CHAPTER III.

OUT IN THE WORLD.

THE splash of many water-spouts in the court waked Barbara on Monday morning, and told her how heavily it had rained through the night. It was not a pleasant awakening. This day was to be the turning point of her life. She set to work stitching, and she felt very sad at the thought that she had henceforward to struggle on alone. Her baby was dead; she had divided the last weak tie that bound her to her husband, and now her mother and she must separate. But she worked on. There was a good deal of mending, and trimming, and altering to do, independent of the ready-made garments that had to be bought, before she could go to Coppeshall in decent guise. So Barbara and her mother stitched away in a silence that was only broken now and then by a necessary question and answer; the heart of each was too full to talk unnecessarily.

In the forenoon, when the clothes were collected together as ready, they were so few that they looked almost absurd, Barbara thought, lying at the bottom of the hairtrunk, which a kind neighbour had brought in, and offered for Barbara's usc. She began to demur as to the

propriety of a box at all under such circumstances, but the widow urged the advantage of a place of deposit under lock and key, and that consideration settled the matter in favour of the box. They did not need to ask who was to carry it, for Job had already presented himself in the court, evidently waiting to help Barbara off. What was the matter with Job, that he should thus keep slinking about there for above an hour in the pouring rain, and with the prospect of having that box to carry to Coppeshall at the end of the business? he who had such an unerring instinct for always taking himself safely out of the way of contingent possibilities of work. Whatever the explanation, Job himself does not, strange to say, see anything extraordinary in his conduct; and still more surprising, Barbara and her mother appear equally to take it as a matter of course.

As the rain did not cease, Barbara determined to start a little before two o'clock. None of the neighbours saw her go. It was mill-time, and Abbott's Court was nearly empty. Mother and daughter took no formal farewell of each other. The last thing-and when Barbara had walked to the door as quietly as if she had forgotten there was any one behind her, and watching her departure with silent but quivering lip-she suddenly turned, threw her arms about the widow's neck, kissed her with a strength of emotion that only flurried the poor mother more than ever; then, as if ashamed of so much self-manifestation, Barbara drooped her head for an instant on the widow's shoulder, said something-neither of them knew very well what-and then Barbara rose, turned, and with eyes a little uncertain as to what they looked on, followed the

one plain object they could see, Job's purply ankles, alternately proceeding before her down the court.

Beside the little bandbox that Barbara carried, she held a flower-pot, wrapped in a newspaper, and showing a few long grassy kind of leaves. It was an awkward thing to take to Coppeshall; she was well aware of that; it must seem childish, and would doubtless provoke questions that she would be pained and unwilling to answer. But for all that, Barbara was not going to leave it behind. It contained some bulbs of the larger and later-flowering snowdrop, potted one day long ago, when Barbara, during her brief honeymoon, had visions of a glowing and luxuriant window-garden that should bring all "Araby the blest" into Abbott's Court, and which was to spring up under her fostering care. One single flower had at last rewarded Barbara for all her patient faith. But it came not to be rejoiced over. It was plucked by the mother's trembling hands as a farewell gift to her dead babe, when the coffin lid was about to be closed for ever. As Barbara dropped the stainlessly beautiful blossom into the coffin, she took her parting gaze of the child: from that moment she could never dissociate these two. A casket of rubies or diamonds could not have been half so precious to Barbara's heart as was now this clumsy, weather-stained piece of earthenware and its contents. The plant, like herself, seemed to have given forth in one fair tender blossom all its own better nature-all that seemed worth living for-all, possibly, that in the end would prove that either of them had lived for: the snowdrop, like the childmother, looked worn and fading. But these were only momentary fancies; and Barbara soon determined that she

and the snowdrop would both have a stout struggle for it yet, before either of them would succumb. Somehow these poor sickly leaves seemed to appeal to her for help in their weakness; and Barbara, as she thought of her mother and her plant, began to feel growing responsibilities: these were her dependents. Yes, she must get strong, that was very plain. So Barbara trudged along hugging the pot of snowdrops, and her mind already teeming with thick-coming fancies, out of which she suddenly drew herself when she discovered what she was about, sometimes with a frown, sometimes a laugh, and sometimes a sigh.

Thus the two walked on, Job with the hair-trunk, and Barbara with her bandbox, and flower-pot. The rain had rendered it unadvisable for them to take the nearest way to Coppeshall, through the plantation, so they went round by the high road. Very pleasant it was-that old Cartney road, with open hilly country spreading on each side. The breeze blew strongly, and tasted of the fresh spring shower that had passed through it, and of the bruised and scattered hawthorn bloom which it had ruffled and rifled, and the mere spoils of which smelt so delicious.

Barbara walked on, deeply engrossed with her thoughts. Job, to do him justice, made numerous attempts at getting up a conversation, but it lagged, do all he could.

"Wonder if yo'll hae much to do yonder ?" he speculated on one occasion, making sure he must be rightly anticipating the nature of Barbara's thoughts.

No answer.

Job sniffed the freshly perfumed air, almost raised his bead, and looked across the country with a certain sense

of enjoyment that made him forget for an instant the unsociableness of his companion. There was, in fact, just a touch of the poetry of idleness in Job. Had fortune only made him a rich man, he would probably have been thought not only a good-natured gentleman, and a perfectly respectable member of society, but have died with the reputation of having fulfilled all the duties of life in a most exemplary manner. But remaining the same man-in poverty-of course he was only "Lazy Job."

Purty landskip," continued he, making another attempt upon Barbara's taciturnity; 'ony th' warkus down yonder spiles it. Warkus! The name's enow to set ye agin it. Dunna ye think so?"

"Yo'll be getting to a waur place nor that, if ye dunna gie up your idle ways, Job," answered Barbara shortly, and with very much the same effect upon him as if, when meditating some cosy bit of enjoyment in a secret corner, a shower-bath had suddenly opened above. "A strung, hearty mon like you, a'most a livin' on the parish! Ye've getten a deal o' pride to spare for railin' at warkhouses, ye hae !"

"As to pride," observed Job, dejectedly, "aw dunna boast o' that. It got a knock o' th' head a whol ago, when yo-"

If Barbara heard this, she did not choose to notice it. And Job would have done well to take a hint and be silent. But, somehow, he must go on, till he had effectually roused his companion.

"Eigh,-Barbara! Aw'd bin a different mon, if yo'd Yes, Barbara was now roused indeed. She stopped abruptly, just where she was in the road, turned