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Chapter 6: Modularity Using Functions

TRUE/FALSE

1. In creating C++ functions, you must be concerned with the function itself and how it interacts with
other functions, such as main().

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 306

2. In C++, a function is allowed to change the contents of variables declared in other functions.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 309

3. In C++, nesting of functions is never permitted.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 313

4. Calling a function places a certain amount of overhead on a computer.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 333

5. Calling a function and passing arguments by value is a distinct advantage of C++.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 338

6. C++ functions are constructed to be independent modules.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 359

7. You should make all your variables global if possible.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 364

8. After they’re created, local static variables remain in existence for the program’s lifetime.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 370

9. Static variables can be initialized using other variables.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 370

10. Declaration statements containing the word extern create new storage areas.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 374

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. The function that does the calling is referred to as the ____ function.
a. summoned c. called
b. child d. calling
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 307
 2. The declaration statement for a function is referred to as a function ____.
a. prototype c. definition
b. calling d. initialization
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 307

3. Every C++ function consists of two parts, a function header and a function ____.
a. prototype c. body
b. definition d. declaration
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 309

4. The names in parentheses in the header are called the formal ____ of the function.
a. parameters c. identifiers
b. variables d. constants
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 310

5. ____ are any set of conditions a function requires to be true if it’s to operate correctly.
a. Postconditions c. Sentinels
b. Preconditions d. Prototypes
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 314

6. A ____ is the beginning of a final function that can be used as a placeholder for the final unit until the
unit is completed.
a. declaration c. stub
b. definition d. prototype
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 315

7. C++ provides the capability of using the same function name for more than one function, referred to as
function ____.
a. prototyping c. interpreting
b. conditioning d. overloading
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 317

8. A function ____ is a single, complete function that serves as a model for a family of functions.
a. template c. prototype
b. stub d. definition
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 319

9. The line template <class T>, called a ____, is used to inform the compiler that the function
immediately following is a template using a data type named T.
a. template prototype c. template prefix
b. template body d. template postfix
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 320

10. When a value is passed to a called function with only copies of the values contained in the arguments
at the time of the call, the passed argument is referred to as a ____.
a. pass by reference c. call by reference
b. call by value d. passed by value
 ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 328

11. A function returning a value must specify, in its ____, the data type of the value to be returned.
a. body c. assignment
b. initialization d. header
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 328

12. Telling the C++ compiler that a function is ____ causes a copy of the function code to be placed in the
program at the point the function is called.
a. inline c. overloaded
b. online d. overline
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 334

13. Passing addresses is referred to as a function ____.

a. pass by value c. call by value
b. pass by reference d. pass by copy
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 339

14. In C++ a reference parameter is declared with the syntax:

a. dataType referenceName& c. dataType* referenceName&
b. dataType* referenceName d. dataType& referenceName
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 339

15. The default in C++ is to make passes by ____.

a. address c. value
b. pointer d. reference
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 346

16. Because the variables created in a function are conventionally available only to the function, they are
said to be ____ variables.
a. local c. external
b. global d. internal
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 360

17. ____ is the section of the program where the identifier, such as a variable, is valid or “known.”
a. Reach c. Range
b. Spread d. Scope
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 360

18. A variable with ____ scope has storage created for it by a declaration statement located outside any
function.
a. local c. internal
b. global d. function
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 360

19. The symbol ____ represents the C++’s scope resolution operator.
a. :: c. ||
b. : d. ;;
 ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 364

20. In C++, function prototypes typically have ____ scope.

a. external c. internal
b. local d. global
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 365

21. Where and how long a variable’s storage locations are kept before they’re released can be determined
by the variable’s ____.
a. data type c. storage category
b. name d. scope
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 368

22. Local variables can be members only of the auto, static, or ____ storage categories.
a. global c. extern
b. const d. register
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 369

23. A local variable that is declared as ____ causes the program to keep the variable and its latest value
even when the function that declared it is through executing.
a. auto c. register
b. static d. extern
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 370

24. Most computers have a few high-speed storage areas called ____.
a. registers c. CPU memory
b. static d. external memory
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 372

25. A(n) ____ declaration statement simply informs the computer that a global variable already exists and
can now be used.
a. auto c. extern
b. static d. global
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 374

COMPLETION

1. The use of function ____________________ permits the compiler to error-check data types.

ANS:
prototypes
prototype

PTS: 1 REF: 308

2. A(n) ____________________ function is summoned into action by the calling function.

ANS: called
 PTS: 1 REF: 307

3. In a function call, the items enclosed in parentheses are known as ____________________.

ANS:
arguments
argument
parameters
parameter

PTS: 1 REF: 308

4. In addition to argument data types, ____________________ argument values may be assigned in the
function prototype for added flexibility.

