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form when she sat down looked more restful-her had more peace and sweetness in it.

very voice When Hirell went to bed it was still daylight, and she stood a minute or two at her window, listening to the gradually subsiding hum of the village-that pleasantest sound of all the long summer's day-when mothers are calling home their children from their daisy-gathering in the roadside meadows, and neighbours gossip across fragrant garden hedges, and bird-boys, and ploughboys, just home from work, are shouting over their mysterious games, with mouths full of bread and butter-and the blacksmith is putting out his fire, and pot-house politicians are waxing warm in the little corner garden, where pewter mugs are turned down upon the dahliasticks. They are doubtless politicians of most narrow, illogical, and coarsely-expressed opinions; the blacksmith very likely breaks some promise concerning the shoeing of somebody's horse, in putting out his fire so early; the boys at play probably cheat in the laws of their games; the neighbours gossiping over the sweet-peas are perhaps virulent scandal-mongers; the mothers calling home their children may be harsh-voiced and ungentle, bringing the little ones in trembling haste from out the long flowered grass, which has been to them as a wonderful fairy forest where they could fight their way easily with their soft little hands, and lose and find each other at will. And how strange that out of such discords should flow a sound so sweet and full of mysterious happiness, so redolent of home and comfort, and the poetry of labour and of rest, as that which floats softly to Hirell's window, with the odours of the little Nytimber gardens. It is as if the earth in the beauty of its fading summer day and coming summer night has been attuned to yield nothing but music, even to the bitter and complaining breath of humanity.

Hirell stood and listened to this homely and pleasant murmur, which, in the full, large voice of nature, rich with the chirpings of callow blackbirds in the elms, and the jovial whirring of gnats, and tinkling of sheep-bells, was small and dreamy, like an infant's crying overpowered by its mother's lullaby. As Hirell listened it sounded to her as the happy murmur of a world from which her sorrow parted her. She felt very lonely, and almost sadder than when her trouble had been new. Then her spirit had been content to lie crushed, but now that it tried to rise it felt bitterly how much it had been wounded and enfeebled.

The stars that were golden in the waning daylight grew brilliant and silvery as the evening deepened; the nightingale began to sing in the screen of trees dividing the two long fields dotted with little hillocks of hay. The village hum came to her softly and sweetly, and moved her heart with a great tenderness for the world of which it seemed to speak so pleasantly. Her thoughts, as she looked up at the stars, fell into a silent entreaty for comfort, and a reconciliation of her soul with life, and life's duties and pleasures. From that sorrow in which she felt she had been placed as in an ark of safety when sinking in dangerous waters, she sent a prayer, as Noah sent the dove, entreating God that if one green leaf of hope were left for her on the waste of her griefinvaded life, He would let some messenger bring it to her for her sad heart's comfort.

CHAPTER XLV.

AT THE HOODED HOUSE.

SIR JOHN CUNLIFF had left Kent very well pleased with Robert Chamberlayne.

On the morning of the same day on which Hirell had received his farewell letter he had called on Robert at the Hooded House. It was the first time he had done this, though he had twice waylaid the young farmer in his fields, and found him tolerably genial and willing to assist him in getting his letters conveyed to Hirell.

It is true he might not have found him so kind a friend in this respect, had he not managed, and without saying anything positively untrue, to make Robert believe it was solely on her father's account that she was now refusing him; after, as Sir John assured him, there had been a solemn engagement between them.

Robert certainly thought the baronet hardly treated, and said as much.

'It's their religion,' he muttered; 'it's always making them do some unheard-of thing.'

Robert had sat in the little Nytimber church till its doctrines had become bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. He was not bigoted—he believed in some men being able to

see farther than he saw in such matters-even farther than the portly old Vicar of Nytimber himself could see—but in his own heart Robert had a calm deep-rooted content in the old state of things that had agreed so well with the Chamberlaynes and their land time out of mind. He had a great respect for Elias and his stern, high principles, and for the sweet, fearless transparency of Hirell's nature; but, do as he would, Robert could not help seeing in their constant trouble and poverty of their land, a sort of judgment on them for departing from the more orthodox and comfortable state of things.

When Sir John called upon him, Robert was sitting down to a one o'clock dinner in the unfurnished dining-room of the Hooded House; and it did not take his visitor many minutes to discover that Robert's self-banishment from Brockhurst was attended by not a few inconveniences, and sacrifices of domestic comfort.

The easy-chair and one or two favourite pictures-the pretty little davenport, with its stand of books-the bouquet of roses, and other luxuries and ornamentations sent over by Mrs. Chamberlayne, looked almost absurd in the great unfurnished room, the ceiling of which was not entirely free from cobwebs.

