The Pillars of the House, vol 1 | Page 2

mother's features
exaggerated into a look at once keen and patient, all three forming a sad
contrast to the solid exuberant health on the other side the door.
Truly the boy who entered was a picture of sturdy English vigour,
stout-limbed, rosy-faced, clear eyed, open, and straight-forward looking,
perhaps a little clumsy with the clumsiness of sixteen, especially when
conscience required tearing spirits to be subdued to the endurance of
the feeble. It was, however, a bright congratulating look that met him
from the trio. The little girl started up, 'Your sovereign's come, Felix!'
The father showed his transparent-looking white teeth in a merry laugh.
'Here are the galleons, you boy named in a lucky hour! How many
times have you spent them in fancy?'
The mother held up the letter, addressed to Master Felix Chester
Underwood, No. 8 St. Oswald's Buildings, Bexley, and smiled as she
said, 'Is it all right, my boy?'
'They want me to open it outside, Mamma!--Come, Whiteheart, we
want you at the council.'
And putting his arm round his little sister Geraldine's waist, while she
took up her small crutch, Felix disappeared with her, the mother
looking wistfully after them, the father giving something between a
laugh and a sigh.

'Then you decide against speaking to him,' said Mrs. Underwood.
'Poor children, yes. A little happiness will do them a great deal more
good than the pound would do to us. The drops that will fill their little
cup will but be lost in our sea.'
'Yes, I like what comes from Vale Leston to be still a festive matter,'
said Mrs. Underwood; 'and at least we are sure the dear boy will never
spend it selfishly. It only struck me whether he would not enjoy finding
himself able to throw something into the common stock.'
'He would, honest lad,' said Mr. Underwood; 'but, Mamma, you are
very hard-hearted towards the rabble. Even if this one pound would
provide all the shoes and port wine that are pressing on the maternal
mind, the stimulus of a day's treat would be much more wholesome.'
'But not for you,' said his wife.
'Yes for me. If the boy includes us old folks in his festivity, it will be as
good as a week's port wine. You doubt, my sweet Enid. Has not our
long honeymoon at Vale Leston helped us all this time?' Her name was
Mary, but having once declared her to be a woman made of the same
stuff as Enid, he had made it his pet title for her.
Mrs. Underwood's thoughts went far away into the long ago of Vale
Leston. She could hardly believe that nine years only had passed since
that seven-years' honeymoon. She was a woman of the fewest possible
words, and her husband generally answered her face instead of her
voice.
Vale Leston had promised to be an ample provision when Edward
Underwood had resigned his fellowship to marry the Rector's niece and
adopted daughter, his own distant cousin, with the assurance of being
presented to the living hereafter, and acting in the meantime as curate.
It was a family living, always held conjointly with a tolerably good
estate, enough to qualify the owner for the dangerous position of
'squarson,' as no doubt many a clerical Underwood had been ever since
their branch had grown out from the stem of the elder line, which had
now disappeared. These comfortable quarters had seemed a matter of
certainty, until the uncle died suddenly and with a flaw in his will, so
that the undesirable nephew and heir-at-law whom he had desired to
exclude, a rich dissipated man, son to a brother older than the father of
the favourite niece, had stepped in, and differing in toto from Edward
Underwood, had made his own son take orders for the sake of the

living, and it had been the effort of the young wife ever since not to
disobey her husband by showing that it had been to her the being
driven out of paradise.
ASSISTANT CURACY.--A Priest of Catholic opinions is needed at a
town parish. Resident Rector and three Curates. Daily Prayers. Choral
Service on Sundays and Holy-days. Weekly Communion.--Apply to P.
C. B., St. Oswald's Rectory, Bexley.
Every one knows the sort of advertisement which had brought Mr.
Underwood to Bexley, as a place which would accord with the
doctrines and practices dear to him. Indeed, apart from the
advertisement, Bexley had a fame. A great rubrical war had there been
fought out by the Rector of St. Oswald's, and when he had become a
colonial Bishop, his successor was reported to have carried on his work;
and the beauty of the restored church, and the exquisite services, were
so generally talked of, that Mr. Underwood thought himself fortunate in
obtaining