IT had need to be a mind which has reached the last stage of human sentiment which can altogether resist the influence of a lovely summer morning, all made of warmth, and light, and softened¹ sounds, and far-off odours. Mrs. Ochterlony had not reached this last stage; she was still young, and she was only at the beginning of her loneliness, and her heart had not sickened at life, as hearts do sometimes which have made a great many repeated efforts to live, and have to give in again and again. When she saw the sunshine lying in a supreme² peacefulness upon those grey hills, and all the pale sky and blue depths of air beaming softly with that daylight which comes from God, her courage came back to her in spite of herself. She began the morning by the shedding of those silent tears which are all the apology one can make to one’s dead, for having the heart to begin another day without them; and when that moment was over, and the children had lifted all their daylight faces in a flutter of curiosity and excitement about this new “home” they had come to, after so long talking of it and looking forward to it, things did not seem so dark to Mary as on the previous evening. For one thing, the sun was warm and shone in at her windows, which made a great difference; and with her children’s voices in her ears, and their faces fresh in the morning light, what woman could be altogether without courage? “So long as they are well,” she said to herself—and went down stairs a little consoled, to pour out Mr. Ochterlony’s coffee for him, thanking heaven in her heart that her boys were to have a meal which had nothing calm nor classical about it, in the old nursery where their father had once eaten his breakfasts, and which had been hurriedly prepared for them. “The little dears must go down after dinner; but master, ma’am—well, he’s an old bachelor, you know,” said Mrs. Gilsland, while explaining this arrangement. “Oh, thank you; I hope you will help me to keep them from disturbing him,” Mary had said; and thus it was with a lighter³ heart that she went down stairs.
 
Mr. Ochterlony came down too at the same time in an amiable⁴ frame of mind. Notwithstanding that he had to put himself into a morning coat, and abjured⁶ his dressing-gown, which was somewhat of a trial for a man of fixed⁷ habits, nothing could exceed the graciousness of his looks. A certain horrible notion common to his class, that children scream all night long, and hold an entire household liable to be called up at any moment, had taken possession of his mind. But his tired little guests had been swallowed up in the silence of the house, and had neither screamed, nor shouted, nor done anything to disturb its habitual⁸ quiet; and the wonderful satisfaction of having done his duty, and not having suffered for it, had entered Mr. Ochterlony’s mind. It is in such circumstances that the sweet sense of well-doing, which is generally supposed the best reward of virtue⁹, settles upon a good man’s spirits. The Squire¹⁰ might be premature¹¹ in his self-congratulations, but then his sense of relief was exquisite¹². If nothing worse was to come of it than the presence of a fair woman, whose figure was always in drawing, and who never put herself into an awkward attitude—whose voice was soft, and her movements tranquil¹³, Mr. Ochterlony felt that self-sacrifice after all was practicable. The boys could be sent to school as all boys were, and at intervals¹⁴ might be endured when there was nothing else for it. Thus he came down in a benign¹⁵ condition, willing to be pleased. As for Mary, the first thing that disturbed her calm, was the fact that she was herself of no use at her brother-in-law’s breakfast-table. He made his coffee himself, and then he went into general conversation in the kindest way, to put her at her ease.
 
“That is the Farnese Hercules,” he said; “I saw it caught your eye last night. It is from a cast I had made for the purpose, and is considered very perfect; and that you know is the new Pallas, the Pallas that was found in the Sestina Villa¹⁶; you recollect¹⁷, perhaps?”
 
“I am afraid not,” said Mary, faltering¹⁸; and she looked at them, poor soul, with wistful eyes, and tried to feel a little interest. “I have been so long out of the way of everything——”
 
“To be sure,” said the Squire, encouragingly, “and my poor brother Hugh, I remember, knew very little about it. He went early to India, and had few advantages, poor fellow.” All this Mr. Ochterlony said while he was concocting¹⁹ his coffee; and Mary had nothing to do but to sit and listen to him with her face fully²⁰ open to his inspection²¹ if he liked, and no kindly²² urn²³ before her to hide the sudden rush of tears and indignation. A man who spent his life having casts made, and collecting what Mary in her heart with secret rage called “pretty things!”—that he should make a complacent²⁴ contrast between himself and his brother! The suggestion filled Mrs. Ochterlony with a certain speechless fury which was born of her grief.
 
