THE PANELLED HOUSE.

267

Winny, with her arms extended to their full |

length in front of her, clasping her knees, and her
hands tightly locked together. Her voice almost
died away as she spoke ; but she cleared it with
an effort. ‘Indeed you don’t know how hard he
tries to be good. You must not say never. It
will just be the ruin of him—he told me as much.”
And she stood up and looked imploringly with
great beseeching eyes, like those of a dumb animal
that tries to speak with them what it has no words
to say. Poor child! the words which came so
readily to her lips for all small matters seemed to
choke her now before she could say them in this
matter where the essence of her life was concerned.

Aunt Hermy was crying bitterly, but she could
not yield for all that. ‘ Winny, I can’t tell you
how I reproach myself—how I shall never cease
reproaching myself for having brought trouble on
you by my carelessness. But I must not make it
worse by letting you have your way- in this.
Winny, do you know that he—drinks ?”

She looked for a start or a shrinking of horror
from Winny, but all she heard was a half-whis-
pered “I know; I thought no one else knew.”

“Don’t you see yourself that it is out of the
question ? Would such a man be a fit husband
for-a Christian girl, Winny ? Would he be likely
to help you to be good—to steady you and make
you better all your life? Would he not rather
drag you back ?”

“T don’t know,” said Winny, “but I know I
should help him. He always says I do. I suppose
it’s wrong, but I can’t help feeling that I shouldn’t
care whether he helped me or not so long as I
helped him, and I know I should do that. Aunt
Hermy, ever since he has been here I have always
known that though I am silly and foolish, and like
chattering, and nonsense, and admiration, and all
sorts of things I ought not, I can manage Escott
as nobody else can. I know I could keep him out
of mischief, if once we were married, Aunt Hermy.
And he was only waiting till he was once started
for himself, out of his father’s hands, before he
said any thing about it, because he was afraid
Colonel Armyn would object. O Aunt Hermy,
please don’t come in the way between us 122

“But my dear child, even your influence, you
see, can’t keep him straight when you are with him
now. Winny, you don’t know what a fearfnl
thing drink is, or how irresistible if it is once
indulged. If ever you were to marry a man who
was known to drink, it would only be in direct
opposition to our wishes. And Winny,” said Aunt
Hermy tremulously, “surely we who have been to
you in the place of your dead parents, and have
had the sole charge of you since you were four

years old, may have some right to counsel and |

advise you in the most solemn choice of your life.”

* Aunt Hermy,” said Winny, breaking down at
last and sobbing, “I can’t tell what to do. I
wouldn’t for the world go against your wishes,
you know I wouldn’t. But I can’t promise to give
Esecott up altogether. You couldn’t if you were
in my place. O Aunt Hermy, have pity on me!
And Esecott was jealous of Mr. Burnet ; I know
he was, and I thought it was all his nonsense. I
never dreamed there could be any truth in it. I
must tell him, and set it right.”

Poor Aunt Hermy! she, in her perplexity and
pain, was perhaps almost more to be pitied than
Winny. For what pain is greater to a sensitive
nature than that of giving pain to others, especially
to those who lie helpless and defenceless in your
hands? But her true love for what she thought
was Winny’s real good made her persist until she
drew a half-promise from her that—as far as
regarded the present—she would be guided by her
aunt. In fact, Winny was not of age for a year
and a half, and thus legally in her aunts’ power ;
but any legal strain is abhorrent to those who, like
Aunt Hermy, have always sought to rule by the
law of love.

At last the child was free ; and she crept into
the dining-room, and crouched in the corner by the
fire, too much spent to care to employ herself or to
speak. But the thought that was in her mind was
not so much “I will keep him at any cost,” as “T
will save him at any cost. If he is weak and
sinful—my poor old fellow—all the more reason
that I should devote myself to him and love him as
no one else will. No: I am sure God will not
think it wrong, if Aunt Hermy does. ‘To seek
and to save that which was lost.’ O Escott, what

wouldn’t I give to save you!”

XIV.
DIVULGED.
They told you many fine stories,
And made a great ado ;
But what was my spirit’s torment
They neither said nor knew.

They made a mighty clatter,
And shook their heads with dole :
They call’a me a fiend of evil,

And you believed the whole.
HEINE.

Ant Hermy’s labours were not over yet. That
afternoon she clad herself in the soft maroon shawl
which her nieces insisted upon her wearing at
every opportunity, and drove in the little pony-
carriage to the Manor. Happily for her, poor
woman, Colonel Armyn was at home, and she was
shown at once into his study.

“‘ Sit down, Hermione,” he said, drawing the
only easy-chair the room possessed—one never

| used by him—to the fire. The wind had turned