AN INVITATION TO SUPPER.

619

But the next

"Oh, nothing-nothing," returned William, coldly. moment a better impulse chid him for his ungenerosity. He took her hand, and looked at her frankly, though seriously. "You know, Lizzie, that no one's likely to be more thankful than me for any good as comes to you. And so I am. Though at the same time I freely own-you see, Lizzie, I'm only a working gardener, and shan't be no more, p'raps, for years to come; and if you, or leastways your mother, looked higher with all that money, I couldn't complain; and wouldn't, neither," he added, with a touch of pride, which was, however, quite ready to vanish at the first glance from Lizzie's softened eyes. But before she had lifted them to him, the Widow Bright appeared at the door again.

"Come, child, it's time to get supper, and we've got to talk things over a bit, besides. Come and set the plates at once. To-morrow you

shan't have to do it, for we'll get help from the village. Little Susan Watkins, or Betsy Smith, will be glad to come, I dare say," said Mrs. Bright, pompously.

Betsy Smith was William's cousin, and the young man reddened as the exultant woman uttered the last words; and he looked, and felt too, prouder than ever. It had been the almost invariable custom to invite him in to supper after the gardening was over, but he perfectly understood that the dame's hospitality would not be extended to him this evening, and so with a blunt "good night" to her, and another more subdued, and with a lingering tenderness in it, to the daughter, he forthwith shouldered his spade and walked away.

After the immemorial fashion of all sorts and conditions of men when smarting under annoyance, he strode along at a tremendous pace, down the lane, and into the road leading to the village. He had proceeded some distance before he heard the sound of rapid, pattering footsteps behind him, and turning round, he beheld Lizzie, flushed, out of breath, and with her brown hair hanging about her face, much disordered from its habitual neatness.

“Oh, William, how fast you do walk! And why ever did you set off in that way, when you know as you always stop to supper? And you so unaccountable cross, too, and with all sorts o' notions in your head. Whatever makes you so unkind all on a sudden?"

It was impossible to resist the panting reproachful little voice, and the sweet, flushed face, looking so appealingly at him as it did. William's countenance relented, he stammered out something, he didn't know what. He was a lover again and nothing else, for the minute.

"And you'll come back with me, won't you; and you won't be cross, and stuck up, and disagreeable any more, will you ?" she went on, coaxingly. "Come, William, supper's waiting."

"Yes; but did your mother say I was to come?" hesitated William, whose wounds were too recent to be easily healed, even by Lizzie.

"I didn't wait for her to say anything. I ran off directly I saw you were really gone, like a wild thing, as you may plainly see," said the damsel, with a diplomatic attempt to arrange her hair, and divert her lover's thoughts from the dangerous direction. "Now, William, you're not going to keep me standing here this figure, are you? Do come, without more words."

"Not unless I'm asked. I can't," pronounced William, with the obstinate emphasis of a man who is afraid of his own inclination to yield.

"Well; don't I ask you? I've been doing nothing else this half

hour

"But your mother, dear Lizzie," pleaded William; "you oughtn't to wish me to come if I'm not welcome, and you know I'm not, to her; that is, this evening. She showed me that, pretty plain. And so

"And so you're as proud and obstinate and tiresome as never was," cried Lizzie, indignant and tearful, and yet, somehow, inwardly approving her lover's "spirit" all the time. "And you're ready to make me miserable for a paltry bit of nonsense like that.”

"Dear Lizzie"-William was softening again, utterly subdued by the sight of the tears in those bright eyes-" if it comes to making you miserable-—______"

66 Oh, pray don't flatter yourself. I dare say I shall get over it, even if you never come to supper again. I'm not going to break my heart about any such folly, I promise you."

Unhappy tongue of woman! How fast it runs, how heedlessly it stings, and what a world of unpremeditated, but sometimes irretrievable mischief it contrives to do in the world! The proprietress of this particular specimen of that unruly member little knew what a store of future regret, compunction, and distress she was laying up for herself with those quickly uttered words. She had triumphed too soon. William, deeply hurt, turned resolvedly away. He would not be played with any longer.

