Smith and the Pharaohs, and other Tales

iritual charge. The heath was a blaze of gold, the cut hay smelt sweetly in the fields, the sea sparkled like one vast sapphire, the larks benea

en her life trembled in the balance. Having accomplished this she turned homewards, lost in reverie, events having happened at the Rectory which gave her cause for thought. When she had gone a little way some instinct led her to look up. About fifty yards away a man was walking towards her to al

n a minute

w well you are looking, Barbara, how well and--" he had meant to add "bea

e compliment, Anthony, but as it is I don't know. But ho

en able to get home two days earlier than he expected; also that

ad," she sa

hadn't been for you I should never have done so well. But

r brother George?" she went on, cutting short the answer that was rising to his lips. "I suppose I should call him Captain Arnott now,

face gre

h a lot. It seems as though he could not shake off that chill he got

eard a bad report of George Arnott's health. Then to change the subject she added, "Do you know

ean Lady

no

dness, she only stayed to tea, as she had a ten mile driv

happ

ut of the drawing-room window, and asked father if he kept a girls' school. Then she made mother cry by remarking that she ought to be thankful to Providence for having taken to its bosom the four of us w

ese are matters which God Almighty keeps in

e your Maker, I am not in that position. Besides, they are all very good-looking gi

d lastly that wicked Janey sent the footman to take the pug dog to walk past

killed?" as

il was so long when it is quite uncurled. But the footman looked almost worse, for he

all her works," said Anthony, wh

not q

for there was me

t ought to run, 'Here beginneth Aunt Maria.' You s

pped and lo

il do you mea

a year with my board and dresses. And" (with gathering emphasis) "we cannot afford to offend her who have half lived upon her alms and old clothes for so many years. And, in short, Dad and

ped Anthony.

nt Maria has wanted to travel all her life, but Uncle Samuel, who was born in Putney, feared the sea and lived

thony b

take her change in Italy or whereve

voice. "What do you mean, Anthony, by usi

lessness of despair), "if you want to know

s," began Bar

to do with it? I'm not y

ed at him in

the kind of thing. In short, I don't want you to go t

me you were going to live in chamb

nows whom you'll meet in those places or what tricks that horrible old aunt of yours will be playing with you. Oh! it's wicked! Ho

to buy us boots, and only some of us could go out at once because we had no cloaks to put on. Well, all this may happen again. And so, Anthony, do you think that I should be right to throw away thirty pounds a year and to make a quarrel with my aunt, who is rich and kind-hearted although very over-bearing, and the only friend we have? If my father died, Anthony, or even was taken ill, and he is not very strong, what would become of us? Unle

ave spoken like that, and I'm helpless; that's the worst of it

ra, shaking her head

lways shall love you until-until-the moon ceases to shine?"

oubt will come to an end like everything el

nothing more, who found hers

at was, they swore, more enduring than

part us except

the eyes. "I mean to live beyond death, and while I live and wh

il in that,"

eir ears, and the moon's silver rays upon the sea were the road by which their linked souls travelled to the throne of Him who ha

ing they had lost awhile and found once more; a very precious jewel that from the beginning had sh

ile at such tho

irds to sing the epithalamium of their hearts and the great sea to murmur of eternity in their opened ears

their st