“He knew well how to do his duty,” she said, as soon as she could speak; and she would not let her tears fall, but opened her burning eyes wide, and absorbed them somehow out of pride for Hugh.
 
“Poor fellow!” said his brother, daintily pouring out the fragrant²⁵ coffee. “I don’t know if he ever could have had much appreciation²⁶ of Art; but I am sure he made a good soldier, as you say. I was very much moved and shocked when I heard—but do not let us talk of such painful subjects; another time, perhaps——”
 
And Mary sat still with her heart beating, and said no more—thinking through all the gentle flow of conversation that followed of the inconceivable conceit²⁷ that could for a moment class Francis Ochterlony’s dilettante²⁸ life with that of her dead Hugh, who had played a man’s part in the world, and had the heart to die for his duty’s sake. And this useless Squire could speak of the few advantages he had! It was unreasonable²⁹, for, to tell the truth, the Squire was much more accomplished³⁰, much better instructed than the Major. The Numismatic Society and the Society of Antiquaries, and even, on certain subjects, the British Association, would have listened to Francis Ochterlony as if he had been a messenger from heaven. Whereas Hugh the soldier would never have got a hearing nor dared to open his lips in any learned presence. But then that did not matter to his wife, who, notwithstanding her many high qualities, was not a perfectly³¹ reasonable woman. Those “few advantages” stood terribly in Mary’s way for that first morning. They irritated her far more than Mr. Ochterlony could have had the least conception or understanding of. If anybody had given him a glass to look into her heart with, the Squire would have been utterly³² confounded by what he saw there. What had he done? And indeed he had done nothing that anybody (in his senses) could have found fault with; he had but turned Mary’s thoughts once more with a violent longing³³ to the roadside cottage, where at least, if she and her children were but safely housed, her soldier’s memory would be shrined, and his sword hung up upon the homely³⁴ wall, and his name turned into a holy thing. Whereas he was only a younger brother who had gone away to India, and had few advantages, in the Earlston way of thinking. This was the uppermost thought in Mrs. Ochterlony’s mind as her brother-in-law exhibited all his collections to her. The drawing-room, which she had but imperfectly seen in her weariness and preoccupation the previous night, was a perfect museum of things rich and rare. There were delicate marbles, tiny but priceless, standing⁵ out white and ethereal against the soft, carefully chosen, toned crimson³⁵ of the curtains; and bronzes that were worth half a year’s income of the lands of Earlston; and Etruscan vases and Pompeian relics³⁶; and hideous³⁷ dishes with lizards³⁸ on them, besides plaques³⁹ of dainty porcelain⁴⁰ with Raphael’s designs; the very chairs were fantastic with inlaying and gilding—curious articles, some of them worth their weight in gold; and if you but innocently looked at an old cup and saucer on a dainty table wondering what it did there, it turned out to be the ware⁴¹ of Henri II., and priceless. To see Mary going over all this with her attention preoccupied⁴² and wandering, and yet a wistful interest in her eyes, was a strange sight. All that she had in the world was her children, and the tiny little income of a soldier’s widow—and you may suppose perhaps that she was thinking what a help to her and the still more valuable little human souls she had to care for, would have been the money’s-worth of some of these fragile beauties. But that was not what was in Mrs. Ochterlony’s mind. What occupied her, on the contrary, was an indignant wonder within herself how a man who spent his existence upon such trifles (they looked trifles to her, from her point of view, and in this of course she was still unreasonable) could venture to look down with complacency upon the real life, so honestly lived and so bravely ended, of his brother Hugh—poor Hugh, as he ventured to call him. Mr. Ochterlony might die a dozen times over, and what would his marble Venus care, that he was so proud of? But it was Hugh who had died; and it was a kind of comfort to feel that he at least, though they said he had few advantages, had left one faithful woman behind him to keep his grave green for ever.
 
