Bylow Hill | Page 5

daughter had moved some steps down the road, but now turned
again; for Ruth and Godfrey, returning, came out through the garden's
high gateway. However, they were giving all their smiles to the
greetings which the General sent them from his piazza.
"Come over, mother!" called Isabel, in a stifled voice. "Cross to the hill
path!" But before they could reach it Arthur and Leonard came into full
view on the stile. Isabel motioned her mother despairingly toward them,
wheeled once more, and with a gay call for Ruth's notice hurried to
meet her in the middle of the way.

III
ARTHUR AND LEONARD
Godfrey passed over to the General, who had walked down to his gate
on his way to the great elm. Out from behind the elm came the other
two men, Arthur leading and talking briskly:--
"The sooner the better, Leonard. Now while my work is new and taking
shape--Ah! here's Mrs. Morris."
Both men were handsome. Arthur, not much older than Ruth, was of
medium height, slender, restless, dark, and eager of glance and speech.
Leonard was nearer the age of Godfrey; fairer than Arthur, of a quieter
eye, tall, broad-shouldered, powerful, lithe, and almost tamely placid.
Mrs. Morris met them with animation.

"Have our churchwarden and our rector been having another of their
long talks?"
The joint reply was cut short by Godfrey's imperative hail: "Leonard!"
As Byington turned that way, Arthur said quietly to Mrs. Morris, "He's
promised to retain charge"--and nodded toward Isabel. The nod meant
Isabel's financial investments.
"And mine?" murmured the well-pleased lady.
"Both."
The two gave heed again to Godfrey, who was loudly asking Leonard,
"Why didn't you tell us the news?"
"Oh," drawled Leonard smilingly, "I knew father would."
"I haven't talked with Godfrey since he came," said Mrs. Morris; and as
she left Arthur she asked his brother: "What news? Has the governor
truly made him"--
"District attorney, yes," said Godfrey. "Ruth, I think you might have
told me."
"Godfrey, I think you might have asked me," laughed the girl, drawing
Isabel toward Arthur and Leonard, in order to leave Mrs. Morris to
Godfrey.
Arthur moved to meet them, but Ruth engaged him with a question, and
Isabel turned to Leonard, offering her felicitations with a sweetness that
gave Arthur tearing pangs to overhear.
"But when people speak to us of your high office," he could hear her
saying, "we will speak to them of your high fitness for it. And still,
Leonard, you must let us offer you our congratulations, for it is a high
office."
"Thank you," replied Leonard: "let me save the congratulations for the
day I lay the office down. Do you, then, really think it high and
honorable?"
"Ah," she rejoined, in a tone of reproach and defense that tortured
Arthur, "you know I honor the pursuit of the law."
Leonard showed a glimmer of drollery. "Pursuit of the law, yes," he
said; "but the pursuit of the lawbreaker"--
"Even that," replied Isabel, "has its frowning honors."
"But I'm much afraid it seems to you," he said, "a sort of blindman's
buff played with a club. It often looks so to the pursued, they say."
Isabel gave her chin a little lift, and raised her tone for those behind her:

"We shall try not to be among the pursued, Ruth and Arthur and I."
The young lawyer's smile broadened. "My mind is relieved," he said.
"Relieved!" exclaimed Isabel, with a rosy toss. "Ruth, dear, here is your
brother in distress lest Arthur or we should embarrass him in his new
office by breaking the laws! Mr. Byington, you should not confess such
anxieties, even if you are justified in them!"
His response came with meditative slowness and with playful eyes:
"Whenever I am justified in having such anxieties, they shall go
unconfessed."
"That relieves my fears," laughed Isabel, and caught a quick hint of
trouble on Arthur's brow, though he too managed to laugh. Whereupon,
half sighing, half singing, she twined an arm in one of Ruth's, swung
round her, waved to the General as he took a seat on the elm-tree bench,
and so, passing to Arthur, changed partners.
"Let us go in," whispered Leonard to his sister, with a sudden pained
look, and instantly resumed his genial air.
But the uneasy Arthur saw his moving lips and both changes of
countenance. He saw also the look which Ruth threw toward Mrs.
Morris, where that lady and Godfrey moved slowly in conversation,--he
ever so sedate, she ever so sprightly. And he saw Isabel glance as
anxiously in the same direction. But then her eyes came to his, and
under her voice, though with a brow all sunshine, she said, "Don't look
so perplexed."
"Perplexed!" he gasped. "Isabel, you're giving me anguish!"
She gleamed