"So long as you don't!—" he said, eagerly, yet below his breath; and just at this moment Mrs. Damerel put forth her hand and took her daughter by the arm.

"We have had a long walk, and I am tired," she said. "We have been to Whitton to see a new picture, and Mr. Incledon has so many beautiful things. Come, Rose. Mr. Wodehouse, I hope we shall see you before you go away."

"Oh, yes, I hope so," the young sailor faltered, feeling himself suddenly cast down from heaven to earth. He said nothing to her about that evening; but I suppose Mrs. Damerel's ears were quick enough to hear the important appointment that had been made.

"My dear Rose, girls do not give invitations to young men, nor make appointments with them, generally, in that way."

"I, mamma?"

"Don't be frightened. I am not blaming you. It was merely an accident; but, my dear, it was not the right kind of thing to do."

"Must I not speak to Mr. Wodehouse?" she asked, half tremblingly, half (as she meant it) satirically. But poor Rose's little effusion of (what she intended for) gall took no effect whatever. Mrs. Damerel did not perceive that any satire was meant.

“Oh, you may speak to him! You may bid him good-bye, certainly; but I-your papa-in short, we have heard something of Mr. Wodehouse which we do not quite like. I do not wish for any more intimacy with them, especially just now."

"Do you mean you have heard some harm of him?" said Rose, opening her eyes with a sudden start.

"Well, perhaps not any harm: I cannot quite tell what it was; but something which made your papa decide-in short, I don't want to take too much notice of the Wodehouses as a family. They do not suit

your papa."

Rose walked on with her mother to the Rectory gate, silent, with her heart swelling full. She did not believe that her father had anything to do with it. It was not he was to blame, whatever Mrs. Damerel might say.

CHAPTER VI.

NATURE took sides against Love on that evening, and made Mrs. Damerel's warning unnecessary, and all the anticipations of the young persons of no avail. Instead of the evening stroll about the darkling garden which Wodehouse at least had proposed to himself, the party were shut up in the drawing-room by the sudden outbreak of that expected thunderstorm on which Mrs. Wodehouse and Mrs. Damerel had discussed so earnestly. The ladies had both felt that it must come, and the young sailor I suppose ought to have been more clearly aware of what was impending; but there

are, no doubt, states of the mind which make a man totally indifferent to, and unobservant of, the changes of the atmosphere. Anyhow, though he arrived in the sweet beginning of the twilight, when all was still, poor Edward had not only to stay indoors, but to take a seat next to Mrs. Damerel in the drawing-room; while Rose, who was somewhat nervous about the thunder, retired into a dark corner to which he dared not follow her boldly under the very eyes of her father and her mother. He did what he could, poor fellow: he tried very hard to persuade her to come to the other end of the room and watch the storm which was raging gloriously on the plain below, lighting up the whole landscape in sudden brilliant gleams; for one of the windows had been left uncurtained, and Mr. Damerel himself placed his chair within reach of it to enjoy the wonderful spectacle. Rose at one time longed so much to venture that her desire overmastered her fears; but the Rector, who was somewhat fretful that evening, presumably on account of the storm which affected his fine sensibilities, sent her away hurriedly. "No, no, Rose-what have you to do with storms?" he said;" go back to your mother." When she obeyed, there was silence in the room; and though the elders did not care very much for it, I think the sharp disappointment of these two-a pang, perhaps, more keen and delicate than anything we can feel when the first freshness of youth is over-made itself spiritually felt somehow in the atmosphere of the place.

"Roses have nothing to do out of the rose garden," said Mr. Damerel, with an attempt to overcome his own fretfulness, and perhaps a compunetion over the suffering he caused. He was not in a humour for talking, and when this was the case he seldom gave himself the trouble to talk; but some covert feeling or other made him willing to attempt a diversion, for the moment at least. "I wish people had a more general conception of the fitness of things. Your namesakes out of doors take no pleasure in the storm. Poor roses, how it will batter and beat them down, and strew their poor helpless petals about!"

"I do not find fault with Rose for being timid," said her mother; "but your craze about her name is fantastic, Herbert. She will have a good many storms to brave which she cannot escape from if she is to do her duty in life."

