CHAPTER XX.

NEWS FROM ABROAD.

"You have chosen the better part. I must not indulge in selfish regrets; but oh! how I shall miss you?" said Mrs. Lewis, as she met Edith at the Great Western Station a few days after Bernard's visit. "And now tell me all about it. I cannot see why you wont stay with me this winter since you must stay somewhere."

"If I could freely choose for myself, Rose," replied Edith, as she seated herself by Mrs. Lewis's side in the latter's carriage and returned her affectionate embrace, "I would stay on only too gladly. Your house has always been a perfect haven of rest to me. But indeed it is wisest not."

"Edgar has no business to interfere," exclaimed Mrs. Lewis.

"He does not actually," said Edith. "Perhaps it is foolish of me, but I do not wish to vex him needlessly; and he is so very angry at my decision, and so believes I am not a free agent in the matter, that I feel it would be very silly of me to rush off to my Catholic friends. Ada's house is neutral ground."

"If she were in London," said Mrs. Lewis; "but you will be bored to death in that great house of hers full of people you don't care to meet.”

"There is a church near," said Edith, smiling brightly, "and I am to see as little as I please of her other guests. Indeed you have no idea how kind she is."

"And it is all settled?" said Mrs. Lewis. "I wish you would tell Bertha."

"I will now," replied Edith. I did not care to talk about it till I had actually been to the convent."

"And you have decided to go in the spring?" said Mrs. Lewis.

"Yes," said Edith, "as soon as ever Edgar returns and the affairs can be got a little bit straight. Lawrence's absence is very trying just now."

"Of course he knows?" said Mrs. Lewis, whilst she half smiled as she remembered her former theory and the marriage she had once almost wished to bring about.

"I have written to him," said Edith, "but I question if he has ever had any of my letters; at all events he has taken not the smallest notice of them."

“And Edgar means to winter at Wiesbaden ?” asked Mrs. Lewis. "Ada Clive does seem so annoyed at her sister's spending the winter there."

"Indeed!" said Edith, as if the information worried her. "Yet it was Dora's own choice. I do not understand myself why both Edgar and herself were so anxious to winter abroad."

"No, certainly; in the days when she was Miss Ronaldson she used to talk as if there was no place like the Hall," said Mrs. Lewis.

Edith smiled sadly. has seen many changes.

"It

"Poor Ulcoombe," she said.
I am very silly to dislike the

house being shut up, but my poor uncle always so disliked the idea of its being left empty, that if Edgar would have heard of it I would have stayed on there alone."

“I am sure nothing would have been so bad for you," exclaimed Mrs. Lewis, "you are looking tired out, and you shall have a thorough rest and change so far as I can give it you."

“I am morally and mentally tired more than anything else," replied Edith.

"The very reason you ought to be with friends," said Rose. "I have so wished I could come down to Ulcoombe to take care of you. It is so odd of your brother to have taken such a dislike to the place. There is no chance of his return till the spring."

"None as far as I can see, but his letters are very short and unsatisfactory."

Mrs. Lewis did not pursue the subject. She had heard from Ada that Edgar Marsden and his wife were leading a strangely gay and dissipated life in Germany, and she did not wish to pain Edith needlessly by dwelling upon her brother's heartless conduct. Indeed, as often happens between two people who love each other very dearly, Mrs. Lewis' and Edith's mutual silence was more eloquent than words. They so perfectly understood each other that a few words expressed as much as a long conversation, and Mrs. Lewis saw at once that Edith did not care to discuss Lawrence Bretherton's absence or the Ulcoombe affairs. They talked of outside, every-day subjects, and Bertha's presence naturally made tête-à-tête interviews rare; when alone with her friend, Edith talked of her convent and the life she looked forward to. Mr. Bretherton had been right when he said Rose Lewis was a friend worth having, she was genuinely unselfish, and whatever personal regrets she might feel at losing Edith, she could and she did throw herself heart and soul into her plans for the future, and rejoice with her that the blessing of a real religious vocation should have been the reward and the crown of all her generosity. Now that the strain was gone and she had no longer any need to keep up, Edith naturally did feel all she had gone through, and both Mrs. Lewis and Bertha united in petting her and insisting on her taking the thorough rest she so much needed. Her visit drew to an end all too quickly, for nothing would induce her to prolong it beyond the date on which she had promised to go to Lady Clive. Ada wrote to say she expected her, and further informed her that Helen had only stayed a week. "It was not the fear of meeting you," so wrote Ada, “that took Nellie back to her slavery, but the awkwardness of my poor Rector, good old Mr. Smith. Poor man, he has not served an apprenticeship to Mr. Monkton or Russel; indeed in his secret soul he looks upon them as 'snakes in the grass and perverters of the people.'" The full explanation of this letter was given later on. It appeared