The morning passed, however, though it was a long morning; and Mary looked into all the cabinets of coins and precious engraved⁴³ gems⁴⁴, and rare things of all sorts, with a most divided attention and wandering mind—thinking where were the children? were they out-of-doors? were they in any trouble? for the unearthly quietness in the house seemed to her experienced mother’s ear to bode⁴⁵ harm of some kind—either illness or mischief⁴⁶, and most likely the last. As for Mr. Ochterlony, it never occurred to him that his sister-in-law, while he was showing her his collections, should not be as indifferent as he was to any vulgar outside influence. “We shall not be disturbed,” he said, with a calm reassuring⁴⁷ smile, when he saw her glance at the door; “Mrs. Gilsland knows better,” and he drew out another drawer of coins as he spoke⁴⁸. Poor Mary began to tremble, but the same sense of duty which made her husband stand to be shot at, kept her at her post. She went through with it like a martyr⁴⁹, without flinching⁵⁰, though longing, yearning⁵¹, dying to get free. If she were but in that cottage, looking after her little boys’ dinner, and hearing their voices as they played at the door—their servant and her own mistress, instead of the helpless slave of courtesy, and interest, and her position, looking at Francis Ochterlony’s curiosities! When she escaped at last, Mary found that indeed her fears had not been without foundation. There had been some small breakages, and some small quarrels in the nursery, where Hugh and Islay had been engaged in single combat, and where baby Wilfrid had joined in with impartial⁵² kicks and scratches, to the confusion of both combatants: all which alarming events the frightened ayah had been too weak-minded and helpless to prevent. And, by way of keeping them quiet, that bewildered woman had taken down a beautiful Indian canoe, which stood on a bracket in the corridor, and the boys, as was natural, with true scientific inquisitiveness⁵³ had made researches into its constitution, such as horrified⁵⁴ their mother. Mary was so cowardly as to put the boat together again with her own hands, and put it back on its bracket, and say nothing about it, with devout⁵⁵ hopes that nobody would find it out—which, to be sure, was a terrible example to set before children. She breathed freely for the first time when she got them out—out of Earlston—out of Earlston grounds—to the hill-side, where, though everything was grey, the turf had a certain greenness, and the sky a certain blueness, and the sun shone warm, and nameless little English wild flowers were to be found among the grass; nameless things, too insignificant⁵⁶ for anything but a botanist⁵⁷ to classify, and Mrs. Ochterlony was no botanist. She put down Wilfrid on the grass, and sat by him, and watched for a little the three joyful⁵⁸ unthinking creatures, harmonized without knowing it by their mother’s presence, rolling about in an unaccustomed ecstacy upon the English grass; and then Mary went back, without being quite aware of it, into the darker world of her own mind, and leant her head upon her hands and began to think.
 
She had a great deal to think about. She had come home obeying the first impulse, which suggested that a woman left alone in the world should put herself under the guidance and protection of “her friends:” and, in the first stupor⁵⁹ of grief, it was a kind of consolation⁶⁰ to think that she had still somebody belonging to her, and could put off those final arrangements for herself and by herself which one time or other must be made. When she decided⁶¹ upon this, Mary did not realize the idea of giving offence to Aunt Agatha by accepting Francis Ochterlony’s invitation, nor of finding herself at Earlston in the strange nondescript position—something less than a member of the family, something more than a visitor—which she at present occupied. Her brother-in-law was very kind, but he did not know what to do with her; and her brother-in-law’s household was very doubtful and uneasy, with a certain alarmed and suspicious sense that it might be a new and permanent mistress who had thus come in upon them—an idea which it was not to be expected that Mrs. Gilsland, who had been in authority so long, should take kindly to. And then it was hard for Mary to live in a house where her children were simply tolerated, and in constant danger of doing inestimable mischief. She sat upon the grey hill-side, and thought over it till her head ached. Oh, for that wayside cottage with the blazing fire! but Mrs. Ochterlony had no such refuge. She had come to Earlsto............