"They are good boys," said their father, | different light from a man of the world," said

"but they have not any brains to speak of not like Gerald and you,―though, after all, I begin to be doubtful what's the good of brains," added the squire, disconsolately, "if this is all that comes of them. After building so much on Gerald for years, and feeling that one might live to see him a bishop -but, however, there's still you left; you're all right, Frank?"

"Oh, yes, I am all right," said the curate, with a sigh; "but neither Gerald nor I are the stuff that bishops are made of," he added, laughing. "I hope you don't dream of any

the troubled father; and Frank perceived that he, too, shared in his father's displeasure, because he was not Jack, nor a man of the world; notwithstanding that, being Frank and a clergyman, he was acknowledged by public opinion to be the squire's favorite in the family. Things continued in this uncomfortable state up to the dinner-hour, so that the curate, even had his own feelings permitted it, had but little comfort in his home visit. At dinner Mr. Wentworth did not eat, and awoke the anxiety of his wife, who drove the old gentleman into a state of desperation by inquiries after his health.

such honor for me." But the squire was too much troubled in "Indeed, I wish you would remonstrate his mind for laughter. "Jack was always with your papa, Frank," said his step-mother, clever, too," he said, dolefully, "and little who was not a great deal older than the cugood has come of that. I hope he wont dis-rate. "After his attack he ought to be more grace the family any more than he has done, careful. But he never takes the least trouble in my time, Frank. You young fellows have about himself, no more than if he were fiveall your life before you; but when a man and-twenty. After getting such a knock on comes to my age, and expects a little comfort, the forehead too; and you see he eats nothit's hard to be dragged into the mire after his ing. I shall be miserable if the doctor is not children. I did my duty by Jack too-I can sent for to-night." say that for myself. He had the same train- "Stuff!" cried the squire, testily. "Pering as Gerald had-the same tutor at the haps you will speak to the cook about these University-everything just the same. How messes she insists on sending up to disgust do you account for that, sir, you that are a one, and leave me to take care of my own philosopher?" said Mr. Wentworth again, health. Don't touch that dish, Frank; it's with a touch of irritation. "Own brothers poison. 1 am glad Gerald is not here; he'd both by father and mother; brought up in think we never had a dinner without that the same house, same school and college, and confounded mixture. And then the wonder everything; and all the time as different from is that one can't eat!" said Mr. Wentworth, each other as light and darkness. How do in a tone which spread consternation round you account for that? Though to be sure, the table. Mrs. Wentworth secretly put her here's Gerald taken to bad ways too. It handkerchief to her eyes behind the great must have been some weakness by their moth-cover, which had not yet been removed: and er's side. Poor girl; she died too young to show it herself; but it's come out in her children," said the vexed squire. "Though it's a poor sort of thing to blame them that are gone," he added, with penitence; and he got up and paced uneasily about the room. Who was there else to blame? Not himself, for he had done his duty by his boys. Mr. Wentworth never was disturbed in mind, without, as his family were well aware, becoming excited in temper too; and the unexpected nature of the new trouble had somehow added a keener touch of exasperation to his perennial dissatisfaction with his heir. "If Jack had been the man he ought to have been, his advice might have done some good --for a clergyman naturally sees things in a

one of the girls dashed in violently to the rescue, of course making everything worse.

Why did not Gerald and Louisa come to dinner?" cried the ignorant sister. "Surely, when they knew Frank had come, they would have liked to be here. How very odd it was of you not to ask them, papa! they always do come when anybody has arrived. Why aren't they here to-night?"

Because they don't choose to come," said the squire, abruptly. "If Gerald has reasons for staying away from his father's house, what is that to you? Butterflies," said Mr. Wentworth, looking at them in their pretty dresses, as they sat regarding him with dismay, "that don't understand any reason for doing anything except liking it or

not liking it. I dare say by thistime your ing Gerald alone made his appearance at the sister knows better." Hall to dinner, explaining that Louisa had a

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My sister is married, papa, said Letty, headache. Now Louisa's headaches were with her saucy look.

"I advise you to get married too, and learn what life is like," said the savage squire; and conversation visibly flagged after this effort. When the ladies got safely into the drawingroom, they gathered into a corner to consult over it. They were all naturally anxious about him after his "attack."

"Don't you remember he was just like this before it came on?" said Mrs. Wentworth, nervously; "so cross, and finding fault with the made dishes. Don't you think I might send over a message to Dr. Small-not to come on purpose, you know, but just as if it were a call in passing?"

