Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that never had harmonized. He was , and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic.  
Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was clear, and he intended to discharge it . He anxiously desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match, give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her for ever.
 
The misfortune was, from , Shirley and he had disagreed on the meaning of the words "suitable" and "proper." She never yet had accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most important step of her life, she would consent to accept it.
 
The trial soon came.
 
Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.
 
"Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fine unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. It must be done!"
 
He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed her consent.
 
It was .
 
"No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."
 
"I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than of you."
 
She stood on the . She was pale as the white marble and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, , unsmiling.
 
"And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?"
 
411"He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections, equal respectability."
 
"Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no to love him."
 
"Please to state your objections."
 
"He has run a course of despicable, commonplace . Accept that as the first reason why I him."
 
"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"
 
"That conduct alone sinks him in a of immeasurable inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can : there is a second stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar."
 
"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is on your part."
 
"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!"
 
"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer ?"
 
"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."
 
"May I ask if you expect some man of title—some peer of the realm—to demand your hand?"
 
"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."
 
"Were there in the family, I should believe you mad. Your and touch the of ."
 
"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it."
 
"I anticipate no less. and impracticable girl! Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a mésalliance!"
 
"Our name! Am I called Sympson?"
 
"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be trifled with!"
 
"What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you ?"
 
"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembled alike.
 
"Why? What shadow of power have you over me? Why should I fear you?"
 
"Take care, madam!"
 
" care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved to esteem—to admire—to love."
 
412"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"
 
"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not."
 
"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"
 
"On a beggar it will never fall. is not estimable."
 
"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or—or——"
 
"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"
 
"Any literary scrub, or shabby, artist."
 
"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me. He cannot write a note without errors; he reads only a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"
 
"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted hands and eyes.
 
"Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."
 
"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more , that I might compel her to hear reason?"
 
"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you could not compel me to this step. I will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject."
 
Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar—or her fortune—had by this time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne's, all more or less . All were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she expected to , that she was so fastidious.
 
At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.
 
Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The aunt could not reconcile them; the413 daughters froze at the view of their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous if they chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was and his family tranquillized.
 
The village of Nunnely has been to—its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory—an older, a larger, a more lordly than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and what is more, it had its man of title—its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession—its proudest and most prized—had for years been only. The present baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate.
 
During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the place. He seemed . His manner was very unpretending—too simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not to their society; he seemed glad of it.
 
With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cement an acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt, and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because she found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power to amuse him.
 
One slight drawback there was—where is the friendship without it?—Sir Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry—, , . Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading and reciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, the inspiration more fire. At any rate, she always when he to the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert the conversation into another channel.
 
He would her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest of his ballads. He would lead her away to seats, whence the rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and ; and414 when he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them, and the shade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rose behind them, he would pull out his last of sonnets, and read them in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though they might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley's downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt by the single foible of this good and gentleman.
 
Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this worship of the . It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics. He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the church and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his tenantry about him in his ancestral halls.
 
Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter, and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory.
 
He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last. He said—when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood—that under no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oak beams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a , modest enough compared with his own, but he liked it.
 
Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile ; he must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the still waters. Tête-à-tête ramblings she , so he made parties for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter scenes—woods by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire.
 
Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle's prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future. He already scented the time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar to his "nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a mad girl," but a "most sensible woman."415 He termed her, in dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; , but very clever." He treated her with exceeding ; rose to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himself headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure . He would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personage not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any "midden-cock on pattens."
 
His niece viewed his manœuvres and received his with phlegm; she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended. When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had never thought a man of rank—the only son of a proud, fond mother, the only brother of sisters—could have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much sense.
 
Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence more and more, and at last with a frequency that it had become to him an indispensable . About this time strange feelings round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the among the still fields round the ; there was a sense of that kept the nerves strained.
 
One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne, that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar. There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a very , love of the arts; there was the English gentleman in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond her claims.
 
His appearance had at first some laughing though not ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features were plain and slight, his hair sandy,416 his . But she soon checked her on this point; she would even fire up if any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing ," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the proportions of Saul." A spare and rare she still reserved for his unfortunate ; but even here she would tolerate no save her own.
 
