bearer of her grandfather's presents, but her side, telling her that he could not by always adding some trifle on his own leave without seeing her once more; while account. Long before he had thought she lovingly chid him for allowing such such an event likely, he would jokingly a cause to bring him back all that way call Margot his little wife; and Madame again. Dutton, with a further insight into probabilities, felt only too happy to think that perhaps, her child might have so trustworthy a protector, to whose care, she saw, she might confidently confide her.

Poor mother! she did not live long enough to see any further foundation given to her hopes; for she was struck down by a fever, which after a few days' illness proved fatal; and at the age of fifteen Margot was left alone in the world, with no claim upon any one save some French cousins on her mother's side, whom she had never seen, and her old English grandfather, who by Philip Lee sent the tenderest offers of love and welcome that his honest heart could suggest

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Besides which, I have been thinking," said Philip, "would it not be better, perhaps, for me to write a letter to mother as soon as I am off, and tell her about ourselves, and that you're my promised wife?"

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Ah, no!" cried the girl, putting her fingers into her ears, as if in anticipation of the torrent of reproach such an announcement would call down upon her.

"I don't know but t'would be the right line to pursue," said Philip dubiously. "I wish now that we'd spoken up about it at once. I never had a secret in my life before, and I don't seem to like having this.”

"Oh, Philip!" said the girl pleadingly, "I could not bear that your mother should be told and you absent. No, no; let things alone until the time when you shall come safely back, and then- and she hid

her blushing face on his shoulder.

Naomi Lee only spoke the truth when she said, that the girl who got Philip for a husband would be a lucky one. He was a fine. stalwart fellow, with a nature as open and frank as his merry face bespoke; and, notwithstanding his great strong limbs and tanned skin, telling of toil and exposure to sun and wind, he was as tender and lovingly jealous as any girl. Margot believed there could not be another such

and tormented him by a hundred coquettish tricks, her whole life was bound up in him. She never tired of talking about him, and many an hour passed quickly away, as old Dutton repeated his oft-told recollections of Philip's boyhood.

Hard as it was to leave her native land and the early friends who spoke her mother tongue, Margot preferred going to Redneap to living in an inland town hedged in by houses, where she could never look upon the sea, which seemed necessary to her existence; so carrying her few household treasures, with Philip Lee, and in his boat, the girl reached her new home, and was greeted with outstretched arms by her rough old grandfather. But his was a roughness which she understood, and, with a happy capacity for adapting herself and her surroundings to her wants, she was soon contented and merry; turn-in all the world; and, though she teased ing the rude furniture to the best advantage, setting out the few articles she had brought with her, and making (to use her grandfather's words) "the place seem as if the sun was ever shining in it." Philip was naturally the most welcome guest, and as the years went by, and the slim, The old man had seen him enter the pale girl grew into a handsome young cottage, but discreetly kept out of the woman, whose rich color and dark eyes way, and left the lovers to themselves; made many a heart beat with emotion, until, beginning to fear Phil was running what wonder was it that the intimacy it too sharp, and that he had best give him slowly but surely ripened into love?a the signal to be off, he approached, singing love so strong and deep, that the thought in an unusually loud, gruff voice, proof now being months without hearing her ducing a tremendous effect by seeming to sweet voice and seeing her loved face made Philip Lee's heart die within him, and caused Margot's tears to fall thick and fast as she sat on her low stool within the cottage door, gazing with the "inward eye of memory on the stolen meetings, the long leave-takings, the hundred sweet pleasures which for so many months they must forego.

stumble over unseen objects, and then making diligent search for the cause of his tripping. Upon entering, he expressed his unbounded astonishment at seeing Philip again, though he gave it as his opinion that it was high time he took his leave.

"Ay, ay," said Philip; "and sure enough," he added, consulting a comfortAt the sound of a low whistle she started ably-sized watch nearly related to a warmup, and in another moment Philip was bying pan, "I've no time to spare."

off.

