Poor Owen was evidently falling under the management of stronger hands than his own, and it could only be hoped that it was not too late.  His keeper brought him at a little after eight that evening.  There was a look about him as if, after the last stroke that had befallen him, he could feel no more, the bitterness of death was past, his very hands looked woe-begone and astray, without the little fingers pressing them.  He could not talk at first; he shook Honor’s hand as if he could not bear to be grateful to her, and only the hardest hearts could have endured to enter on the intended discussion.  The captain was very gentle towards him, and talk was made on other topics but gradually something of the influence of the familiar scene where his brightest days had been passed, began to prevail.  All was like old times—the quaint old silver kettle and lamp, the pattern of the china cups, the ruddy play of the fire on the polished panels of the room—and he began to revive and join the conversation.  They spoke of Delaroche’s beautiful Madonnas, one of which was at the time to be seen at a print-shop—‘Yes,’ said Mr. Sandbrook, ‘and little Owen cried out as soon as he saw it, “That lady, the lady with the flowery watch.”’

Honora smiled.  It was an allusion to the old jests upon her auburn locks, ‘a greater compliment to her than to Delaroche,’ she said; ‘I saw that he was extremely curious to ascertain what my carrots were made of.’

‘Do you know, Nora, I never saw more than one person with such hair as yours,’ said Owen, with more animation, ‘and oddly enough her name turned out to be Charlecote.’

‘Impossible!  Humfrey and I are the only Charlecotes left that I know of!  Where could it have been?’

‘It was at Toronto.  I must confess that I was struck by the brilliant hair in chapel.  Afterwards I met her once or twice.  She was a Canadian born, and had just married a settler, whose name I can’t remember, but her maiden name had certainly been Charlecote; I remembered it because of the coincidence.’

‘Very curious; I did not know there had been any Charlecotes but ourselves.’

‘And Humfrey Charlecote has never married?’

‘Never.’

What made Owen raise his eyes at that moment, just so that she met them? and why did that dreadful uncontrollable crimson heat come mounting up over cheeks and temples, tingling and spreading into her very neck, just because it was the most hateful thing that could happen?  And he saw it.  She knew he did so, for he dropped his eyes at once, and there was an absolute silence, which she broke in desperation, by an incoherent attempt to say something, and that ended by blundering into the tender subject—the children; she found she had been talking about the place to which she thought of taking them, a quiet spot on the northern coast of Somersetshire.

He could bear the pang a little better now, and assented, and the ice once broken, there were so many details and injunctions that lay near his heart that the conversation never flagged.  He had great reliance on their nurse, and they were healthy children, so that there was not much instruction as regarded the care of their little persons; but he had a great deal to say about the books they were to be taught from, the hymns they were to learn, and the exact management required by Lucilla’s peculiar temper and decided will.  The theory was so perfect and so beautifully wise that Honora sat by in reverence, fearing her power of carrying it out; and Captain Charteris listened with a shade of satire on his face, and at last broke out with a very odd grunt, as if he did not think this quite what he had seen at Wrapworth parsonage.

Mr. Sandbrook coloured, and checked himself.  Then after a pause, he said in a very different tone, ‘Perhaps so, Kit.  It is only too easy to talk.  Nora knows that there is a long way between my intentions and my practice.’

The humble dejection of that tone touched her more than she had been touched since he had wrung her hand, long, long ago.

‘Well,’ said the captain, perceiving only that he had given pain, ‘I will say this for your monkeys, they do know what is right at least; they have heard the articles of war, which I don’t fancy the other lot ever did.  As to the discipline, humph!  It is much of a muchness, and I’m not sure but it is not the best at the castle.’

‘The children are different at home,’ said Owen, quietly; ‘but,’ he added, with the same sad humility, ‘I dare say they will be much the better for the change; I know—’

But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.

Honora hoped she should not be left alone with him, but somehow it did happen.  The captain went to bring the carriage into the court, and get all imaginable wraps before trusting him out in the air, and Miss Wells disappeared, probably intending kindness.  Of course neither spoke, till the captain was almost come back.  Then Owen rose from where he had been sitting listlessly, leaning back, and slowly said, ‘Nora, we did not think it would end thus when I put my hand to the plough.  I am glad to have been here again.  I had not remembered what I used to be.  I do not ask you to forgive me.  You are doing so, returning me good for—shall I say evil?’

Honor could not speak or look, she drooped her head, and her hair veiled her; she held out her hand as the captain came in, and felt it pressed with a feverish, eager grasp, and a murmured blessing.

