The Farringdons | Page 6

is no doubt but that the feeling savours slightly of
school-days and bread-and-butter; but there is also no doubt that a girl
who has once felt it has learned what real love is, and that is no small
item in the lesson-book of life.
But Elisabeth had her comfortable friendship as well as her romantic
attachment; and the partner in that friendship was Christopher Thornley,
the nephew of Richard Smallwood.
In the days of his youth, when his father was still manager of the
Osierfield Works, Richard had a very pretty sister; but as Emily
Smallwood was pretty, so was she also vain, and the strict atmosphere
of her home life did not recommend itself to her taste. After many

quarrels with her stern old father (her mother having died when she was
a baby), Emily left home, and took a situation in London as governess,
in the house of some wealthy people with no pretensions to religion.
For this her father never forgave her; he called it "consorting with
children of Belial." In time she wrote to tell Richard that she was going
to be married, and that she wished to cut off entirely all communication
with her old home. After that, Richard lost sight of her for many years;
but some time after his father's death he received a letter from Emily,
begging him to come to her at once, as she was dying. He complied
with her request, and found his once beautiful sister in great poverty in
a London lodging-house. She told him that she had endured great
sorrow, having lost her husband and her five eldest children. Her
husband had never been unkind to her, she said, but he was one of the
men who lack the power either to make or to keep money; and when he
found he was foredoomed to failure in everything to which he turned
his hand, he had not the spirit to continue the fight against Fate, but
turned his face to the wall and died. She had still one child left, a
fair-haired boy of about two years old, called Christopher; to her
brother's care she confided this boy, and then she also turned her face to
the wall and died.
This happened a year or so before the Miss Farringdons adopted
Elisabeth; so that when that young lady appeared upon the scene, and
subsequently grew up sufficiently to require a playfellow, she found
Christopher Thornley ready to hand. He lived with his bachelor uncle
in a square red house on the east side of Sedgehill High Street, exactly
opposite to the Farringdons' lodge. It was one of those big, bald houses
with unblinking windows, that stare at you as if they had not any
eyebrows or eyelashes; and there was not even a strip of greenery
between it and the High Street. So to prevent the passers-by from
looking in and the occupants from looking out, the lower parts of the
front windows were covered with a sort of black crape mask, which put
even the sunbeams into half-mourning.
Unlike Elisabeth, Christopher had a passion for righteousness and for
honour, but no power of artistic perception. His standard was whether
things were right or wrong, honourable or dishonourable; hers was

whether they were beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant.
Consequently the two moved along parallel lines; and she moved a
great deal more quickly than he did. Christopher had deep convictions,
but was very shy of expressing them; Elisabeth's convictions were not
particularly deep, but such as they were, all the world was welcome to
them as far as she was concerned.
As the children grew older, one thing used much to puzzle and perplex
Christopher. Elisabeth did not seem to care about being good nearly as
much as he cared: he was always trying to do right, and she only tried
when she thought about it; nevertheless, when she did give her
attention to the matter, she had much more comforting and beautiful
thoughts than he had, which appeared rather hard. He was not yet old
enough to know that this difference between them arose from no
unequal division of divine favour, but was simply and solely a question
of temperament. But though he did not understand, he did not complain;
for he had been brought up under the shadow of the Osierfield Works,
and in the fear and love of the Farringdons; and Elisabeth, whatever her
shortcomings, was a princess of the blood.
Christopher was a day-boy at the Grammar School at Silverhampton, a
fine old town some three miles to the north of Sedgehill; and there and
back he walked every day, wet or fine, and there he learned to be a
scholar and a gentleman, and sundry other important things.
"Do you hear that noise?"