RED AS A ROSE IS SHE .  Esther Craven .  London : Richard Bentley , 1870  RED AS A ROSE IS SHE .  A Novel .  BY RHODA BROUGHTON , AUTHOR OF " COMETH UP AS A FLOWER , " " GOOD-BYE , SWEETHEART !  " " SECOND THOUGHTS , " ETC.  ELEVENTH EDITION .  LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON , Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen .  1887.  [ All Rights Reserved .  ]  CHAPTER I .  HAVE you ever been to Wales ?  I do not ask this question of any one in particular ; I merely address it to the universal British public , or , rather , to such member or members of the same as shall be wise enough to sit down and read the ensuing true and moving love story — true as the loves of wicked Abelard and Heloise , moving as those of good Paul and Virginia .  Probably those wise ones will be very few ; numerable by tens , or even units : they will , I may very safely aver , not form the bulk of the nation .  However high may be my estimate of my own powers of narration , however amply Providence may have gifted me with self-appreciation , I may be sure of that , seeing that the only books I know of which enjoy so wide a circulation are the Prayer-book and Bradshaw .  I am not going to instruct any one in religion or trains , so I may as well make up my mind to a more limited audience , while I pipe my simple lay ( rather squeakily and out of tune , perhaps ) , and may think myself very lucky if that same kind , limited audience do not hiss me down before I have got through half a dozen staves of the dull old ditty .  Have you ever been to Wales ?  If you have ever visited the pretty , dirty , green spot where Pat and his brogue , where potatoes and absenteeism and head-centres flourish , alias Ireland , you have no doubt passed through a part of it , rushing by , most likely , in the Irish mail ; but in that case your eyes and nose and ears were all so very full of dust and cinders — you were so fully employed in blinking and coughing and enjoying the poetry of motion — as to be totally incapable of seeing , hearing , or smelling any of the beauties , agreeable noises , or good smells , which in happier circumstances might have offered themselves to your notice .  Perhaps you are in the habit , every midsummer , of taking your half-dozen male and female olive shoots to have the roses restored to their twelve fat cheeks by blowy scrambles about the great frowning Orme 'sHead , or by excavations in the Rhyl Sands .  Perhaps you have gone wedding-touring to Llanberis on the top of a heavy-laden coach , swinging unsafely round sharp corners , and nearly flinging your Angelina from your side on to the hard Welsh road below .  Perhaps you have wept with Angelina at the spurious grave of the martyred Gelert , or eaten pink trout voraciously at Capel Curig , and found out what a startlingly good appetite Angelina had .  But have you ever lived in the land of the Cymri ?  Have you ever seen how drunk the masculine Cymri can be on market days , or what grievous old hags the feminine Cymri become towards their thirtieth year ?  have you ever , by bitter experience , discovered the truth of that couplet —  " Taffy was a Welshman , Taffy was a thief ? "  I have lived in Wales , so I speak with authority ; and for my part I do n't think that Taffy is much more given to the breaking of the eighth commandment than the canaille of any other country .  He is not a bright fellow , is not Taffy ; happiest , I think , when rather tipsy , or when yelling psalms in his conventicle or schism-shop — for Taffy is addicted to schism ; he will tell you plenty of lies , too , and will not season them with the salt of a racy , devil-me-care wit , as Pat would .  But he is very civil-spoken , and rather harmless ; seldomer , I think , than his cleverer neighbour over the border does he hanker feloniously after his neighbour 'sspoons , or hammer his wife 'shead with the domestic poker .  But why am I drivelling on , like a sort of Murray and water , on the manners and character of this , to my thinking , not very interesting nation ?  I will waste no more " prave 'ords " upon them , as the few men and women whom I am going to tell you about , and whom I shall want you to like a little , or dislike a little , as the case may be , are not Taffies , only they happen to have stuck up their tent-poles in Taffy-land when they first make their low bow to you .  These men and women were nothing out of the way for goodness , or beauty , or talent ; they did a hundred thousand naughty things , each one of them .  Some of them did them with impunity , as far as this world goes ; some of them , capricious Megæra and Tisyphone lashed with scorpions for their derelictions .  This is going to be neither a " Life of Saints , " nor a " History of Devils ; " these are memoirs neither of a " Hedley Vicars , " nor of a " Dame aux Camellias ; " so , whoso expects and relishes either of those styles of composition may forthwith close this volume , and pitch it ( if it be his own , and not the battered property of a circulating library ) into the fire .  Those who love a violent moral , or violent judgment for sins and follies — a man struck dead for saying " damn , " or a woman for going to a ball , as the Record would charitably have us believe is the way of Providence — equally with those who enjoy the flavour of violent immorality , will be disappointed if they look this way for the gratification of their peculiar idiosyncracies .  Of my friends presently to be made known to you , and criticised by you , " the more part remain unto this present , but some have fallen asleep .  "  Once upon a time — I like that old , time-honoured opening ; it makes one so nobly free , gives one so much room to stretch one 'swings in , ties one down to no king 'sreign , no hampering , clogging century — once upon a time there was a valley in Taffy-land ; there is still , unless some very recent convulsion has upheaved it to the top of a mountain , or submerged it beneath the big Atlantic waves ; a valley lovelier than that one in " Ida , " where " beautiful Paris , evil-hearted Paris , " pastured his sheep and his jet-black goats , and inaugurated his rakish course ; a valley where there are no dangerous , good-looking Parises , only one or two red-headed Welsh squires , who have each married , or will in the fulness of time each marry , one lawful wife — red-headed , too , very likely ; and have never made , will never make , love to any Enones or other ill-conducted young shepherdesses .  In fact , in that Arcadia there are no such shepherdesses ; the daughters of the Cymri do not " ply the homely shepherd 'strade , " nor would they shed much romance over it if they did ; for with sorrow be it spoken , blowsy are they mostly , hard-featured , toothless ; and , moreover , the little nimble , lean sheep that go scrambling and jumping and skurrying about the rough crags and steep hill-sides do not need any crook 'dand melodious Dowsabellas or Neæras to look after them and guide them in the way they should go .  In that valley there are plenty of houses , squires 'houses and peasants 'houses , where the propagation of the Cambrian is conducted with much success ; houses big and little , red-faced and white-faced and dirty-faced , old and new .  But we have at present to do with only one of those houses , and it comes under the head of the littles and the olds .  Halfway up a hill-side it stands , looking across the valley to other higher hills that swell out softly against the sky , and go sloping gently down to the sea twenty miles away .  They always remind me — I do n't know why — of the distant hills in Martin 'spicture of the " Plains of Heaven ; " so mistily do they rise in their hazy blueness .  It is a snug , unpretending little house enough , with its black and white cross-beamed front and unwalled kitchen-garden straggling steeply up the slope at the back .  Many and many a day has it stood there , seeing generations and fashions come in and go out ; has stood there since the far-away days when men wore curly wigs half-way down their backs , and sky-blue coats , and fought and died for prerogative and King Charles , or fought and lived for England and liberty : when most houses were black and white , like its little elderly self , before plate glass or stucco , or commodious villa residences , five minutes 'walk from a station , were dreamed of .  The name of the little house is Glan-yr-Afon .  CHAPTER II .  " JACK and I got in our last hayload to-day , without a drop of rain ; the first bit of good luck that has come to us , I do n't know when .  If we had any land , I should imagine that we must have a bit of consecrated ground among it , to account for our ill-fortune ; but as we have not of our own enough to pasture a goose upon , that cannot be it .  Such an odd thing happened to-day — Robert Brandon proposed to me : it is the first offer I ever had , though I was seventeen last month .  If it is never a more pleasant process than it was to-day , I hope sincerely it may be the last .  I said ' Yes , ' too ; at least , a species of Yes after half-a-dozen Noes ; I cannot imagine why , for I certainly did not feel Yes .  I suppose I must have been pleased at any one wishing for my company during the term of his natural life .  "  The name on the fly-leaf of this journal-book is Esther Craven , Glan-yr-Afon , and the date July 10 , 186 — .  July is very often a rather wet month — not so this year ; all through its one-and-thirty days the sky was like brass , as it looked to Elijah ( the Seer 's) eyes on the top of Carmel , when , by his faith , he brought up the tarrying rain from the sea 'schambers .  London is pouring out her noble army of haberdashers and greengrocers into Ramsgate and Margate , and Scarborough and Llandudno .  The John Gilpins of to-day are not satisfied with a modest outing to the " Bell " at Edmonton , " all in a chaise and pair . "  Armies of schoolboys are devouring arid sandwiches and prime old buns in railway refreshment rooms — schoolboys emptied out of every school and seminary and college all over the country .  Highly paid instructors of youth are stretching their cramped legs up the steep sides of Helvellyn and Mont Blanc , and surveying the " frozen hurricane " of the glaciers through their academic spectacles .  And young Craven 's( of Glan-yr-Afon ) last hayload is safely stacked , as you heard from his sister 'sdiary .  This morning the highest lying of the upland fields was hilly with haycocks : to-night it is as flat as Salisbury Plain .  All day long the waggons have gone grinding and crunching up and down the rocky mountain road between field and rick-yard .  All day long Evan and Hugh and Roppert ( sic ) with their waistcoats open and their brown arms bared , aided and abetted by various Cambrian matrons , with bonnets standing upright on their heads , and pitchforks in their lily hands , have been tossing the scented bundles — sweeter in death than in life , like a good man 'sfame — into the carts ; loading them till of the shaft horse nought but ears and nose and forelegs appeared , save to the eye of faith .  All day long Esther has been sitting under a haycock , as one might fancy Solomon 'swise woman doing , " looking well to the ways of her household . " The hay moulds itself pliably into a soft arm-chair for her young , slight figure , and the big hay-spiders walk up her back at their leisure , and explore the virgin forests of her thick dusk hair .  She has had her luncheon brought out to her there — bread and milk in a white bowl .  It is unsocial , surly work , eating alone ; one feels reduced to the level of a dog , cracking bones , and lapping up gravy out of his trencher , all by himself , with tail well down , like a pump handle , and a growl and a snap for any brother dog who may approach to share his feast .  