Old Dutton took the hint, and hobbled

Philip again urged the expediency of writing to his mother; and then, crowding into the last few moments despair at leaving, entreaties that Margot would always love him, prayers for her safety, promises of constancy, he summoned up all his resolution, and, without a word to old Dutton, or a look at the sobbing girl, who had flung herself down on the settle at the door, Philip Lee hastened back to the place he was to start from, leaving her grandfather to administer to Margot all the comfort he could think of.

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"Cheer up, my flower," said the old man presently, or Fhil 'll be back before you get your bright eyes dry. Why, bless ye, child, I call his a pleasure trip, not a voyage."

"Ah, yes! but it is the feeling I have at my heart, as if we should never meet again.” And Margot's tears began to flow faster than ever.

785

to signify that his allusion was meant for Mrs. Lee.

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said Margot dolefully. "I wish she was not so disagreeable," very much, because she is his mother; but as for me, how can I love her when she is Philip loves bér always saying rude, cross things to me, and scolding me for doing this and going here or there, and telling me I must leave off my French ways? My French ways are as good as her English ways, and," added the girl, firing up indignantly, "my own mother taught them to me, and I will never leave them off to please Mrs. Lee or anybody."

CHAPTER III.

What were they, and what was there about AND now about these French ways. hatred and disgust? The girl was goodMargot so completely to raise Mrs. Lee's tempered, merry, and kind-hearted. No one could breathe a word against her; Now never you pay heed to nothing o' person could say was, that she was too free and the worst that the most ill-natured that sort," said he, giving a significant in her manner. shake of his head; "for I s'pose I never house-work was done, the women sat at In Redneap, after the parted with my poor Sally, as was your home busy with their needles, while the grandmother, but I felt about as miserable men gathered in knots about the beach, as a gibcat, barring the last time, when laughing and joking with each other, and I went off as gay as a recruiting sergeant. discussing any topic that might be interAnd how was it when I got home agen? esting to them. From such groups Margot Why, she was lying in the churchyard, cut had never been accustomed to absent heroff in a week by her leg, poor soul. Ah! self. At Honfleur, after the toil of the day her end was for all the world like was over, Madame Dutton and the other women took their work, and joining the men entered into their mirth, gave their opinions, and freely handled all subjects publicly advanced. Their tongues flew as

Betsy Bowden

Who would ha' lived longer, but her cowden.
Not she's age;

(for your grandmother was only fifty-two) fast as their fingers; and when darkness

' nor she's decay :

stole over them, some one would sing a song, and the rest joining in chorus, they would

(there warn't a spryer woman in all Red- stroll home together, and separate with neap)

'But she's bad leg car'd she away.' And so it was; for if it hadn't bin for that, why she'd be livin' now, and here to comfort and cheer you up, lovey, ever so much better than an old feller like me can." And he gently stroked Margot's glossy hair with his horny hand.

That I'm sure she nor nobody else could," said the girl, trying to rouse herself; "and I am not going to cry any more, grandfather, but think of the time when Philip shall have come back to us. Oh! all I ask in the world is to have you two with me always, and then

"A fig for Madame Uppercrust," said the old man, interpreting Margot's shrug, and jerking his head towards the village, VOL. XXIII. 1092

LIVING AGE.

cheerful hearts and kindly adieux.

Naturally, Margot saw no reason why miliar to her. Most of the beach idlers she should alter the habit which was fawere her friends, and she found them all ready to laugh and gossip with the pretty French girl, whose light-hearted vivacity and piquant sayings contrasted somewhat stories of domestic incidents and difficulfavourably with the stolid bearing, and the ties which formed the staple of the conversation of the well-trained women of Redneap. Margot very much preferred the men to the women; for she had heard her mother say, that in England women were stiff and distant that they froze you: and afraid to open their mouths, and were so certainly she had found them so. Ah, yes! if it were not for the sea, and the

