Mistress and Maid | Page 5

to light the kitchen fire
of winter mornings, as she will do if we have not a servant to do it for
her. Don't you see, Ascott?"
"Oh, I see," answered the boy, carelessly, "But don't bother me, please.
Domestic affairs are for women, not men."
Ascott was eighteen, and just about to pass out of his caterpillar state as
a doctor's apprentice-lad into the chrysalis condition of a medical

student in London. "But," with sudden reflection, "I hope she won't be
in my way. Don't let her meddle with any of my books and things."
"No; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into your room. I
myself cleared your rubbish out of the box closet."
"The box-closet! Now, really, I can't stand--"
"She is to sleep in the box-closet; where else could she sleep?" said
Hilary, resolutely, though inly quaking a little; for somehow, the merry,
handsome, rather exacting lad bad acquired considerable influence in
this household of women. "You must put up with the loss of your 'den.'
Ascott; it would be a great shame if you did not, for the sake of Aunt
Johanna and the rest of us."
"Um!" grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a bad fellow at heart,
had a boy's dislike to "putting up" with the slightest inconvenience.
"Well, it won't last long. I shall be off shortly. What a jolly life I'll have
in London, Aunt Hilary! I'll see Mr. Lyon there too."
"Yes," said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and Æneas; humble
and easy Latinity for a student of eighteen; but Ascott was not a
brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed early, his education had been
much neglected, till Mr. Lyon came as usher to the Stowbury
grammar-school, and happening to meet and take an interest in him,
taught him and his Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics together,
of evenings.
I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is human nature all the
world over. A tale without love in it would be unnatural, unreal--in fact,
a simple lie; for there are no histories and no lives without love in them:
if there could be, Heaven pity and pardon them, for they would be mere
abortions of humanity.
Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize: we only live. We
like one another, we hardly know why; we love one another, we still
less know why. If on the day she first saw--in church it was--Mr.

Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, somewhat severe face--for he was a
Scotsman, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look "hard" beside
the soft, rosy, well conditioned youth of Stowbury--if on that Sunday
any one had told Hilary Leaf that the face of this stranger was to be the
one face of her life, stamped upon brain and heart, and soul with a
vividness that no other impressions were strong enough to efface, and
retained there with a tenacity that no vicissitudes of time, or place, or
fortunes had power to alter, Hilary would--yes, I think she would--have
quietly kept looking on. She would have accepted her lot, such as it
was, with its shine and shade, its joy and its anguish; it came to her
without her seeking, as most of the solemn things in life do; and
whatever it brought with it, it could have come from no other source
than that from which all high, and holy, and pure loves ever must
come--the will and permission of GOD.
Mr. Lyon himself requires no long description. In his first visit he had
told Miss Leaf all about himself that there was to be known; that he
was, as they were, a poor teacher, who had altogether "made himself,"
as so many Scotch students do. His father, whom he scarcely
remembered, had been a small Ayrshire farmer; his mother was dead,
and he had never had either brother or sister.
Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and how much as a schoolmistress
she would need all the education she could get, he had offered to teach
her along with her nephew; and she and Johanna were only too thankful
for the advantage. But during the teaching he had also taught her
another thing, which neither had contemplated at the time--to respect
him with her whole soul, and to love him with her whole heart.
Over this simple fact let no more be now said. Hilary said nothing. She
recognized it herself as soon as he was gone; a plain, sad, solemn truth,
which there was no deceiving herself did not exist, even had she wished
its non-existence. Perhaps Johanna also found it out, in her darling's
extreme paleness and unusual quietness for a while; but she too said
nothing. Mr. Lyon wrote regularly to Ascott, and once or twice to