The compliment won her. She rose instantly, and leaning on her son's arm passed into the hall. It had been dark and gloomy, though fairly handsome. It was now finished in the palest shades, was light and airy and looked much larger. Where the cases of impaled beetles and crucified butterflies had stood, there were pots of ferns and flowers, and the special furniture necessary was of light woods and modern designs. All the rooms leading from this hall were richly and elegantly furnished; the same idea of lightness and gracefulness being admirably carried out. Nothing had been forgotten, even the most trivial toilet articles were present in their most beautiful form. Isabel lifted some of these, and asked: "How did you know about such things, Robert?"

"I did not know, Isabel," he answered, "but I went to a place where such things are sold, and told them to fit a lady's toilet perfectly, with all that ladies use and desire. Theodora may not like the perfumes; indeed, I do not think she uses perfume of any kind, but they can be sent back, or changed."

"Well, Robert," said Mrs. Campbell, when all apartments had been examined, "these rooms are fit for a queen, and many a poor queen never had anything half so splendid and comfortable. Theodora will be confounded by their richness and beauty. I should say she never saw anything like them."

"Indeed, you are mistaken, mother. I met her first at John Priestley's, Member of Parliament for Sheffield, where she was the guest of his daughter, and in their mansion the rooms are much handsomer than anything we have here. Theodora has been a guest in some of the finest manor houses in England. These rooms are quite modest compared with some she has occupied."

"I think, then, she will be too fine for this family. But Robert, I can not, and I will not, change my ways at my time of life. I may be plain and common – perhaps – I may be vulgar in Theodora's eyes, but – "

"My dear mother, you are all a woman and a mother should be. You represent the finest ladies of your generation. Theodora is the fruit and flower of a later one, different, but no better than your own. You are everything I want. I would not have you changed in any respect." He looked into her face with eyes full of love, and gently pressed her arm against his side.

Such appreciative words as these were most unusual, and Mrs. Campbell felt them thrill her heart with pleasure. She even half-resolved to try to like Robert's wife, and spoke enthusiastically about the taste her son had displayed. In the morning she was still more delighted, for then she discovered that her own drawing-room had been redecorated, a new light carpet laid, and many beautiful pieces of furniture added to brighten its usual gloom. Nor had Isabel's and Christina's rooms been forgotten; in many ways they had been beautified, and only the family dining-room had been left in the gloom of its dark, though handsome furniture. But Robert hoped by the following summer his mother would be willing to have it totally changed, for he remembered hearing Theodora say that the room in which people eat ought to be, above all other rooms in the house, bright, and light, and cheerful. Indeed, she thought it a matter of well-being to eat under the happiest circumstances possible.

In the height of the women's delight and gratitude, Robert set off on his wedding journey. His joy infected the whole house. Even the cross McNab and the mournful Jepson were heard laughing, and Christina spoke of this as among the wonderfuls of her existence. Perhaps the one most pleased was Mrs. Campbell. She had been surrounded by the same depressing furniture and upholstery for thirty-seven years, and she had almost a childish pleasure in the new white lace curtains which had been hung in her rooms. They gave her a sense of youth, of something unusually happy and hopeful. Many times in a day, she went, unknown to any one, into the drawing-room and took the fine lace drapery in her fingers, to examine and admire its beauty. The girls also were more cheerful. Indeed, the tone of the house had been uplifted and changed, and all through the influence of more light, some graceful modern furniture, and a little – alas, that it was so little! – good will and gratitude.

On the fifth of October Robert Campbell was married, and about a week afterwards, Archie St. Claire called one evening upon his family.

"I have just returned from Kendal," he said, "and I thought you would like to hear about the wedding. You were none of you there."

"We had satisfactory reasons for not going," answered Mrs. Campbell.

"I was Robert's best man."

"I supposed so. Robert said very little about his arrangements. What do you think of the bride?"

"She is a most beautiful woman, fine-natured and sweet-tempered, and loved by all who come near her. Robert has found a jewel."

"How was she dressed?" asked Isabel.

"Perfectly. White satin and lace, of course, but what I liked was the simplicity of the gown. I heard some one call it a Princess shape. It fit her beautiful form without a crease, and fell in long soft folds to her white shoes."

"White shoes? Nonsense!" ejaculated Mrs. Campbell.

"White shoes with diamond buckles."

"Paste buckles more likely."

"They looked like diamonds. Her veil fell backward and touched the bottom of her dress."

"Backward! Then of what use was it? I thought brides wore a veil to cover their faces."

"It would have been a sin and a shame to have covered her face. She looked like an angel. She wore no jewels, and she carried instead of flowers a small Bible bound in purple velvet and gold."

"Were there many present?"

"The streets were crowded, and the church was crowded. The Blue Coat Boys – a large old school in Kendal – scattered flowers before her as she walked from the church gates to the altar; and the old rector who had married her father and mother was quite affected by the ceremony. He kissed and blessed her at the altar-rail, after it was over."

"Kissed Robert Campbell's bride. Surely you are joking, Mr. St. Claire."

