A NEW FRIEND

MRS. DAUBENEY very seldom went to church. If Sunday was not full up with engagements, she retired to her room and went to sleep.

"It's a day of rest," she would say to her niece; "and if I am given the opportunity, I shall take advantage of it. Church is too fatiguing at my age."

So Hope went off by herself to the morning service at the cathedral. She sat outside in the nave, and just in front of her was the widow she had so admired, and three sons. They were already there when she entered.

Hope felt a kind of fascination in watching them. Few men of her acquaintance ever sat through a full morning service, including a sermon, and as she looked at the three stalwart young men, she wondered at them. The one who had accompanied his mother the day before was there, another whose clothes were irreproachable in cut and style and who fingered a dark moustache in rather a "blasé" fashion, and the third, a handsome fresh-faced boy apparently only just out of his teens.

Hope noticed, from several little indications, that all three were devoted to their mother. As she caught sight of her sweet and rather regal face, she felt a queer sensation rise in her heart, and for the first time in her life wished she had a mother. "If I had some one—some one like that," she thought, "to whom I could turn for comfort and guidance. Aunt Gertrude is very kind, but this woman is such a different stamp. Her very look sets me wishing to be good!"

Then she smiled at her own emotion. "I might be a romantic schoolgirl. What has come over me? I believe it is the atmosphere of this place."

She tried to turn her attention to the service, but somehow it no longer impressed her, and she began to find it tedious. The Dean preached himself that day. But after he had given out his text, Hope felt that she had had enough, so she got up and left the cathedral.

The text alone remained with her.

"The way of peace they know not."

She was annoyed at the persistency with which the subject was brought to her notice.

"Mere coincidence," she said; "but I will not be made miserable over it. I don't want peace, I want enjoyment."

She hurried home, and appeared before her aunt in the gayest of spirits.

"Don't let us go to sleep down here," she pleaded. "Let us do something. It is a lovely day. Shall we have a drive?"

"Yes," assented her aunt eagerly. "We will go over and see a distant cousin of mine, old General Bacon. I have been looking through my 'Where is it,' and I find that he lives about eight miles off."

"Does he live alone?"

"He is married. She was a daughter of Lord Champneys. They have no children."

Hope pursed up her pretty lips.

"I hope they won't be dull. I want excitement."

Mrs. Daubeney looked at her.

"We have come into retreat," she said; "you must not forget that, Hope."

"Oh yes, I know; and yesterday I thought it delicious, and to-day I am sick of it! This old town is so intensely solemn, isn't it? I think I shall see what the golf ground is like before lunch. There is still an hour. What time shall I order the carriage?"

"At three."

Hope went cheerily downstairs, sent a message to the coachman, and then went through the garden by a gate in the wall and across the buttercup meadows. It was very quiet and sunny; a small boy, trying to fish in the river, looked at her with fright in his eyes as she approached him. To her amusement, he threw his line down on the grass, and dodged round a tree.

Out of idle curiosity she pursued him, and, putting her hand on his shoulder, asked:

"What are you doing?"

"Please, 'm, I ain't doin' nothin'."

"Weren't you trying to fish? Why did you throw your rod down?"

"Cause 'tis Sunday."

Hope laughed.

"I shan't scold you," she said, and she walked on.

Some words that Canon FitzRoy had said in his sermon returned to her.

"Sabbath-breaking? Do you think it is only the poorer class who abuse the privileges of Sunday? It is the rich, and not only the poor, who cast morals behind their backs, and ignore the claims of the Sabbath upon them. They ignore the God who made it, they ignore the fact that it is His day, and not theirs."

"God's day, and not mine," she repeated to herself. "That small boy's conscience is more tender than mine."

It was not a pleasant thought, and she walked on the faster, to forget it.

The golf course was in fiat meadows by the river. She crossed them and found herself on a country road upon the outskirts of the town. An old red-brick house stood back amongst some trees. The smooth sloping lawn in front of it and the bright flower-beds attracted her attention.

She was wondering who lived in it, when she saw the widow and her three sons evidently coming back from the cathedral service.

They glanced at her in passing, and then crossed the road and went in at the iron gate.

Hope walked quickly home.

"I want to know them," she said again to herself; and then she wondered why the sight of the widow filled her at once with the desire for better things.

She returned to her aunt in another change of mood.

"I almost feel inclined to stay at home and sit in the garden with a book," she said.

"But I don't feel so inclined," said Mrs. Daubeney good-humouredly. "Your feelings change oftener than the barometer, so we cannot rely upon them to guide us through a day."

