A FAMILY COUNCIL

"IT is only let to him for ten years."

"Ten years! It's a perfect age. Don't talk of it!"

"Years slip by fast enough as one gets older."

"I don't suppose we shall meet again like this at the end of it."

"No; I expect most of you boys will be married."

"And what about yourself, Tabby?"

"Oh, I shall have developed into a strong-minded spinster."

A general laugh followed this statement, and seven pairs of eyes rested critically, or otherwise, on the figure of the girl in their centre.

Reclining in an old oaken chair, her face just raised enough to show her white, softly-moulded throat, her hands idly clasped round her knees, Rhoda Carlton met her brothers' gaze with calm equanimity.

At first glance, she might not strike one as a beauty, though there was something in the poise of her head, and in the upright bearing of her tall, slender figure that demanded attention from all who met her. Dark rippling hair surrounded a broad white brow, but a pair of soft brown eyes did not alter the natural severity of her classical features in repose, and it was not until she spoke or smiled, and the sudden sunshine softened and irradiated her whole countenance, that one realized how beautiful she was.

Turning from her to the young men around her, no stranger would have doubted their relationship for an instant. Seven of the finest-looking men in the county, they were called, and if length of limb and breadth of shoulder as well as determined regular features were to be taken into consideration, then no doubt the average Englishman would be at a disadvantage.

Howard, the eldest, stood against the chimney-piece, his dark brows knitted, and he alone of the little group seemed ill at ease.

Edgar's whole bearing, as he leant back in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar, proclaimed him to be a soldier; whilst lying on the hearth-rug in front, there was no mistaking the sailor in the family, his tattooed wrist and sturdy figure standing out in bold relief against the blazing fire. In the background were three others, one of them a dreamy-looking curate, and lastly, the youngest of all, a youth in shooting jacket and knickerbockers, was lying full length on a low couch, looking the picture of health and content. They were all grouped round the smoking-room fire—the cosiest corner in Verners Manor.

But if we leave them there together and venture into the servants' hall, a voluble old housekeeper, discoursing to Captain Carlton's soldier servant, may supply us with all necessary information about them.

"Do you want to know what this family gathering is for, Mr. Nicholls? Then no one can tell you better than myself, which have nursed the eight from their infancy, and never saw finer babies anywhere. It's been a long time coming. Since the old master broke down and told Mr. Howard the strain of keeping the old place together was too much for him, and Mr. Howard finding out that cunning rascal of a Lock, which was the agent and which was thieving and ruining the whole property, why I knewed it would come to this!

"But Mr. Howard, he's a wonderful gentleman for business, and he gets the reins in his hands, and he cuts down the timber, and he pulls the place together, and I believe it would have been well to this day, if it hadn't been for them 'lections. He must stand for his county, he says, and so all the neighbourhood said; and the money was got in hand, and he flung it out right and left; and then, when all's said and done, a little bow-legged, bald-headed ironmonger comes in at the top of the poll, and Mr. Howard finds he has wasted his goods for nothing.

"Then his lawyer persuades him to let the whole place to a cousin of his who's a man of money, and says if he's allowed to have it ten years, he'll bring it back to the old style again. And that's where we stand now, Mr. Nicholls! And what Miss Rhoda will do, and where she'll go, is past my knowledge! But she's a wonderful young lady; I believe she has excited her brother to this degrading business. And he is going up to London, and is actually going into a house of business for a time, till he can get his affairs in better order—he the heir, and the head of the family, Mr. Nicholls!

"We've been proud of them up to now. Captain Carlton is a credit to us, and Mr. Robert, he's following on in the Navy, though it do take a long time for an officer to get his title there! Then there's Mr. Herbert, he's an elegant preacher, and has been highly complimented on his sermons by the bishop himself, though what he must needs take a curacy in the East of London for, I can't imagine! Mr. Walter, he had high honours at the Oxford University, and has a lot of letters after his name; he is one of the head masters at the Eton school for young gentlemen, and will doubtless take full charge before long. Mr. Edmund wears a wig and gown, and is as elegant and persuasive in his speaking before the judges, I believe, as Mr. Herbert is in his pulpit. And as for Mr. Rodney, he's a fine young country gentlemen, who can hunt the hounds, or land a salmon, or get the biggest bag of game that you ever see a gentleman bring in. And he is off to Australia to do some farming, he says.

"But there! Mr. Howard, he quite spoils all with these plans of his! And it's just a good-bye all round to-night, for most of them go their different ways to-morrow, and it's chiefly to settle what becomes of Miss Rhoda they're here. She's a fine young lady, and could have been married over and over, but no one seems to touch her heart, she's that indifferent to them all; whether it's a titled gentleman, or a poor curate, it's all the same, and I always feel sorry for them when she gives them the cold shoulder! She's not so fond of gaiety as she ought to be at her age, and she's as strong a will as any of her brothers. I don't know what will become of her!"

If the old housekeeper could have been a listener to the conversation in the smoking-room at that moment, she would have been truly horrified at her young lady's plans.

"The question is," Rhoda was saying, as she looked round upon her brothers with an amused twinkle in her eye, "what is to be done with me? My private income is . . . £130 a year. It has just been enough to keep me in clothes, but when a house and food has to come out of it as well, it is rather a puzzle."