The haymakers were much cheerier — " couched at ease " under the nutty hedgerow , bringing slices of unnaturally fat bacon out of blue and white spotted pocket-handkerchiefs , gabbling to one another in the Welsh tongue , which , to one who occupies the room of the unlearned , has always a querulous , quarrelsome , interrogative sound , and digging their clasp knives into the ground to clean them , when their services were no longer required .  Jack is out for the day , and the place feels stupid without him .  There is not much melody in " I paddle my own canoe , " but one misses it when one is accustomed to hear it echoing gaily over the crofts and through the farm-yard and orchard .  It would be impossible to talk more dog-Welsh than Jack does to his workmen ; but even the mellifluous tongue of the Cymri , with its three or four consonants standing together , undissevered by any vowel , is made harmonious , enunciated by a young , clear voice , that sounds as if it had never been the vehicle for sorrowful words .  " The village seems asleep or dead , Now Lubin is away , " and Esther , though she has entered upon her eighteenth year ( an age which a century ago would have been rather overripe — Chloe and Cynthia and Phyllis being considered in their prime at fifteen , and toasted accordingly ) , has as yet no Lubin but her brother .  " The village seems asleep or dead ,  Now Lubin is away , "  Now and again , Gwen the cook , and Sarah the housemaid , came panting up the hill in lilac cotton gowns and trim white aprons , bearing beer in every jug and mug and tin pipkin that Glan-yr-Afon affords , as Evangeline brought the nut-brown ale to the reapers of the village of Grand Pré .  And the haymakers drink insatiably , and wipe the thirsty mouth upon the convenient sleeve as artless Nature bids .  By-and-by artless Nature makes them rather unsteady on their legs .  As they lead the heavy-laden cart to the last remaining haycock , the one on which their mistress sits enthroned , I am not at all sure that they do not see two haycocks , two wide-leaved white hats , two Esthers .  Perceiving their condition , though too old an inhabitant of Wales to be in any degree surprised at what is , after all , the normal condition of the Welsh , Miss Craven rises precipitately .  Driven from her fortress , she picks up her needles and threads , and Jack 'sshirt , from which , as usual , the frequent button is missing , and runs lightly down the mountain path in her strong country boots , which bid defiance to the sharp stones that crop out at every step through the limestone soil .  At the hall door — a little arched door like a church 's, with a trellised porch and benches , such as one sees Dutch boors sitting on with their beer and schnapps , in Teniers 'pictures — Sarah meets her .  Sarah is an Englishwoman .  " Mr. Brandon is in the parlour , ' m .  "  " Parlour !  My good Sarah , how many times shall I adjure you , by all you hold most sacred , to say drawing-room ?  "  " He has been there best part of half-an-hour , ' m .  "  " Poor man !  how lively for him !  why on earth did n't you come and call me ?  "  " He said as he was n't in no partikler hurry , and he 'das lieve as not wait till you come in .  Stop a bit , Miss Esther , you have got some hay on your frock behind .  "  " People of seventeen wear gowns , not frocks , Sarah .  Oh !  there , that will do .  If I had a haystack disposed about my person , he would never be a bit the wiser .  "  Half-an-hour passes , and Mr. Brandon is still in the " parlour .  " It is seven o'clock , and dinner-time .  Would you so long in saying , and whether it is anything likely to reconcile Miss Craven to the loss of her dinner ?  A little room that looks towards the sun-setting ; a little room full of evening sunshine and the smell of tea-roses ; a light paper , with small , bright flower-bunches on the walls ; white muslin curtains ; a general air of crisp freshness , as of a room that there are no climbing , crawling , sticky-fingered children to crumple and rumple .  A young woman , rather red in the face , standing in one corner .  She has been driven thither apparently by a young man , who is standing before her , and who is still redder .  At a rough calculation , you would say that the young man was seven feet high ; but put him with his back against the wall , with his heels together , and his chin in , and you will find that he is exactly six feet four ; that is , four inches taller than any man who wishes to do work in the world , and find horses to carry him , ought to be .  His clothes are rather shabby , and he looks poor ; but , from the crown of his close-clipped head to the sole of his big feet , a gentleman , every inch of him , though he has no " gude braid claith " to help to make him so .  His features may be Apollo 'sor Apollyon 's, for all you can see of them , so thickly are they planted out with a forest of yellow hair ; but tears do not seem to be at any immense distance from eyes blue as the sky between storm clouds , fearless as a three-years 'child 's.  " Do n't you think that we do very well as we are ?  " says the young woman , suggestively .  " I do n't know about you , I 'msure .  I know I 'velost a stone and a half within the last year , " replies the young man , very ruefully .  Esther laughs .  " There is some little of you left still , " she says , with rather a mischievous glance up at the two yards and a half of enamoured manhood before her .  This is what has been over-roasting the mutton .  He has been asking her to take his heart , his large hand , and the half of one hundred and twenty pounds a year ( the exorbitant pay of a lieutenant in Her Majesty 'sinfantry ) , of an old hunting watch , and a curly retriever dog ; and she has been declining these tempting offers , one and all .  The minute hand of the gilt clock , on which Minerva sits in a helmet and a very tight gown , with her legs dangling down , has travelled from 6.30 to 7.5 , and within these five-and-thirty minutes Miss Craven has refused three proposals , all made by the same person : the first , very stoutly and mercilessly , from Jack 'sarm-chair , where she had originally taken up her position ; the second , decisively still , but with less cruelty , from the music-stool , to which she had next retired ; and the third , in a hasty and wavering manner , from the corner , in which she has taken final refuge , in a strong , fortified entrenchment behind the writing-table .  " But — but — " says Esther , her rebellious mouth giving little twitches every now and then as at some lurking thought of the ridiculous — " it 's— it 'ssuch a very odd idea !  I do n't think I ever was more surprised in my life .  When Sarah told me that you were here , I thought that , of course , you had come to say something about that bone-dust .  Why , you never said anything at all tending this way before .  "  " Did n't I ?  " answers the young giant , with a crestfallen look .  " I tried several times , but I do n't think that you could have understood what I meant , for you always began to laugh .  "  " I always do laugh at civil speeches , " answers the girl simply .  " I do n't know how else to take them : I suppose it is because I have had so few addressed to me ; they always sound to me so niais .  "  " I 'mnot a bit surprised at your not liking me , " he says , with humility .  " I do n't see how any one could at first .  I know that I 'mugly and awkward , and do n't understand things quick — "  " I do n't dis -like you , " interrupts Esther , with magnanimity , quite affected by her lover 'sdescription of his own undesirability .  " Why should I ?  There is nothing in you to dislike ; you are very good-natured , I 'msure , " damning with faint praise , in the laudable effort not to be unqualifiedly uncomplimentary .  " I know what an unequal exchange it is that I am offering , " says Brandon , too humble to resent , and yet with a dim sense of mortification at the quantity and quality of praise bestowed upon him .  " I know of how much more value you are than I !  "  She does not contradict him ; her own heart echoes his words .  " I am of more value than he ; I shall find it out practically some day .  "  " That was why I was in such a hurry to speak , " he says eagerly .  " I felt sure that if I did not , you would be snapped up directly by some one else .  "  She laughs rather grimly .  " You might have laid aside your alarms on that head , I think .  I do n't know who there is about here to snap me up .  "  Silence for a few minutes : Esther takes up a penwiper , fashioned into a remote resemblance to a chimney sweep , and studies its anatomy attentively .  " Shall I upset the writing-table and make a rush past him ?  No , the ink would spoil the carpet , and he would only come again to-morrow , and hunt me into the other corner .  Poor fellow !  I hope he is not going to cry , or go down on his knees !  "  Whether mindful or not of the fate of Gibbon the historian , who , having thrown himself on his knees before his lady-love , was unable , through extreme fat , to get up again , Brandon does not indulge in either of the demonstrations that Esther apprehended .  He stands quiet , cramming half a yard of yellow beard into his mouth , and says presently :  " Well , I suppose I must not worry you any more ; it is not good manners , is it ?  A man ought to be satisfied with one No ; I have given you the trouble of saying three .  "  " It 'svery disagreeable , I 'msure , " says Esther , wrinkling up her forehead in an embarrassed fashion , " and I hate saying No to any one : I do n't mean in this way , because nobody ever asked me before , but about anything ; but what can I do ?  "  " Try me !  " he says very eagerly , stretching out his hand across the narrow table ( all but upsetting the standish en route ) .  " I do n't want to threaten you , saying that I should go to the dogs if you threw me over , for I should not ; that always seemed to me a cowardly sort of thing to do ; and , besides , I should have my mother left to live for if the worst came to the worst ; but you must see that it is everything in the world to a fellow to have one great hope in it to keep him straight .  "  Soft music in the distance ; some one whistling " I paddle my own canoe " somewhere about the house ; Esther , in an agony between the fear of subversing the table , and the hundredfold worse fear of being discovered by Jack in an unequivocally sentimental position , of which she would never hear the last .  " Very well , very well , I 'll— I 'llthink about it ; could you be so very kind as to loose my hand ?  "  He complies reluctantly , and she , that there may be no further discussion about it , hides it discreetly away in her jacket pocket .  " I paddle my own canoe " dies away in the distance ; apparently it was on its way to dress for dinner .  Esther draws a sigh of relief .  " I thought that some one was coming .  "  " And if they had ?  "  " Why , I did not relish the idea of being found driven into a corner , like a child at a dame 'sschool , and you , like the dame , standing over me , " answers she , abandoning the struggle with the corners of her mouth , and bubbling over with the facile laughter of seventeen .  Utterly unable to join in her merriment , he stands leaning in awkward misery against the wall ; all other griefs are at least respectable ; love-sorrows , alone , are only ludicrous .  " It really is so silly , " says Esther , presently , compassionate but impatient .  " Do try and get the better of it !  "  " Easier said than done , " he answers ruefully .  " I might as well advise you to get the better of your affection for Jack .  "  " I do n't see the parallel , " rejoined she , coldly , feeling as if there was sacrilege in the comparison .  " My love for Jack is a natural instinct , built too upon the foundation of lifelong obligations , endless benefits , countless kindnesses .  What kindness have I ever shown you ?  I sewed a button on your glove once , and once I pinned a rose on your coat .  "  " I have the rose still .  "  She says " Pshaw !  " pettishly , and turns away her head .  " Perhaps you are afraid of marrying on small means ?  " suggests Brandon , diffidently , after a while .  The gentle clatter and click of dishes carried into the dining-room enters faintly through the shut door .  Esther 'sheart sinks within her .  Is he going to begin all over again ?  — round and round , like a thunderstorm among hills ?  " I am afraid of marrying on any means , " she says , comprehensively .  " I particularly dislike the idea ; marriage seems to me the end of everything , and I am at the beginning .  "  " But I do n't want you to marry me now , " cries Robert , stammering .  " Do n't you ?  You told me just now that you did .  "  " For pity 'ssake , Esther , do n't laugh !  it may be play to you , but it is death to me .  "  " I 'mnot laughing .  "  " Perhaps some day you will feel what I am feeling now .  "  " Perhaps " ( doubtfully ) .  " And you will find then that it is no laughing matter .  "  " Perhaps " ( still more doubtfully ) .  The clamour of a fresh cohort of plates shaking noisily upon a tray warns Brandon that his time is short .  " Esther !  " with a sort of despair in his voice , clashing the ridiculous with the pathetic — they are always twin sisters — " I could live upon such a little hope .  "  " What would you have me say ?  " she cries , standing with fluttering colour , tapping feet , and irritated eyes .  " I have told you the plain truth , and it does not please you ; must I dress up some pretty falsehood , and tell you that I fell in love with you at first sight , or that after all I find that you are the only man in the world that can make me really happy ?  "  " Say nothing of the kind !  " he answers , wincing under her irony .  " I have not much to recommend me , we all know that , and I start with the disadvantage of your thinking me rather a bore than otherwise ; but other men have overcome even greater obstacles ; why should not I ?  Give me at least a trial !  "  She is silent .  " Say that you will try to like me ; there need be no untruth in that .  "  " But if I fail !  " says Esther , wavering — partly in sheer weariness of the contest , partly in womanly pity for sufferings which owe their rise to the excess of her own charms .  " If you fail you will not have to tell me so ; I shall find it out for myself , and — and I shall bear it , I suppose .  " He ends with a heavy sigh at that too probable possibility .  " And you will console yourself by telling all your friends what a flirt I am , and how ill I treated you .  " Apparently he does not think this suggestion worthy of refutation ; at least he does not refute it .  " Or , if you do n't , your mother will .  "  " Not she " ( indignantly ) .  " Or , if she does not , your sisters will .  "  " Not they " ( less indignantly ) .  " And if — if — after a long while — a very long while — I succeed in liking you a little — mind , I do n't say that I shall ; on contrary , I think it far more probable that I shall not — but if I do , you wo n't expect me to marry you ?  "  He smiles , despite himself .  " I can hardly promise that .  "  " I mean not for many years , till Jack is married , and I am quite , quite old — five-and-twenty or so ?  "  " It shall be as you wish .  "  " And if , as is most likely , I continue not to care about you , and am obliged to tell you so , you will not think the worse of me .  "  " No. "  " You are certain ?  "  " Certain .  Whatever you do , I shall love you to-day , and to-morrow , and always , " says the young fellow , very solemnly ; and his eyes go away past her , through the window , and up to the blue sky overhead , as if calling on the great pale vault to be witness between him and her .  As for her , her prosaic soul has wandered back to the mutton ; she takes the opportunity of his eyes being averted to steal a glance at the clock .  Apparently , however , he has eyes in the back of his head , for he says hastily , with rather a pained smile : " You are longing for me to go .  "  " No — o .  "  " I ought not to have come at this time of night .  I ought to have waited till to-morrow , I know .  "  " It is rather late .  "  " But to-morrow seemed such a long time off , that I thought I must know the worst or the best before the sun came up again .  I do n't quite know which it is now ; which is it , Esther ?  "  " It 'sneither the one nor the other ; it 'sthe second best , " she answers , all smiles again at seeing some prospect of her admirer 'sdeparture , and forgetting , with youthful heedlessness , the price at which that departure has been bought .  " It is that I really am very much obliged , though , all the same I wish you would think better of it , and that I 'lltry ; I will , really ; do n't look as if you did not believe me .  "  So with this half-loaf he goes , passes away through the little wooden porch , that is so low it looks as if it were going to knock his tall head , past the stables , and through the oak woods , home  CHAPTER III .  " It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale 'shigh note is heard ; It is the hour when lovers 'vows Seem sweet in every whispered word — "  As saith that most delicious of love poems that makes us all feel immoral as we read it .  It is the hour when chanticleer retires to his perch in the henhouse , lowers his proud tail , sinks his neck into his breast , and goes to sleep between his two fattest wives .  It is the hour when animal life and wild humanity retire to bed ; the hour when tamed humanity sits down to dinner .  The more we advance in civilisation the farther back we push the boundaries of sleep and forgetfulness .  When we reach our highest point of culture , I suppose we shall hustle the blessed , the divine Nepenthe , off the face of the earth altogether .  The dining-room at Glan-yr-Afon is , like the rest of the house , rather small and rather pleasant .  It will not dine more than twelve comfortably ; it is seldom asked to dine more than two ; and these two , being young and void of gluttony , do not spend much of their time in it .  In youth the dining-room is not our temple , our sanctuary , our holy of holies , as it often is in riper years .  In youth our souls are great , and our bodies slender ; in old age our bodies are often great and our souls slender .  The one wide open window looks on the gay little garden — the window , all around and about which the climbing convolvulus is blowing great white trumpets .  There are two or three pictures on the walls ; good ones , though dim and dusty .  Thomas Wentworth , Lord Strafford , very dark and haughty and saturnine , in blue grey armour , scowing at whosoever looks at him , as he might have scowled at Pym and Hollis .  Erasmus , astute and lean , in a black skull cap : and Mary , Queen of Scots , very pale and peaky and indistinct , for time has washed and scrubbed all the carmine out of the cheeks and lips that sent Europe mad three centuries ago .  An old sheep-dog is lying on the hearth-rug , with his wise old eyes fixed on his master , licking his chops every now and then when he sees some morsel more tempting than ordinary conveyed to another mouth than his .  This evening Lord Strafford is scowling , Mary Stuart simpering , down upon two people dining together , and on a third person whisking about in a clean cap and an aggressively well-starched print dress in attendance upon them .  There is a great pot , full and brimming over with roses — a beanpot our forefathers would have called it — in the middle of the table .  They were plucked but half an hour ago , and their faces were still wet with the dew-tears that they wept at being torn away from their brothers and sisters on the old gnarled rose trees up the kitchen-garden walk .  But the freshest , the sweetest , the largest of the roses is not in the beanpot with the others ; it is on a chair by itself ; there are no dew-tears on its cheeks , it has no prickles , and its name is Esther .  " Have some roast chips , Essie ?  I cannot offer you any roast mutton , because there is n't any ; I dare say there was an hour ago , but there certainly is n't now .  "  This speech is made by Jack .  Jack is a young person with not a single good feature in his face ; with a baby moustache , which , like the daguerreotypes of fifteen or sixteen years ago , is only visible at rare intervals in one particular light ; and with cheeks and nose and chin and throat all as brown as any berry that ever ripened under the mellow autumn sun .  " It 'sa fault on the right side , dear boy ; it 'sbetter than quivering and being purple , " says Esther , with a pout which a lover would have thought entrancing , but which a prosaic brother , if he perceived it at all , considered rather a distortion than otherwise .  " I wish that people would remember that there is a time to call and a time to dine , and that the two times are not the same , " he grumbles , a little crossly .  A man may bear the untimely cutting off of his firstborn , the disposition evinced by the wife of his bosom to love his neighbour as himself , the sinking of his little all in the Agra Bank , with resignation and fortitude truly Christian ; but what hero , what sage , what archbishop , can stand the over-roasting or under-boiling of his mutton , the burning of his soup , or the wateriness of his potatoes , and bear an æquam mentem "  Esther looks rather conscious , purses up her pink mouth into the shape of a noiseless " Hush !  " and says " Pas avant , " which idiomatic phrase is intended to convey to her brother the indiscreetness of making comments in Sarah 'spresence on Mr. Brandon 'senormities .  From long familiarity with the sound , Sarah has become entirely acquainted with Esther 'sspecimen of Parisian French , and always pricks up her ears when it appears on the scene .  Then they are silent for a little space .  One is not apt to say very brilliant things in one 'sfamily circle ; it requires the friction of mind with mind before bright sayings spring into being , as the flint and the steel must be married before the spark leaps into life .  " How long the days are now !  " Jack says presently , as he looks out on the evening light lying like a great bright cloak all over the land .  The earth is so very fair , all pranked with " smalle flowres " and green leaves , that the sun is grievously loth to leave her .  Fair-weather friend as he is , he cannot be in too great a hurry to desert her , when she lies poor and bare and faded in the dull November days .  " One always says that this time of year , " Esther says , smiling .  " It would be much more worthy remark if they did n't get longer ; if one kept a journal of one 'sremarks for a year , what an awful tautology there would be in them !  What a pity that one cannot say a thing once for all , and have done with it !  "  " If you resolved never to say anything that anybody had said before , you would make mighty few observations , I take it , " Jack answers , a little drily .  " Most remarks have been pretty well aired in the course of the last six thousand years , I fancy .  "  So , with a little flagging talk , the dinner passes , and the modest dessert appears : scarlet pyramids of strawberries , great bag-shaped British Queens , and little racy , queer-tasted hautbois .  Sarah retires , and the embargo is taken off Esther 'sspeech .  " Is she gone — finally gone ?  " she cries , very eagerly .  " Heaven be praised for that !  I thought she would never have done clattering those spoons .  