had come for a change of place. I confess I’ve sometimes thought so myself. But it’s so easy to go on in the old groove, and so difficult to get out of it.”

His aunt would have had some more to say about these dangerous, new-fangled doctrines if Hannah had not come in and asked her to see a man who had come from one of the outlying farms with some eggs and vegetables.

For a few minutes, for the first time since Nannie’s arrival, she and Peter were left alone together. He looked at the door as he suddenly allowed his face to relax into an expression of amusement.

“I confess,” said he, “that I felt heartily thankful that the remains of the turkey had saved us, on this particular occasion, from the delicate aroma of the mutton.”

Nannie burst out into joyous, irrepressible laughter.

“I thought of that too,” she admitted, with a blush, “and I was afraid of laughing before Miss Pemberton.”

And with a comical consciousness that they were both rather in awe of that good lady, the young people fell to laughing again in a subdued and almost guilty manner.

“Lord Thanington gave me some more advice,” said Peter, presently, in a lower voice, “but I don’t dare to repeat that to my aunt, for fear Lord Thanington should Ipse her good opinion forever.”

“”Why, what was that?” asked Nannie, innocently, peeing that he appeared to invite the question.

“Oh, he advised me to get married,” said Peter, conscious that he was blushing in his turn, but in a much more unbecoming manner than Nannie had done.

Bnt the young girl laughed with frank amusement, and said:

“Of course Miss Pemberton wouldn’t like that, would she?”

“No, I suppose not,” said he. “But I certainly shouldn’t feel bound to remain a bachelor all my life on her account, if I wanted to get married.”

“Oh, no, of course not. But it seems a strange thing for a man to have to get married without wishing to himself. Of course,” she added, with a sudden unconscious lapse into seriousness, “girls often have to.”

Something, some thought, passing rapidly through his mind caused Peter to take these words even more seriously than Nannie had said them.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said, so shortly that the girl glanced up shyly, rather afraid of having said something that offended.

And when Miss Pemberton came back into the room, as she did a moment later, she felt as much surprise and suspicion at the sober look on both their faces as she had felt, a few moments before, on hearing their outburst of laughter.

By the time they all got out into the street dusk was already coming on. But there was light enough left for Nannie to see the old house, the distant view of which had so greatly taken her fancy, and for her to see, too, that there was a printed bill on an unused gate at the side, announcing the fact that the premises were to be offered for sale by auction at an early date.

“Oh, I wish I could buy it!” cried Nannie, with thoughtless girlish admiration, as she stood back, after reading the bill, to feast her eyes on the overhanging upper floor, the wide windows with their tiny, fancifully arranged panes, the three sharp gables above, the ancient wooden door below.

An interesting house it was, undoubtedly, one of the most picturesque and ancient of all the dwellings in the ancient and picturesque city. The front, which could be hardly less than four hundred years old, although the introduced Elizabethan windows, were of rather later date, was some sixty feet in length. This frontage included a wooden gate, permanently closed, under a rough archway, above which the house itself extended. This entrance, now no longer used, suggested that the house had suffered changes in the course of its history, and that it might formerly have been an inn. Seen in a better light, dirty curtains and other indications of neglect would have shown that the poor old house was not at present in hands to make the most of its good points. But in the dusk these details escaped notice; and to a romantic girl the gabled old house, with its irregular lines, was a sort of fairy palace.

Peter was amused and interested by her enthusiasm.

“Think how beautiful it would be to live in such a house!” cried she. “How one would sit and wonder what had happened in the old rooms, how the people were dressed who lived there first, and whether they were happy or miserable!”

Miss Pemberton promptly put a wet blanket on what she looked upon as profitless and absurd speculations.

“I can’t see the use of wasting one’s time in idle thoughts of that kind,” she said, not unkindly, but with the frank conviction of mature good sense. “Of course they were sometimes happy and sometimes miserable, just like anybody else. And as for their dress, whatever it was like, of course they thought nothing of it themselves because they were used to it.”

“Yes,” said Nannie, laughing, too happy and too much interested to be easily repressed, “of course people who lived in the olden time lost the best part of it by not knowing it was the Olden Time!”

At that Miss Pemberton laughed a little too, but it was with contempt rather than with amusement.

“How ridiculous!” said she.

Meanwhile Peter said very little, but he followed the girl’s eyes, and then went up to the bill on the door and read the contents carefully.

“Would you like to go over it—on Monday, I mean, by daylight?” he asked Nannie.

The girl’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh, yes, indeed I should! But I—I shouldn’t like to, as Pm not going to buy it,” she added, laughing.

“Well, they needn’t know that, need they?” said Peter, laughing back. “Inspect everything very carefully, measure the distance between the fireplaces and the wall, and talk loudly about your mother’s fear of draughts.”

And then both of them, led by the girl, went off into a fresh explosion of that apparently causeless merriment which annoyed Miss Pemberton so much.