"Good-bye then, Lizzie! I've no more to say. Except as I hope that this new riches may bring you happiness. Good-bye."

"William! stay, William !" cried the girl, after a minute's pause. But he would not stay; he was very angry as well as grieved, and his strides were more impetuously rapid than ever. He was out of sight immediately, and Lizzie, hardly knowing whether most to reproach him or herself, but consoled by the thought of surely meeting him, and making it all up on the morrow, slowly retraced her way to the cottage.

"Well, child," was her mother's greeting, "I guess where you've been, tearing down the lane like mad after young Ashford. I wonder

66 WILLIAM ASHFORD, FORSOOTH!"

621

at you, so I do. You ought to have a deal more pride of yourself, especially now."

Lizzie made no reply. An irritable temper was not among her faults, and she was accustomed to bear the dame's frequent scoldings with commendable equanimity.

"Things is changed with us, now," continued Mrs. Bright," and we may look a deal higher than we've been used to. When we come back from Lonnon, we must arrange different

"Come back?" echoed Lizzie in blank dismay. away, then ?"

"Are we going

to

"In course we are. To-morrow, by morning coach, we shall go Lonnon to meet these lawyers and settle things a bit. And as I was a saying, when we come back, we shall take quite a noo station in the place. This cottage is too small, and ill-convenient in a many ways. With our means we can take Gibbs's little house, that's been to let these months, or Elm cottage, or

"Oh, mother!" Lizzie cried reproachfully, "you are never wanting to leave our dear old cottage, where father died ?"

Well, well; don't cry, child. We'll talk about that some other time. But right is right;" which vague sentiment the widow pronounced with much decision and emphasis; "and it becomes us now, leastways, you more especial, to hold our heads a deal higher. A girl with your property, and-though I say it-your looks, has a right to look up and expect to marry well, according."

"To be sure," her daughter said steadily; "and so I shall marry well. You know, mother, that William Ashford and me is promised together for this long while. And he—”

"I don't know nothing of the sort," interrupted her mother angrily; "and I beg you don't provoke me again with such stuff and nonsense. William Ashford, forsooth! a working gardener under Squire Thorpe's head!" and at this mysterious definition Mrs. Bright dramatically expressed much scorn and disgust. "It was always a demeaning of yourself to think of him; and as things has fell out now, indeed! Why, I'll be bound the young man himself has sense to see that it's out of all reason and impossible to be thought on; and if he don't see it, why, he must be showed it, that's all, when we come back from Lonnon; which puts me in mind, as I've got to step down to the village to get one or two things ready for starting in the morning by the ten o'clock coach; and so I'll just take and go at once," she concluded, tying on her bonnet as she spoke, and bustling about with the evident intention of not hearing anything her daughter might have to say on the subject, just then at any rate.

Off she went, therefore, bound for the abode of her particular friend Mrs. Brown at the general shop in the village, whence she judiciously

purposed spreading the great news to the neighbourhood generally. Lizzie, left to herself, sat thoughtfully if not sadly, her head leaning on her hand, looking not in the least like the popular idea of a prosperous heiress. The sweet summer twilight lingered lovingly on-yet at length the dusk began to deepen, and then the young girl started up and set herself busily to work to clear away the supper things and "tidy" the place generally.

"He'll be here early in the morning for certain," she said to herself; he never does bear malice-he's too good, and true, and kind, is William for that; and by this time he knows well enough as I never meant what I said. Why ever did I say it then?" came the pertinent inquiry. "Oh, dear, dear, dear! It's not the first time as I've repented at leisure of what I've said in haste; and when I wouldn't not for twenty-six hundreds of pounds as he should go and take me at my word. They may well say as money isn't always sweet as honey. I'm sure I wish we'd never heard anything about it; making mother so cross about William too, and then this difference betwixt me and him to crown everything! I wish the money further, I do. Poor aunt Lydia, too!"