Oh , Jack , what a heavy weight a piece of news is to carry !  How I sympathise with the woman who had to whisper to the rushes about Midas 'ears !  I have been dying all through dinner for some rushes to whisper to .  "  " To whisper what to ?  " asks the boy , his eyes opening very wide and round .  " Jack , do I look taller than usual to-night ?  "  " No. "  " Broader ?  "  " Not that I perceive .  "  " More consequential ?  "  " Much as usual .  You never are a woman with ' a presence .  ' "  " Is is possible that there 'sno difference at all in me ?  "  " None whatever ; except that , now I look at you , your cheeks are , if possible , redder than usual .  Why should there be any ?  "  " Because " ( drawing herself up ) " I have to-day passed a turning-point in my history .  I have had — a proposal .  "  " Who from ?  — one of the haymakers ?  "  " No. That would not have surprised me much more , though .  Let me get it out as quick as I can , now that the string of my tongue is loosed .  Robert Brandon was here to-day .  "  " As I know to my cost , " says Jack , with rather a rueful face at the recollection of his unpalatable dinner .  " And — and — how shall I word it prettiest ?  — asked me to be his .  "  " The devil he did !  " exclaims Jack , surprised into strong language .  " Yes , the devil he did !  as you epigrammatically remark .  "  " And you , what answer did you give ?  " asks the boy , quickly , his mouth emulating the example of his eyes , and opening wide , too .  " I said I was much obliged , but that , for the present , I preferred being my own .  "  " You said ' No , ' of course ?  "  " Yes , I did ; ever so many 'Noes .  ' I did not count them , but I 'msure their name was Legion .  "  Jack gives a sigh of relief , and throws a biscuit to the ceaselessly attent sheep-dog .  " Poor beggar !  " he says .  " Here , Luath , old man .  You old muff !  why did you not catch it ?  He is as good a fellow as ever I came across , and now , I suppose , it will be all different and disagreeable .  Hang it !  what a plague women are !  "  " But , Jack― "  " Well , Essie , not done yet ?  Any more unlucky fellows sent off with their tails between their legs ?  "  " No , no ; but , Jack " ( looking down , and staining her fingers with the henna of the strawberries ) , " I — I 'mnot quite sure that , after all those 'Noes , ' I did not say something that was not quite 'No .  ' "  " That was 'Yes ?  ' "  " No , not ' Yes ' either ; not positive , actual ' Yes ; ' something betwixt and between ; a sort of possible , hypothetical ' Yes .  ' "  " More fool you !  " said Jack , briefly .  " Do n't scold me , you bad boy !  " she cries , running over to him and putting her gentle arms about his neck in the caressing way which sisters affect so much , and which brothers , in general , disrelish so highly , " or I vow I 'llcry , and you know you hate that .  "  " I hate your making a fool of yourself worse , " growls Jack , mollified , but struggling .  " I say , you need not strangle a fellow .  "  " Wait till I do make a fool of myself , " she says , very gaily .  " I 'monly talking about it as yet , and there 'sa good wide ditch between saying and doing .  "  " More shame for you to say what you do n't mean .  "  " Jack , dear boy , do n't you know that I hate saying things that vex a person ?  I never had a faculty for telling people home-truths ; I 'dfar sooner tell them any amount of stories ; and I got so tired of saying ' No , ' and he seemed to take it so much to heart , that I said ' Yes , ' just for a change — just for peace .  In fact , ' anything for a quiet life ' is my motto .  "  " And may I ask what you intend to live upon ?  " asks Jack ( the romantic side of whose mind lies at present fallow and uncultivated , and whose thoughts , Briton-like , speedily turn from " love 'syoung dream " to the pound , shilling , and pence aspect of the matter ) .  " On love , to be sure .  On — what is it ?  — 6s .  6d .  a day ; and perhaps I may take in soldiers 'washing , " Esther says , bursting out into a violent fit of laughing .  " Uncommonly funny , no doubt !  " Jack says , laughing too , but sorely against his will .  " And do you mean to tell me that you like Brandon all of a sudden enough to be such an abject pauper with him for the rest of your days ?  Why it was only yesterday that you were laughing at him , saying he danced like a pair of tongs .  "  Esther has slidden down to the floor , and sits there tailor-fashion .  " I do n't mean to tell you anything of the kind , " she answers , gravely .  " Poor dear fellow !  — it is very odious of me — but between you and me I think I should survive it if I were to know that I should never see him again ; only , please do n't tell him I said so .  " " Love , who to none beloved to love again remits — " she repeats softly , musing to herself ; " that is a very lovely line , but it is horribly untrue .  " Love , who to none beloved to love again remits — "  "  " What do you mean to do then , if it is not an impertinent question ?  " asks Jack , throwing back his young head , and looking in an inquisitorial manner at the penitent at his feet from under his eyelids .  " Marry a man that you do n't like , and who has not a farthing to keep you on , merely because he is the first person that asked you ?  "  " Nothing is farther from my intentions , " says Esther , getting rather red .  " And how unkind of you to twit me with my dearth of admirers .  I mean you to interpose your parental authority and forbid the banns ; I intend to shift the odium of the transaction on to your shoulders , " she says , relapsing into levity , — " poor , dear shoulders !  " ( patting them very fondly ) " they are not very wide , but they are broader than mine , at all events ; to them I transfer my difficulties .  "  " That you sha n't !  " cries Jack , with animation , shaking off her hand , and looking very indignant and honest .  " You are to do shabby things , and I am to have the credit of them !  Thanks , very much , but I do n't admire that division of labour .  I do n't think I ever heard a meaner proposition .  "  Esther 'slittle head , rich in a soft plenitude of dusky love-locks , sinks low down towards her lap ; she is very easily snubbed , especially by Jack .  " A nice name you 'llmake for yourself , Miss Essie , " pursues the young Solomon , severely , still brandishing the metaphorical birch-rod over his sister .  " I expect you 'llmake the country too hot to hold us in a short time .  "  Esther lifts up two sudden , tearful eyes , that look like great jewels seen through running water , and says , piteously , " But , Jack , you know , as you said just now , it was the first time ; one never does things well the first time one tries ; one is always clumsy at them ; I shall know better next time .  "  " I do n't see what 'next time 'you are likely to have , " says Jack , inexorable in his young severity .  " It will be rather late in the day for people to propose to you when you are Bob Brandon 'shalf-starved or whole-starved wife .  "  " But I 'mnot , Jack , " cries Esther , very eagerly .  She looks grave enough now ; rather alarmed at the little gay sketch her brother has drawn of her future destiny .  " I 'mnot going to marry him or any one else , ever .  Do you think I 'dleave you to marry the Angel Gabriel , if he came down from heaven on purpose to ask me ?  "  " Why did you tell Brandon that you would then ?  " asks the young fellow , not a bit disarmed by her sweet flattery .  " I did not tell him so ; I said I would try ; but even if I do try , I need not succeed ; and even if I do manage to get up a sort of liking for him , I need not marry him .  You are in such a hurry to jump at conclusions ; there 'sthe beauty of his being so poor , do n't you see ?  He cannot expect me to marry him , when he has no bread and butter to put into my mouth .  "  " Then why be engaged to him at all , my good girl ?  " asks honest Jack , rather bewildered by these new lights — these subtleties on the subject of betrothal .  " Why do people give babies gin ?  — it is not good for them , but it keeps them quiet ; that is precisely my principle .  Being engaged to me may not be good for Robert , but it is gin to him ; it keeps him quiet , " answers Esther , on the battle-field of whose small face smiles and tears are fighting .  Her brother does not seem to see the beauty of this in genious mode of reasoning in a very strong light .  " I wo n't have you playing fast and loose with him , " he says , very decisively , shaking a stern young head — stern , despite its curliness and its total dearth of those care-lines that are supposed to be Wisdom 'sharsh footprints .  " He is much too good a fellow to be played tricks with ; mind that , Miss Esther !  "  " I have not the slightest desire in life to play tricks with him ; if I ever do play tricks , I hope it will be with some one more amusing , " answers Essie , very pettishly , looking excessively mutine and ill-humoured .  " I do n't care if I never hear his ugly name again ; he has spoilt the dinner and made you as cross as two sticks ; and — and — I wish he was dead , that I do !  " concludes happy Mr. Brandon 'sfiancée weeping .  CHAPTER IV .  MORNING is come again .  The sun cannot bear to be long away from his young sweetheart , the earth , so he has come back hasting , with royal pomp , with his crown of gay gold beams on his head , with his flame-cloak about his strong shoulders , and with a great troop of light , flaky clouds — each with a reflex of his red smile on its courtier face — at his back .  He has come back to see himself in the laughing blue eyes of her seas and streams , and to rest at noontide , like a sleepy giant , on her warm green lap .  The daily miracle — the miracle that none can contest , to which all are witness , has been worked — the resurrection of the world .  And this resurrection is not partial , not limited to humanity , as that final one is towards which the eyes of the Christian church have been looking steadfastly for eighteen centuries and a half ; but every beast and bird and flower has shaken off Death 'ssweet semblance , his gentle counterfeit , and is feeling , in bounding vein and rushing sap , the ecstatic bliss of the mystery of life .  If we never slept , we should not know the joy of waking ; if we never woke , we should not know the joy of sleep .  How , I marvel , shall we feel the happiness of heaven , if we never lose , and consequently regain it ?  The thrushes and blackbirds are already in the midst of their glees and madrigals and part songs .  They sing the same songs every day , so that they are quite perfect in them ; and they are all very joyful ones .  In their sweet flute-language there are no words expressive of sorrow or pain ; they know of no minor key .  There were twenty roses born last night , and the flowers are all rejoicing greatly .  They are smiling and whispering and gossiping together ; the sweet peas , like pink and purple butterflies , " ... . on tiptoe for a flight , With wings of delicate flush o'er virgin white , " each half-inclined to hover away with the young west wind that is sighing such a little gentle story all about himself into their ears .  " ... .  on tiptoe for a flight ,  With wings of delicate flush o'er virgin white , "  The lambs , grown so big and woolly that one might almost mistake them for their mothers , are leaping and racing and plunging about in the field below the house , in the giddiness of youth , unprescient of the butcher .  Hated of Miss Craven 'ssoul as much as ever were the blind and lame of King David 'sare those too , too agile sheep .  Grievously prone are they to ignore the low stone wall of partition , and work havoc and devastation among the aster tops and cabbage shoots of her garden .  " The king was in his counting-house , Counting out his money ; The queen was in the parlour , Eating bread and honey . "  The King of Glan-yr-Afon is not counting out his money , because he has not any to count , poor young fellow .  He is sitting on a garden-chair , reading the Times , and thinking how much better he would rule the Fatherland , how much less mean and shabby and selfish he would make her in other nations 'eyes , if he might but have the whip and reins for six months or so .  Old Luath lies at his feet , with dim eyes half closed , snapping lazily at the flies , and catching on an average about one every quarter of an hour .  Esther is in the stack-yard , holding a levy of ravenous fowls .  She has tied a large white kitchen-apron round her waist ; with one hand she is holding it up , with the other she is scattering light wheat among a mixed multitude .  Baby Cochins , in primrose velvet ; hobbledehoy Cochins , au naturel , with not a stitch of clothes on their bare , indecent backs ; adult Cochins , muffled and smothered up to the chin in a wealth of cinnamon feathers , and with cinnamon stockings down to their heels ; Rouen ducks , and scraggy-necked turkeys .  She is doing her very best to administer justice to her commonwealth , to protect the weak , to prevent aggression and violence ; but like many another lawgiver she finds it rather up-hill work .  Strive as she may , the ducks get far the best of it .  They have no sense of shame , and can shovel up such a quantity at a time in their long yellow bills .  The turkey-cock , on the other hand , gets much the worst , by reason of the long red pendant to his nose , that gets in his way and hinders him .  They say that Nature never makes anything for ornament alone , divorced from use ; but I confess to being ignorant as to what function that long flabby dangler has to fulfil .  The stack-yard is all on the slant ; it slopes down with its many stack-frames , to the old rough grey barn that is stained all over-walls and roof and door — with the stormy tears of a score of winters .  There is no lack of voices all about the farm to-day : voice of Sarah chattering in the drying ground , where she is hanging Esther 'scotton gowns and Jack 'sshirts on the lines ; voice of Evan Evans , the carter , talking friendly to his heavy team in that deplorable tongue which , we trust , will soon be among the abuses of the past ; voice of Seryn ( Welsh for Star ) , from the pasture , lowing for her calf , which a day ago became veal , and a day hence ( Oh blessed short memory !  why cannot we take lessons from a cow ?  ) she will have forgotten utterly .  Presently comes another voice , clearer , stronger , nearer than the others — comes sailing up through the July air .  " Es — ther !  "  " Ye — es !  " responds Esther at the tip-top of her voice , and consequently not particularly harmonious .  It is only the lark that can talk at the top of his voice and yet not be shrill .  " Where are you ?  " ( Forte .  )  " In the stack-yard .  " ( Fortissimo ) .  Obedient to this direction , in about two minutes the owner of the voice , and of the excellent lungs which sent it out , makes his appearance in loose cool clothes and a smile — Jack , in fact , looking very ugly and pleasant and good-natured .  " Jack , dear boy , open the gate .  Quick !  Out of the way !  Do n't let him get under the stack-frame .  Shoo !  " cries Esther , in great excitement , rushing wildly about in her big apron , in pursuit of a large drake with a grasping soul , and a wonderful rainbow neck , who , with bill wide open and wings half extended , is waddling , flying , quacking away from Nemesis as hard as his splay feet and his full crop will let him .  Jack obeys .  " There is a person in the drawing-room wanting to speak to you , " he says , leaning his arms on the top of the gate , and looking rather malicious .  " What sort of a person ?  " Esther asks abstractedly , craning her long neck round the corner of the barn , to see whether the drake shows symptoms of returning .  " There he is again !  Shoo !  "  " What was the name of Esther 'shusband ?  the man that bullied his first wife so .  Oh !  I know ; his name , oh Queen Esther , is Ahasuerus , which , being interpreted , is Bob .  "  Esther 'sapron drops from her fingers and the wheat rolls down in a shower on to the broad backs of the Cochin householders .  Fiercely the war of chickens — the pushing , the fluttering , the pecking — rages about her feet .  " Already !  " she says : and in her voice there is none of love 'ssweet quiver , nor on her cheeks is there any sign of love 'spretty flag being hung out , neither the red nor the white one .  She only looks a little blank — a little troubled .  " Yes , already , " says Jack , mercilessly ; " and not only has he come himself , but he has brought all his household gods with him .  He has come with a great company of old women at his back .  I fancy they have brought a notary or a scrivener , or what do you call it ?  with them , and that there is to be a grand betrothal in form .  "  " Nonsense !  " says Esther , and she comes all over to the gate , and clasps two little petitioning hands on his shoulder .  " You will come with me , wo n't you , Jack ?  "  " Not I !  " says Jack , stoutly .  " I would not trust myself with those old maids , in their present excited state , if you were to give me my next half-year 'srent : they would be employing the notary in my case too before I knew where I was .  "  " Jack , is my hair pretty tidy ?  " stroking it down with the improvised brush and comb of her slim fingers .  " Extremely so : it looks as if the chickens had got into it , and been scratching there by mistake .  "  Meanwhile Master Brandon and his old women , to wit , his mother , Mrs. Brandon , and his sisters , the two Misses Brandon , are posed about the drawing-room , waiting .  Waiting is always a painful process , from the modified form of suffering involved in the ten minutes before dinner , when every man 'stongue is tied , and his wits congealed by the frost of expectant hunger ; upward to the Gehenna of a dentist 'santechamber .  Robert is all on wires this morning : he cannot sit still ; he keeps shuffling and twisting his long , awkward legs about , beating the devil 'stattoo on the floor with his nailed boots , and hammering an ugly little tune with a paper knife on an old Book of Beauty on the table .  " How you fidget , Bob !  " cries his sister Bessy .  Miss Elizabeth Brandon is ten years older and about ten feet shorter than her brother ; she is in process of souring , like cowslip wine that has been kept too long , or small beer in thunder .  She is not so very sour , after all , poor little virgin !  only ten years ago she was , and ten years hence she will be mellower than she is now .  " All right !  " says Bob , " I wo n't ; " and he stops , only to commence , two seconds later , a new noise , seven times worse than the first ; a very disagreeable sort of scraping with the hind legs of his chair .  Is not it one of Miss Yonge 'sgoody heroes , who , when he feels disposed to be impatient , sits down and strums away at the " Harmonious Blacksmith ?  " Bob could not get through a bar of that soothing melody this morning .  Mrs. Brandon is just beginning to say , " Do you think the servant could have told her ?  " when the door opens , and a little vision comes in with delicate hair ruffling about her sweet , shining eyes ; a little vision that ought to be walking on rosy clouds , Bob thinks , with cherubim and seraphim holding up her train , instead of on shabby oil-cloth and faded carpet , dragging her train behind her .  " I — I 'mvery sorry ; I 'mafraid I have kept you waiting : I did not " ( did not expect you so early is on the tip of her tongue , but she remembers just in time that it would be about the impolitest remark she could make .  Never , until the millennium , will the marriage of Truth and Civility be solemnized ) — " did not know you were here till Jack came and told me a moment ago , " she substitutes so adroitly that none of her auditors perceive the rivet that joins the two halves of her sentence together .  " I do n't know what your brother will say to us for taking his house by storm , but you must blame him , my dear , you must blame him ! " says Mrs. Brandon , nodding her head towards Bob , and looking as if there was something peculiarly humorous in the idea of Esther being in a condition to blame him for anything he could do or leave undone .  Mrs. Brandon is an old woman , with a smooth , holy face , and a villainous black poke bonnet : she kisses Esther , and the Misses Brandon likewise come forward and inflict a prim sisterly salute with their thin old-maid lips , on the velvet rose-leaf of her cheek .  They had never kissed her before , and she felt as if the manacles were being fastened round her wrists , and the gyves about her ankles .  She longs to cry out and say , " What are you all about ?  you are quite mistaken , every one of you ; Mrs. Brandon , I am not your daughter ; Miss Bessy , I am not your sister ; I do n't want to be : take back those kisses of yours , if you please , if they mean that !  " Had she been alone with Robert , she would probably have said this ; have said it without much difficulty , but now the words seemed infinitely , impossibly hard to frame .  There is upon her the shyness of a young woman with an old one ; the shyness of one against three .  She feels , too , that it seems ungracious , churlish , when they are so glad to take her in to themselves , to adopt her as their own , not to be very glad too .  When a person says to one , if not in words , yet with looks and gestures , " Our people shall be thy people , and our God thy God , " it is not easy for a plastic , gracious nature to say " No , they shall not !  " however little they may relish the arrangement .  So , in her muteness , Esther accepts the Brandon God and people as hers .  Wordless and demure , she sits down on a little low seat as far removed as may be from Robert .  Esther will , no doubt , be an ugly old woman ; she makes rather an ugly photograph ; but who can deny that she is a delicious bit of colour as she sits there right in the eye of the morning sun , and not at all afraid of his strict scrutiny ?  So many women , now-a-days , are neutral-tinted , drabbish , greyish , as if the colours that God painted with were not fast , but faded , like Reynolds '.  Esther 'scolouring is as distinct , as decided , as clean and clear as that on a flower 'spetal or a butterfly 'swing .  Nobody speaks , except the clock with the short-waisted Minerva on it , and it does not say anything particularly original .  Then the old woman bends towards the young one , and says in a kind , low voice , " You see Robert has told us his news , my dear .  " There is flowing in through the French window a broad river of yellow light from the great fountain in the sky ; it is deluging Mrs. Brandon 'sbonnet and Esther 'shair .  The bonnet is black , and the hair is black ; but there are blacks and blacks .  The May grass is green , and a beer bottle is green ; but the resemblance between the two is not striking .  Esther has not the remotest idea what answer to make ; so she chooses one of the shortest words she knows of , and says " Yes !  " half-assentingly , half-interrogatively .  " And we could not rest till we came and told you what good news we thought it , " pursues the old lady , encouragingly .  Esther says nothing .  Her eyelids feel glued down to her cheeks ; she is conscious , with inward rage and vexation , of looking blushing , bashful , everything that a young betrothed should look .  " I 'man old woman , " concludes Mrs. Brandon , rather moved by her own eloquence , " and I cannot expect a great many more years of life .  