MISS FLINT'S ROMANCE.

IN after-days I knew that Cousin Dorothy's regard for Herbert Kenningham was neither owing to Mrs. Burford's introduction, nor to the very distant relationship which really could be traced between Miss Flint and her guest.

The truth was, that my cousin's fair girlhood had not been without its romantic episode, though no one looking at the elderly spinster of to-day, with her eccentricities of dress, speech, and manner, would have suspected this.

The visitor in whose honour the plate had been brought from the bank, and the Hall turned its best side out, could not have connected any memory of Miss Flint's young days with her evident partiality for himself. Had he known all, he might have done so.

As Cousin Dorothy looked in the face of her young guest, she saw the living semblance of another Herbert Kenningham, his uncle and her distant cousin. Looking at the young man of to-day, her thoughts went back over long years, and she pictured herself as a girl of nineteen, an only child, a rich heiress, followed, flattered, sought by many, who all pleaded in vain.

Apart from the crowd stood one—that far-away cousin—just five years older than herself, a model of brave young manhood, with a nature equally strong and tender. Cousin Dorothy could call to mind how his elders trusted him, how little children haunted his steps and tried to coax him into companionship, and how dogs would follow him uninvited, happy in being near him. She remembered his patience with the pertinacious youngsters, his courtesy to the old and unattractive, his kindness to animals, for the veriest mongrel was sure of a pat and a kind word.

Cousin Dorothy was just the one to appreciate all that was good and noble in this only individual who kept aloof from her. But she could not understand why he ever lingered near, yet never asked for what her heart told her was indeed his already. She did not dream that poverty sealed his lips, and that, whilst she joyfully thought, "I have enough for both," his feeling was, "Were I to ask Dorothy to become my wife, she might judge that I was only one amongst the fortune-hunters who are always besieging her, and speak of me as she has done of others."

So the words which might have changed the future of two lives were never spoken, and the paths of Dorothy Flint and Herbert Kenningham crossed no more.

Neither married, but he died in a foreign land at six-and-thirty, and just when fortune was favouring him after twelve years of hard work. From his sick-bed, he wrote to Cousin Dorothy, and told her that, through all this time, she had held the chief place in his thoughts and had been the one love of his life.

He told her of his struggles, made easy through long years by the hope of seeing her again, and of telling the tale which so often trembled on his lips during his days of poverty. He sent her a ring, only a plain gold one, with the motto "True till death" inside it, and asked her to wear it for his sake.

Cousin Dorothy placed the ring on her wedding-finger, and from that moment never removed it. She would have gone to the bedside of the sender had this been possible, but the news of his death followed so immediately after his letter announcing his serious illness, that there was no chance of this.

From that time began those eccentricities of speech, dress, and manner which had grown with her years and made her the Dorothy Flint whom I have endeavoured to picture as I knew her.

People imagined that she loved money, and hoarded it for its own sake, but they were mistaken. Cousin Dorothy regarded her wealth as the thing which had stood between her and Herbert Kenningham, and proved a misfortune instead of a blessing.

"Why should I care to spend on myself what has robbed me of him?" she asked herself in the time of her great sorrow. "My wealth sealed his lips and hindered him from telling, in time, the story of his true, pure love. What could rich clothing or rich jewels do to make amends for the loss of a faithful heart? They are less than nothing to me now, and I will have none of them. But I have one source of joy and comfort. Though we were parted by a mere shadow, I know that through all those years the noblest nature I ever met with, placed me first in its esteem, the kindliest heart beat true to me!"

In this thought Cousin Dorothy found her best consolation. All that the world values or wealth can buy would never have given comfort to a nature like hers. Had I known these particulars when the namesake of Cousin Dorothy's dead love first came to Lint Hall, the knowledge would have spared me some of the jealous feeling which his presence engendered in my mind, though I should still have made myself fairly miserable on account of his being thrown so much into Nelly Burford's society. Miss Flint's openly expressed hostility to myself, made me put the worst construction on her motives in bringing him to the Hall.

I cannot tell how Betsy Harwood obtained her information, except on the principle which I have named as peculiar to country towns in general, namely, that everybody knows everything about everybody else. Betsy it was who told me that there had been "a fine to-do about Miss Nelly coming to Rose Cottage."

