It was not in the power of William himself to say more in her praise than Lily. In the eagerness of their conversation they walked slowly, and as they were crossing the last field the dinner-bell rang. As they quickened their steps they saw Mr. Mohun looking at his wheat. Lily told him how late it was.

‘There,’ said he, ‘I am always looking after other people’s affairs. Between Rotherwood and William I have not a moment for my own crops. However, my turn is coming. William will have it all on his hands, and the old deaf useless Baron will sit in his great chair and take his ease.’

‘Not a bit, papa,’ said Lily, ‘the Baron will grow young, and take to dancing. He is talking nonsense already.’

‘Eh! Miss Lily turned saucy? Mrs. William Mohun must take her in hand. Well, Lily, has he your consent and approbation?’

‘I only wish this was eighteen months ago, papa.’

‘We shall soon come into order, Lily. With Miss Aylmer for the little ones, and Mrs. Mohun for the great ones, I have little fear.’

‘Miss Aylmer, papa!’

‘Yes, if all turns out well. We propose to find a house for her mother in the village, and let her come every day to teach the little ones.’

‘Oh! I am very glad. We liked her so much.’

‘I hope,’ said Mr. Mohun, ‘that this plan will please Claude better than my proposal of a governess last month. He looked as if he expected Minerva with helmet, and Ægis and all. Now make haste and dress. Do not let us shock Eleanor by keeping dinner waiting longer than we can help.’

Lilias found that her sisters had long been dressed and gone down. She dressed alone, every now and then smiling at her own happy looks reflected in the glass. Just as she had finished, Claude knocked at the door, and putting in his head, said, ‘Well, Lily, has the wonderful news come forth? I see it has, by your face.’

‘And do you know what it is, Claude?’ said Lily.

‘I know what Rotherwood meant, and I cannot think where all our senses were.’

‘And, Claude, only say that you like her.’

‘I think it is a very good thing indeed.’

‘Only say that you cordially like her.’

‘I do. I admire her sense and her gentleness very much, and I think you owe a great deal to her.’

‘Then you allow that you were unjust last summer?’

‘I do; but it was owing to you. You were somewhat foolish, and I thought it was her fault. Besides, I was quite tired of hearing that extraordinary name of hers for ever repeated.’

Here they were summoned to dinner, and hurried down. The dinner passed very strangely; some were in very high spirits, others in a very melancholy mood; Eleanor and Maurice alone preserved the golden mean; and the behaviour of the merry ones was perfectly unintelligible to the rest. Reginald, still bound by his promise to Marianne, was wild to make his discovery known, and behaved in such a strange and comical manner as to call forth various reproofs from Eleanor, which provoked double mirth from the others. The cause of their amusement was ostensibly the talking over of yesterday’s fête, but the laughing was more than adequate, even to the wonderful collection of odd speeches and adventures which were detailed. Emily and Jane could not guess what had come to Lily, and thought her merriment very ill-placed. Yet, in justice to Lily, it must be said that her joy no longer made her wild and thoughtless. There was something guarded and subdued about her, which made Claude reflect how different she was from the untamed girl of last summer, who could not be happy without a sort of intoxication.

The ladies returned to the drawing-room, where Ada now appeared for the first time, and while they were congratulating her Mr. Mohun summoned Eleanor away. Jane followed at a safe distance to see where they went. They shut themselves into the study, and Jane, now meeting Maurice, went into the garden with him. ‘It must be coming now,’ said she; ‘oh! there are William and Claude talking under the plane-tree.’

‘Claude has his cunning smile on,’ said Maurice.

‘No wonder,’ said Jane, ‘it is very absurd. I daresay William will hardly ever come home now. One comfort is, they will see I was right from the first.’

Jane and Maurice remained in the garden till teatime, and thus missed hearing the whole affair discussed in the drawing-room between Emily, Lilias, and Frank. This was the first news that Emily heard of it, and a very great relief it was, for she could imagine liking, and even loving, Alethea as a sister-in-law. Her chief annoyance was at present from the perception of the difference between her own position and that of Lilias. Last year how was Lily regarded in the family, and what was her opinion worth? Almost nothing; she was only a clever, romantic, silly girl, while Emily had credit at least for discretion. Now Lily was consulted and sought out by father, brothers, Eleanor—no longer treated as a child. And what was Emily? Blamed or pitied on every side, and left to hear this important news from the chance mention of her brother-in-law, himself not fully informed. She had become nobody, and had even lost the satisfaction, such as it was, of fancying that her father only made her bad management an excuse for his marriage. She heard many particulars from Lily in the course of the evening, as they were going to bed; and the sisters talked with all their wonted affection, although Emily had not thought it worth while to revive an old grievance, by asking Lily’s pardon for her unkind speech, and rested satisfied with the knowledge that her sister knew her heart too well to care for what she said in a moment of irritation. On the other hand, Lily did not think that she had a right to mention the plan of Alethea’s government, and the next day she was glad of her reserve, for her father called her to share his early walk for the purpose of talking over the scheme, telling her that he thought she understood the state of things better than Eleanor could, and that he considered that she had sufficient influence with Emily to prevent her from making Alethea uncomfortable. The conclusion of the conversation was, that they thought they might depend upon Emily’s amiability, her courtesy, and her dislike of trouble, to balance her love of importance and dignity. And that Alethea would do nothing to hurt her feelings, and would assume no authority that she could help, they felt convinced.

