“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,   Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
 
 
 
AUTUMN again! Three years only since the dull September day when we first saw Marion Vere in her father’s house in the London square. Three years ago, which have brought more than one change to her, which have more than once utterly altered the current of her life. The last change which has come over her might, to superficial observation, seem the most disastrous of all. Let us see if in truth it is so.
 
A dull, uninteresting suburban street. Secluded and “genteel.” Too much so for even the enlivening neighbourhood of shops to be permitted in that portion of it where our interest lies. Rows and rows of monotonous little dwellings, all of the regulation pattern—two rooms on one side of the strip of lobby, undeserving of the more important name of hall; kitchen at the end thereof, a flight of some twelve or fifteen steps leading to the half-way room above the kitchen, on again to the two or three rooms occupying the position, in town houses of importance, usually devoted to drawing-rooms.
 
Ah, how wearied one becomes of this same everlasting pattern of house! How sick to death the architects must be of planning it, the masons of building it, and, worst of all, the occupants of living in it! Only fortunately, or unfortunately, the dwellers in these same regulation abodes have seldom much leisure, even had they the inclination, for pondering on such matters. The poor dressmaker class, the struggling wives and overflowing offspring of scantily-salaried clerks in great mercantile houses, the landladies, legion by name, “who have seen better days,” and are only too thankful to see the dreadful “apartments” card out of their window—all these and the rest of the innumerable multitude constituting the lower half of our English middle-class, are not likely to complain of the shape and arrangements of their dwellings, provided they are sufficiently warm and weather tight, and not usuriously high in the matter of rent and its attendant privileges, rates.
 
Rents are not so tremendous in the neighbourhood of smoky Millington as in the suburban districts surrounding the great Babylon itself. Lodgings in consequence are, or were some years ago, correspondingly few and far between. For our middle-class John Bull, be he but possessed of the most modest of salaries, has a wonderful tendency to feather a nest of his own, to assemble his poor little household gods—from the six “real silver” teaspoons left to Mary Ann by her god-mother, to his own gaudy but somewhat faded Sunday-school prizes—in a retreat where they shall be sacred from the inquisitive eyes and prying hands of landladies; where he can smoke his pipe of an evening, and young Mrs. John nurse her babies undisturbed by fears of complaints from the first-floor of “that horrible smell of tobacco,” or “those incessantly screaming children.”
 
But even the luxury of the smallest of houses of their own was as yet beyond the means of Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin; and Geoffrey was fain to be content with three tiny rooms and a civil-spoken landlady, when, preceding his wife by a few days to their new home, it fell to his share to do what he could in the way of preparing for her reception.
 
For the smash at Mallingford had been a very thorough one. Nothing as yet had been retrieved from the ruins. Months hence some trifling dividend might be forthcoming; but as their share of this would be altogether insufficient to provide for their daily wants, Geoffrey had declined Veronica’s invitation to take up their abode with her till the exact amount should be known, and had manfully set his shoulder to the wheel by accepting the first chance of employment that came in his way.
 
It was not of a kind congenial to his tastes or education. A clerkship of a hundred a year in a Millington shipping-house does not sound paradisaical to most ears; least of all to those of a country-bred, country-loving man of thirty, whose nightmare from earliest youth had been anything in the shape of office or desk, book-keeping, or book-learning.
 
But, as said the old friend of his father’s to whom he was indebted for the introduction, it was better than losing time, and would do him no harm should some more desirable opening occur hereafter.
 
Had he been alone in the world when he thus for the first time in his life found himself face to face with poverty, Geoffrey Baldwin, there is no doubt, would have emigrated. He was just the man of which the right back-woodsman stuff is made, and the life would have suited him in every sense. But to his joy and his sorrow he was not alone in the world, and the being to whom every drop of his honest heart’s blood was devoted, shrank, with a not unusual or unnatural shrinking, from the unknown horrors of life in an Australian sheep-farm, or the pathless “far west” forests of Canada. Even Millington, smoky and crowded, with its vulgar rich and toil-begrimed poor, seemed to her imagination to offer a far less terrible prospect.
 
“For after all Geoffrey, it is still England, and sooner or later something else may turn up. In two or three years Harry may be coming home, and think how terrible it would be for him if we were away at the other side of the world,” said the poor girl.
 
So the subject of emigration was not again mooted, and the Millington offer accepted. Some ready money was realized by the sale of the Manor Farm furniture and Geoffrey’s horses, but not very much, for when chairs and tables that have looked very respectable in their own corners for forty or fifty years, are dragged, to the sound of an auctioneer’s hammer, into the relentless glare of day and bargain seekers’ eyes, they, to put it mildly, do not show to the best advantage. And as to horses, they are not famous for being high in the market when one appears therein in the position of a seller. It was, too, the end of the hunting season when the smash came, and Mr. Baldwin was not in the habit of allowing his steeds to eat their heads off, so the lot of them were not in the showy condition conducive to the fetching of long sums.
 