There was silence, which Howard broke at last by saying,—

"I have told you before that if you will put up with London lodgings, I will make arrangements for both of us."

"And that offer I have declined with many thanks, for you will be far more comfortable making your home with Uncle Harvey, as he suggests."

"Come to me," proposed Herbert; "you will have a vast scope for your energy in the work in our East End parish."

Rhoda shook her head. "You are too High Church for me," she said; "we should spend our time in arguments, the Bible 'versus' the Prayer Book and the Holy Fathers. Now, don't look hurt. I appreciate your thought for me, but it wouldn't answer, old boy!"

"I am afraid," put in Edgar with a slight drawl, "that even if I had quarters to offer you, the cavalry barracks at Aldershot would not be much to your taste."

"That they would not be," and a clear laugh rang out from the girl as she turned to her brother Robert. "Well, Bob, are you going to offer me a cabin in the 'Invincible'?"

"Walter is the most likely one to suit you," Bob replied, taking up a fallen cinder from the rug and aiming it with true precision at that individual's head; "he has awfully snug quarters at Eton, and wants some one to keep down that old virago of a cook of his!"

"She won't have anything to say to me," responded Walter, drily.

"She has already planned a life for herself," said Edmund, "so I shall not suggest her coming into chambers with me, even if it were practicable. Now then, Tabby, out with it!"

"I shouldn't mind taking her out with me to the Bush," Rodney put in, with a grandfatherly air; "she can fish and shoot fairly well, and it would be awfully handy to have a person to mend one's socks and cook a dinner, to say nothing of cleaning the house down!"

"That is really a liberal offer, Rodney. I am overpowered with gratitude. Now will you all listen to me? Howard, do you remember that tiny cottage on the moor that you and I went to a couple of years ago, when you hired a piece of grouse-shooting? I intend to live there, if possible. I have calculated it all, and think I shall really be comfortable in it, if I can persuade old Hannah to come with me."

"Preposterous!" exclaimed Howard. "How on earth would you get through a winter snowed up there? And the accommodation is awful. It is all very well to live picnic fashion for a week or two in the height of summer, but it is a mere workman's cottage. You must think of something better than that."

"That is where I intend to live," she said determinedly, "and I shall go over next week to see about it."

"And what will Mrs. Grundy say to a girl of your age, setting up house for yourself like that, and what society would you have? Don't talk such arrant nonsense, Tabby!"

And Edgar lost his drawl in his vexation at such an idea.

"That is just the point. There is no society there, therefore there is no Mrs. Grundy. You all know how I dislike society; and truth to tell, I am longing for real work. Now, boys, listen! This is no mere Quixotic fancy of mine, it has been a desire for a long time past. That place is benighted; the village down below has no resident clergyman, but one who comes over on Sunday from another village three or four miles off. I love the country, and I love the poor. And it is a grand opportunity to live amongst them and try to make their lives happier and brighter. I mean to do it. It will be ten years before there is a chance of our returning here, and perhaps longer. By that time Howard may be ready to bring a bride home here as mistress. You need not shake your head. I have been mistress here for five years, and beyond it being our home, and a place where we have had every comfort, I do not know that it would break my heart to live elsewhere."

"Well, Tabby, I for one heartily approve of your plan," exclaimed Rodney. "If you won't come out with me, it's the next best thing to it, and I'll tell you what I'll do! I will see you settled in your cottage before I go abroad. You will want a man to arrange things for you, and I've nothing to do for the next month."

But the objections of four or five brothers are not so easily overruled, and Rhoda's plan was a distasteful one to most of them. If she had not had a very strong will, she would not have conquered. But at the end of all the protestations made against it, she leant back in her chair with quiet determination in her dark eyes, and said slowly, with a placid smile, "I like to hear your different objections and opinions, but I have not spoken without thought. I am not a mere girl; I am under no one's control, and I have my income per annum to do exactly as I like with. You may not fancy the idea at first, but you will soon get accustomed to it, and next summer, if all is well, I shall not be at all surprised if you Londoners will not be very pleased to accept an invitation from me for a week or two of pure fresh moor air. What I really want to do, is to ask you, Howard, to go over the house with me to-morrow, and help me to pick out a few bits of furniture that I may want. I believe all my mother's things are mine, are they not?"

"Yes," assented Howard, a little gloomily. "Are you going to take the grand piano and the harp from the drawing-room? You will have to get the cottage wall taken down to admit the piano, but I suppose that will be a trifle."

"No," Rhoda said quietly, "the cottage piano in the morning-room will answer my purpose. Now we will change the subject. You are all looking cross, and I am not going to have our last evening together spent in gloom. Let us have some music."

"She ought to marry," observed Edmund, as his sister moved across to the piano; "a single woman with opinions and a will of her own is sure to come to grief sooner or later."

"A year of cottage life will teach her what all our objections fail to do. Let her buy her experience."

Edgar spoke with assurance.

"We give you a year, Tabby," called out Bob, "and then we shall see you creeping back thankfully to civilized society."

Rhoda laughed, but would not be drawn into further arguments on the subject.