"No, it is a common thing in English churches after the bridal ceremony if the minister is a friend. It was a solemn and affecting sight."

"Then her father did not marry her?"

"He gave her away. He could not have performed the ceremony in the parish church."

"Do you mean that she was not married in her father's church?"

"She was married in the parish church, one of the most beautiful places of worship I was ever in – a grand old edifice."

"Do you mean that my son was married in an Episcopal church, at the very horns of an Episcopal altar?" asked Mrs. Campbell indignantly.

"It was the most beautiful marriage service I ever saw. And the sweet old bells chimed so joyously, I can never forget them."

"Was there a wedding breakfast?" asked Isabel.

"About twenty guests sat down to a very prettily decorated breakfast table, and after the meal, Robert and his bride began their journey through life together. I have brought you some bride cake," and he took from a box in his hand three smaller white boxes, tied with white ribbon, and presented them. Mrs. Campbell laid hers unopened on the table without a word of thanks or courtesy, and Isabel and Christina followed her example.

"There was a crowd at the railway station," continued Mr. St. Claire, "and the Blue Coat Boys met the bride singing a wedding-hymn. Robert gave them a noble check for their school."

"I'll warrant he did. The more fool he!"

"And the last thing they heard as they left Kendal must have been the church bells chiming joyfully – 'Hail, Happy Morn'!"

"Do you know where they went? Robert was not sure when he left Scotland."

"I think I do, Mrs. Campbell. They had intended going through the Fife towns, and by old St. Andrews to Wick, and so to the Orkneys and Shetlands. But it was late in the season for this trip, so they went to Paris and the Mediterranean. I think they were right."

"Paris, of course. All the fools go there!"

"Well, Mrs. Campbell, Scotland is a bleak place for a honeymoon."

"Mr. St. Claire, if it does for a man's home, it may do to honeymoon in. That is my opinion."

"I don't agree with you, Mrs. Campbell. A honeymoon is a sort of transcendental existence, and a man naturally wants to spend it as nearly in Paradise as possible. There's no place like the Mediterranean for sunshine, and it is poetical and picturesque, and just the place for lovers."

Failing, with all his willing good nature, to rouse any apparent interest in a subject he considered highly interesting, he felt a little offended, and rose to depart. But ere he reached the parlor door he turned and said: "I had nearly forgotten one very remarkable thing about the bride."

"Let us hear it, by all means," said Mrs. Campbell.

"I stayed a few days after the marriage, in order to visit Windermere and Keswick Lake with Mr. Newton – by-the-by, wonderfully beautiful spots, nothing like them in Scotland – and one day while waiting in his study, I picked up a book. Imagine my astonishment, when I saw it had been written by the bride."

At this information Mrs. Campbell threw up her hands with a laugh that terminated in something like a shriek. Isabel laid her hand on her mother's arm, and asked: "Are you ill, mother?"

"No," she answered promptly. "I am only like Mr. St. Claire, astonished. I need not have been. Every girl scribbles a little now. Poetry, of course."

"You mean Mrs. Campbell's book?"

"Yes."

"On the contrary, it was a most learned and interesting study of ancient and sacred geography."

"A schoolbook!" and the words were scoffed out with utter contempt.

"Then a most fascinating one. It gave the Latin and Saxon names of our own old cities, and all the historical and biographical incidents connected with them. It treated the names in the Bible and ancient history in the same way. The preacher was very modest about it, but said it was now in all the best schools, and that his daughter had quite a good income from the royalty on its sale. And he added: 'Since you have discovered her secret, I may tell you that she has written two novels, and a volume of – '"

"Plays, I dare say."

"No, ma'am, of Social Essays."

"Really, Mr. St. Claire, we can stand no more revelations concerning the bride's perfections! Robert Campbell is only a master of iron workers and coal miners, and I fear he will feel painfully his inferiority to such a marvellously beautiful and intellectual woman. As for myself, and my poor girls, I can only say – grant us patience!"

St. Claire bowed, and made a hurried exit. "Ill-natured and envious creatures as ever I met," he mused. "I'm sorry for Mrs. Robert! She will have troubles great and small with those women under her roof, and I wonder if Robert will have the gumption to stand by her. He was always extraordinarily afraid of his mother. I should be afraid of her myself. I am thankful my mother isn't the least like her! My mother is made of love and sweet-temper, and she is more of a lady in her winsey skirt and linen short gown than Mrs. Traquair Campbell is in all her silk and lace and jewelry. Thank God for His mercies! The Book says a good wife is from the Lord. I know, by personal experience, that a good mother is even more so. I'll just write mother a letter this very night, and tell her all about the wedding. She will enjoy every word of it, and at the end say: 'God bless the young things! With His blessing they'll do weel enough, whatever comes.'"

There was no blessing in Mrs. Campbell's heart. She looked at her girls in silence until she heard the closing of the front door, then she asked: "What do you say to Mr. St. Claire's story?" and Isabel answered: "I say what you said, mother – grant us patience!"