ANS: default

PTS: 1 REF: 317

5. A function returning a value must specify the ____________________ type of the value to be
returned.

ANS: data

PTS: 1 REF: 328

6. After a function returns a value, program control reverts to the ____________________ function.

ANS: calling

PTS: 1 REF: 330

7. To actually use a returned value, you must provide a(n) ____________________ to store the value or
to use the value in an expression.

ANS: variable

PTS: 1 REF: 331

8. Function call overhead is justified because it can reduce a program's ____________________

substantially.

ANS: size

PTS: 1 REF: 333

9. The advantage of using an inline ____________________ is an increase in execution speed.

ANS: function

PTS: 1 REF: 334

10. C++ provides two types of address parameters: ____________________ and pointers.
 ANS:
references
reference

PTS: 1 REF: 339

11. While a function is executing, only variables and parameters that are in the ____________________
for that function can be accessed.

ANS: scope

PTS: 1 REF: 363

12. In addition to the space dimension represented by scope, variables have a(n) ____________________
dimension.

ANS: time

PTS: 1 REF: 368

13. A variable is said to be alive if ____________________ for the variable is available.

ANS: storage

PTS: 1 REF: 369

14. Initialization of ____________________ variables is done only once, when the program is first
compiled.

ANS: static

PTS: 1 REF: 370

15. Variables that are created by definition statements external to a function are called
____________________ variables.

ANS: global

PTS: 1 REF: 372

Other documents randomly have
different content
catch sight of this young man, quite a stranger, and very likely to catch her
eye, her fancy took hold of him as the person that was scheming against
her? The more I thought over this, the more feasible it looked; though it was
a dreadful thing to think that one’s only sister was failing in her reason, and
that any night the companion of my life might be a maniac. But what was I
to think? How was it possible, no madness being in the case, that a young
unknown stranger could threaten the fortune and honour of Sarah Mortimer,
born heiress of the Park, and in lawful possession of it for more than a
dozen years? What possible reason could there be for her, if she was in her
sane senses, fearing the intrigues of anybody, much less a harmless young
foreigner? But then that groan! was it a disturbed mind that drew that
involuntary utterance out of her? Heaven help us! What could any one think
or do in such circumstances? I was no more able to write a note to Mr. Luigi
that evening than I was to have gone out and sought him. Things must take
their chance. If he came he must come. I could not help myself. Besides, I
had no thought for Mr. Luigi and his lost Countess. I could think only of my
sister. No! no! little Sara was deceived, clever as she was. Sarah knew no
Countess Sermoneta—her mind disturbed and unsettled, had fixed upon the
strange face on the way, only as some fanciful instrument of evil to herself.

Chapter VII.