Honora did not see Mr. Sandbrook again, but Captain Charteris made an incursion on her the next day to ask if she could receive the children on the ensuing morning.  He had arranged to set off before daybreak, embarking for Ostend before the children were up, so as to spare the actual parting, and Honora undertook to fetch them home in the course of the day.  He had hoped to avoid their knowing of the impending separation but he could only prevail so far as to extract a promise that they should not know when it was to take place.  Their father had told them of their destination and his own as they sat on his bed in the morning before he rose, and apparently it had gone off better than could have been expected; little Owen did not seem to understand, and his sister was a child who never shed tears.

The day came, and Honora awoke to some awe at the responsibility, but with a yearning supplied, a vacancy filled up.  For at least six months she should be as a mother, and a parent’s prayers could hardly have been more earnest.

She had not long been dressed, when a hasty peal was heard at the bell, and no sooner was the door opened than in hurried Captain Charteris, breathless, and bearing a large plaid bundle with tangled flaxen locks drooping at one end, and at the other rigid white legs, socks trodden down, one shoe wanting.

He deposited it, and there stood the eldest child, her chin buried in her neck, her fingers digging fast into their own palms, her eyes gleaming fiercely at him under the pent-house she had made of her brows.

‘There’s an introduction!’ he said, panting for breath.  ‘Found her in time—the Strand—laid flat on back seat, under all the plaids and bags—her father put up his feet and found her—we drove to the lane—I ran down with her—not a moment—can’t stay, good-bye, little Cilly goose, to think she could go that figure!’

He advanced to kiss her, but she lifted up her shoulder between him and her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and he retreated.

‘Wiser not, maybe!  Look here,’ as Honora hurried after him into the hall to ask after the patient; ‘if you have a bit of sticking-plaster, he had better not see this.’

Lucilla had made her little pearls of teeth meet in the fleshy part of his palm.

Honora recoiled, shocked, producing the plaster from her pocket in an instant.

‘Little vixen,’ he said, half laughing; ‘but I was thankful to her for neither kicking nor struggling!’

‘Poor child!’ said Honora, ‘perhaps it was as much agony as passion!’

He shrugged his shoulders as he held out his hand for her operations, then hastily thanking her and wishing her good-bye, rushed off again, as the astonished Miss Wells appeared on the stairs.  Honor shrank from telling her what wounds had been received, she thought the gentle lady would never get over such a proceeding, and, in fact, she herself felt somewhat as if she had undertaken the charge of a little wild cat, and quite uncertain what the young lady might do next.  On entering the breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the energy and life gone from the little dejected figure.

‘Poor child!  Dear little thing—won’t you come to me?’  She stirred not.

Miss Wells advanced, but the child’s only motion was to shake her frock at her, as if to keep her off; Honora, really afraid of the consequences of touching her, whispered that they would leave her to herself a little.  The silver kettle came in, and tea was made.

‘Lucilla, my dear, the servants are coming in to prayers.’

She did not offer to move, and still Honora let her alone, and she remained in the same attitude while the psalm was read, but afterwards there was a little approximation to kneeling in her position.

‘Lucilla, dear child, you had better come to breakfast—’  Only another defying glance.

Miss Wells, with what Honor thought defective judgment, made pointed commendations of the tea, the butter and honey, but they had no effect; Honora, though her heart ached for the wrench the poor child had undergone, thought it best to affect indifference, gave a hint of the kind, and scrupulously avoided looking round at her, till breakfast was finished.  When she did so, she no longer met the wary defiant gleam of the blue eyes, they were fast shut, the head had sunk on the arms, and the long breathings of sleep heaved the little frame.  ‘Poor little dear!’ as Miss Wells might well exclaim, she had kept herself wakeful the whole night that her father might not go without her knowledge.  And how pretty she looked in that little black frock, so ill and hastily put on, one round white shoulder quite out of it, and the long flaxen locks showing their silky fineness as they hung dispersed and tangled, the pinky flush of sleep upon the little face pillowed on the rosy pair of arms, and with a white unstockinged leg doubled under her.  Poor child, there was more of the angel than the tiger-cat in her aspect now, and they had tears in their eyes, and moved softly lest they should startle her from her rest.

But wakened she must be.  Honora was afraid of displeasing her domestic vizier, and rendering him for ever unpropitious to her little guests if she deferred his removal of the breakfast things beyond a reasonable hour.  How was the awaking to be managed?  Fright, tears, passion, what change would come when the poor little maid must awake to her grief!  Honora would never have expected so poetical a flight from her good old governess as the suggestion, ‘Play to her;’ but she took it eagerly, and going to the disused piano which stood in the room began a low, soft air.  The little sleeper stirred, presently raised her head, shook her hair off her ears, and after a moment, to their surprise, her first word was ‘Mamma!’  Honora was pausing, but the child said, ‘Go on,’ and sat for a few moments as though recovering herself, then rose and came forward slowly standing at last close to Honora.  There was a pause, and she said, ‘Mamma did that.’