After breakfast Mr. Mohun called Emily into his study, informed her of his resolution, to which she listened with her usual submissive manner, and told her that he trusted to her good sense and right feeling to obviate any collisions of authority which might be unpleasant to Alethea and hurtful to the younger ones. She promised all that was desired, and though at the moment she felt hurt and grieved, she almost immediately recovered her usual spirits, never high, but always serene, and only seeking for easy amusement and comfort in whatever happened. There was no public disgrace in her deposition; it would not seem unnatural to the neighbours that her brother’s wife should be at the head of the house. She would gain credit for her amiability, and she would no longer be responsible or obliged to exert herself; and as to Alethea herself, she could not help respecting and almost loving her. It was very well it was no worse.

In the meantime Lily, struck by a sudden thought, had hastened to her mother’s little deserted morning-room, to see if it could not be made a delightful abode for Alethea; and she was considering of its capabilities when she started at the sound of an approaching step. It was the rapid and measured tread of the Captain, and in a few moments he entered. ‘Thank you,’ said he, smiling, ‘you are on the same errand as myself.’

‘Exactly so,’ said Lily; ‘it will do capitally; how pretty Long Acre looks, and what a beautiful view of the church!’

‘This room used once to be pretty,’ said William, looking round, disappointed; ‘it is very forlorn.’

‘Ah! but it will look very different when the chairs do not stand with their backs to the wall. I do not think Alethea knows of this room, for nobody has sat in it for years, and we will make it a surprise. And here is your own picture, at ten years old, over the fireplace! I have such a vision, you will not know the room when I have set it to rights.’

They went on talking eagerly of the improvements that might be made, and from thence came to other subjects—Alethea herself, and the future plans. At last William asked if Lily knew what made Jane look as deplorable as she had done for the last two days, and Lily was obliged to tell him, with the addition that Eleanor had begun to inform her of the real fact, but that she had stopped her by declaring that she had known it all from the first. Just as they had mentioned her, Jane, attracted by the unusual sound of voices in Lady Emily’s room, came in, asking what they could be doing there. Lily would scarcely have dared to reply, but William said in a grave, matter-of-fact way, ‘We are thinking of having this room newly fitted up.’

‘For Alethea Weston?’ said Jane; ‘how can you, Lily? I should have thought, at least, it was no laughing matter.’

‘I advise you to follow Lily’s example and make the best of it,’ said William.

‘I do, but it is another thing to stand laughing here. I see one thing that I shall do—I shall take away your picture and hang it in my room.’

‘We shall see,’ said William, following Lilias, who had left the room to hide her laughter.

To mystify Jane was the great amusement of the day; Reginald, finding Maurice possessed with the same notion, did more to maintain it than the others would have thought right, and Maurice reporting his speeches to Jane, she had not the least doubt that her idea was correct. Lord Rotherwood came to dinner, and no sooner had he entered the drawing-room than Reginald, rejoicing in the absence of the parties concerned, informed him of the joke, much to his diversion, though rather to the discomfiture of the more prudent spectators, who might have wished it confined to themselves.

‘It has gone far enough,’ said Claude; ‘she will say something she will repent if we do not take care.’

‘I should like to reduce her to humble herself to ask an explanation from Marianne,’ said Lily.

‘And pray don’t spoil the joke before I have enjoyed it,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘My years of discretion are not such centuries of wisdom as those of that gentleman who looks as grim as his namesake the Emperor on a coin.’

The entrance of Eleanor and Jane here put an end to the conversation, which was not renewed till the evening, when the younger, or as Claude called it, the middle-aged part of the company were sitting on the lawn, leaving the drawing-room to the elder and more prudent, and the terrace to the wilder and more active. Emily was talking of Mrs. Burnet’s visit of the day before, and her opinion of the Hetherington festivities. ‘And what an interminable visit it was,’ said Jane; ‘I thought they would never go!’

‘People always inflict themselves in a most merciless manner when there is anything going on,’ said Emily.

‘I wonder if they guessed anything,’ said Lily.

‘To be sure they did, and stayed out of curiosity,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘In spite of Emily’s dignified contradictions of the report, every one knew it the other evening. It was all in vain that she behaved as if I was speaking treason—people have eyes.’

