Mount Royal, Volume 3 of 3

n rooms, rarely leaving them save to visit her boy in his nursery, or to go for long lonely ram

e callers had been politely informed by Daniel that his mistress was confined to her room by a severe cough, and was not well enough to see any one, no m

oard wages in the absence of the family. The good old doctor, who had attended Christabel in all her childish illnesses, came twice a week, and stayed an hour or so in the morning-room upstairs, closeted with his patient a

sie-walks which they took in all weathers, and sometimes at the strangest hours. The people about Boscastle grew accustomed to the sight of those two solitary women, clad in dark cloth ulsters, with close-fitting felt hats, that defied wind and weather, armed with sturdy umbrellas, tramping over fields and commons, by hilly paths, through the winding valley where the stream ran loud and deep after the autumn rains, on the cliffs above th

et; "but Miss Bridgeman, she do take such care, and she do watch every step of young Mrs. Tregonell's"-Christabel was always spoken of as young Mrs. Tregonell by those people who had known her aunt. "I'm

overhead a wilder sky seemed like another tempestuous sea inverted, those two women paced the gr

d about, or what was the delight and relief which they found in the dark grandeur of that winter sky and sea. And so the months crept by, in a dreary monotony, and it was spring once more; all the orchards full of bloom-those lovely little orchards of Alpine Boscastle, here nestling in the deep gorge, there hanging on the edge of the hill. The gardens were golden with daffodils, tulips, narcissus, jonquil-that ric

g in the footsteps of Mr. Whymper, on the Equatorial Andes, the backbone of South America. Dopsy and Mopsy were moping in the dusty South Belgravian lodging-house, nursing their invalid father, squabbling with their landlady, cutting, contriving

l; but the answers had been in Jessie Bridgeman's hand, and the last had come from Zurich, which seemed altogether hopeless. They had sent

t what could we send her that she would care for, when she has everything in this world that is worth having. And we could n

only friends were the chosen few whom their brother made known to them-frie

arren breakfast-table, where two London eggs, and the remains of yesterday's loaf, flanked by a nearly empty marmalade pot, comprised all the temptations of the flesh. "What a wr

a single Fr

n a single pa

d she rushed into the passage, too eager to

h another stretch of long thin arms above a towzled head.

but a large vellum envelope, with the address, Mount Royal, in old English letters above t

to whom, as Miss Vandeleur, the letter was addressed. "But I dare say it's on

d influences of a sultry August had made ill-humoure

ith a gasp of surprise and d

ha

is

Miss Va

nd will come straight from Plymouth here. I think you would both wish to meet your brother on his arrival; and I know Mr. Tregonell is l

sincere

abel Tre

nd the money for the journey? And our clothes-what a lot we shall h

a way," suggested Mopsy, faintly, "and get a few things f

a Islander. It's not only the utter lowness of the thing; but the man's goods are ne

t pass for

even for that; but it's not

ave of paying monthly or quarterly. Nothing under three years' credit would be

wrong way, and we shall be under it,"

; but it was bitter to know that one must go there but half prov

ed Mopsy, pensively meditating upon the difference