The Long Vacation | Page 5

Of course she had to retire, and happily for her, Mother Constance was
just at that time sentenced by her rheumatism to spend the winter in a
warm climate. She eagerly claimed Angela's tendance, and just at the
end of the year there came an urgent request for a Sister from England
to form a foundation in one of the new cities of Australia on the model
of St. Faith's; and thither Mother Constance proceeded, with one Sister
and Angela, who had thenceforth gone on so well and quietly that her
family hoped the time for Angela's periodical breaking out had passed.
The ensuing years had been tranquil as to family events, though the
various troubles and perplexities that fell on Clement were endless,

both those parochial and ritualistic, and those connected with the
Vanderkist affairs, where his sister did not spare him her murmurs.
Fulbert's death in Australia was a blow both to Lancelot and to him,
though they had never had much hope of seeing this brother again. He
had left the proceeds of his sheep-farm between Lancelot, Bernard, and
Angela.
Thus had passed about fourteen years since the death of Felix, when
kind old Mr. Grinstead died suddenly at a public meeting, leaving his
widow well endowed, and the possessor of her pretty home at
Brompton. When, soon after the blow, her sisters took her to the home
at Vale Leston, she had seemed oppressed by the full tide of young life
overflowing there, and as if she again felt the full force of the early
sorrow in the loss that she had once said made Vale Leston to her a
desolation. On her return to Brompton, she had still been in a passive
state, as though the taste of life had gone from her, and there was
nothing to call forth her interest or energy. The first thing that roused
her was the dangerous illness of her brother Clement, the result of
blood-poisoning during a mission week in a pestilential locality, after a
long course of family worries and overwork in his parish. Low,
lingering fever had threatened every organ in turn, till in the early days
of January, a fatal time in the family, he was almost despaired of.
However, Dr. Brownlow and Lancelot Underwood had strength of
mind to run the risk, with the earnest co-operation of Professor Tom
May, of a removal to Brompton, where he immediately began to mend,
so that he was in April decidedly convalescent, though with doubts as
to a return to real health, nor had he yet gone beyond his dressing-room,
since any exertion was liable to cause fainting.

CHAPTER II
. A
CHAPTER OF
TWADDLE

The blessing of my later years Was with me when a
boy.-—WORDSWORTH.

When Mrs. Grinstead, on her nephew's arm, came into her
drawing-room after dinner, she was almost as much dismayed as
pleased to find a long black figure in a capacious arm-chair by the fire.
"You adventurous person," she said, "how came you here?"
"I could not help it, with the prospect of Lancey boy," he said in
smiling excuse, holding out a hand in greeting to Gerald, and thanking
Anna, who brought a cushion.
"Hark! there he is!" and Gerald and Anna sprang forward, but were
only in time to open the room door, when there was a double cry of
greeting, not only of the slender, bright-eyed, still youthful- looking
uncle, but of the pleasant face of his wife. She exclaimed as Lancelot
hung over his brother—-
"Indeed, I would not have come but that I thought he was still in his
room."
"That's a very bad compliment, Gertrude, when I have just made my
escape."
"I shall be too much for you," said Gertrude. "Here, children, take me
off somewhere."
"To have some dinner," said Geraldine, her hand on the bell.
"No, no, Marilda feasted me."
"Then don't go," entreated Clement. "It is a treat to look at you two
sunny people."
"Let us efface ourselves, and be seen and not heard," returned Gertrude,
sitting down between Gerald and Anna on a distant couch, whence she
contemplated the trio-—Clement, of course, with the extreme pallor,
languor, and emaciation of long illness, with a brow gaining in dignity
and expression by the loss of hair, and with a look of weary, placid
enjoyment as he listened to the talk of the other two; Lance with bright,
sweet animation and cheeriness, still young-looking, though his hair
too was scantier and his musical tones subdued; and Geraldine, pensive
in eye and lip, but often sparkling up with flashes of her inborn
playfulness, and, like Clement, resting in the sunshine diffused by
Lance. This last was the editor and proprietor of the 'Pursuivant', an
important local paper, and had come up on