But the tears which concluded this troubled meditation were probably not all to be set to the account of poor aunt Lydia, sincere as was the regret of the warm-hearted grateful girl at her death. But from whatever source sprung those watery evidences of sorrow, they had quickly to be checked and dried, for it was no use letting them be seen and commented on by her mother, who just then returned full of pride and importance, and more shrewdly business-like than ever. While making the few necessary preparations for their journey on the morrow, the triumphant dame recounted all the surprise she had created and the congratulations she had received in the village. Lizzie's manifest indifference was set down to fatigue. "She'd had excitement enough that day to tire her out, poor dear," observed the complaisant mother, determined to see nothing she didn't choose to recognize. She herself was worn to death. They'd be glad enough to get to bed, she'd bet a penny.

However, poor Lizzie, for the first time in her life, lay awake through almost all the night, restless, unhappy, perplexed, and tormented with all manner of vague apprehensions both as to the present and the future. William's face, with its expression of deeply-wounded feeling, haunted her. "Oh, if I could but see him again, just for a minute, to tell him that-that-Oh, surely he'll come to see us before the coach goes. If he don't, what shall I do? oh, what shall I do ?"

Her state of mind would not have been improved had she known that her mother, having encountered William on her way that evening, had, with admirable frankness, at once informed him that, in course,

WILLIAM'S CHARITY HOPETH ALL THINGS.

things couldn't go on as they used-now.

623

"Me and my daughter 'll

always feel friendly and that, but it stands to reason, as there can't

be nothing else betwixt you now.”

"Does she say so ?" was William's sole rejoinder.

"In course she does. She's a gurl of proper sense, is Lizzie ; and knows how to conduct herself in that state of life to which it has pleased Providence to call her."

But William, afraid to trust himself to hear more, left her in the midst of this appropriate quotation from the catechism, which she delivered with much emphasis and unction. The young man only half believed her, but that half-belief was enough to make him extremely uncomfortable. However, he finally resolved on one thing: he would take his dismissal only from Lizzie's own lips. Mrs. Bright shouldn't make mischief between them. That lady he knew was always worldly, and just now she seemed pretty well dazed with sudden prosperity, and didn't know rightly perhaps what she was doing or saying. He would see Lizzie herself next morning.

Accordingly, on his way to the Hall, he hovered about the cottage, hopeful of seeing Lizzie in the garden or at the window, and so getting an interview undisturbed by maternal manœuvres; but in vain. Not a sign of her of any one, was visible, for the fact was that crafty Mrs. Bright, anticipating that he would thus try to see her daughter, had routed Lizzie up at dawn, and they had gone off in a neighbour's cart to meet the early London coach at the market town; and so the much-bewildered young man, after waiting till he was unusually late for his work, had to make up his mind to go through the day still in doubt; for it seemed miserably corroborative of Mrs. Bright's assertions that Lizzie was not as anxious as himself for a meeting, after their misunderstanding of the day before. "She might ha' known I should be on the look out for her," he thought, "and needn't ha' been lazy on this morning of all mornings in the year. But that comes o' riches, I suppose. Rich folks hasn't no call to stir themselves s' early. Ah, they may well say as money's the root of evil!" he bitterly went on to himself. "But for all that, I didn't think as Lizzie-No; nor I won't think so now, neither. I won't think nothing as isn't true and good of her, till I'm downright forced to it. So there!"

With which manly defiance of suspicion and evil suggestions he addressed himself to his work with as much cheerfulness as he could summon under the circumstances. After all, nothing was likely to put off his seeing Lizzie that evening. It was only to wait a few hours, and then he should be satisfied. But, alas, it was not so; and his blank disappointment may be imagined when he arrived at the cottage and found it shuttered, lifeless, and silent, as in the morning. Half alarmed even, he hastened to make inquirics at the adjoining cottages, and was