You know what the Psalmist sweetly says , love ; but I trust I may be spared to see God bless both my children , and make them His happy servants for this world and the next .  "  As she speaks she lays one hand on Esther 'shead .  Bob is happily too far off , or she would lay the other on his , while the two little virgin clerks from the sofa cry " Amen !  " in a breath .  Esther is half-frightened .  What with the serious words , with the three women 'ssolemn faces , she half feels as if she were being married on the spot ; her thoughts fly to Jack and the notary ; after that " Amen !  " she is not quite sure that her name is not Esther Brandon She shrinks away a little , but not at all rudely .  " You are very kind , " she says , in her gentle voice , " and it was so good of you coming all through the wood — such a long walk for you , too ; but I think — I 'mafraid that there is some mistake about — this — about me ; there is nothing settled — nothing at all , I assure you .  I told your son so yesterday quite plainly , only I 'mafraid he did not understand me , " she concludes , looking rather reproachfully over at him .  " I did understand you , " protests poor Bob , eagerly , jumping up , upsetting his chair , and never thinking of picking it up again , " I did , indeed .  I told mother your very words , only she would have it that they meant — what we all wished they should mean , " he ends , looking very downcast and snubbed and disconsolate .  There is another pause , then Mrs. Brandon rises and puts out her hand to Esther — in farewell this time .  " I 'mafraid I 'vebeen in too great a hurry , my dear , " she says , trying not to speak stiffly , and not succeeding quite so well as she deserved .  " But you 'llforgive me , I 'msure ; you see , mothers are apt to be partial people , and I could not imagine any one trying to love my boy , and not succeeding .  "  But Miss Craven can never let well alone .  She would marry Old Nick himself sooner than that his mother or sister should look askance at her , or seem hurt and grieved with her for expressing any want of relish for him , hoofs and tail and horns and all .  " Oh no , you must not go !  " she cries , in her quick , eager way , putting up two anxious hands in deprecation ; " you must not be vexed with me ; I did not mean to be disagreable .  I shall like very much to belong to you , I 'msure .  I was only afraid of your expecting more from me than I had to give yet , " she ends , with head drooped a little , and cheeks reddened like a peach 'sthat the sun has been kissing all the afternoon .  The stiffness goes away : nobody can be stiff for long with Esther Craven , any more than a snow-ball can remain a snow-ball under the fire 'swarm gaze .  " We do n't want you to belong to us if you do n't wish it yourself , " the old woman says , very gravely , yet not ill-naturedly .  " I hardly know what I wish , " answers the girl , naïvely , in a sort of bewilderment .  Then they go , and Robert walks off with his old mother on his arm .  He would walk down Pall Mall with her in that identical poke bonnet , and the two little dowdy vestals pottering behind in the most perfect unconsciousness and simplicity , even if he were to know that his brother officers , to a man , were looking out at him from the " Rag " windows .  " Oh , my cheeks !  my cheeks !  will they ever get cool again !  " cries Esther , flinging herself down on the oak bench in the porch , and laying her face against the cold ivy leaves .  " You look rather as if you had been poking your countenance between the bars of the kitchen grate , " responds Jack , with all a brother 'scandour .  Jack has been dodging behind the laurel bushes , after the fashion in which the English gentleman is fond of receiving his friends when they come to call on him .  " Why did not you come to my rescue , you unnatural brother ?  What chance had I , single-handed , against those three Gorgons ?  Pah !  it makes my head ache to think of mamma 'scoiffure .  "  " When a person gets into a scrape themselves , I make it a rule to let them get out of it themselves , as it makes them more careful for the future , " replies Jack , with philosophy .  " But I 'mnot getting out of it ; I 'mfloundering deeper and deeper and deeper in , like a man in an Irish bog , " says Esther , ruefully .  " Oh , Jack !  " she concludes , laughing , yet vexed ( laughter is as often the exponent of annoyance as of enjoyment , I think ) , " if you could have heard the stories I was forced to tell , I 'msure I deserve to be wound up , carried out , and buried , as much as ever Ananias did .  "  CHAPTER V.  THIS world is divided into poor and rich ; into those who do things for themselves , and those who get other people to do them for them .  The Cravens belong to the former class .  On the afternoon of the day mentioned in my last chapter , Miss Craven is doing for herself what she had much rather that some one else should do for her .  She is sitting at her sewing-machine , with a pile of huckaback cut up into towel-lengths beside her .  As long as civilization remains at its present ridiculous pitch of elevation , people must have towels , and there is a prejudice in favour of hemmed versus ravelled edges .  In the kitchen garden the maid-servants are all busy , picking currants and raspberries for preserving .  Owen , the gardening man , is helping them ; they are combining business with pleasure ; fruit-picking with persiflage .  How loudly and shrilly they laugh !  and yet loud , shrill laughter expresses mirth and cause for mirth , as well as low and silvery .  Esther , grave and alone , catches herself wondering what the joke was that caused such general merriment two minutes ago .  Probably , did she know it , she would not laugh at it , would see no point in it , perhaps , but she would be glad to hear it .  The huckaback is thick and heavy ; bending down one 'shead over one 'swork sends all the blood in one 'sbody into it .  Phew !  How hot !  How much pleasanter to be out of doors , tweaking off dead rose heads , watching the great red poppie straightening out their folded creases , pulling the green nightcaps off the escholtzia buds !  A shadow darkens the French window , causing Miss Craven to give one of those starts that make one feel as if one literally jumped out of one 'sskin , and fill one with ungodly wrath against the occasion of them .  " I rang several times , " says Robert Brandon , apologetically , " but nobody came .  "  " Oh !  it 'syou , is it ?  " she says , with a tone not exactly of rapture in her voice ; " our servants always manage to be out of the way on the rare occasions when any one calls .  They are all in the garden , picking currants ; one would have been plenty , but they prefer working , like convicts or navvies , in gangs .  "  " I came to see whether you were inclined to take a walk ?  " he says , hesitatingly , for her manner is not encouraging .  " Too hot !  " she answers , lazily , leaning her head on the back of her chair , and closing her eyes , as if his presence disposed her to sleep .  " Not in the wood ?  " he rejoins , eagerly .  " Under our oaks it is as cool and almost as dark as night , and there there is always a breeze from the brook .  "  " I am busy !  " she says , pettishly , annoyed at his persistence , and taking in with a dissatisfied eye his tout ensemble — yellow beard , frayed coat-sleeves , vigorous rustic comeliness .  He does not pursue the subject further , but stands leaning wistfully and uncertain against the window .  " Jack is not at home , I 'mafraid , " she says , stiffly , by-and-by .  " I did not come to see Jack , " he answers , bluntly .  She does not invite him to come in , but he , crossing the threshold diffidently , takes a seat near , but not aggressively near , her .  " Do n't let me interrupt you !  " he says , deprecatingly .  She takes him at his word , and continues her homely occupation .  Up and down , up and down her foot goes , keeping the wheel in motion ; prick , prick , prick , the needle travels with its quick , regular stabs .  If , as I have said , the process of bending over work on a July afternoon is heating , the consciousness that another person is watching every quiver of your eyelids , counting every breath you draw , and every displaced hair that straggles about brow or cheek , does not conduce to make it less so .  The magnetic influence that sooner or later compels the eyes of the looked at to seek those of the looker , obliges Esther , after awhile , to raise hers — reluctant and protesting — to Robert 's.  " I wish my mother could see you !  " he says , with a smile of placid happiness .  Mr. Brandon carries his mother metaphorically upon his back , almost as much as pious Æneas did the old Anchises literally .  Esther suspends her employment for a moment .  " I beg your pardon ; this machine makes such a noise that I did not catch what you said .  "  " I was only wishing that mother could see you now .  "  " It is a pleasure she enjoys pretty frequently .  Why now particularly ?  "  " She would see how thrifty and housewifely you can be .  "  " I am glad she does not , then , " answers the girl , drily , beginning to work again faster than ever , and flushing with annoyance ; " she would form a most erroneous estimate of me .  I dislike particularly to be found by people in one of my rare paroxysms of virtue ; they take it for my normal state , and judge and expect of me accordingly .  "  " I shall tell her that , at all events , my judgment of you was nearer the truth than hers , " says Robert , triumphantly .  Esther laughs awkwardly .  " I do n't know whether you are aware of it , but you are conveying to my mind the idea that your mother has been pronouncing a very unfavourable verdict upon me and my character .  "  " She thinks you are too pretty and lively , and — and — " ( frivolous had been the word employed by Mrs. Brandon , but Robert cannot find it in his heart to apply it to his idol ) — " too fond of society to care about being useful in tame , humdrum , everyday ways .  "  Esther gives her head a little impatient shake .  " Mrs. Brandon adheres to the golden axiom , so evidently composed by some one to whom beauty was sour grapes , that it is better to be good than pretty ; an axiom that assumes that the one is incompatible with the other .  "  So speaking she relapses into a chafed silence , and he into his vigilant dumb observation of her .  At the end of a quarter of an hour , as he still shows no signs of moving , finding the present position of affairs no longer tolerable , Miss Craven jumps up , flings down her heap of huckaback on the floor , and says abruptly , with a sort of forced resignation :  " I will come to the wood , if you wish ; it will be all the same a hundred years hence .  "  " I am perfectly happy as I am , " he answers with provoking good humour , looking up in blissful unconsciousness at her charming cross face , and the plain yet dainty fit of her trim cheap gown .  " But I am not , " she rejoins brusquely ; " indoors it is stifling to-day ; please introduce me as quickly as possible to that breeze you spoke of ; I have not been able to find a trace of one all day .  "  She fetches her hat and puts it on ; too indifferent as to her appearance in his eyes to take the trouble of casting even a passing glance at herself in the glass , to see whether it is put on straight or crooked .  The Glan-yr-Afon wood is a fickle , changeable place ; like a vain woman , it is always taking off one garment and putting on another .  Three months ago , when the April woods were piping to it , it had on a mist-blue cloak of hyacinths — what could be prettier ?  — but now it has laid it aside , and is all tricked out in gay grass , green , flecked here and there with rosy families of catch-fly and groups of pur- ple orchis spires .  