In short, matters had reached a point which seemed to warrant an observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.
 
"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."
 
"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was new to him.
 
"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for she liked him."
 
"As a neighbour?"
 
"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."
 
"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer to to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous—contemptible?"
 
"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival—a puling slip of aristocracy—I am quite agreeable. At his age, in his place, with his inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor duke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without a struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like speaking to a parson to consult with you."
 
Flattered and upon as Shirley was just now, it417 appeared she was not absolutely spoiled—that her better nature did not quite leave her. Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion of the absentee; but that she had not quite forgotten him—that she still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest—seemed proved by the increased attention which at this of affairs a sudden attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to whom she bore herself with strange alternations of cool reserve and respect—now past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress and Lady Nunnely, and anon him as school-girls are to their stern professors; her neck of ivory and curling her lip of , if he encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave of his eye with as much as if he had the power to penalties in case of contumacy.
 
Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate he sickened, and after opposing to the a taciturn resistance for a day or two, was obliged to keep his .
 
He lay tossing on his bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap—too light to be that of Mrs. Gill or the housemaid—summoned young Sympson to the door.
 
"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery.
 
"Come in and see him yourself."
 
"Is he asleep?"
 
"I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."
 
"He would not like it."
 
But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.
 
The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet it revealed her in elegant . There was a party assembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room, and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold circling her throat and quivering on her breast,418 strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her was chastened and . She gently.
 
"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"
 
"I have not been very ill, and am now better."
 
"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes; can you taste one?"
 
"No; but I thank you for remembering me."
 
"Just one."
 
From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand she severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face.
 
"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit; yet I see that your lips are . What do you prefer?"
 
"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best."
 
Silence fell for some minutes.
 
"Do you suffer?—have you pain?"
 
"Very little."
 
"What made you ill?"
 
Silence.
 
"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?"
 
", perhaps—malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers."
 
"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; is not wise."
 
"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is infectious. I scarcely fear"—with a sort of smile—"you will take it; but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."
 
"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you before I depart—any little service——"
 
"They will miss you below."
 
"No; the gentlemen are still at table."
 
"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I hear him just now pass from the dining-room to the drawing-room."
 
"It is a servant."
 
"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."
 
"Your hearing is acute."
 
"It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at419 present. Sir Philip was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which he had brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven o'clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star."
 
"You must be sensitive."
 
"I heard him kiss your hand."
 
"Impossible!"
 
"No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door; the sash was a little raised, for I felt . You stood ten minutes with him on the steps. I heard your , every word, and I heard the .—Henry, give me some water."
 
"Let me give it him."
 
But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined her attendance.
 
"And can I do nothing?"
 
"Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it is all I at present want."
 
"You do not sleep well?"
 
"Sleep has left me."
 
"Yet you said you were not very ill?"
 
"I am often when in high health."
 
"If I had power, I would lap you in the most slumber—quite deep and hushed, without a dream."
 
"Blank annihilation! I do not ask that."
 
"With dreams of all you most desire."
 
" ! The sleep would be , the waking death."
 
"Your wishes are not so ; you are no visionary."
 
"Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps, quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be."
 
"That is possible. But this sleep—I should like to woo it to your pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down and read some pages? I can well spare half an hour."
 
"Thank you, but I will not detain you."
 
"I would read softly."
 
"It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft, cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me."
 
"Well, I will go."
 
"And no good-night?"
 
"Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.)
 
"Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some ."
 
"Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night."
 
"Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go."
 
"Give me your , sir."
 
"God bless you, my best pupil!"
 
"You never call me your dearest pupil!"
 
"No, nor ever shall."
 
Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's of her courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as her light step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did not again pause at his door; nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb a second time the of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased to be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly triumphed over his indisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties as tutor.
 
That " lang " had still its authority both with preceptor and scholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes passed the distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her high reserve with a firm, quiet hand.
 
One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a from their society, had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business—a little letter-writing—was soon dispatched after the yard gates had closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden.
 
It was a peaceful autumn day. The of the Indian summer the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not , the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow, through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted its woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its time of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling421 of apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.
 
These single flowers—the last of their race—Shirley as she wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into her girdle a and nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to he............