Philip would laugh at his mother's prejudice against everything relating to the place and people to whom Margot, in spite of her English father, seemed so entirely to belong. Still, in his heart, he could not help being vexed; and the next time he and Margot met he would ask her reproachfully why, for his sake, she did not try and get on better with his mother? And, because the girl's delicacy prevented her telling him her real opinion of Mrs. Lee, Philip would sorrowfully interpret her silence into a sullen feeling against the one person it was her duty, as his affianced wife, to try to love.

beach, and Philip, Redneap would be a dull place indeed- -no merry-makings, no fête days such as she recalled when, with her mother and their neighbours, she went to some gay dance; or if it were summertime, walked to one of the village orchards, and under the spreading trees, sipped cider or orgeat, the men smoking while she -on account of her singing being thought, for a young girl, wonderfultrolled out, without any bashfulness, "Le Beau Galant," "Les Compagnons de la Marjolaine," or any other country song popular among them. But how her mother's face would beam with pleasure when Pierre Berthal, Auguste Réñol, Père Gaul- Mrs. Lee had no positive intention of tier, or any of the good judges, declared conveying her instructions to Margot in that in Paris her voice would make her an offensive manner; neither had she the fortune! Ah! it was not of much use to slightest notion how much she irritated her now, except to amuse her old grand- the girl by her openly-expressed contempt father, and get him away from Craft's of everything foreign, and her scantilywhen he was inclined to take a glass more disguised doubt that any woman, save an than was good for him. Philip did not English one- "and not many o' them care for singing, and always looked fidgety neither " - could teach a girl aught worth and weary if she volunteered, or was knowing. This slur upon her mother's asked for a song when there were more teaching roused all Margot's spirit, and listeners than himself and her grandfather.

To tell the truth, Philip would have willingly seen Margot conform more entirely to the ways of the other women of the place; not on his own account for in his eyes she was perfect but naturally he wanted his mother to think well of her, and apparently, as long as she lacked a certain amount of demureness, and did not take kindly to needlework and chapelteas, Mrs. Lee utterly refused to have anything to say to her.

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I haven't given her up without a trial, Philip," the widow would retort, "so you can't throw up that agen me. When first she came here I took her by the hand, and would have taught her what 'tis proper, in my opinion, a respectable young woman should know; but she seemed to think she had no need of telling, and I was always met with Mother liked me to do this,' or, 'her way was that,' so, of course, I said

no more."

"Well! 'tis but natural she should set store by her mother's ways," Philip would answer. "She was a good, kind-hearted woman, was Madame Dutton, and a religious woman too."

"Ah!" Mrs. Lee would reply, with a contemptuous snort, "religious! I don't think much o' such a religion as hers; but la!" she would add complacently, "what can ye expect of folks whose talk is gibberish, and their victuals frogs and snails!"

it usually happened that Mrs. Lee and she parted with a more settled dislike of one another than had existed when they met. Of course, Philip proved the worst possible mediator, always taking up the cudgels for the one who was absent; and, in his anxiety to reconcile them, insisting when talking with Margot, that the fault lay principally with her, and, when talking with his mother, that the prejudice was wholly on her part.

Mrs. Lee was not the only enemy poor Margot had in Redneap, where very few of the women took cordially to a girl who engrossed such an undue amount of attention and admiration from the men of the place. Accordingly, a war of words often waged about the unconscious Margot, who had no idea how her actions were censured, or how bravely her champions battled to prove that "her ways" were only the result of light heartedness; and that she was quite as particular and correct in her behaviour as the prim moralists who could see no good in cheerfulness, and no merit in being contented with a lot in life which most young girls would have bemoaned as dull and hard. To use her grandfather's words, the inmates of Shingle Cottage knew many a banyan day for with all his industry the old man could earn but little ; and, much of the work he managed to accomplish must have remained undone, had not Margot lent her young strength to aid the poor limbs, which grew stiffer and stiffer every winter. Then the mending and

"I suppose it's her pretty face makes her so sought after,” said Annie, to whom these confidences were being imparted. "It's a wonderful thing to have good looks," she added in a dolesome tone.

