might seem ungrateful to her aunt. Nancy soon came to her assistance: "Mrs. Barnes has been and gone and done up the oak-room for the young master that is coming," she said. "Don't you think, Miss Hilda, it's much too big and dreary for a child? I should be frightened now to sleep there; I am sure I don't know why, for I never heard that it had a bad name, but it has such an unked look, like." "Well," said Hilda, "it does look unked, if that means gloomy, and the reverse of snug; but, Nancy, I do not think Master Rivers is quite a child-he must be a good big boy, I should say. Mrs. Dorothy did not mention his age, but he cannot be a child." "Oh, dear, Miss Hilda, and I fancied him racing up and down the house in his knickerbockers, and making ever such a mess with his dirty boots. I wasn't sure he wouldn't want to be tubbed on a Saturday night, and I thought I'd ask the mistress to let me do it, because I'm fond of children, and used to a nursery before I came to Endlestone. Though how the mistress would ever reconcile herself to all the racket and muddle and caddle that a boy always makes, I couldn't think." 66 "I dare say he will make noise enough, and perhaps he will not be over-tidy. But he may be very quiet and grave, for he has gone through some sad experiences, I know; and from what Aunt Dorothy has said of him, I should not be surprised to find him quite a manly youth, as old perhaps as Master Theodore." "Any way, if he is not little, he'll have to go to school. I shouldn't wonder if he was sent to York, to the school where Master Arnison was before he left for foreign parts, and then this will be his home in the holidays. "Very likely. Has Jacob had his orders for meeting the 5.30 train ? " 66 Yes, Miss Capel, he left more than an hour ago, for it's a long step to Crabb's End; I for one sha'n't be sorry when we have a station of our own, though some do say it will spoil the place. But I'm not so fond of so much quiet; I like to see a little life, and I sometimes think one might as well be buried as live at the Grey House. And Mrs. Barker is coming back too; and if we girls in the kitchen ever do get up a little fun, she is sure to spoil it. I wish she had stopped in America!" Hilda wisely made no reply; she had a similar feeling as regarded Barker, but it was not in the fitness of things to discuss one servant with another, and Barker's long and faithful service had made her a privileged person, in spite of her severe censorship and acrid temper. Hilda privately wondered how she and the Canadian boy would agree. Presently the chilly February day began to fade; the sun set in stormy clouds, the wind arose and howled mournfully through the empty house, and here and there snow-flakes wandered in the dusky air. It was a miserable day for a journey, and the travellers would have an uncomfortable time of it in crossing the great open moor that lay between the town of Endlestone and the railway station. As for Hilda herself, she felt dismal to the last degree, as she sat over the dining-room fire, listening to the wailing wind, and thinking, it must be confessed, not so much of those who were about to arrive, as of those who were leaving for London on the morrow. at "Bradenshope has spoiled me, I fear," she said to herself, as she looked round the room, so respectably furnished and so really comfortable, but so lacking in the colour and brightness that made the Bradenshope rooms so pleasant, even to a stranger; for Lady Braden was a woman who could always create a home about her, even out of the most unpromising materials. She disliked incongruities, and she saw at a glance how defective arrangements might be remedied. Every room Bradenshope, save perhaps two or three of the huge state apartments, seemed made to be lived in, and one could well believe that an atmosphere of peace and love and gentle courtesies always pervaded them. "I am rather vexed with myself," continued Hilda; "I thought I had been stronger and wiser. The stream of my life has flowed so placidly of late that the first eddies weary and dispirit me; I suppose I was too content to enjoy my green pastures and still waters, forgetting the storms that lay behind, and the clouds that must erewhile gather in the front. And now the clouds are here, and very threatening they look! Oh, Paul, poor misguided Paul! I am very sorry for you, and I would not for the world speak harshly of your errors; but how could you, with such loving parents, such a happy home, and born to so fair an inheritance, make such utter shipwreck of your life, and leave behind you so sad a legacy of consequences? -fatal consequences, perhaps; for who knows how all this mystery will end? I am so grieved for those two, who are all but father and mother to me; and it is a terrible blow to Christina, and I think to Agnes. I think—I hope -Walter will not feel it so much-not on his own account, I mean; as younger son he will have enough, for his tastes are not extravagant, and I have fancied more than once that he regretted his prospects as a rising barrister. We shall live