N EXT morning at breakfast I found a letter waiting me, in an unknown

hand—an odd hand, not inelegant, but which somehow gave a kind of
foreign look even to the honest English superscription. The address was
odd, too. It was Miss Milla Mortimer, a very extraordinary sort of title for
me, Millicent. That is the work of diminutives—they are apt to get
misunderstood and metamorphosed into caricatures of names.
The letter inside was of a sufficiently odd description to correspond with
the address; this is how it was expressed:—
“Madame,
“You will pardon me if I say Madame, when I perhaps should ought to
say Mademoiselle. Madame will understand that the titles of honour, which
differ in every country, do much of times puzzle a foreigner. Since I had the
honour of making an encounter with Mademoiselle, I have more than once
repeated my searches; and all in finding no one, it has come to me in the
head to go to another place, where there may be better of prospects. I have,
then, made the conclusion to go to Manchester, where I shall find, as they
say, some countrymen, and will consult with their experience. There are
much of places, they say, with Chester in the name. I go to make a little
voyage among them. If I have the happiness to find the Contessa, I will take
the liberty of making Madame aware of it. If it is to fail, I must submit. I
shall return to Chester; and all in making my homage to Madame, will use
the boldness of asking if anything of news respecting the Contessa may
have come to her recollection. In all cases Madame will permit me to
remember with gratitude her bounty to a stranger.
“Luigi S——.”
Sara and I were, as usual, alone at the breakfast-table, and to tell the
truth, I prized this interval when Sarah’s eyes were not upon me, nor all the
troublous matters conveyed in her looks present to my mind, as quite a
holiday season,—when I could look as I liked, say what I pleased, and be
afraid of nobody. Besides, though I was more and more uneasy about Sarah,
I was not disturbed in my mind about this young man to the degree I had
been, nor so entirely mystified about any possible connection between
them. Since last evening, thinking it all over, it came to be deeply impressed
upon my mind that there was no connection between them: that my poor
sister knew nothing whatever about him or his Italian Countess. Simply that
Sarah’s mind, poor dear soul, was giving way, and that catching sight of the
strange face on the road, she had somehow identified and fixed upon it as
the face of an unknown agent of trouble, the “somebody” who always
injures, or persecutes, or haunts the tottering mind. It was but little comfort
to me to conclude upon this, as you may suppose, but it seemed to explain
everything. It cleared up a quite unintelligible mystery. Poor Sarah! poor
soul! She who had known such a splendid morning, such an exciting noon,
such a dull leaden afternoon of life,—and how dark the clouds were
gathering round her towards the night!
But being thus eased in my mind about the young man, the kindness I
had instinctively felt to him came strong upon me. I remembered the look
he had, quite affectionately, the nice, handsome, smiling, young fellow!
Who could it be that he was like? Somebody whom I remembered dimly
through the old ages; and his voice, too? His voice made a thrill of strange
wondering recollections run through me. Certainly that voice had once
possessed some power or influence over my mind. I decided he would not
find his Countess in Manchester. Fancy the ridiculous notion! A Countess in
Manchester! No. She must belong about Cheshire, somewhere; and I must
have known her in my youth.
So I read his note twice over, with a good deal of interest, and then
naturally, as we had talked of him together so often, handed it to Sara. Now
I did not in the least mean to watch Sara while she read it, but, having my
eyes unconsciously upon her face at the moment, was startled, I
acknowledge, by seeing her suddenly flush up, and cast a startled glance at
me, as if the child expected that something more than usual was to be in the
note. Who could tell what romantic fancies might be in her head? It is quite
possible her imagination had been attracted by the stranger, and perhaps if
she had heard that Mr. Luigi had fallen romantically in love with her, Sara
would have been less surprised and much less shocked than I should.
However, there was no such matter, but only a sensible, though, I must
confess, rather odd and Frenchified note. After the first glance she read it
over very calmly and carefully, then laid it down, with something that
looked wonderfully like a little shade of pique, and cried out in her sharpest
tone:
“Oh, godmamma, how sensible!—to be sure to be an Italian, and young,
he must be a perfect miracle of a Luigi. Actually, because there are
countrymen of his in Manchester—music teachers and Italian masters, of
course—to give up an appointment with a lady, and at such a house as the
Park! I think he must be quite the most sensible and pretty-behaved of
young men.”
“I think he shows a great deal of sense,” said I, not altogether pleased
with the child’s tone; “but if you will excuse me saying so, Sara, I think it is
just a little vulgar of you to say ‘at such a house as the Park.’ ”
Sarah flushed up redder and redder. I quite thought we were to have a
quarrel again.