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making of the nets all fell to the girl's as Mary Jane looked. Not," added the share. Her grandfather would often boast, widow, "that I hold by one in Mr. Chenethat in or about a boat she was as handy vix's station making free with a girl in as any man living; although even he little Margot's walk o' life." knew how much of the labour accredited to himself had been the work of the girl, whom Mrs. Lee and her fellow-matrons called "an idle gadder, always to be seen giggling and gostering among a parcel o' men, without a bit o' bonnet on her head, and her brass eardrops jangling and tinkling like a merry-andrer's." For in dress, asign conduct, Margot managed to give great offence to the village. Love of her country, and perhaps a little tinge of vain consciousness that no other costume would be so becoming, made Margot refuse to adopt the prevailing fashions of Redneap. All in vain was it for each and every one of the mentors to attack her on this point; she staunchly maintained that no other kind of dress could be so useful, comfortable, and economical.

"Ah! well, suppose that she did not wear a bonnet, she wore a cap instead."

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But," as the village conclave unanimously declared, "a cap's a cap, and a bonnet's a bonnet; and, therefore, wearing o' one has nothing to do with leaving off o' the other. 'Tis both unbecoming and indecent for a young girl to want to make herself partikler, not to say anything of her setting up her opinion against them as was old enough to be her mother."

I suppose the gentry like it," said Annie Turle, who was present during one of the sharpest of these discussions. "For young Mr. Chenevix was at our house speaking with father about his tackle, when Margot happened to pass, and he said he wished all the village-girls wore the dress she did. As I told him, 'twould be a poor job for me if I had to be one o' them."

"And I'm glad that you did, Annie,” replied Mrs. Lee; "'twas sickening to see the airs that girl gave herself at the last rectory treat, all along o' young Mr. Chenevix and Mr. Arthur a taking such notice of her."

"I should be very sorry," put in Mrs. Curtis, "to see a child o' mine a-going on so with gentlefolks."

Mrs. Lee concurred in this assertion at the time, though she afterwards remarked, "there was no fear of their doing so; for, of all the saffern-face maidens I ever saw, Mary Jane Curtis beats 'em; and why her mother is so blind to it as to dress her out in that rory-tory gown is more than I can tell. Why, when she entered the room, the ladies was quite in a titter; as well they might be, to witness such an object

Well, Annie you've no cause to complain, I'm sure; if you're not what you may call handsome, you've a fresh colour and a good wholesome skin o' your own, and I don't know what a girl wants more than that."

Poor Annie thought she wanted a good deal more. She wanted Margot's bright eyes and glossy hair, and every feature which charmed away Philip's love from her.

Philip and Annie had been brought up together from children; they were nearly of one age, and had called each other sweethearts at a period when that had meant an exchange of valentines, and a bag of fairing from Luton. Annie was a quiet undemonstrative girl, possessed of all the qualities to make a man's home happy; and, if there had been no Margot, doubtless Philip would have found but little difficulty in returning the love which Annie strove vainly to withhold from him. With a different bringing up, the girl Iwould have been much more attractive than she was; but, from always living among and associating with elderly people, she seemed to have become one of them, and entirely lacked the charm of youthfulness, which in Margot was so captivating. Mr. Turle's maxim, and the one which he had striven to instil into his daughter's mind, was, "Do what you can for others without hurting yourself;" and though Annie did not strictly regard the injunction, its influence robbed her of all impulse, and prevented the generosity of action to which her unbiassed nature would have often prompted her. Owing to Mrs. Lee's liking for her, she was regarded in the village as a pattern of propriety and industry; and, accordingly, had to pay for this distinction by being covertly disliked by the very mothers who held her up as an example to their daughters, who, in turn, declared to each other that she was a regular old maid, and they "wouldn't be like her for anything."