But the girls both agreed this would make

matters worse.

not unfrequent, but they were known to improve in the prospect of going out to dinner. On the whole, the matter was wrapt in obscurity, and the Wentworth household could not explain it. The sisters sat up brushing their hair, and looking very pretty in their dressing-gowns, with their bright locks (for the Wentworth hair was golden brown of a Titian hue) over their shoulders, discussing the matter till it was long past midnight; but they could make nothing of it, and the only conclusion that they came to was that their two clergyman brothers were occupied in negotiating with the squire about some secret not known to the rest of the family, but most probably concerning Jack. Jack was almost unknown to his sisters, and awoke no very warm anxiety in their minds; so they went to sleep at last in tolerable quiet, concluding that whatever mystery there was concerned only the first-born and least-loved of the house.

While the girls pursued these innocent deliberations, and reasoned themselves into conviction, the squire, too, sat late,―much later than usual. He had gone with Frank to the library, and sat there in a half-stupefied qui

"It must be something about Jack," they both said in a breath, in a kind of awe of the elder brother, of whom they had a very imperfect knowledge. "And it seems we never are to have a chance of a word with Frank!" cried Letty, who was indignant and exasperated. But at least it was a consolation that "the boys were no better off. All next day Cuthbert and Guy hung about in the vain hope of securing the company and attention of the visitor. He was at the Rec-etness, which the curate could not see withtory the whole morning, sometimes with Ger- out alarm, and from which he roused himald, sometimes with Louisa, as the scouts of self up now and then to wander off into talk, the family, consisting of a variety of broth- which always began with Gerald, and always ers, little and big, informed the anxious girls. came back to his own anxieties and his disapAnd Louisa was seen to cry on one of these pointed hopes in his eldest son. "If Jack occasions; and Gerald looked cross, said one had been the man he ought to have been, I'd little spy, whereupon he had his ears boxed, have telegraphed for him, and he'd have manand was dismissed from the service. "As if aged it all," said the squire, and then reGerald ever looked anything but a saint!" lapsed once more into silence. "For neither said the younger sister, who was an ad- you nor I are men of the world, Frank," he vanced Anglican. Letty, however, holding would resume again, after a pause of half an other views, confuted this opinion strongly hour, revealing pitifully how his mind labored "When one thinks of a saint, it is Aunt under the weight of this absorbing thought. Leonora one thinks of," said this profane The curate sat up with him in the dimly young woman. "I'll tell you what Gerald lighted library, feeling the silence and the looks like something just half-way between darkness to his heart. He could not assist a conqueror and a martyr. I think of all the his father in those dim ranges of painful medmen I ever saw, he is my hero," said Letty,itation. Grieved as he was, he could not meditatively. The youngest Miss Wentworth venture to compare his own distress with the was not exactly of this latter opinion, but she bitterness of the squire, disappointed in all did not contradict her sister. They were his hopes and in the pride of his heart; and kept in a state of watchfulness all day, but then the young man saw compensations and Frank's mission remained a mystery which heroisms in Gerald's case which were invisithey could not penetrate; and in the even-ble to the unheroic eyes of Mr. Wentworth,

CHAPTER XIX.

"THE sum of it all is, that you wont hear any reason, Gerald," said the squire. "What your brother says and what I say, are nothing; your poor wife is nothing; and all a man's duties, sir, in life-all your responsibilities, everything that is considered most sacred—”

who looked at it entirely from a practical | about Gerald, and to put away that thought, point of view, and regarded with keen mor- as he went hurriedly up-stairs. tification an event which would lay all the affairs of the Wentworths open to general discussion, and invite the eye of the world to a renewed examination of his domestic skeletons. Everything had been hushed and shut up in the Hall for at least an hour, when the squire got up at last and lighted his candle, and held out his hand to his son. This isn't a very cheerful visit for you, Frank," he said; "but we will try again to-morrow, and have one other talk with Gerald. Couldn't you read up some books on the subject, or think of something new to say to him? God bless my soul! if I were as young and as much accustomed to talking as you are, I'd surely find out some argument," said the squire, with a momentary spark of temper, which made his son feel more comfortable about him. "It's your business to convince a man when he's wrong. We'll try Gerald once more, and perhaps something may come of it; and as for Jack-" Here the squire paused, and shook his head, and let go his son's hand. "I suppose it's sitting up so late that makes one feel so cold and wretched, and as if one saw ghosts," said Mr. Wentworth."Don't stay here any longer, and take care of the candles. I ought to have been in bed two hours ago. Good-night."