Do you remember those words of the sweetest , wildest , fancifullest of all our singers ?  " And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss , That led through this garden along and across , — Some open at once to the sun and the breeze , Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees , — " Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells As fair as the fabulous asphodels , And flow'rets that , drooping as day drooped too , Fell into pavilions white , purple , and blue , To roof the glowworm from the evening dew . "  They describe Glan-yr-Afon wood much better than I can .  It is a great green cathedral , where choral service goes on all day long , and where the rook preaches impressive sermons from the swinging tree-tops .  " Had we not better walk arm in arm ?  " asks Esther , sardonically , as they march along in silence .  " I believe it is the correct thing on these occasions ; at least Gwen and her sweetheart always do on Sunday evenings .  "  He turns towards her ; an expression of surprised delight upspringing into his eyes .  " Do you mean really ? "  She is mollified , despite herself , by the simple joy beaming in his poor , good-looking face — face that would be more than good-looking if only some great grief would give it fuller expression ; if only a few months of late hours and mundane dissipations would wear off its look of exuberant bucolic healthiness .  " No , no ; I was only joking .  "  " Shall we sit here ?  " asks Brandon , presently , pointing to a rustic seat that stands under a great girthed oak , taller and thicker-foliaged than its neighbours .  " See !  did not I tell you true ?  Hardly a sunbeam pierces through these leaves , and the brawling of the brook comes up so pleasantly from below .  "  Esther looks , but the situation does not please her ; it is too secluded , too sentimental ; it looks like a seat on which Colin and Dowsabel might sit fluting and weaving " . . . . belts of straw and ivy buds , " and simpering at one another over the tops of their crooks .  " .  .  .  .  belts of straw and ivy buds , "  " I do n't fancy it , " she says , beginning to walk on ; " it looks earwiggy .  "  " Only the other day you said it was quite a lovers 'seat !  " he exclaims , in surprise .  " Exactly ; and for that very reason I prefer waiting till I am more qualified to sit upon it .  "  By-and-by Miss Craven finds a position that suits her better ; one nearer the edge of the wood , in full view of the Naullan road , along which market women , coal carts , stray limping tramps , go passing , and where loverly blandishments are out of the question .  The sun slides down between two birch stems that stand amid rock fragments , and riots at his will about her head , as she sits at the birch foot on a great grey stone , all flourished over with green mosses and little clinging plants .  Below , the baby river runs tinkling ; it is such a baby river that it has not strength to grapple with the boulders that lie in its bed ; it comes stealing round their hoary sides with a coaxing noise , in gentlest swirls and bubbled eddies .  The squirrels brought their nuts last autumn to Esther 'sstone to crack ; the shells are lying there still ; she is picking them up and dropping them again in idle play .  Little dancing lights are flashing down through the birch 'sfeathery-green locks , and playing Hide and Seek over Esther 'sgown and Robert 'srecumbent figure , as he lies in the repose of warmth , absolute idleness , absolute content at her feet .  An hour and a half , two hours to be spent in trying to like Robert !  Faugh !  She yawns .  " That is the seventh time you have yawned since we have been here , " remarks her lover , a little reproachfully .  " I dare say ; and if you wait five minutes longer , you will probably be able to tell me that it is the seventy-seventh time .  "  " You did not yawn while we were indoors .  "  " I had my work ; what is a woman without her work ?  A dismounted dragoon — a pump without water !  " She stretches out her arms lazily , to embrace the dry , warm air .  " Does every one find being courted as tedious a process as I do ?  " ( Aside .  ) Aloud : " Some one said to me the other day , that no woman could be happy who was not fond of work .  It is putting one 'sfelicity on rather a low level , but I believe it is true .  "  " In the same way as no man can be good-tempered who is not fond of smoking , " says Bob , starting a rival masculine proposition .  " I do n't know anything at all about men , " replies Esther , exhaustively .  " No woman in the world can have a more limited acquaintance with the masculine gender than I have .  "  " You are young yet , " says Brandon , consolingly .  " I was seventeen last May , if you call that young , " she answers , her thoughts recurring to " Heartsease , " the heroine of which is " Wooed and married and a ' " before her sixteenth birthday .  " Wooed and married and a ' "  " You are eight years younger than I am .  "  " Am I ?  " carelessly , as if such comparative statistics were profoundly uninteresting to her .  " Yes ; I am glad there is so much difference in age between us .  "  " Why ?  "  " Because you are the more likely to outlive me .  "  She passes by the little sentimentalism with silent contempt .  " I shall certainly outlive you , " she says confidently .  " Women mostly outlive men , even when they are of the same age .  We lead slower , safer lives .  If I spend all my life here , I shall probably creep on , like a tortoise , to a hundred .  "  " But you will not spend all your life here ?  " he cries , eagerly .  She shrugs her shoulders .  " Cela dépend .  I shall live here as long as Jack remains unmarried .  "  " That will not be very long , I prophesy , " cries Brandon , cheerfully .  " A farmer requires a wife more than most men .  "  " More than a soldier , certainly , " retorts she , with a malicious smile .  He laughs ; too warm and lazy and content to be offended , and makes ineffectual passes at a gnat that has settled upon his nose .  " Has he never yet shown even a preference for any one ?  " he asks , feeling a more personal interest than he had ever before experienced in Jack 'samours and amourettes .  " Not that I am aware of ; Jack and I never show preferences for any one , nor does any one ever show a preference for us ; we are a good deal too poor to be in any demand .  "  " I am glad of it .  "  " You may have the doubtful satisfaction of knowing that no one ever showed the slightest inclination to be your rival .  "  " So much the better ; I do n't want you any the less because nobody else wants you .  "  " Do n't you ?  ' A poor thing , but mine own , ' that is your motto , I suppose ?  "  A pause .  An old woman , with a myriad-wrinkled Welsh face rides by along the road on a drooping-headed donkey ; a large blue and orange handkerchief tied over her bonnet and a basket on each arm .  Esther watches her as she jogs along with a feeling of envy .  Fortunate , fortunate old woman !  she has no lover !  " I wish you would not look so happy , " Miss Craven says suddenly , flashing round an uneasy look out of her great black eyes at her companion .  " Why should not I ?  I am happy .  "  " But you have no right to be , no reason for being so , " she cries , emphatically .  " I have , at all events , as much reason as the birds have and they seem pretty jolly ; I am alive , and the sun is shining .  "  " You were alive , and the sun was shining , this time yesterday , " she says drily ; " but you were not so happy then as you are now .  "  At the decided damper to his hilarity so evidently intended in this speech , a slight cloud passes over the young man 'sface ; he looks down with a snubbed expression .  " I suppose I am over-sanguine about everything , " he says , humbly , " because I have always been such a lucky fellow ; my profession suits me down to the ground ; I have never had an ache or a pain in all my life , and I have the best woman in England for my mother .  "  A body free from disease , a commission in a marching regiment , a methodistical , exigeante old mother .  These would seem but a poor chétif list of subjects of thankfulness to Fortune 'scurled and perfumed darlings .  " Your acquaintance amongst old ladies must be extensive to justify you in that last statement , " says Esther , with a smile .  " The best woman I know , then .  "  " It is a pity that when you went , like Cœlebs , in search of a wife , you did not try to find some one more like her , " rejoins Esther , piqued and surprised , despite her utter indifference to his opinion of her , at finding that , notwithstanding the imbecile pitch of love for herself at which she believes him to have arrived , he can still set a dowdy , havering , brown old woman on a pedestal , above even that which she , with all the radiant red and white beauty of which she is so calmly aware , all the triumph of her seventeen sweet summers , occupies in his heart .  " You are young and she is old , " says Robert , encouragingly ; " I do n't see why you should not be like her when you are her age .  "  " I think not ; I hope not , " says Miss Craven , coolly , strangling her twenty-fifth yawn .  " Without meaning any insult to Mrs. Brandon , I should be sorry to think that , at any period of my life , I should be a mere reproduction of some one else .  "  Another long pause .  ( Have we been here an hour yet ?  ) The brown bees go humming , droning , lumbering about , velvet-coated : a high-shouldered grasshopper chirps shrilly : the dim air vibrates .  " Just listen to that cricket !  " says Esther , presently , for the sake of saying something .  " How noisy he is !  I read in a book the other day that if a man 'svoice were as strong in proportion to his size as a locust 's, he could be heard from here to St. Petersburg .  "  " Could he ?  " says Bob , absently , not much interested in his betrothed 'scurious little piece of entomological information ; " how unpleasant !  " Then dragging himself along the grass and the flowers still closer to her feet , he says , " Esther , mother hopes to see a great deal more of you now than she has done hitherto .  "  " Does she ?  she is very good , I am sure , " answers Esther , formally , with a feeling of compunction at her utter inability to echo the wish .  " She bid me tell you that she hopes you will come in as often as you can of an evening .  We are all sure to be at home then ; the girls read aloud by turns , and mother thought that — "  " That it might improve my mind , and that it needs improving , " interrupts Esther , smiling drily ; " so it does .  I quite agree with her ; but not even for that object could I leave Jack of an evening ; he is out all day long , and the evening is the only time when I have him to myself .  "  " You find plenty to say to him always , I suppose ?  " says Robert , with an involuntary sigh and slight stress upon the word him .  " Not a word , sometimes .  We sit opposite or beside each other in sociable silence .  "  " How fond you are of that fellow !  " says Robert , sighing again , and thinking , ruefully , what a long time it would be before any one would say to her , " How fond you are of Bob Brandon !  "  " He is the one thing upon earth that I could not do without !  " she answers shortly , turning away her head .  There are some people that we love so intensely that we can hardly speak even of our own love for them without tears .  " I should be afraid to say that of any one , " says Bob , bluntly , " for fear of being shown that I must do without them .  "  " What have I in all the world but him ?  " she cries , a passionate earnestness chasing the slow languor from her voice , all her soft face afire with eager tenderness ; " neither kith nor kin ; neither friends nor money .  