Annie painfully and instinctively felt her unpopularity; she saw elbows nudged as she drew near, for the conversation to be changed; she knew that she was accused of repeating to Mrs. Lee and the

minister any small impropriety needing which made her select Annie Turle as her correction and reproof; and there was future daughter-in-law. No-she liked little doubt but that the girls she would her; she considered her to be possessed have willingly chatted with, were usually of good sense, industry, and steadiness; more pleased to see her back than her face. Margot little knew, and her detractors would never have believed, how prim little Annie often sat, watching her rival's ready laugh and coquettish graces, feeling she would give all she possessed, or was likely to possess, if she could so answer Philip, and with like pretty coyness accept or refuse his eager attentions. She had plenty to say to Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Davis, or the minister's wife; but let Philip come in, or set her down with young people of her own age, and her powers of conversation utterly failed her, for the reason that they and she seemed to have nothing in common. Poor Annie! none knew how dearly she paid for the proprieties, with which the zeal of her several partisans had hedged her in. For her life, she dared not have worn a smart bow or gay ribbon - was it not the boast of her friends that you never saw Annie Turle in such finery? Though her heart was often inclined to join in some of the few merry-makings at Redneap or its surrounding villages, such an idea could not be entertained for an instant. So while, of these two girls who engrossed the lion's share of village gossip, Margot suffered from always doing wrong, Annie underwent quite as much torment from never doing anything but what was right, and was as weary of praise as Margot was indifferent to blame. Annie thought, that if she could but secure Philip, she would certainly throw off this bondage of good opinion, and dress smartly, and go to the acting and singing at Luton Fair, or anything else Philip liked to take her to. wouldn't then be led by Mrs. Lee or Mrs. Anybody-else; and if they did not like it, well she should be independent, and, as long as she pleased Philip, she should not care. Margot on the other hand, often told herself that when she became Philip's wife, she would try and do all she could to make his mother like her; and if going to Luton Fair or Hagley revels vexed her, why she would stay away. Should she not have Philip? - and to please him, ah! she could give up anything. She hated those ugly big bonnets and drab-coloured gowns; but what mattered it if, by wearing them, Philip loved her the more for trying to please his mother?

and, altogether, regarded her as the best counterpart of herself to be found in the village. Surely this was the highest guarantee a son so devoted as Phillip Lee should have needed; and the widow, who had been accustomed during all her boy's lifetime to rule and decide for him, did not feel inclined to give up the reins when he was making the most important choice of his life. Men, she argued, were always contrary to their mothers about sweethearting, and she did believe it was nothing but that which made Philip so kinky about Annie Turle. Anyways, she knew what was best for him, and nobody would thank her more than he would if she could manage to bring the two together. What a thing it would be for Philip to slip into old Turle's shoes right off! for any man who took Annie would be certain to have the business, and when he looked round, and felt himself master of the building yard, and able to stay at home and be comfortable, heart alive! what a ninny he would think he was to have spent his time in dangling after that "fly-by-night " Margot, a girl as far beneath him as any one in Redneap! It was all very fine to talk of what they had been, but all the world knew that now old Dutton and his granddaughter too were glad enough to turn their hands to anything. Why, no longer than a week ago, she met Margot going down the village with a bundle at her back, for all the world like a tramp or a packinan. Then there was the making of them shell-boxes and nets--it wasn't work for a woman. How had she done? She had been left alone, with nobody to turn to for a cup of cold water even, and two mouths to fill the same as theirs were; but nobody could say she ever lowered herself-she took in plain work and dressmaking, and many a long night had she stitched away that she should look and do as others did. Yes, thank God! she had kept herself and her son, so that they could hold up their heads before anybody in the place, and she wasn't going to be dragged down now by folks with whom they had neither kith nor kin. The Turles were a respectable family, and Annie was a girl than whom, had she picked the world over, she couldn't have found one nicer or better thought of; and when added to this there was a comfortably furTo do Mrs. Lee justice, it was not en-nished home and a tidy bit of money, why tirely the prospect of the girl's fortune what more could any sensible man ask för ? ́

CHAPTER IV.

She