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"You may say what you will to me, father," said Gerald. "I can't expect you should speak differently. But you may imagine I have looked at it in every possible light before I came to this resolution. A man does not decide easily when everything he prizes on earth is at stake. I cannot see with Frank's eyes, or with yours; according to the light God has given me, I must see with my own." But, God bless my soul ! what do you mean by seeing with your own eyes?" said the squire. "Don't you know that is a Protestant doctrine, sir? Do you think they'll let you see with any eyes but theirs when you get among a set of Papists? Instead of an easy-going bishop, and friendly fellows for brother clergymen, and parishioners that think everything that's good of you, how do you suppose you'll feel as an Englishman when you get into a dead Frenchified system, with everything going by rule and measure, and bound to believe just as you're told? It'll kill you, sir-that's what will be the end of it. If you are in your grave within the year, it will be no wonder to me."

"Amen!" said Gerald, softly. "If that is to be all, we will not quarrel with the result; " and he got up and went to the window, as if to look for his cedar, which was not there. Perhaps the absence of his silent referee gave him a kind of comfort, though at the same time it disappointed him in some fantastical way, for he turned with a curious look of relief and vexation to his brother.

And as he walked away, the curate could not but observe what an aged figure it looked, moving with a certain caution to the door. The great library was so dim that the light of the candle which the squire carried in his hand was necessary to reveal his figure clearly, and there was no mistaking his air of age and feebleness. The curate's thoughts were not very agreeable when he was left by himself in the half-lighted room. His imagination jumped to a picture very possible, but grievous to think of-Jack seated in his father's place, and the girls" and the little children turned out upon the world. In such a case, who would be their protector and natural" We need not be always thinking of it, guardian? Not Gerald, who was about to even if this were to be the end," he said. divest himself of ties still closer and more sa- Come down the avenue with me, Frank, cred. The curate lit his candle too, and and let us talk of something else. The girls went hastily to his room, when that thought will grumble, but they can have you later: came upon him. There might be circum- come, I want to hear about yourself." stances still more hopeless and appalling than the opposition of a rector or the want of a benefice. He preferred to return to his anxiety

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Unfortunately, the squire got up when his sons did, which was by no means their intention; but Mr. Wentworth was vexed

and restless, and was not willing to let Ger- the girls talked at their window, Mrs. Went

worth being, as usual, occupied with her nursery, and nobody else at hand to teach them wisdom, and soon branched off into speculations about the post-bag, which was "due," and which, perhaps, was almost more interesting, to one of them at least, than even a brother who was going to be married.

:

:

ald off so easily. If he were mad, at least he ought to be made duly wretched in his madness, Mr. Wentworth thought; and he went out with them, and arrested the words on their lips. Somehow, everything seemed to concur in hindering any appeal on the part of the curate. And Gerald, like most imaginative men, had a power of dismissing In the mean time Gerald was talking of his troubles after they had taken their will Plumstead and Hawtray, the brother-in-law of him. It was he who took the conversa- and cousin, who were both clergymen in the tion on himself when they went out of doors. same district, and about the people in the Finding Frank slow in his report, Gerald village whom they had known when they went into all the country news for the in- were boys, and who never grew any older. struction of his brother. He had been down" There is old Kilweed, for example, who to the very depths during the two previous was Methuselah in those days-he's not days, and now he had come aloft again; for eighty yet " he said with a smile and a sigh ; a man cannot be miserable every moment of" it is we who grow older and come nearer to his life, however heavy his burden may be. the winter and the sunset. My father even The "girls," whose anxieties had been much has come down a long way off the awful emistimulated by the renewed conference held nence on which I used to behold him every with closed doors in the library, stood watch-year that falls on my head seems to take one ing them from one of the drawing-room win- off his if we both live long enough, we shall dows. The boldest of the two had, indeed, feel like contemporaries by and by," said got her hat to follow them, not comprehend- Gerald: "just now the advantage of years is ing why Frank should be monopolized for all on my side; and you are my junior, sir.” days together by anybody but herself, his He was switching down the weeds among the favorite sister; but something in the aspect grass with his cane as he spoke, like any of the three men, when they first appeared schoolboy; the air and perhaps a little exunder the lime-trees, had awed even the citement, had roused the blood to his cheek. lively Letty out of her usual courage. "But He did not look the same man as the pale Gerald is talking and laughing just as usual," martyr in the library-not that he had any she said, as she stood at the window dangling reason for appearing different, but only that her hat in her hand, "more than usual, for inalienable poetic waywardness which kept he has been very glum all this spring. Poor him up through his trouble. As for Mr. fellow! I dare say Louisa worries him out of Wentworth, he resented the momentary his life; "and with this easy conclusion the brightening, which he took for levity. older brother was dismissed by the girls. "Perhaps Frank is going to be married," said the other sister, who, under the lively spur of this idea, came back to the window to gaze at him again, and find out whether any intimation of this alarming possibility could be gathered from the fit of his long clerical coat, or his manner of walk, as he sauntered along under the limes. "As if a Perpetual Curate could marry!" said Letty, with scorn, who knew the world. As for 'little Janet, who was a tender-hearted little soul, she folded her two hands together, and looked at her brother's back with a great increase of interest. "If one loved him, one would not mind what he was," said the little maiden, who had been in some trouble herself, and understood about such matters. So

"I thought we came out here to prolong our discussion," said the squire, "I don't understand this light way of talking. If you mean what you've said, sir, I should never expect to see you smile more."