Squire Copley, who, during the last few melancholy weeks of the young couple’s stay in their own house, was suffering from a curiously spasmodic form of cold in the head, which attacked him most inopportunely on several occasions when he happened to “step over” to the Farm, and necessitated a distressingly lavish recourse to his pocket-handkerchief,—he by-the-by took a violent fancy to the now docile Coquette.
 
“Got her of course, under the circumstances, dirt cheap, Sir, dirt cheap, I assure you,” he told his neighbours, when the details of Baldwin’s sale were discussed “across the walnuts and the wine.”
 
The exact sum he was never known to mention, (nor did it ever reach Mr. Baldwin’s ears), for possibly every one might not have agreed with him in thinking two hundred and fifty pounds so very unparalleled a bargain. It went a good way to swelling the few hundreds of ready money with which in safe keeping against the possible coming of a still rainier day, Geoffrey Baldwin, after settling, down to the smallest, every out-standing claim upon him or his household, set out for the first time to do battle with the world, to win for himself and that other so infinitely dearer, the “daily bread” so carelessly demanded, so thanklessly received by those who have never known what it is to eat thereof “in the sweat of the face.”
 
But we have wandered too long from the little house in the suburban street.
 
In the small sitting-room looking out to the front sits Marion. The same Marion, only I almost think altered for the better. She looks stronger, and, to use a homely, but most expressive word, “heartier” than when we last saw her. Surely there is more light and brightness over the clear, pale features; and lurking in the depths of the grey eyes, one could almost fancy there was something of gladness if not of mirth. Or is it only the flickering, dancing light reflected on her face of the bright little fire which—for the evening was chilly—Mrs. Baldwin, after some house-wifely scruples on the score of economy, caused to be lit to greet her husband’s return?
 
We shall see.
 
She sits there in the fire-light, gazing into the red, glowing depths, but with the pleasant shadow of a smile on her face. She has been working hard enough to-day in various ways, to enjoy the half-hour’s holiday which she feels she has earned. A sensation worth trying for once in a way, oh ladies! with the soft, white hands, guiltless of aught but useless beauty, with the little feet to whom a few miles of tramp through muddy streets, over bard, unyielding pavement, is unknown. Or worse still, with brains unconscious of any object in their own existence beyond the solution of some millinery problem, or the recollection of the calls falling due on their visiting list. “Very hard work indeed!” I have been told more than once by those who should be qualified to judge. “And very poor pay!” I should certainly reply, though the hardness of the work may be a matter of opinion.
 
A ring at the bell, a step along the passage, a somewhat fagged looking face at the door, which Marion sprang up to open, with bright welcome on her own.
 
“I’m very muddy, Marion,” said the new-comer, “and rather tired too. I’d better run up at once and change my boots. I shall be awfully glad of a cup of tea.”
 
The voice evidently wished to be cheerful, but could not quite manage it. Poor Geoffrey! truly Millington ways and Millington smoke did not suit you.
 
But there was genuine, unforced gladness in the tones which replied to him.
 
“Be quick then! as quick as you can. I have just infused the tea, and I have lots of things to tell you. I have been so busy all day!”
 
And as the wearied man slowly ascended the narrow staircase, some murmured words, un-heard by his wife, escaped him. “My darling! my darling! For myself I would bear it all fifty times over to know your goodness as I do.”
 
A short toilette sufficed for the simple meal prepared for Mr. Baldwin in the little parlour which served him and his wife for drawing-room and dining-room in one, and in ten minutes’ time he rejoined her. The room looked wonderfully comfortable and home-like he owned to himself, and for the time being he determined to forget the worries and annoyances of the day, and respond as far as he could to the unfailing cheerfulness of his wife.
 
“Tell me what you have been about to-day, Marion,” he said. “You look even brighter than usual, which is saying a good deal. And that red ribbon round your neck and tying up your hair is very pretty,” he added, looking at her approvingly.
 
“I am glad you like it,” she replied laughing, “though in the first place it isn’t a ribbon, it’s velvet.”
 
“But there’s such a thing as velvet ribbon, isn’t there?” he asked gravely. “I’m sure I have heard of it.”
 
“Ribbon velvet you mean, you stupid Geoffrey,” she answered. “I am really afraid you’ll never do for Millington. You’re not the least of a shop-man.”
 
Geoffrey laughed.
 
“You had better take care what, you say, Marion. Imagine the horror of old Baxter if he heard you talking of his palatial warehouse as a shop!”
 
“But so it is, only a very big one,” persisted the incorrigible Mrs. Baldwin. “However you needn’t be afraid of my hurting the feelings of old Baxter, as you call him, or old anybody else. Not that he’s likely ever to hear me speak either of him or his shop. These Millington people are far too grand ever to take any notice of us.”
 
