Wylder's Hand

on Gentleman Appear

me mention that just about the time when Wylder and I were filming the trunks of the

ent green shadow, stand the two mills — the old one with A.D. 1679, and the Wylder arms, and the eternal ‘resurgam’ projecting over its door; and higher up, on a sort of platform, the steep bank rising high behind it, with its towering old wood overhanging and surrounding, upon a site where one of king Arthur’s knights, of an autumn evening, as he rode solitary in quest of adventures, might have seen the peeping, gray gable of an

occupant was that Miss Lake whom I had met last night at Brandon Ha

er hands. How fresh and pretty she looks in that sad, sylvan solitude, with the background of the dull crimson brick and the climbing roses. Bars o

d at heart, it may be, bitter exile, will make out life somehow. There is music, and drawing. There are flowers, as we see, and two or three correspondents, and wa

ents against the intrusion of darker spirits. So, as she worked, she lifted up her eyes, and beheld a rather handsome young man standing at the little wicket of her garden, with his gloved hand on the latch. A man of fashion — a town man — his dress bespoke him: smooth cheeks, light

nley! is

astic salutation was over, and with one gloved hand caressingly on her shoulder, and with the other smoothing his ruffled moustache, he laughed a little more, a quiet

and his eye wandered, still smiling oddl

ave you be

’s — early hours, work, air, and plenty

wonderful l

you,

o you call

I call it. Don’t you

round him; ‘I don’t t

— so no matter,’ laughed Miss Rachel, giving him a

ry lore, and he was not deep in Johnson — as few of

you remember — that old Tamar used to read to us in the nursery,’ replied Master Stanley, who

ns. You must tell me all the news, and I’ll show you my house, and amaze

at and stick, and gray paletot, on her little marquetrie-table, and sat

fancy, livin

ecessity,

ward to smell at the pretty bouquet in the little glass, and turning it listl

od, I believe, for eight hundred years. The people never think of shutting their doors here in summer time till they are go

as before, like a man contemptuo

ry oddly ho

tly, also with a glance ro

l this, your bou

ng-room, but it’s a

their sheds at night, when they could not see the absurd ugliness of the places they inhabited. I could not stand upright in th

ng enough, or poor old Tamar, I should have put it away; and now that you

y how do you amuse yourself here? How on earth do y

y, you care for no one, but’ (she was going to say yourself, she said instead, however, but) ‘perhaps, the least in the world for me, and that not very wisely,’ she continued, a little fiercely, ‘for from the moment you saw me, you’ve done little else than tr

a reverie, and said, with his yellow eyes fixed for a mom

year. I’ll drink some tea, please, if you have got any, and it isn’t too much trouble; a

t you mean; nor is there any privation in living as I do

t know, Radie, where I shall b

grew pale, for she was afraid something worse might h

was re

old my co

compressed lips, and nodded her head two or t

d the interest of the money is better to me than my pay; and see, Rachel, there’s no use in lecturing me — so don

is countenance when his temper was stirred, a

children receive from indulgent elders; and she looked at him steadily, with a faint smile

her — if not a very cheery o

across the little hall into th

Stanley’s here, and

pose she’s as frightful as ever, that worthy woman. Certainly she is awfully like a ghost. I w

ugly ghost enough for many of us. Poor Tamar

unpleasant about that worthy old woman; and not being under any personal obliga

than white, with a mottling of gray. She had a large white kerchief pinned with a grisly precision across her breast, and a white linen cap tied under her chin, fitting close to her head, like a child’s nightcap, such

under the eyes, which showed a great deal of their watery whites. This old woman had in her face and air, along with an expression of s

e door, looking with as pleased a countenance as so

and a few trite words of kindness. So Tamar withdrew to prepare tea; and he said, all a

ving like this; you must marry — you shall marry. Mark Wylder is down here

h intention, and were as free as you are, and again to urge his fooli

brother, his eyes once more upon the carpet. ‘Why should no

y coloured ra

teen now, Stanley; and —

quite unreasonable; you’ve no cause to hate him; he dropped you because you dropped him.

with a haughty amaze

you he shall leave the country,’ said the young man gently, just

u’ll rue it while you live; and wherever he is I’ll find him out, and acquit myself

devil,’ he continued, in a changed tone, ‘do you a

ing. You plainly know something to Mark Wylder’s discredit; and you mean, Stanley, to coerce him by f

so,’ he said, wi

t struck you that Mark Wylder may possibly know

he does. What

you presume — yes, Sir, though you are my brother, the atrocious liberty you dare to take with my name — unl

fined his feelings toward his sister, but mingling in them, certainly, was a vein of unacknowledged dread, and

is, altogether; and be your plans what they may, you sha’n’t mix my name in them. What you please — wise or foolish — you’ll do in what concerns yourself; — you always have — without consulting me; but I tell you again, Stanley, unles

on’t like it, of course it can lead to nothing, and there’s

dvantage from Wylder; and you think, in his present situation, about to marry Dorcas, you can use me for the purpose. Thank Heaven! Sir, you committed for once the rare indiscre

a, ha! of cour

your h

honour

k it you may give me some trouble, but you sha’n’t compromise me. And now, Stanley, one

me smiling his sly, sleepy

ell you, Stanley, is this, that if I were a man, and an attempt made to extort from me any sort of

are you talking

imes your nerve and sense; you are more likely to have committed yourself than he. Take care; he may retaliate your threat

s ever been on terms of intimacy with another must know things to his disadvantage, but no one thinks of telling them. The world would not tolerate it. It would prejudice the betrayer at least as much as the

dfastly and uneasily upon the enigmatical

last, with a sigh, and a slight