Hope laughed lightly and said nothing more. But before lunch was over, a motor drove up to the door with a party of six friends in it from town, so their drive had to be cancelled. Bridge-playing and music took up the whole afternoon, and after dinner was over, Hope went early to bed, acknowledging to herself that it was possible, even in Kayminster, to continue their usual pursuits.

And as the days slipped by, it seemed as if they were, indeed, almost as full as those in town. There were a great many garden-parties and picnics given in the neighbourhood, and the Chesneys took care that Hope should not feel dull. Outwardly she was the life of every gathering in which she found herself. Minnie Chesney said that there was no "go" in any game if Hope did not join in it, and yet, under her keen animation and sparkling merriment, Hope was conscious of a growing discontent and restlessness in her heart.

One afternoon she took Lady May Fosberry into her confidence. A tennis tournament was going on at General and Mrs. Bacon's. Both girls had been playing, but had been beaten, and between the sets Hope asked her friend to walk round the garden with her.

"I have always meant to ask you about your time in the East End, May. Did you get tired of it? Did it come short of your expectations?"

Lady May gave a little embarrassed laugh. "It made me so miserable, Hope. I had to give it up."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't exactly know. You see it all began by my going to hear Canon FitzRoy in town. He made me so ashamed of the life that I was leading that I felt that I must do something. And I thought that the East End poor would be like our tenants on our estate, who are so pleased when I go to see them. They think it quite an honour."

"Well?" said Hope, as May came to a pause.

"I found they were absolutely void of any respect towards our class; they were either like rough drunken savages or insolent socialists. I could not get on with them. The dirt and the wickedness sickened me. And if you want the honest truth, Hope, I discovered that there was nothing that I could do for them. I could not teach them anything. They only laughed at me behind my back; I heard they did. Only one woman was really nice, and she was dying, poor soul. She said to me one day,—

"'Oh, miss, it isn't so much food that I want, and good nursing, I get enough of both, but it's peace in my soul. I've led a wicked life, and I've got to meet God. 'Tis that which scares me so.'

"What could I say to her? She was too ill to go to church. I told the Vicar about her, and I suppose he went to her; but I could do her no good. Could you have helped her?"

"No," said Hope gravely, "because I'm feeling exactly the same myself."

"And so am I," returned May quickly; "and I think Canon FitzRoy is right, we are just as bad as they are, as far as our relationship to God goes. We don't know or love Him any better than they do; and I came to the conclusion that it was all a farce, and so I gave it up."

"Do you ever talk to Hester Chesney? She worked in the slums, she tells me."

"Yes; she gave it up as I did. But I am afraid of her, she is so cynical. Mother scolds me because she says I mope; but I'm really quite miserable about myself."

"I heard a hymn sung in the cathedral here that was quite lovely," said Hope slowly, "at least it sounds so. Perhaps you know it?

"'Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?

The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.'"

"Yes, I have heard it."

May repeated the words softly to herself, and then Minnie Chesney came up, and the little talk was over. But Hope began to feel that there were other restless hearts besides her own; and she wondered again if there was any solution of the problem that was perplexing her.

That same afternoon she was introduced for the first time to Mrs. Dane, the widow lady in whom she was so interested. She learnt that she was the wife of a late canon at the cathedral; that her eldest son held some civil appointment in India and had just come home for a holiday, and that her two other sons lived at home. One was agent on a ducal estate in the neighbourhood, the other was reading at home for the Bar. Mrs. Dane only spoke to Hope for a few minutes; but her youngest son, Paul, was Hope's partner at tennis, and he was very communicative.

"We have been wondering who you were," he said to Hope, "for you are foreign to the usual type about here. I don't mean the county people, but the Kayminster folk. My mother noticed you at the cathedral long ago. Oh, you don't know how you have been discussed. What do you think of our sleepy town?"

"I like it," responded Hope brightly; "it is restful."

He looked at her comically.

"You don't want rest."

"I do. My life is mostly spent in town. One gets so tired of the crowds."

"Ah, that is what I like. I'm soon going to take up my abode there. You are seeing our neighbourhood to the best advantage now, but wait till the winter comes."

"I don't think I shall be here then."

He looked a little disappointed.

"We heard that Mrs. Daubeney was becoming a resident here."

"Oh no, she has only come here to be quiet. She is not very strong at present, and her doctors advised the move."

"Do you know the Danes well?" Hope asked Minnie Chesney a little later.