‘Ah! I am very sorry for that contradiction,’ said Lily; ‘I hope people will not fancy we do not like it.’

‘No, it will only prove my greatness,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘Your Marques, was China in the map, so absorbing all beholders that the magnanimous Mohuns themselves—’

‘What nonsense, Rotherwood,’ said Jane, sharply; ‘can’t you suppose that one may shut one’s eyes to what one does not wish to see.’

The singular inappropriateness of this answer occasioned a general roar of laughter, and she looked in perplexity. Every one whom she asked why they laughed replied by saying, ‘Ask Marianne Weston;’ and at length, after much puzzling and guessing, and being more laughed at than had ever before happened to her in her life, she was obliged to seek an explanation from Marianne, who might well have triumphed had she been so disposed. Jane’s character for penetration was entirely destroyed, and the next morning she received, as a present from Claude, an old book, which had long belonged to the nursery, entitled, A Puzzle for a Curious Girl.

CHAPTER XXVII
CONCLUSION

‘There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
And mask, and antique pageantry;
Such sights as useful poets dream
On summer eves, by haunted stream.’

On the morning of a fine day, late in September, the Beechcroft bells were ringing merrily, and a wedding procession was entering the gate of the churchyard.

In the afternoon there was a great feast on the top of the hill, attended by all the Mohuns, who were forced, to Lily’s great satisfaction, to give it there, as there was no space in the grounds at the New Court. All was wonderfully suitable to old times, inasmuch as the Baron was actually persuaded to sit for five minutes under the yew-tree where ‘Mohun’s chair’ ought to have been, and the cricketers were of all ranks, from the Marquis of Rotherwood to little Dick Grey.

The wedding had been hurried on, and the wedding tour was shortened, in order that Mrs. William Mohun might be installed as mistress of the New Court before Eleanor’s departure, which took place early in October; and shortly after Mrs. Ridley, who had come on a visit to Beechcroft, to take leave of her brother, returned to the north, taking with her the little Harry. He was nearly a year old, and it gave great pain to his young aunts to part with him, now that he had endeared himself to them by many engaging ways, but Lily felt herself too unequal to the task of training him up to make any objection, and there were many promises that he should not be a stranger to his grandfather’s home.

Mrs. and Miss Aylmer had been about a month settled at a superior sort of cottage, near the New Court, with Mrs. Eden for their servant. Lord Rotherwood had fitted out the second son, who sailed for India with Mr. and Mrs. Hawkesworth, had sent Devereux to school, and was lying in wait to see what could be done for the two others, and Jane was congratulated far more than she wished, on having been the means of discovering such an excellent governess. Jane was now a regular inhabitant of the schoolroom, as much tied down to lessons and schoolroom hours as her two little sisters, with the prospect of so continuing for two years, if not for three. She made one attempt to be pert to Miss Aylmer; but something in the manner of her governess quite baffled her, and she was obliged to be more obedient than she had ever been. The mischief which Emily and Lilias had done to her, by throwing off their allegiance to Eleanor, and thus unconsciously leading her to set her at nought, was, at her age, not to be so easily repaired; yet with no opportunity for gossiping, and with involuntary respect for her governess, there were hopes that she would lose the habit of her two great faults. There certainly was an improvement in her general tone and manner, which made Mr. Devereux hope that he might soon resume with her the preparation for confirmation which had been cut short the year before.

Phyllis and Adeline had been possessed by Reginald with a great dread of governesses; and they were agreeably surprised in Miss Aylmer, whom they found neither cross nor strict, and always willing to forward their amusements, and let them go out with their papa and sisters whenever they were asked. Phyllis, without much annoyance to one so obedient, was trained into more civilisation, and Ada’s more serious faults were duly watched and guarded against. The removal of Esther was a great advantage to Ada; an older and more steady person was taken in her place; while to the great relief of Mr. Mohun and Lilias, Rachel Harvey took Esther to her brother’s farmhouse, where she promised to watch and teach her, and hoped in time to make her a good servant.

Of Emily there is little to say. She ate, drank, and slept, talked agreeably, read idle books, and looked nice in the drawing-room, wasting time, throwing away talents, weakening the powers of her mind, and laying up a store of sad reflections for herself against the time when she must awake from her selfish apathy.

As to Lilias Mohun, the heroine of this tale, the history of the formation of her character has been told, and all that remains to be said of her is, that the memory of her faults and her sorrows did not fleet away like a morning cloud, though followed by many happy and prosperous days, and though the effects of many were repaired. Agnes’s death, Esther’s theft, Ada’s accident, the schism in the parish, and her own numerous mistakes, were constantly recalled, and never without a thought of the danger of being wise above her elders, and taking mere feeling for Christian charity.