"The master might have no right to take his daughter out with him or to call on a friend, by the way Mrs. Burford lectured him," said Betsy.

"But how did Mrs. Burford know that they had been here?" I asked. "She only came home that evening, and went away directly with her husband to fetch Magnus."

"It was the roses that told. You know we have some here different from any in the town, and finer, too. You remember, Master John, how you gathered the very best for Miss Nelly. Well, she carried them home and took the greatest care of them, but she was wearing some the day her brother came. He is such a boy for flowers, and directly he saw the roses, he called out, 'Nelly, those are from Rose Cottage. Mrs. Henderson used to give me such when I called upon her with my mother. Let me smell them; there are none so sweet.'

"Miss Nelly had the roses fastened near her throat, and she bent over Magnus for him to smell them. He laid his hand on them as if to pull them away, but she said, 'I have more, dear, fresher than these, and only half open. I will fetch them for you.'

"The boy loosed his hold of the roses, and Miss Nelly ran to fetch the others. He had these in his hand when Mrs. Burford came in, and he called to her, 'See what Nelly has brought to me! They are from my favourite bush at Rose Cottage.'

"Though the lad is so ill, and he had only just got into the house, as one may say, Mrs. Burford's face went as red as fire, and she turned to Miss Nelly.

"'How did you get flowers from Rose Cottage, Ellen?' she asked, in that stern voice of hers, enough to frighten one.

"Miss Ellen went white and red, but she looked up in her honest way, and said—

"'I called there with my father the day you came back, before you fetched Magnus from school. I had no chance of telling you before.'

"'You called at Rose Cottage! Your father took you! And pray what business had you there? I suppose you planned this disgraceful visit purposely when I was away.'

"Mrs. Burford was angry, though I don't see myself there was any disgrace about calling here, if even you had been out of the way, Mr. John. I take it there's no disgrace in being plain working folks and living in a little house, so as you pay your way and do what's right to the best of your power.

"Miss Ellen answered that there was no planning about it; that she was out walking with her father, and he called at Rose Cottage to speak to me, and afterwards they stopped and had tea with you, Mr. John. She said she did not know we all lived here till then, but she was very glad we had left the old house, which was not good enough for her friend and playfellow Jack, but now everything about him was fit for a gentleman born, like you are, Mr. John, though it might not be grand or have cost such a lot of money as their furniture had done.

"I can't tell you all that was said, only that there was a great disturbance, and Mrs. Burford raked up all the ill-natured things that she used to be so fond of saying soon after your father died, and had them over again. She told Miss Nelly that she had low tastes that nothing would cure, and she should go away again till she learned to know better; that if ever she disgraced herself by again speaking to young Simpson, she should pay for it in a way she little counted on.

"The more angry Mrs. Burford got, the calmer Miss Nelly was. She answered her quite firm and steady, and said—

"'Mother, I am sorry that I cannot agree with you, but I should be grieved indeed if I could feel anything but regard and esteem for my dear friend Jack. It seems so strange that you, who once could not say enough in his favour, should speak so harshly and cruelly about him, and for no fault. My father and grandfather say that Jack is a good, brave fellow, whom everybody honours, not for what he has, but for what he is. Nobody speaks ill of Jack but you, mother, and surely every one else cannot be wrong. His life is open for all to see, and he has proved by it that he can be as thorough a gentleman whilst earning his bread at Oakhill Station, as he could ever have been at Lint Hall. Father is as proud of Jack as ever.'

"'Gentleman or not, I insist upon it that you never speak to John Simpson again,' says Mrs. Burford. For, poor body! I believe she was just at her wits' end to find something ill-natured to fling at Miss Nelly about you; only she couldn't, and for a good reason.

"'Do you hear, Miss?' she went on. 'I expect you will give me your word never willingly to see that wretched young man for the future.'

"'I hear, mother,' said Miss Nelly, 'but I can give no such promise, for I should not keep it. I hope I shall see Jack, and much oftener than I have done of late years. But I will promise this, that when father and grandfather Burford forbid my speaking to him, and agree with your opinion of him, I will give up my old friend.'"

"Poor Nelly! I am sorry for the unpleasantness between her and Mrs. Burford. It would be very hard for her to oppose her mother, but Mr. Burford has always favoured our continuing friends, and he brought Nelly here quite unexpectedly to me," said I to Betsy.