“I don’t know that,” said her husband. “That reminds me I’ve a piece of news for you too. But I want to hear yours first. Tell me what you’ve been doing all day.”
 
“This afternoon I have been busy at home like a good wife, darning your stockings, or socks, as Mrs. Appleby calls them. Really and truly, Geoffrey, I have darned four pair—that is to say three pair and a half, for in the eighth sock, to my unspeakable delight there was no hole. I poked m y hand all round inside it, but not one of my fingers came through. There weren’t even any thin places which wanted strengthening, if you know what that is? You have no idea of the excitement of looking for holes. It is almost more fascinating than pulling shirt-buttons to see if they are loose. I have to force myself to be dreadfully conscientious about it. Sometimes I feel so tempted only to give a very gentle tug, which couldn’t pull even a very loose one off. Millington must be a ruinous place for poor people. You have no notion how quickly you wear out your stockings.”
 
“No, I certainly haven’t, as my good fairy takes care I never find any holes in them,” he answered tenderly. “But never mind stockings,” he went on, “tell me what you did this morning.”
 
“This morning,” she replied, “oh, this morning I went a tremendously long walk.”
 
“By yourself?”
 
“No, with Mrs. Sharp. You know I told you that nice little Mrs. Sharp had called here last week. The wife of the curate at St. Matthias’s. Her husband was a pupil at the Temples’, Veronica’s father’s, years ago, and that seemed a sort of introduction. She is really very nice. She knew something about us—about the bank breaking, I mean, and why we came here. I told her the first time I saw her how anxious I was to do something to help you, and—and—don’t be angry, Geoffrey—she came to-day to tell me she had heard of two pupils for me.”
 
“Marion!” exclaimed her husband.
 
She crept down to the floor beside him and hid her face on his arm, as she went on.
 
“It seems so very nice, Geoffrey. Listen and don’t say anything till you hear all about it. Mrs. Sharp took me to see the lady—a Mrs. Allen—whose two little boys I am to teach. They are very little boys, the eldest only ten. They generally go to school, but scarlet fever broke out there a month ago, and they are not to return till Christmas. It is only till then I am to teach them, and it is only to be three mornings in the week. Just to keep them in the way of lessons a little, their mother said. She is rather nice, fat and good-humoured-looking—but guiltless of H’s. She was very kind and pleasant about ‘terms,’ as she called it. Five guineas a month, I think very good. Don’t you?”
 
But Geoffrey was incapable of replying in the same light cheerful tone. He stooped down and passed his arm round Marion’s waist, thus drawing her nearer to him. Then he said in a choked husky voice,
 
“Marion, my dearest, you are an angel,—but, but—I can’t stand it.”
 
“My being an angel?” she answered lightly. “Certainly you haven’t had much experience of me in such a character—but seriously, Geoffrey, do say I may do this. I really haven’t enough to do all the hours you are away. Darning stockings, even, palls on one after a few hours! And it will make me so happy to feel I am earning a little money. Dear Geoffrey, don’t say I mustn’t.” And with a pretty air of appeal she drew his face round, so that she could see the expression in his eyes.
 
“It is only till Christmas, you say?” he enquired, doubtfully.
 
“Only till Christmas,” she repeated.
 
“And the distance,” he objected. “You said it was a long walk. How are you to go there and back three times a week?”
 
“In fine weather, walk,” she replied, unhesitatingly. “I am a capital walker, and you see yourself I am not the least tired to-night. And on wet days you can put me in the omnibus as you go to business in the morning. It passes the corner of this street, and Mrs. Sharp says it is never crowded at the hours I should be coming and going.”
 
There was nothing for it but for Geoffrey to give in; as, indeed, from the first he had instinctively feared would be the case. Though the plan went sorely against his inclination, he yet had a half-defined idea that possibly it was really kinder and more unselfish to yield to his wife’s wishes—that the additional interest and occupation might be of actual benefit to her, and help her to get through the lonely, dreary Millington winter he so dreaded for her in anticipation.
 
“You said, too, you had something to tell me, didn’t you, Geoffrey?” asked Marion, after a short silence, and with perhaps something of the womanly instinct of changing the conversation before the scarcely attained concession could be withdrawn.
 
“Did I?” he answered, absently. “Oh yes, I remember. It was when we were talking of the Baxters, and you said they were far too grand to notice us. Mr. Baxter told me to-day that his wife ‘hoped shortly to have the pleasure of calling on you.’ What do you think of that?”
 
“I am rather vexed,” she replied, speaking slowly and deliberately. “We have been very happy here by ourselves without anybody noticing us, and I would rather go on the same way. I am not silly or prejudiced, Geoffrey. I like nice people, whoever they are, but I cannot help shrinking a l............