“Oh, of course, godmamma, if I had been speaking of a—of an English
gentleman; but you know,” said the wicked little creature, looking boldly in
my face, “you set him down at once, whenever you heard of him, as an
adventurer,—a count, you know,—one of the fellows that came sneaking
into people’s houses and wanted to marry people’s daughters. I am only
repeating what you said, godmamma. It was not I that said it. And now you
perceive this good respectable young man does not attempt anything of the
kind.”
“But then you see we, at the Park, have no daughters to marry,” said I,
looking at her rather grimly.
“Oh, to be sure, that makes all the difference,” cried Sara, bursting open
her own letters with a half-ashamed, annoyed laugh. I have no doubt she
had said twice as much as she meant to say, the impatient little puss, and
was ashamed of herself. She had set her heart on seeing Mr. Luigi, that was
the plain truth of the matter. Seeing him at the Park, where of course papa
could have nothing to say against the introduction, hearing all about his
search after the unknown lady, exercising her wiles upon him, turning him
into a useless creature like that poor boy Wilde, in Chester, who was good
for nothing but to waylay her walks and go errands for her. That was what
she wanted, the wicked little coquette. It was just as well Mr. Luigi had
taken care of himself, and kept out of the way. I really thought it was right
to read her a lecture on the occasion.
“Sara, you are quite disappointed the poor young man is not coming.
You wanted to make a prey of him, you artful puss,” said I. “You thought,
out here in the country, with nothing else to do, it would be good fun to
make him fall in love with you—you know you did! And I think it is not at
all a creditable thing, I assure you. How can you excuse yourself for all the
damage you have done to that young Wilde?”
“Damage!” cried Sara. “If I am a puss, I may surely pounce upon a
mouse that comes in my way,” she said spitefully; and then putting on her
most innocent look;—“but, indeed, it is very shocking to have such
suspicions of me, especially as I am a fright now, godmamma Sarah says.”
“It is just as well Mr. Luigi does not put himself in your way,” said I;
“and it would be very wicked of you to do any harm to him, or attempt such
a thing; and I say so particularly, because I think you are quite inclined to it,
Sara, which is very wrong and very surprising. You are not such a beauty as
your godmamma Sarah was, but you have just the same inclinations. It is
something quite extraordinary to me.”
The little puss looked at me with her wicked eyes blazing, and her face
flushed and angry. She looked quite beautiful in spite of her short little
curls. I am not sure that she might not, when she grew older, be very near as
great a beauty as her godmamma. She did not make any answer, but bit her
lips, and set her little red mouth, and looked a very little sprite of mischief
and saucy daring. She was not abashed by what I said to her. She was a
thoughtless child, aware only of a strange mischievous power she had, and
thinking no harm.
“For I know,” said I, half to myself, “that poor Mr. Luigi will come back.
I feel as if I had known him half a lifetime ago. His voice is a voice I used
to hear when I was young. I can’t tell whose voice it is, but I know it. He’ll
come back here. He won’t find the lady in Manchester, or any other chester;
he’ll find her in Cheshire, if he finds her at all.”
“Did godmamma Sarah say so?” cried Sara, suddenly losing her own
self-consciousness in her interest in this bit of mystery.
“Child, do not be rash,” cried I, in some agitation. “Your godmamma
knows nothing about her; it is all a mistake.”
“Did you ask her?” said Sara. “Godmamma, it is written in her face.
When the rector was speaking, when you were speaking, even when I was
speaking, it was quite evident she knew her abroad, and remembered who
she was; but she will not tell. It is not a guess; I am perfectly sure of it. She
knows all about her, and she will not tell.”
“It is quite a mistake, Sara,” cried I, trembling in spite of myself. “She
has taken some fancy into her head about Mr. Luigi, some merely visionary
notion that he has some bad intention, I cannot tell you what. But I am
certain she knows nothing about this Countess. Child, don’t think you know
better than anybody else! I have thought a great deal about it, and made up
my mind. Your godmamma has grown fanciful, she has taken this into her
head. Don’t be rash in speaking of your fancies; it might give her pain;—
and your idea is all a mistake.”
“Will you ask her? or will you let me ask her?” cried Sara. “If she says
‘No,’ I shall be satisfied.”
“I will do no such thing,” said I. “She is my only sister, I will do nothing
to molest or vex her; and, Sara, while I am here, neither shall you.”
Sara did not say anything for a few minutes. She allowed me to pick up
my letter in silence, for we had finished breakfast. She let me gather up my
papers and ring the bell, and make my way to the door. Then, as I stood
there waiting for Ellis, she brushed past me rapidly. “Godmamma” said
Sara, looking into my face for a moment, “all the same, she knows,” and
had passed the next instant, and was gliding upstairs before I had recovered
my composure. How pertinacious she was! Against my will this had an
effect on me.