in London, of course, and Bradenshope will be our sweet holiday home. Arnheim, I suppose, must be left for the little heir. Ah! I cannot help feeling that a personal loss; I do so love Arnheim, and it was to be my very own home, and Walter and I have made so many plans about it together." A few minutes longer, and carriage-wheels were heard; Jupiter and Juno came trotting up the avenue, their usual even pace quickened to something approaching a gallop at thoughts of their warm stable and the provender awaiting them; for the cold had increased since nightfall, and the snow was beginning to fall pretty thickly. "We shall have a white, white world before morning; a Canadian welcome for thee, William! Hilda heard Mrs. Dorothy saying, in the darkness, just outside the porch; for Jacob, counting on a week-old moon, had rashly dispensed with carriage-lamps. The next moment the mistress of the Grey House had crossed the threshold, and, beholding Hilda, took her into her arms in right motherly fashion, and kissed her, as she had never been kissed by Aunt Dorothy before. "I knew thou wouldst be here, my child," she exclaimed, as she shook the snow-flakes from her large fur cloak. "I stopped at the Blue House, of course, and Rose and Ralph would fain have kept us for an hour, but I said I was sure thou wouldst be waiting at home; and that saucy puss, Octa, betted-actually betted!-a new silver thimble that thou wouldst be still with the folk at Bradenshope. I'll make her buy me a brand new thimble at Croxton, to teach her not to make bets, the naughty child! And thou lookest very well, my dear; and it was very nice of thee to be here, to welcome the cross old woman! But where is William-thy new cousin, William Rivers ? for he must be thy cousin, naturally, since he is my grandson, and thou my grand-niece. Never mind the luggage, William, my people will attend to that; come thou into the house, and to the fire, and be introduced to thy cousin, Hilda Capel, about whom we have so often talked." "Yes, grannie! in one moment." And directly afterwards there was a great stamping of heavy boots, and punishing of mats in the outer hall, and then stepped forward a tall, handsome young man, full six feet high, and no stripling either. A young man with bright, curly hair, and a chestnut-brown beard, and laughing, sweet blue eyes, and a merry smile, and broad shoulders and stalwart limbs of his own. "As fine a young fellow of seven-and-twenty as ever I see!" was Mr. Barnes' private verdict, confidentially delivered to his better half; "and he not properly British born." And this was "Cousin William." CHAPTER XLIII. THE NEW EVANGELINE. "All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow! It was decided on all hands that Mrs. Dorothy was wonderfully improved by her travels; though as wise and sententious as ever, she was gentler and softer in her moods, and she had certainly less confidence in her own opinions, and in her old time-honoured methods and maxims. Hilda was astonished to find how fond William Rivers was of the old lady, and still more surprised to discover in how very little awe he stood of "Grannie." To think that Mrs. Dorothy should have lived to be called "Grannie dear!" and "Grannikins," and "Mother Bunch," and twenty other ridiculous names, by a brawny six-foot Canadian, whom Mrs. Barker persisted in stigmatising as "that Yankee!" Poor "Mrs. Verjuice" was not improved; " very much the other way," was the unanimous verdict of the kitchenassembly, when it sat in solemn conclave after supper, the Abigail having retired to nurse her influenza-cold. She was more cantankerous than ever, and she took airs upon herself in virtue of her wonderful experience. Thankful as she declared herself to be at once more setting foot in Old England-the only country in all the world fit for decent people to inhabit !-she nevertheless found terrible fault with everything and everybody that fell in her way, and on more than one occasion actually came to high words with the inestimable Barnes, when he inquired if she had learned to prefer squash-pie to plum pudding, and hominy-cake to bread-and-butter. Poor old soul! she was that odious thing, a spoiled domestic, and though proud, after a fashion, of her Transatlantic adventures, she had really suffered many things by land and by water, and had failed to obtain her mistress's sympathy; she had even been told that she was little better than an encumbrance, and that the journey would have been more pleasantly accomplished without her. The truth was that Mrs. Barker, having no fellowservants on whom to vent her temper, had treated her mistress to certain little tantrums, the which for ever deposed her from the high favour she had hitherto enjoyed. She had tried to be insolent, but no one ever tried that twice with Mrs. Dorothy; she had threatened to be very ill and die in a foreign land, and had been cheerfully assured that she should be decently interred in a certain well-known cemetery, and her effects impartially divided among her heirs-at-law, her next of kin, whom she cor |