that on the first and last Sunday of her stay at Warbledon Nellie had been rejoiced to find there was an early celebration. Not that the hour was a matter of principle with the good old-fashioned Rector; on the contrary, he boasted that he accommodated all parties and regularly commenced the month with an eight o'clock celebration on the first Sunday, and an eleven o'clock one on the third, and an evening one on the last! His wife was of opinion that it was the bounden duty of every clergyman's wife in particular to participate every time the communion was administered, and did not consider herself fit for a weekly celebration, so that the poor man was on this account obliged to deprive his parishioners of more frequent services. These details Ada mercifully concealed from Nellie, who, having felt too utterly wretched about the wafers Mr. Monkton had given her on the occasion of her last absence from St. Wereburgh's to care to ask him for any more, was quite thankful for what she fondly hoped was a Catholic demonstration on the part of the Rector of Warbledon. Now Mr. Smith's way of celebrating and the unmistakeable table at the east end of the church were bad enough, but when she with the lowest of her St. Wereburgh's prostrations approached the rails, Mr. Smith being quite unfamiliar with the Ritualistic way of receiving the sacrament, and not knowing (poor man, how should he?) that Miss Clevedon had been taught never to take the chalice into her own hands contrived to spill at least half its contents all over her bonnet-strings and dress. If that had been the worst, Helen might perhaps in an agony of tears over the, to her, fearful sacrilege have returned to her place, but Mr. Smith called the clerk and with a duster this worthy mopped up what had been spilt on the floor, whilst after the service both the parson and his wife came to Nellie and with many apologies hoped her bonnet was not spoilt. Poor Helen! it is perhaps needless to add that she returned to London by the first train on the Monday morning.

Edith, with a Catholic church within an easy walk and finding, of course, its services one and identically the same in every detail as those she had frequented in London, was fairly happy. She had been too used to waiting to find the enforced idleness try her as it would have tried most people. She made the best of her surroundings at Warbledon, as she had done at the Hall, and the weeks slipped by till the end of January quietly enough. No tidings were heard of Lawrence, again and again every effort to trace him failed, and Edith, who was now daily expecting to hear of Edgar's return, was thinking of going back to Mrs. Lewis's for a few days, previous to going down to Ulcoombe to prepare the Hall for her brother, when one evening Sir John Clive, who was usually out the whole day shooting or hunting, came in suddenly with a foreign telegram for his wife.

The letters from Germany had been strangely unsatisfactory of late. Dora never wrote to her sister without the latter seeming annoyed and saying openly that no good could come of this prolonged stay at Wiesbaden, whilst neither Dora nor her husband ever spoke of their return at any definite time, and odd reports reached Lady Clive from other sources. She tore open the telegram, and hastily reading it put it into Edith's hands. It was sent by the resident English physician at Wiesbaden and merely said: "Mr. Marsden is very ill, delirious, send to his sister to come at once."

"Nothing about Dora," exclaimed Ada, "strange she

should not have sent herself.

troubles in life come upon you.

My poor Edith, all the What will you do?"

"Start at once," said Edith, who was far too used to such sudden summons to be unduly excited or upset. "I could catch the early mail."

"There may be a letter by the second post," said Sir John, who with all his faults was goodnatured, and who moreover liked Edith. "I'll ride in to N- and see there is no horse to equal Dart for speed."