"The smiling makes little difference," said Gerald; but he stopped short in his talk, and there was a pause among them till the postboy came up to them with his bag, which Mr. Wentworth, with much importance, paused to open. The young men, who had no special interest in its contents, went on. Perhaps the absence of their father was a relief to them. They were nearer to each other, understood each other better than he could do; and they quickened their pace insensibly as they began to talk. It is easy to imagine what kind of talk it was-entire sympathy,

yet disagreement wide as the poles-here for | a few steps side by side, there darting off at the most opposite tangent; but they had begun to warm to it, and to forget everything else, when a succession of lusty hollos from the squire brought them suddenly to themselves, and to a dead stop. When they looked round, he was making up to them with choleric strides. "What the deuce do you mean, sir, by having telegrame sent here?" cried Mr. Wentworth, pitching at his son Frank an ominous ugly envelope, in blue and red, such as the unsophisticated mind naturally trembles at. "Beg your pardon, Gerald; but I never can keep my temper when I see a telegram. I dare say it's something about Charley," said the old man, in a slightly husky voice-"to make up to us for inventing troubles." The squire was a good deal disturbed by the sight of that ill-omened message; and it was the better way, as he knew by experience, to throw his excitement into the shape of anger rather than that of grief.

"It's nothing about Charley," said Frank; and Mr. Wentworth blew his nose violently and drew a long breath. "I don't understand it," said the curate, who looked scared and pale; "it seems to be from Jack; though why he is in Carlingford, or what he has to do-"

The squire did not hear the words that both the brothers addressed to him; he was unconscious of the curate's disclaimer and eager explanation that he knew nothing about Jack, and could not understand his . presence in Carlingford. The blow he had got the previous day had confused his brain outside, and these accumulated vexations had bewildered it within. "And I could have sworn by Frank!" said the old man, piteously, to himself, as he put up his hand unawares and tugged at the dainty starched cravat which was his pride. If they had not held him in their arms, he would have slid down at the foot of the tree, against which he had instinctively propped himself. The attack was less alarming to Gerald, who had seen it before, than to Frank, who had only heard of it; but the postboy was still within call, by good fortune, and was sent off for assistance. They carried him to the Hall, gasping for breath, and in a state of partial unconsciousness, but still feebly repeating those words which went to the curate's heart "I could have sworn by Frank!" The house was in a great fright and tumult, naturally, before they reached it, Mrs. Wentworth fainting, the girls looking on in dismay, and the whole household moved to awe and alarm, knowing that one time or other Death would come so. As for the Curate of St. "He's ill, sir, I suppose-dying; nothing Roque's, he had already made up his raind, else was to be looked for," said the squire, with unexpected anguish, not only that his and held out his hand, which trembled, for father was dying, but that his father the telegram. "Stuff! why shouldn't I be would die under a fatal misconception able to bear it? Has he been any comfort to about himself; and between this overwhelm-me? Can't you read it, one of you?" cried ing thought, and the anxiety which nobody the old man. understood or could sympathize with re"John Wentworth to the Reverend-'"specting Jack's message, the young man was "God bless my soul! can't you come to almost beside himself. He went away in utter what he says?" despair from the anxious consultations of the family after the doctor had come, and kept walking up and down before the house, waiting to hear the worst, as he thought; but yet Here the squire paused and took a step unable, even while his father lay dying, to backwards, and set himself against a tree. keep from thinking what miserable chance, "The sun comes in one's eyes," he said, what folly or crime, bad taken Jack to Carrather feebly. "There's something poison- lingford, and what his brother could have to ous in the air to-day. Here's Gerald going do with the owner of the initials named in his out of the Church; and here's Frank in Jack's telegram. He was lost in this twofold trouble secrets, God forgive him! Lads, it seems when Gerald came out to him with brightened you think I've had enough of this world's looks. good. My heir's a swindling villain, and you know it; and here's Frank going the same road too."

"Come back directly-you are wanted here; I am in trouble, as usual: and T. W

"He is coming round, and the doctor says there is no immediate danger," said Gerald ; and it is only immediate danger one is