Never was a sound more welcome!  Honora dared to do what she had longed for so much, put an arm round the little creature and draw her nearer, nor did Lucilla resist, she only said, ‘Won’t you go on?’

‘I can make prettier music in the other room, my dear; we will go there, only you’ve had no breakfast.  You must be very hungry.’

Lucilla turned round, saw a nice little roll cut into slices, and remembered that she was hungry; and presently she was consuming it so prosperously under Miss Wells’s superintendence that Honor ventured out to endeavour to retard Jones’s desire to ‘take away,’ by giving him orders about the carriage, and then to attend to her other household affairs.  By the time they were ended she found that Miss Wells had brought the child into the drawing-room, where she had at once detected the piano, and looking up at Honora said eagerly ‘Now then!’  And Honora fulfilled her promise, while the child stood by softened and gratified, until it was time to propose fetching little Owen, ‘your little brother—you will like to have him here.’

‘I want my father,’ said Lucilla in a determined voice, as if nothing else were to satisfy her.

‘Poor child, I know you do; I am so sorry for you, my dear little woman, but you see the doctors think papa is more likely to get better if he has not you to take care of!’

‘I did not want my father to take care of me,’ said the little lady, proudly; ‘I take care of father, I always make his tea and warm his slippers, and bring him his coffee in the morning.  And Uncle Kit never will put his gloves for him and warm his handkerchief!  Oh! what will he do?  I can’t bear it.’

The violent grief so long kept back was coming now, but not freely; the little girl threw herself on the floor, and in a tumult of despair and passion went on, hurrying out her words, ‘It’s very hard!  It’s all Uncle Kit’s doing!  I hate him!  Yes, I do.’  And she rolled over and over in her frenzy of feeling.

‘My dear! my dear!’ cried Honora, kneeling by her, ‘this will never do!  Papa would be very much grieved to see his little girl so naughty.  Don’t you know how your uncle only wants to do him good, and to make him get well?’

‘Then why didn’t he take me?’ said Lucilla, gathering herself up, and speaking sullenly.

‘Perhaps he thought you gave papa trouble, and tired him.’

‘Yes, that’s it, and it’s not fair,’ cried the poor child again; ‘why couldn’t he tell me?  I didn’t know papa was ill! he never told me so, nor Mr. Pendy either; or, how I would have nursed him!  I wanted to do so much for him; I wouldn’t have asked him to tell me stories, nor nothing!  No!  And now they won’t let me take care of him;’ and she cried bitterly.

‘Yes,’ said good, gentle Miss Wells, thinking more of present comfort than of the too possible future; ‘but you will go back to take care of him some day, my dear.  When the spring comes papa will come back to his little girl.’

Spring!  It was a long way off to a mind of six years old, but it made Lucilla look more amiably at Miss Wells.

‘And suppose,’ proceeded that good lady, ‘you were to learn to be as good and helpful a little girl as can be while he is gone, and then nobody will wish to keep you from him.  How surprised he would be!’

‘And then shall we go home?’ said Lucilla.

Miss Wells uttered a somewhat rash assurance to that effect, and the child came near her, pacified and satisfied by the scheme of delightful goodness and progress to be made in order to please her father—as she always called him.  Honor looked on, thankful for the management that was subduing and consoling the poor little maid, and yet unable to participate in it, for though the kind old lady spoke in all sincerity, it was impossible to Honora to stifle a lurking fear that the hopes built on the prospect of his return had but a hollow foundation.

However it attracted Lucilla to Miss Wells, so that Honora did not fear leaving her on going to bring home little Owen.  The carriage which had conveyed the travellers, had brought back news of his sister’s discovery and capture, and Honora found Mrs. Sandbrook much shocked at the enormity of the proceeding, and inclined to pity Honora for having charge of the most outrageous children she had ever seen.  A very long letter had been left for her by their father, rehearsing all he had before given of directions, and dwelling still more on some others, but then apparently repenting of laying down the law, he ended by entreating her to use her own judgment, believe in his perfect confidence, and gratitude beyond expression for most unmerited kindness.

Little Owen, she heard, had made the house resound with cries when his father was nowhere to be found, but his nurse had quieted him, and he came running to Honora with an open, confiding face.  ‘Are you the lady?  And will you take me to Cilly and the sea?  And may I have a whale?’