"Then I hope she will not do her duty," said the Rector-" don't, my Rose in June. I had rather see you sweet and fresh, with your rose heart unruffled, than draggled and battered with the rain. I'll take the moral risk upon my own head."

Mrs. Damerel uttered an impatient little exclamation under her breath. She turned to Wodehouse with an arbitrary and sudden change of the subject. "Do you expect to be long away?" she said.

"Two years at the very least," said the young man, piteously, looking at her with such imploring eyes that she felt his look, though her own eyes were fixed upon her work, and neither could nor would see. She felt it; and as she was but a woman, though stern in purpose, she winced a little

and was sorry for him, though she would not help him. Her voice softened as she replied

"I am very sorry for your poor mother. How she will miss you! We must do our best to keep her cheerful while you are away."

"The storm is going off," said the Rector; "did you ever remark, Wodehouse, how seldom we have a complete thunderstorm to ourselves here? There have been three going on to-night-one towards London, one northwards, the other east. We never have more than the tail of a storm, which is somewhat humbling when you 'come to think of it. I suppose it has something to do with the lie of the ground as you call it-eh ?"

Edward answered something, he did not know what, while his opponent regarded him with amused observation. Now that the matter was tolerably safe in his own hands, Mr. Damerel was not without a certain enjoyment in the study of character thus afforded him. It was to him like what I suppose vivisection is to an enterprising physiologist. He had just enough realisation of the pain he was inflicting to give interest to the throbbing nerves upon which he experimented. He was not old enough to have quite forgotten some few pangs of a similar kind which he had experienced in his day; but he was old enough to regard the recollection with some degree of amusement and a sense of the absolute folly of the whole which neutralised that sense of pain. He liked, rather, to hold the young man in talk about scientific facts, while he knew that the young man was longing to escape, and watching, with dismay and despair, every hope disappearing of another kind of conversation which seemed like the balance of life and death to the foolish youth. Mr. Damerel saw all these symptoms of torture, and his sense of humour was tickled. He was almost sorry when at length, the rain still continuing to fall in torrents and the storm roaring and groaning in the distance, young Wodehouse rose to go away. "I will not give you my blessing again," he said, smiling," as I was rash enough to do before; for I daresay we shall meet again, one way or another, before you go away."

"Oh, I shall call when the last moment, the absolute good-bye, comes!" said poor Edward, trying to smile.

Rose put out a timid little hand to him, rising from her chair when he came up to her. She had grown bewildered again, and disconcerted, and had fallen far from the light and illumination which had flashed over her in the afternoon. The storm had frightened her; something malign seemed in the air; and she was disappointed and mortified, she scarcely could have told why. Was this to be the end of the evening to which they had both looked forward? Alas! such clouds will drop over even the brightest skies. I think both of the young people could have wept with sheer misery, disappointment, and despite, when they realised that it was over, and could not now be mended, whatever might happen. He went home, and she stole up to her room, enveloped by the mists of a suppressed excitement which seemed to wrap them round and round, and afforded no way of escape.

