“Mother! Mother dear!” she pleaded.

The mother took her by the shoulders, thinking she would fling her across the room. But she was not so strong as she had been, and found the little one hard as nails—she could not move her an inch.

“Get out of my way!” she cried. “I will kill him.”

“Mama, listen! It happened a month ago! I said nothing—for love’s sake!”

“Love! Dare you tell me you love that wretch of a father of yours! I will kill you if you say you love him!”

Barbara threw her arms round her mother’s neck.

“Listen, mama,” she said, “I do love him a little, but it wasn’t for love of him I held my tongue.”

“Bah! Your bookbinder fellow! What does he have to do with it?”

“Nothing at all. It wasn’t for him, either. It was for God’s sake I held my peace. If all his children quarrelled like you and dad, what a house he would have! It was for God’s sake I said nothing. And you know, mama, you’ve made it up with God, and you mustn’t go and be naughty again!”

The mother stood silent and still. She turned to her chair, sat down, and again was still. A minute later, her forehead flushed like a flame, turned white, then flushed and paled again several times. Then she gave a great sigh, and the conflict was over. She smiled, and from that moment she also never said a word about Miss Brown.

But in the silence of her thoughts, Barbara suffered for what might be the fate of Miss Brown. In her mind’s eye she kept seeing her turn her head with sharp curved neck in her stall, or shoot it over the door of her box, looking and longing for her mistress, and wondering why she did not come to pat her, or feed her, or saddle her for the joyous gallop across grass and green hedge. The heart of her mistress was sore for her.

But at length one day in church, they read the Psalm in which came the words, “Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast!” and they went to her soul. After more reflection she saw that the reasonable thing was to let God look after his own. Miss Brown was his, and he would care for her.

But the mother was sending all over the country to find who had Miss Brown. She had not inquired long before she learned that she was in the stables at Mortgrange. There she knew she would be well treated, and therefore told Barbara the result of her inquiries.

— Forty-Seven —

Wingfold and Barbara

Barbara now went yet oftener to Mr. and Mrs. Wingfold. By this time, through Simon Armour, they knew something about Richard, but none of them felt at liberty to talk about him.

Barbara now had a better guide in her reading than Richard. What he had begun well, Wingfold was carrying on better. With his help she was now studying a variety of subjects. Wingfold had himself passed through all Richard’s phases, and through some that were only now beginning to show in him. Therefore he was well prepared to help her. There was this difference between the early moral conditions of the two men, that Wingfold had been prejudiced in favour of much that he found it impossible to hold, whereas Richard had been prejudiced against much that ought to be cast away.