the unselfishness which has seemed to set it aside. Jack was struck and touched by the gladness in her face, by the peace of the little garden, its vines and its roses. He had a feeling as if it could not last, as if he himself were bringing in the element of unrest. He stopped his aunt when she was beginning to question him.

“You have not heard how Cartouche got at me.”

“No—did he know your step? Oh, my dear,” she said, pausing blankly.

“Well?”

“I have just remembered I had shut him into an upstairs room, and the key is in my pocket.”

“It’s quite safe, you need not feel for it,” said Jack gravely. “The fact is, he jumped out of the window.”

“Oh, but I hope, I do hope you are mistaken,” said Miss Cartwright in great perturbation. “I have always felt so safe when we have got him upstairs; it really will be serious if this is no restraint. Because, even if the windows were closed”—she stopped and looked doubtfully at Cartouche, who presented an aspect of complete indifference.

“He would go through them—not a doubt of it.”

“My dear boy, don’t say such dreadful things! But then, what can we do? Never mind, I dare say he will not be naughty again,” she went on, bringing her unlimited hopefulness to bear; “besides, it was owing to your coming so unexpectedly, and you have explained nothing as yet. I shall just go and see Winter, and tell her to get everything ready for you, and then I shall come back, and hear all that you have been doing.”

Left to himself, Ibbetson sat down on a garden bench, and with his head sunk between his shoulders, his long legs stretched stiffly out, and his hands disposed of in his pockets, fell into a reverie, which, to judge from his looks, was not of an altogether agreeable nature. So absorbed by it was he, that Cartouche, tired of a short-lived goodness, went off to relieve his spirits by bullying the cat of the household, an animal which, having been always distinguished for a singularly placid disposition, was now rapidly acquiring the characteristics of a vixen, goaded thereto by a good-humoured but unceasing persecution. What with barks and spittings, there was noise enough to disturb a less profound meditation, but when Miss Cartwright at length came hurrying out, her nephew kept the same attitude, and was unaware of her approach. Thinking that he was asleep, she stood looking at him with a tender wistfulness in her soft eyes; for now that his face was in repose she noticed a tired and grave expression which she fancied should not have been there. It was not a handsome face, for there was a greater squareness than is considered consistent with good looks, and the mouth was large. But his eyes were grey and honest, and all the features gave you a pleasant impression of openness and health which in itself was a strong attraction to less partial observers than his aunt. Nor was the partiality itself wonderful, when it was considered that she had acted as mother to Jack since the time when his own mother had died, a time so long ago that he was too small to know anything about it—or so they decided. When it happened, Miss Cartwright went to live with her brother-in-law, and to bring up Jack.

She did this—the more loyally and creditably that she and her brother-in-law never got on well together. It was not that they quarrelled, but that they had little in common. Sir John Ibbetson was a poor squire who farmed his own land, and never seemed to grow any the richer for it; perhaps the truth was, that being haunted by the impression that ill-luck dogged his footsteps, he could scarcely be induced to take any but a gloomy view of whatever concerned him. That Jack’s early life was not coloured by such grim presentiments was owing to Miss Cartwright’s persistent cheerfulness, which, while a perpetual trial to Sir John, made the home atmosphere healthy for the boy. Few people could have retained their sweet temper and interest in minor matters so thoroughly as she retained them, in spite of constant rebuffs; nor could she ever be talked into taking despairing views of Jack’s juvenile naughtinesses, or into foreshadowing future disgrace from his inability or unwillingness to master the intricacies of the Latin grammar. But perhaps her best service both to father and son was in keeping well before the boy his father’s actual affection, and thus preventing Sir John’s over-anxiety from alienating his son, which might have been a not unnatural result. As it was, the lad grew up high-spirited and perhaps a little wilful, but generous in his impulses, and with a sweet temper which it was difficult to ruffle. He was universally liked at Harrow and Oxford, and, like other men, got both good and bad out of his popularity; but being too lazy for hard work, only scrambled through what had to be done, and grievously disappointed his father, although the latter had never professed to look forward to better things. It might have been owing to this disappointment that Sir John took a step which caused the most lively amazement to Jack, Miss Cartwright, his servants, and, in a lesser degree, to the whole circle of his acquaintances. He announced his engagement to a rich widow.

When the first astonishment had been got over, nobody had a word to say against it except Jack. He disliked it so vehemently as even to surprise his aunt, who, with all her knowledge of him, was unaware how tenderly he cherished the idea—for remembrance it could scarcely be called—of his lost mother, or how much he resented a step of his father’s which seemed to prove her to be forgotten. However, though the sore remained, his nature was too sweet not to suffer it to be mollified, although he entirely refused to benefit by the substantial kindnesses which his stepmother—to her credit be it spoken—would willingly have heaped upon him. It seemed, indeed, as if the necessary spur had at last touched his life. He studied for the bar more closely than he had ever done before, was constant in his attendance at the courts, and in his letters to his aunt expressed such an eager desire for her briefs, that if her disposition had not been absolutely peaceful, she might have returned to England on purpose to seek for a lawsuit. As it was, she began to develop what seemed like a sanguinary thirst for crime, reading the police reports in her English papers with less horror at the wickedness there brought to light, than anxiety that something should turn up for Jack.

Sir John’s marriage had taken place nearly a year ago, and Miss Cartwright, uprooted from what had been her home for a long series of years, had, partly from old associations, partly to please Jack, and partly because an old maiden friend was bent upon the scheme, determined to make Florence her home for a time. It was the last thing anyone expected from her, but those are just the things which people do. She and Miss Preston had moved to Siena for the summer, and now had come back to the pretty homelike little house on which they had fallen. Miss Preston was the part of the arrangement against which Jack protested in vain. She was tall, hook-nosed, commanding: she did not believe in him; she set her face against weaknesses of all kinds, and considered it her mission to protect Miss Cartwright. When people’s worth takes this sort of disagreeable shape, it is astonishing how much more indignation it raises amongst their neighbours than falls to the share of real sinners; and perhaps this was the tie which kept these two—unlike as they were—together. Miss Cartwright, who looked up to her friend with all her heart, was really filled with a vague and tender pity which Miss Preston never knew. It was she who was the actual protector—smoothing down, explaining, thinking no evil, and making people ashamed of their own.