"Tut, Isabel! Patience? Nonsense! I think little of that grace. Theodora may be a beauty, a school-teacher, and an authoress, but we three women can match her."

"Whatever made Robert marry her?"

"That is past speculating about! But she is the man's choice – such as it is. Doubtless he thinks her without a fault, but, as I told you before, the bit-by-bitness can soon change that opinion – a little mustard seed of suspicion or difference of any kind, can grow to a great tree. I'm telling you! Do not forget what I say. I am just distracted as yet with the situation. This world is a hard place."

"I think so too, mother," said Christina, "and it is small comfort to be told the next is probably worse."

"I have had lots of trouble in my life, girls, but the worst of all comes with what your father called 'the lad and lass business.' It was that drove your brother David beyond seas, and I have not heard a word from him since he went away one day in a passion. But this or that, mind you, I have always come out of every tribulation victorious – and there is now three of us – we shall be hard enough to beat."

"Theodora has a good many points in her favor," said Christina.

"Count them up, then; count them up! She is a beauty, a genius, an Englishwoman, a Methodist, a teacher of women, a writer of books, and no doubt she will try to set up the golden image of her manifold perfections in Traquair House – but which of us three will bow down before it? Tell me! Tell me that, Christina!"

"Not I, mother."

"Nor I," added Isabel.

"Nor I, you may take an oath on that," said Mrs. Campbell. "And what says the Good Book, 'a threefold cord is not easily broken?' Now you may give me Dr. Chalmer's last sermons, and I'll take a few words from him to settle my mind and put me to sleep; for I am fairly distracted with the prospect of such a monumental woman among us. But I'll say nothing about her, one way or the other, and then I cannot be blamed. I would advise you both to be equally prudent."

But Isabel and Christina were not of their mother's mind. Such a delightful bit of gossip had never before come into their lives, and they went to Isabel's room to talk it all over again, for Isabel being the eldest had the largest and the best furnished room. Isabel made a social event of it, by placing a little table between them, set with the special dainties she kept for her private refreshment. And they felt it to be a friendly and cheerful thing, to have this special woman to season the rich cates and fruit provided. So it had struck twelve before Christina rose and remarked:

"You told me, Isabel, there were going to be changes, and you are right. The next one will be the home-coming, and I dare say Robert will descend on us in the most unexpected time and way."

"You are much mistaken, Christina. I am sure Robert will be telegraphing Jepson from every station on the road. The most trivial things will be directed by him. Let us go to bed now; I am sleepy."

"So am I. Thank you for the good things. They sweetened a disagreeable subject."

"Perhaps she may be better than we expect. One can never tell what the unknown may turn out to be. Mother is inclined to be suspicious of all strangers," said Isabel.

"If mother's eyes were out, she would see faults in any one."

"Perhaps, if they were coming into Traquair House. She does not trouble herself about people who leave the Campbells alone."

"She spoke of poor brother David to-night. Did you notice it?"

"Yes."

"It was the first time I have heard her mention him since he left us."

"She has spoken of him to me, three or four times – a word or two – no more."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No."

"Does mother know?"

"No."

"Does any one know?"

"No. Mother is sure he is dead. I think so myself. He would have written to Robert if he was alive. He was gey fond of Robert."

"I was at school when he went away. I never heard why he went, for when I came home I was forbidden to name him. Did he do anything wrong?"

"No, no! You must not suppose such a thing. He was the most loving and honorable of men."

"Then why did he go away? Do you know?"

"Yes, I know all about it."

"Tell me, Isabel. I will never name the subject again. What did he do?"

"Just what Robert has done – married a girl not wanted in the family."

"Who was the girl? Why was she not wanted?"

"Her name was Agnes Symington. She was a minister's daughter."

"Was she pretty?"

"Very pretty, and good and sweet as a woman could be."

"Pretty, and good, and sweet, and a minister's daughter! What more did mother want?"

"Money."

"Was she poor?"

"Yes. Her father was dead, and she had learned dressmaking to support her mother and herself. She came to make our winter dresses, and David saw her and loved her. Though she was a minister's daughter, mother had always sent her to the servants' table, and she was nearly mad to think David had married a girl from the servants' table. It was disgraceful – in a way. The servants talked, and so did every one that knew us. But David loved her, and when he went he took both Agnes and her mother with him."

"What did father say?"

"He took David's part. He took it angrily. He amazed us. He sold David's share in the works for him, and so let strangers into the company, and he sent him away with his blessing, and plenty of money. David was crying when he bid father good-bye; and father was never the same after David left. We always believed that father knew where he went, and that he heard from him, through Mr. Oliphant or Dr. Robertson. But mother could get no words from him about David, except 'The boy did right. God pity the man whose wife is chosen for him!' I think father had to marry mother to save the works. I think so; I was not told it as a fact. Do not breathe a word of what I have told you. It is a dead story. David and father are both gone, and I dare say David's wife is married again."

"Thank you for telling me the story, Isabel. I will keep your confidence. Do not doubt it. I do not blame David. I think he did right. I wish I could do the same thing. I – "

"Good-night!"

"I would run away to-morrow."