The fine lady-wife had meanwhile been arranging a little surprise for her husband.  She was too composed to harass herself at his not returning at midday, she knew him and Kitty to be quite capable of taking care of each other, and could imagine him detained by parish work, and disposing of the little maiden with Betty Gervas, or some other Ormersfield friend, but she had thought him looking fagged and worried, she feared his being as tired as he had been on the Sunday, and she could not bear that he should drink tea uncomfortably in the study, tormented by the children.  So she had repaired to the parlour, and Miss Mercy, after many remonstrances, had settled her there; and when the good little lady had gone home to her sister’s tea, Isabel lay on the sofa, wrapped in her large soft shawl, languidly attempting a little work, and feeling the room dreary, and herself very weak, and forlorn, and desponding, as she thought of James’s haggard face, and the fresh anxieties that would be entailed on him if she should become sickly and ailing.  The tear gathered on her eyelash as she said to herself, ’I would not exert myself when I could; perhaps now I cannot, when I would give worlds to lighten one of his cares!’ And then she saw one little bit of furniture standing awry, in the manner that used so often to worry his fastidious eye; and, in the spirit of doing anything to please him, she moved across the room to rectify it, and then sat down in the large easy chair, wearied by the slight exertion, and becoming even more depressed and hopeless; ‘though,’ as she told herself, ’all is sure to be ordered well.  The past struggle has been good—­the future will be good if we can but treat it rightly.’

Just as the last gleams were fading on the tops of the Ormersfield coppices, she heard the hall-door, and James’s footstep; and it was more than the ordinary music of his ‘coming up the stair;’ there was a spring and life in it that thrilled into her heart, and glanced in her eye, as she sat up in her chair, to welcome him with no forced smile.

And as he came in with a pleased exclamation, his voice had no longer the thin, worn sound, as if only resolute resignation prevented peevishness; there was a cheerfulness and solidity in the tone, as he came fondly to her side, regretted having missed her first appearance, and feared she had been long alone.

’Oh, no; but I was afraid you would be so tired!  Carrying Kitty all the way, too!  But you look so much brighter.’

‘I am brighter,’ said James.  ’Two things have happened for which I ought to be very thankful.  My dear, can you bear to be wife to the chaplain of the Union at fifty pounds a-year!’

’Oh! have you something to do? cried Isabel; ’I am so glad!  Now we shall be a little more off your mind.  And you will do so much good!  I have heard Miss Mercy say how much she wished there were some one to put those poor people in the right way.’