"Yes, Mrs. Dane is a dear; a little too good and proper for me. Her sons idolise her. Paul is a very nice boy; Rufus gives himself airs; the eldest has just come home from India. He is very clever, I believe. We asked him here to-day, but he wouldn't come. He is not a 'ladies' man,' Paul says. Don't you hate that expression? I do. Mrs. Dane is going to call on your aunt, so you will have an opportunity of knowing her boys, and perhaps you can persuade Lancelot to be a little more sociable. We used to be girls and boys together. Lancelot was always different from the others. Not a prig, but one who always expected us to follow his lead, very masterful, and with very high-flown notions. He has hardly come near us since he has come home. He told me straight out that we were too young for him. Did you ever hear such nonsense?"

And then Minnie chattered away on another subject, and Hope returned home looking forward with pleasure to Mrs. Dane's acquaintance.

She called the very next day, and Mrs. Daubeney was not well enough to see her. Hope was writing at her davenport in the drawing-room when she was announced, and the girl rose to meet her with a soft flush upon her cheek, and with shining eyes. Mrs. Dane's low sweet voice fascinated her, but after a few commonplace remarks Hope said brightly, though the wistfulness of her eyes belied her tone:

"I have wanted to know you, Mrs. Dane, ever since I first saw you in the cathedral. I expect you will laugh at me, but I can't tell you what the rest and repose of that first evening service were to me, and you seemed part of it."

Mrs. Dane regarded Hope's face very tenderly. "I, too, have learnt to look upon that evening service as something very precious to me," she said, ignoring the reference to herself.

"But I'm not at all religious," said Hope quickly; "and I didn't go to the service in the way you did. It seemed to lay hold of me in some inexplicable fashion. I suppose the atmosphere impressed me. I am quite a stranger to quiet. As the good preacher said a couple of Sundays ago, 'The way of peace they know not.' You see I have remembered his text, though I heard no more."

"You went out, I think?"

"Yes; did you notice me? We don't often listen to sermons in town, unless it is anything very out of the way." She did not say this flippantly, but stated it as a fact. "Then I went for a walk, and met a small boy fishing with an uneasy conscience, and then I met you, and all that Sunday I was alternating between frivolity and seriousness. I don't know why I am saying this to you except that I have a feeling that you can help me."

"Tell me more about yourself."

"There is nothing to tell you. I am what Canon FitzRoy calls a butterfly of fashion; and I have only been wondering lately if I could turn into a bee. I am afraid the two natures are very far apart."

She laughed gaily as she spoke, but her eyes belied her mirth.

Mrs. Dane looked at her with deepening interest. "You and I must have some talks together," she said. "If you can spare the time, will you come over to see me one morning? I am always at home then."

"Yes," said Hope quickly, "I will, after our state call has been accomplished."

She turned to talk of other subjects, but she felt, before Mrs. Dane left, that she had made a friend of her, and told her aunt that she had been entertaining the most fascinating woman that she had ever met.

Mrs. Daubeney looked dubiously at her when she heard who it was.

"I should not have thought she was your style, Hope."

"I am thinking of changing my style," was the girl's quick retort.

"What do you mean? There is something the matter with you I am sure, you have been so odd in your manner lately. Is anything troubling you?"

Hope did not answer. She was pouring out a cup of tea for her aunt in the drawing-room. Mrs. Daubeney had just come down and was lying on the couch. She looked at her niece anxiously as the girl came up to her, cup in hand.

"Hope, you are not going to refuse George Adair?"

"My dear aunt, you are premature. He is at present having a very good time at the Chesneys'. Minnie likes him very much, she told me so. Now we have come here for a rest. I hear so much about marriage and proposals in town that I want a change in our programme here. Shall I play to you?"

She moved to the piano as she spoke.

Hope's music was always acceptable, because it was sympathetic. She was not a brilliant musician, but she loved the art itself, and it was not so much an accomplishment with her as it was a keen enjoyment. Mrs. Daubeney as a rule enjoyed it as much as she did, but she was always vexed when her niece deliberately refused to discuss certain subjects with her.

She interrupted a Beethoven sonata:

"I have asked George to lunch with us to-morrow, and he has accepted."

Hope nodded her head and went on playing; then suddenly she crashed her hands down on the keys and rose from her seat.

"I would rather go straight out to my father, Aunt Gertrude, than marry George, so I hope he will not ask me."

With which rather tempestuous sentence she left the room, and Mrs. Daubeney murmured to herself:

"She is getting more and more difficult every day."