"And very glad the young lady was to come, Mr. John; and nobody could say wrong there was, except just her cross-grained mamma. Not that Mrs. Burford will get her own way about sending Miss Nelly away again. I know better than that," and Betsy nodded sagaciously. "I have not quite done with my story about the roses," she added, "for after Miss Nelly as good as said she should always keep friends with you, Mrs. Burford just scolded right and left, as one may say. Then she snatched the roses from her daughter's dress and crushed them in her hand, thereby getting more than she bargained for, seeing they were fastened with a big pin, that buried itself deep in the palm and gave her something else to talk about for a while after. She had more than that, too, for the poor boy was so overdone by the noise and the scolding that he went off in a dead faint, and it took some time to bring him to his senses again. I dare say Mrs. Burford would be sorry enough when she saw her poor boy so upset through her going on. But being sorry cannot always mend mischief. Master Magnus had to be taken to bed, and seems likely to stop there, by all accounts."

I was very much grieved to hear this about the sick boy, and I could not help echoing Betsy's subsequent wish that ill-tempered people might be forced to carry on their own shoulders the whole weight of trouble caused by their hard words.

"Yes, Master John," said she, "that would teach them to think before they speak. But the mischief is, they trouble other people too. I've often said that 'hard words break no bones,' and mostly these old sayings have a deal of good sense in them. I am beginning to think that they sometimes do worse than break bones."

"Ay, Betsy, they wound tender hearts; they break friendships; they lay up sorrowful memories. Sometimes the wounds are never healed; friends meet no more as such, and the bitter words will not leave the memory through the long years that follow," I replied.

"And those that have made all the mischief blame everybody but themselves. I dare say, if one could know the truth, Mrs. Burford blames you for Master Magnus being worse."

"Blames me!" I cried, amazed that Betsy could imagine that possible. "How could she blame me, when I have neither seen nor spoken to Magnus for years?"

"When people want somebody else to take the blame of their faults, they can always find a way. Didn't you give those roses to Miss Nelly?"

"Of course I did?"

"And wasn't it the sight of them that made Mrs. Burford find out that the young lady had been here with her father?"

"Certainly, but they came of their own accord."

"That's true enough, but the coming made Mrs. Burford angry, and depend on it, she says it was all through you stopping at Oakhill, when she thought by rights you should have gone away where nobody knew you. If you had gone to Australia or America, you would not have been here; and if you had not been here, nobody could have come having tea with you and carrying home roses to vex Mrs. Burford. You can see, Mr. John; it is all as plain as A B C. It was through your roses that the lady got in a temper and made her son ill."

There was a humorous twinkle in Betsy's eyes as she made out the case against me on Mrs. Burford's behalf.

"You are right," I replied. "If any one is determined to make out a case against another, a way will be found, though it may be a crooked one."

Mrs. Burford subsequently attacked her husband on the subject of that visit to Rose Cottage, but found herself hopelessly worsted. Mr. Burford showed sufficient firmness, and frankly told his wife that he should use his own judgment with regard to the places to which he might take his children.

"As to Nelly going abroad again," he said, "she will do nothing of the kind. She is going to stay at home to be a comfort to me, and, I trust, to you also. I have been deprived of my dear girl's sunny presence far too long already, and I mean to enjoy as much of it as possible in future. Where Nelly goes, I go. I am most thankful that she has returned home unspoiled, and that she has remained faithful alike to home affections and outside friendships. I was delighted to know this in regard to Jack Simpson, her old playfellow. It quite brought back old happy times to be Jack's guest in his little nest. I thought of his poor father, at whose table you and I sat many a time in bygone years, and how glad he would have been to see his lad what he is in spite of changed fortunes. I tell you, I have not had such a pleasant hour for years as that which Nelly and I spent at Rose Cottage. The memory of it, and of those young bright faces, is like a poem, and I hope to repeat it before long."

There were occasions when even Mrs. Burford had to own herself vanquished, not in so many words, but to herself. Her husband, good, easygoing, and indulgent as a rule, could be firm enough at times, and when he was in such a mood, there was nothing for her but tacit submission.

Naturally I did not know of this conversation when it took place, but I heard the particulars from Mr. Burford himself, when I saw him about another matter which troubled me not a little shortly afterwards.