I am as destitute , in fact , though not in seeming , as that girl that passed just now , shuffling her bare feet along in the dust , and with three boxes of matches — her whole stock-in-trade — in her dirty hand .  But for Jack , " she continues , in a lighter strain , " you might at the present moment be carrying half a pound of tea or four penn'orth of snuff as a present to me in the Naullan almshouses .  "  Robert looks attentive , and says " Hem , " which is a sort of " Selah " or " Higgaion , " and does not express much beyond inarticulate interest .  " I often think that he is too good for this world , " says the young girl , mournfully , picking an orchis leaf , and looking down absently on the capricious black splashes that freak its green surface .  Bob is a little embarrassed between his love of truth and his desire to coincide in opinion with his beloved .  Jack is not in the least like the little morbid boys and girls in his sister Bessy 'sbooks , who retire into corners in play-hours to read about hell-fire , to whom marbles and toffee and bull's-eyes are as dung , and who are inextricably entangled in his mind with the idea of " too good for this world .  " He evades the discussion of the alarming nature of young Craven 'sgoodness by a judicious silence .  " I am such an expense to him , " continues Esther , lugubriously , the corners of her mouth drooping like a child 'sabout to cry — " what with clothes , and food , and altogether .  Even though one does not eat very much every day , it comes to a great deal at the end of the year , does it not ?  "  " If you come to me , you would be no expense at all to him , " Robert answers , stroking his great , broad , yellow beard ( beard that will have to disappear before he rejoins his gallant corps in Bermuda ) , and looking very sentimental ; yet not that either , for sentimental implies the existence of a little feeling , and the affectation of a great deal more .  " He would have to provide me with a trousseau and a wedding-cake , even in that case .  "  " I would excuse him both .  "  " Would you ?  " she says , jestingly ; " I would n't ; it has always seemed to me that the best part of holy matrimony is the avalanche of new clothes that attends being wed .  "  " You shall have any amount of new clothes .  "  " I should be an expense to you , then , " she says , giving him a smile that is grateful and bright and cold , all in one , like a January morning .  Cold as her smile is , it is a smile , and he is encouraged by it to refer to a subject nearer his heart than Jack Craven 'sexcellences .  " If you cannot spare time to come to us of an evening , would you let me — might I — would you mind my joining you and Jack — now and then — for half an hour or so — if I should not be in the way ?  "  Her countenance falls , more visibly than she is herself perhaps aware of .  " Of course , " she answers , in a constrained voice , " if you wish ; we shall always be glad to see you , of course .  "  " I would not come often , " says the poor young man wistfully ; " once a week perhaps — so that we might get to know one another better ; mother says — "  " Do n't tell me any more of your mother 'sspeeches to-day , or we shall have none left for to-morrow , " interrupts Esther , with a sort of ironical playfulness , flapping about with her pocket-handkerchief at a squadron of young midges , and looking mild exasperation at the unlucky six-foot slave at her feet .  Then she stretches out her hand , plucks a dandelion , or what was a dandelion a week ago , but is now a sphere of delicatest , fragilest , downspikes , and blows it like a child to see what o'clock it is .  " One , two , three , four , five , six .  Time to go home !  " she says , flinging away the hollow stalk and springing up .  " It seems only five minutes since we came , " says Robert , with a great sigh of good-bye , looking down at the long stretch of bruised grass that indicates his late resting- place .  " Do you think so ?  " exclaims Esther , opening her eyes very wide , and the most violent negative could not have expressed dissent more clearly .  So they pass home through the loudly vocal wood , and he parts from her under the porch .  He had meant to squeeze her hand at parting ; perhaps still bolder forms of adieu flitted before his mind 'seye , but a certain expression in her face makes all such plans take to their heels .  He looks as if he would come in if he were asked ; but he is not asked , therefore , courage failing him , he departs .  She stands in the shadow watching him , and thinks , " What bad boots !  and is not one shoulder rather higher than the other !  " It is not the least bit higher ; no young fir is straighter than he ; but when a thing belongs , or may possibly belong , to oneself , one waxes marvellous critical .  CHAPTER VI .  " SOMETHING new !  something new !  " cried the Athenians ; and across two thousand years we catch up and echo their greedy cry .  But why do we ?  We all know well enough that there is nothing new ; there was not even in King Solomon 'stime — not even in all his treasure-house , nor among his seven hundred wives .  What an advantage those ancients who saw the world 'sinfancy had over us — over us , who have to content ourselves with the lees of the wine , which the few dropped ears scattered about the great reaped harvest field !  Who would not fain have lived in the days when nothing had yet been said — when everything , consequently , remained to be said ?  Who could be trite then , in that blest epoch when platitudes were unborn , when Tupper was an impossibility , and even the statement that two and two make four had something startlingly novel about it ?  Then a man 'sthoughts were his own , his very own , his own by the best of all rights — creation ; now they are the bastard product of ten thousand buried men 'sdead ideas .  Original is a pleasant word , is it not ?  — fair and well-sounding ; but it is like the sample figs at the top of the box : it represents nothing , or something infinitely smaller than itself behind and underneath it .  Is it too much to say that it is impossible to find an original idea in any writer we wot of ?  You meet , perhaps , some day in a book a thought , an image that strikes you .  You say , " This is this thinker 'sown ; there is the stamp of this one individual mind upon it ; " when lo !  mayhap but a few hours later you are reading the thoughts of some elder scribe , one that has been dust nigh ten or twenty centuries back , and you find the same thought , half fledged or quarter fledged , only in the egg , perhaps — but still it is there .  There is nothing new under the sun .  And if this is true of other subjects , how much truer of that most outworn , threadbare old theme , Love !  The world has been spinning round six thousand years at the lowest , most exploded computation ; in any thousand years there have been thirty or forty generations , and each unit in every one of those generations , if he has lived to man 'sestate , has surely loved after one fashion or another .  Whosoever has done any worthy thing , whosoever has sent out his thoughts in writing or speech or action to the world , has felt the stirrings of this strange instinct ; unconsciously it has moulded and permeated his deeds and his words : and yet , old as it is , we are not tired of it , any more than we are of the back-coming green of the spring , or the never-extinguished lamps of the stars .  " The harvest is past , the summer is ended ; " at least well nigh ended .  Jack and Esther are at breakfast : outside the scarlet geraniums are blazing away in the morning sun , trying their best to shine as brightly as he is doing , and the gnats are dancing round and round on the buoyant floor of their ball-room — the air .  I wonder that that incessant valsing does not make them giddy .  I am not sure that human beings , like the lions and tigers and uneasy black bears in the Zoological , look their best at feeding-time ; but such as they are , here they are .  Esther in a chintz gown , sown all over with little red carnations as thickly as the firmament with heavenly bodies .  She looks as fresh as a daisy — as an Englishwoman , to whom morning déshabille , wrapper , slippers , undressed hair , are unknown Gallic abominations — and is eating porridge with a spoon .  Jack reading his letters , which look all bills and circulars , after the fashion of men 'scorrespondence ; for what man made after the fashion of a man , would sit down to indite an epistle to another man , were it his alter ego unless he had something to say about a horse or a dog or a gun ?  Presently he finishes this cursory survey , crumples up the last blue envelope in his hand , flings it with manly untidiness into the summer-dressed grate , and says , resuming a conversation which had been interrupted a quarter of an hour ago by the entrance of prayers and the urn , " I cannot imagine what you have done to the fellow !  he used not to be half a bad fellow to talk to .  Never a genius , you know , but still I used to like to have him to walk over the farm with me — not that he knows a swede from a mangold : do n't see much sign of his old mother 'sfarming mantle falling upon him .  But now he has not a word to throw to a dog ; he is as stupid as a stuck pig .  "  " I have not cut out his tongue or tied it up in a bag , if that is what you are hinting at , " says Esther , with a smile as confused as a dog 's, when , not quite sure of his reception , he sneaks up to you sideways , lifting his upper lip , and from tail to muzzle one nervous wriggle .  " Perhaps he is like the birds , and gets silent towards the end of the summer .  "  " Why you keep him dangling after you , like the tail of a kite , I cannot conceive , " Mr. Craven cries , crumbling his bread with a little irritation .  " It must be such a nuisance having a great long thing like him knocking about under your feet morning , noon , and night .  "  Esther is silent ; only her head droops lower , lower , till her little nose almost immerses itself in her stirabout .  " Whereas , " pursues Jack , helping himself to a great deal of cold beef , " if you were to give him his congé now ( Jack is by no means neglectful of the g in the French word ) , he would be all right again in a fortnight , ready for the shooting .  "  " He would , would he ?  " says Esther , lifting up her nose and reddening with vexation .  No woman likes to think of her empire as anything short of eternal .  " If you do n't like to do it yourself , I 'lldo it for you , " pursues her brother , making a magnanimously handsome offer .  " I would say to him , ' My dear fellow , it is no good , she does not seem to care about you , ' as soon as look at him .  "  " What a delicate way of breaking the news !  " cries Esther , ironically .  " Commend me to a man for gentle finesse .  "  " I do n't believe in breaking news , " replies Jack , sturdily .  " If you were to go off in a fit , or the bay colt was to break his leg , or anything to go wrong , I 'dfar sooner people would tell me so without any humming and hawing and keeping me on the tenter hooks .  Breaking news is like half cutting your throat before you are hanged , making you die two deaths instead of one .  "  " But suppose I do seem to care a little about him ?  " suggests Esther , blushing furiously , but holding up her head bravely , and looking straight at her brother .  " Suppose the cow jumped over the moon , " replies Jack with incredulity .  " I do n't know whether the cow has accomplished her feat , but I have accomplished mine , " says Esther , trying to make her face as brass , and failing signally .  Jack puts up his hand , and strokes the future birthplace of his moustache , to hide an unavoidable smile .