That, however, was the last bright day known in the Rectory for a very long time. The Rector had not been quite himself that night. His very pleasure in the torture of the poor young lovers was perhaps a sign that the fine organisation upon which he prided himself was somehow out of gear. I do not believe, though many people were of that opinion, that his hurried visit to the poor woman who was dying of fever was the reason why Mr. Damerel took the fever, and of all that followed. He could not have fallen ill so immediately if poor Susan Aikin's death-chamber had been the cause of his malady. Next day he was ill, feverish, and wretched, and was reported to have a bad cold. The next after that the village and all the houses on the Green were struck dumb by the information that the Rector had caught the same fever of which Susan Aikin died. The news caused such a sensation as few warnings of mortality produce. The whole neighbourhood was hushed and held its breath, and felt a shiver of dismay run through it. It was not because Mr. Damerel was deeply beloved. Mr. Nolan, for example, was infinitely more friendly and dear to the population generally; yet had he encountered the same fate, people would have grieved, but would not have been surprised. But the Rector! that he should fall under such a disease-that the plague which is born of squalor, and dirt, and ill nourishment, and bad air should seize upon him, the very impersonation of everything that was opposite and antagonistic to those causes which brought it forth!—this confused everybody, great and small. Comfortable people shuddered, asking themselves who was safe? and began to think of the drainage of their houses, and to ask whether any one knew if the Rectory was quite right in that respect. There was an anxious little pause of fright in the place, every one wondering whether it was likely to prove an epidemic, and neighbour enquiring of neighbour each time they met whether "more cases " had occurred; but this phase passed over, and the general security came back. The disease must take its course," the doctor said, and nothing could be prognosticated at so early a stage. The patient was still in middle age, of unbroken constitution, and had everything in his favour-good air, good nursing, good means-so that nothing need be spared. With such words as these the anxieties of the neighbourhood were relieved—something unwillingly it must be allowed, for the world is very exigeant in this as in many other respects, and, when it is interested in an illness, likes it to run a rapid course, and come to an issue one way or other without delay. It was therefore with reluctance that the Green permitted itself to be convinced that no "change" could be looked for in the Rector's illness for some time to come. Weeks even might be consumed ere the climax, the crisis, the real dramatic point at which the patient's fate would be concluded, should come. This chilling fact composed the mind of the neighbourhood, and stilled it back into the calm of indifference after a while. I am not sure now that there was not a little adverse feeling towards the Rector, in that he left everybody in suspense, and having, as it were, invited the world to behold the always interesting spectacle of a dangerous illness, put off from

week to week the dénouement.

Such a barbarous suggestion would

have been repulsed with scorn and horror had it been put into words, but that was the feeling in most people's hearts.

Indoors, however, Mr. Damerel's illness was a very terrible matter, and affected every member of the household. Mrs. Damerel gave up

everything to nurse him. There was no hesitation with her as to whether she should or should not postpone her family and cares to her husband. From the moment that the dreadful word "fever" crossed the doctor's lips she put aside the house and the schoolroom and every other interest, and took her place by the sick bed. I do not know if any foreboding was in her mind from the first, but she never paused to think. She went to the children and spoke to them, appealing to their honour and affection. She gave Dick and Patty permission to roam as they liked, and to enjoy perfect immunity from lessons and routine, so long as they would be quiet indoors, and respect the stillness that was necessary in the house; and to Agatha she gave the charge of the infants, exacting quiet only, nothing but quiet. "The house must be kept quiet," she said to them all imperatively. "The child who makes a noise I shall think no child of mine. Your papa's life may depend upon it. It will be Rose's part to see that you all do what I tell you. No noise! that is the chief thing. There must be no noise!"

The children all promised very solemnly, and even closed round her with great eyes uplifted to ask in hushed tones of awe, as if he had been dead, how papa was? The house altogether was strangely subdued all at once, as if the illness had already lasted for weeks. The drawing-room became a shut up, uninhabited place, where Rose only entered now and then to answer the enquiries of some anxious parishioners not too frightened to come and ask how the Rector was. The tide of life, of interest, of occupation, all flowed towards the sick room-everything centred in it. After a few days it would have seemed as unnatural to Rose to have gone out to the lawn, as it was at first to sit in the little ante-room, into which her father's room opened, waiting to receive her mother's commissions, to do anything she might want of her. A few days sufficed to make established habits of all these new circumstances of life. Mr. Damerel was not a bad patient. He was a little angry and annoyed when he found what his illness was, taking it for granted, as so many people did, that he had taken it from Susan Aikin. "I wish Providence had directed me anywhere else than to that cottage door at that particular moment," he said, half ruefully, half indignantly," and put me in the way of that fanatic Nolan, who can stand everything. I knew my constitution was very different. Never mind, it was not your fault, Martha; and he is a good fellow. I must try to push him on. I will write to the Bishop about him when I get well."

These were heavenly dispositions, as the reader will perceive. He was a very good patient, grateful to his nurses, cheerful in his demeanour, making the best of the long struggle he had embarked upon-indeed, few people could have rallied more bravely from the first shock and discourage