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MILES TREMENHERE.

"For such a love, O Rachel! years are few, and life is short!"--LOPEZ DE VEGA.

BY ANNETTE MARIE MAILLARD.

LONDON: G. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET. 1853.

M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON. WORKS--NEWTON.

TO ERASMUS WILSON, ESQ., F.R.S.

THIS BOOK

IS DEDICATED TO ONE--THE PATRON OF STRUGGLING TALENT, THE FRIEND OF THE POOR-- ONE, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS AN ESTEEMED HONOUR.

MILES TREMENHERE.

"That's aunt Sylvia," said the soliloquist quietly. "I will not answer, for if I do, I know she will want to go for a ramble somewhere, and we shall assuredly meet the lawyer."

The voice below continued its summons, but in the distance; the caller evidently was seeking through the garden.

"Minnie," cried a soft voice, evidently in the direction of the great hall clock, "are you up-stairs, dear?"

"My dear child, why did you not answer me?" asked a quiet-looking, elderly woman, entering her room. "I have been seeking you every where."

"Who is there with them at this early hour, dear?" As she spoke she released the girl's arms, and seated her beside herself on a couch, affectionately holding both her little white hands.

"How do you mean, child?"

"Oh! why--as--as--lovers. No, not lovers--suitors."

"Where's the distinction, Minnie?" asked her aunt, smiling.

"Well, the lawyer--what is your objection there?"

"Hush, Minnie, you must not judge hastily or harshly."

"I don't, dear aunt," and she loosed one gentle hand, and put her arm round the other's neck; "but I have noticed so many unamiable traits in his character--but aunt Sylvia thinks him perfection."

"I suppose I must not now speak of my proteg?--our young clergyman?"

Minnie looked embarrassed. "Dearest aunty," she said at last, "I don't want to marry; I'm very happy: why so earnestly seek for one to take me away from you all? Mr. Skaife is sincere, I believe, in saying, he likes me; I like him as an acquaintance, but I shouldn't like to marry him. He's very good, kind, and charitable, I daresay; but I think he wants that sacred fire which, in his sacred calling, makes the chilly approach, to cheer themselves by the glowing warmth."

"I declare, Minnie," she whistled forth in her shrilly tone, "you would provoke a saint; here have I been calling you at the top of my voice this hour, and you must have heard me! Really, Dorcas, it is too bad; you always encourage the child--you, too, must have heard me."

"I have only been here a few moments," placidly answered her sister.

"Then your conversation must have been most engrossing, for such deafness to have fallen upon you!" and she looked suspiciously from one to the other.

"Stop, Miss Dalzell," cried Skaife hastily; "we had better cross the path-field."

"'Tis longer round," she rejoined; "aunt Dorcas will be tired, and this is a favourite walk of mine," and she moved on.

"Aunty, will it be too far for you? No? then we will oblige our pastor."

Skaife looked delighted as he assisted Aunt Dorcas over the stile. Minnie was over like a sportive thistledown blown by roving breeze; scarcely had she stepped on the other side of the stile when a little girl followed her, passed, and stopped beside Mr. Skaife.

"Oh, if you please, good sir," she said, "my mother saw you passing at the end of the lane, and bade me run after you with this book; you left it at poor sick Mary Burns's," and the child tendered a book. Both Aunt Dorcas and Minnie stopped, Mr. Skaife was colouring and confused. "Thank you," he answered, hurriedly taking it; "that will do." He endeavoured to pass on.

"And if you please, sir," continued the child, "mother bid me say, that after you left Mary Burns at three this morning, she was so much comforted by your kind words and reading, that she slept for hours, and when she awoke promised mother never to try and kill herself again."

"What is this, dear?" asked Minnie, placing a hand on the child's shoulder.

"Nothing, never mind, Miss Dalzell," said he; "let us continue our walk."

"No," answered she; "I am curious, I wish to know. What was it, dear?"

"It was only my duty," he replied, now perfectly calm, and in a cold tone.

"Oh, Mr. Skaife!" cried Minnie, her eyes swimming, as she held out her ungloved hand and grasped his; "forgive me. I have been a wicked, wrong-judging girl. I said you did not possess the sacred fire necessary for your calling; forgive me, you are following an example in meekness, not arrogantly dictating one--forgive me!"

Skaife could scarcely speak as he pressed her hand.