Sir John's quick eye also noted that the simple dinner was ill cooked and ill served, and that Robert seemed afraid of uttering his remonstrances loud enough for Mrs. Payne, who was very deaf, to hear. He evidently had as great a horror of rousing her temper, as of rousing a kenneled mastiff; and indeed his visitor saw it was not without some reason; for when Robert asked for another plate and glass for Sir John, she informed him flatly that she had not agreed to cook for all the parish, or all the strangers that liked to come after him, 'ringing the bells as if a body had no ears.'

When Sir John had praised the views from the hooded windows, and had had the politeness to discover that he was fond of home-made bread and cheese, the only thing on the table that Robert ventured to recommend him, Hirell was spoken of, and Sir John's intentions concerning her made known to Robert.

Robert thought the plan of leaving Hirell alone, till she should be sufficiently strong to hear Sir John plead his own cause personally, a good one, and said so.

Then Cunliff thanked him for having befriended him thus

far, and asked him bluntly if he might go in the hope that he would still continue to further his cause as much as lay in his power, both with Hirell and her family.

When the question was put to him, Robert was standing by the window, and for a moment or two afterwards he remained silent, looking out on scenes that were too familiar to him not to speak now as eloquent witnesses of his own past hopes.

But thinking of those hopes now did not injure Sir John's cause; for the strongest among them had been the hope of making Hirell's sad life happier. And from all that Robert had learnt of her state, from the words she had uttered during her illness, from his knowledge of the fascination she would find in a man of Cunliff's tastes and accomplishments—from all these Robert had gathered the firm belief, that Hirell Morgan's happiness now depended on her marriage with the man who was asking him to stand his friend.

Cunliff studied Robert's face that moment or two furtively and shrewdly, and the study gave him additional respect for the friend he wanted to take up his cause. He saw a man who was not ashamed or too much afraid of his own weakness to think over unflinchingly before another man the tenderest secrets of his heart. Sir John would not have cared for Hirell to have seen Robert as he stood there weighing the worth of his love for her, to have seen his face just a little stung, perhaps, by Sir John's request, but otherwise full of tenderness, bold, honest, strong, unabashed, unveiled by any show of indifference.

'Well,' he said suddenly, 'I want to see her happy, if there's any possibility of persuading her people to let her be so. I suppose you know-you have heard from her how I have failed as regards myself? '

'Hirell has told me all,' answered Cunliff, 'and of your admirable consideration.'

'Well,' interrupted Robert bluntly, if you know that I failed on my own account, don't expect me to do very brilliant things on yours-that's all I wanted to say. What I can do with Hirell and her father in the matter I will do.'

And he held out his hand, which Sir John grasped gratefully, though he did observe that the rest of Robert's form held rather proudly and rebelliously aloof, reminding Sir John of Ephraim Jones's favourite saying, 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'

They walked up the village together, and parted at the cross-roads.

Sir John, on the whole, was well pleased with the advocate he had left behind him, He knew that while Hirell had never been in the least degree in love with him, she yet had what Sir John thought an absurdly high opinion of his judg ment and general character. He had certainly a little modified his own estimate of Robert since he had been in Kent, and had so many opportunities for observing how greatly he was respected.

It was not long before he discovered that Robert had the good fortune to be wonderfully popular without making any kind of sacrifice to obtain his popularity. His independence in his dealings with men above himself in social position was shown in so simple, natural, and quiet a manner, as not to offend, though it might occasionally surprise, the squires, magistrates, and other rural magnates with whom he came in contact. It was not easy to frown down a man who paid his labourers higher wages than any one in the country; and whose love of justice and of honesty in its purest and most primitive sense was a byword of the neighbourhood.

In spite of his being constantly seen in his own fields and farmyards hard at work, he was admitted into good society at Reculcester, though not into the 'bishop's set.' He had a fine voice, and sang well, and gave faded gaslight pleasures a dash of freshness and hearty reality.

And it was no mere jealousy made Cunliff decide that Robert Chamberlayne was very handsome.

Those Kentish autumns that had ripened twenty-six harvests in his life had put their spells about him, as they had put them about his corn-fields and his orchards-the spells of their burning noontides and their still, breathless nights, and had given his form a supple strength and grace, and his face a perpetual sunshine.

The young ladies of that limited circle of Reculcester society into which Robert was allowed, declared him to be far more handsome than striking. His face wanted expression; its unchanging good humour was very pleasant and refreshing to see very lovable-but also very tantalising, when the sad, soul-smitten glance was being watched for. In fact, Robert had the behaviour of a man who already loved, and was contented and happy in his love.

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