"Now," she said almost gaily, to remove his embarrassment, "let me follow up this wholesome lesson to myself by an exercise of charity: we will go and see Mary Burns; come, dear aunt;" and once more she was at the other side of the stile, and half-way down the lane with the child, before they overtook her. Minnie and her aunt entered the humble bedroom of poverty, alone. Mr. Skaife left them at the door of the cottage to pay a visit in the neighbourhood. From a neighbour sitting there, to take care of the paralytic mother of Mary Burns, they learned that the unfortunate girl had been driven to attempt the dreadful act of the previous day, on account of the cruel desertion of one who had led her from the path of right; he led her into darkness, and left her there to fight her way through shadows to the end of a dreary maze, without a word to cheer, or a thread to guide her footsteps. There was no one to tell her of a far off light, which with much seeking and sorrow she assuredly would find. Nothing but despair around her, she flew to death, a sad thing to meet in our unrepented sin! It was to this poor wounded heart that Mr. Skaife brought life and balm. Though humbled and sorrowing, the girl was hopeful now; she did not, however, allude to the one whose desertion had maddened her. Aunt Dorcas forbore questioning her too closely, seeing her evident desire to withhold her seducer's name; and poor Minnie sat and wept. She had learned two lessons that day: not to judge too hastily from a calm exterior, as in the case of Mr. Skaife's warm heart, and that there are sorrows in this world leading often to suicide or madness, hybrids of opposite things--confidence and deceit. They quitted the cottage, promising to see the unhappy girl shortly, and as Minnie bade her cheer up and not despond, she leaned over the low pallet of misery, leaving a better gift in the sight of Heaven than the purse she hid beneath the pillow--a sister's tear over a fallen sister; for are we not all one large family? and of children, too, ever learning something new--Earth our school, Heaven our home--with glad faces to rejoice over our coming thither, when our weary lessons here shall be over! Mr. Skaife joined them outside, and, by mutual consent, none alluded to poor Mary Burns; but Minnie turned smilingly to the young curate, and spoke more kindly than she had ever done before, as he walked beside her, her aunt leaning upon his arm. However, they parted from him before arriving at Gatestone, and the aunt and niece entered the old hall together, to receive a double fire of indignant reproaches from Sylvia and Juvenal, though the latter was one who appeared ever more inclined to weep than scold; he became whining and lacrymose when injured in any way; he did not stand up boldly to fight his enemy; there was something decidedly currish in his disposition. "I do think," he began, "that I am hardly treated as master here; no one obeys or consults me; Dorcas goes out without saying where she's going, taking Minnie with her; and Sylvia blames me for supineness;--how can I help it?--and Marmaduke Burton blames me too, and threatens never to come again."

"I don't like Dalby," hazarded the wretched man in his thin voice; "he has a significant manner of talking which makes me quite uncomfortable; I always fancy some one is going to law with me, or that I shall be forced into an unavoidable lawsuit."

"Talking of that," said Dorcas, hoping to change the current a little, as all was more or less directed against herself and niece for their escapade, "does Mr. Burton say any thing more about his threatened suit with his cousin, Miles Tremenhere?"

"Dear me, no!" answered Sylvia; "Mr. Dalby says that affair is quite at an end; this illegitimate cousin has wisely left the country; they never hear even of him."

"I sincerely pity him," replied Dorcas; "it was a sad affair, and his father was much to blame, leaving him so long in ignorance of the truth; it was most painful."

"What's that, aunty?" asked Minnie.

"Well, dear! the manor-house belonged some eight years since to a Mr. Tremenhere, a cousin of the squire's, as they call him; this Tremenhere had an only son, a very fine, noble-hearted young man, beloved indeed by almost all, though very haughty to those he disliked. He attained his twenty-first year; the rejoicings were great at the manor-house; you were at school at the time; a month passed, and the father died; scarcely was he in his grave, when Marmaduke Burton arrived, a distant cousin of Miles's , and disputed the property with him. After a tedious and painful investigation and suit, as no proof could be produced of Mr. Tremenhere's marriage with Miles's mother, whom he was said to have married at Gibraltar, Miles lost the fortune, manor, all, and quitted the country."

"Poor Mr. Tremenhere!" said Minnie, much affected; "what a dreadful thing for him! and where is he, aunt?"

"No one knows, I believe, except it may be one or two persons, tenants of his father's, who have boldly opposed Mr. Burton in every way for his treachery, and upheld Miles Tremenhere."

"Oh, that was nobly done!" cried the girl enthusiastically.

"What do you mean by treachery?" exclaimed Juvenal and Sylvia in a breath; both joined together in one common cause against Dorcas, who indeed was only kin by name.

"Well, I call it treacherous, mean, and wicked," she answered decidedly, "his having been Miles's companion and playfellow from youth, and indeed in the house but a few weeks befng men friends: "If you must have your--er--Julius Caesar up where you can see him constantly"--a ripple of laughter went round the chapel and the sentence was not finished, but the photographs disappeared.

She practiced what she preached in matters of personal attire. Of slender, tall, imposing figure, always beautifully dressed,--black silk in the evening, lavender muslin or soft grey cashmere in the morning with dainty cap, the long streamers floating over the filmy shawl she was rarely seen without, her white hair curled, as was the fashion for elderly ladies of that time, and around her pale face,--she made a picture as if she had stepped out of some old portrait. Notman's photograph taken at the same time as others of the Faculty in the spring of '67 does not convey the etherialness, the delicate spirituality of her looks. She seemed in her pallor and invalidism extremely venerable to us, and as if she must be well along towards eighty, but she was only a little over fifty when she died.

It was pre-eminently a family in the old days, not a community as now. The distinction between Faculty and teachers was rather sharply drawn, but this was more than made up by the close personal relations between officers and students. The teachers were made to feel a part of the social life. They had a definite place in receiving and entertaining guests at all public functions, and could not stay away without their absence being noticed and for this called gently to account. It was not considered exactly as "getting permission," but no teacher went out of college for the night without signifying her intention both to Miss Lyman and Dr. Raymond. It would seem as if Miss Lyman alone was the person to receive all such requests, but she always answered cordially,--"Certainly, and will you speak to the President also?"

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