Chapter VIII.

G REAT and many were my musings what steps I ought to take; or,
indeed, whether I ought to take any steps in the strange dilemma I was
in. I considered of it till my head ached. What if Sarah’s mind were
possibly just at that delicate point when means of cure might be effectual?
but how could I bring her to any means of cure? There have been many
miserable stories told about false imputations of insanity and dreadful
cruelties and injustice following, but I almost think there might be as many
and as sad on the other side, about friends watching in agony, neither able
nor willing to take any steps until it was too late, far too late, for any good.
This was the situation I felt myself in; no matter whether I was right or
wrong in my opinion, this was how I felt myself. I suppose nobody can
think of madness appearing beside them in the person of their nearest
companion, without a dreadful thrill and terror at their heart; but at the same
time I felt that, however inevitable this might be, I must first come to it
unmistakably. I must first see it, hear it, beyond all possibility of doubt,
before I ventured to whisper it even to the secret ear of a physician.
All this floated through my mind with that dreadful faculty of jumping at
conclusions that imagination always has. Did ever anybody meet with any
great misfortune, which has been hanging some time over them, without
going through it a thousand times before the blow really fell, and the
dreadful repetition was done away with once and for ever? How many
times over and over, sleeping and waking, does the death-bed watcher go
through the parting that approaches before it really comes? Dying itself, I
think,—one naturally thinks what kind of a process that is, as one comes
near the appointed natural period of its coming,—dying itself must be
rehearsed so often, that its coming at last is a real relief to the real actor. Not
only does what is real go through a hundred performances in one’s
imagination, but many a scene appals us that, thank heaven, we are never
condemned to go through with. I could not see before me what was to
happen, nor into Sarah’s mind to know what was astir there; but I tortured
myself all the same, gathering all the proofs of this new dismal light thrown
upon her, in my mind. All insane people make up a persecutor or pursuer
for themselves. Poor Sarah had found hers in the strange face,—it was so
unusual in our quiet roads to see a strange face!—which she met all at once
and without warning, on the quiet road.
I recollected every incident, and everything confirmed my idea. She had
taken a panic all at once,—she had driven five miles round to get out of his
way; from that hour painful watchfulness and anxiety had come to her face.
Carson was sent out to see that the road was clear, before, poor soul, she
would venture out, though with the carriage blinds drawn down. Ah! I think
if my only communication with the open air and the out-of-doors world was
in the enclosure of that carriage with the blinds drawn down, I should
certainly go mad, and quickly too! I had a long afternoon by myself in the
library that day. I went back, as well as my memory would carry me, into
the history of the Mortimers. Insanity was not in our family,—no trace of it.
We had never been very clever, but we had been obstinately sane and sober-
minded. My mother’s family too, the Stamfords, so far as I know, were all
extremely steady people. It is odd when one individual of a family, and no
more, shows a tendency to wander; at sixty, too, all of a sudden, with no
possible reason. But who can search into the ways of Providence? It might
perhaps never go any further; it might be the long silence of her life, and
perhaps long brooding over such things as may have happened to her in the
course of it. Something must have happened to Sarah; she was not like me.
She had really lived her life, and had her own course in the world. She had
known her own bitterness, too, no doubt, or she—she, the great beauty, the
heiress,—would not have been Sarah Mortimer sitting voiceless by the
fireside. She had been too silent, had too much leisure to go over her life.
Her brain had rusted in the quietness; terrors had risen within her that took
form and found an execution for themselves whenever, without any
warning, she saw a strange face. This explained everything. I could see it
quite clear with this interpretation; and without this nothing could explain
it; for the young Italian looking for his friend, the lady whom nobody had
ever heard of, could be nothing in the world to Sarah Mortimer.
Thinking over this, it naturally occurred to me that it would be important
to let my poor sister know that this innocent young object of her fears had
left the neighbourhood. It might, even, who knows? restore the balance to
her poor mind. I got up from my chair the moment I thought of that, but did
not go out of the library quite so quickly as you might have supposed,
either. I was afraid of Sarah’s passions and reproaches; I always was. She
had a way of representing everybody else as so unkind to her, poor dear
soul, and of making out that she was neglected and of no consequence.
Though I knew that this was not the case, I never could help feeling
uncomfortable. Perhaps if I could only have put myself in her place, I might
have felt the same; but it made me very timid of starting any subject before
her that she did not like, even though it might be to relieve her mind.
I went slowly into the drawing-room. I thought most likely little Sara
was dressing upstairs, and we two would have a little time to ourselves.
When I went into the great room it was lying in the twilight, very dim and
shadowy. The great mirror looked like another dimmer world added on to
this one which was already so dim,—a world all full of glimpses and
gliding figures, and brightened up by the gleams of the firelight which
happened to be blazing very bright and cheerful. There were no curtains
closed nor blinds down. Four great long windows, each let into the opposite
wall a long strip of sky, the grass, and leafless trees, giving one a strange
idea of the whole world outside, the world of winds, and hills, and rivers,
and foreign unknown people. It was not light that came in at these
windows; it was a sort of grey luminous darkness, that led our eyes up to
the sky and blurred everything underneath. But in the centre of the room
burned that ruddy centre of fire, a light which is quite by itself, and is not to
be compared to anything else. Straight before me, as I stood at the door, was
Sarah’s screen, shutting out as much light as it could, and of course
concealing her entirely; but beyond, full in the ruddy light on the other side
of the screen, with the red fire reddening all over her velvet jacket, her
glossy hair, and the white round arms out of those long wide sleeves, sat
little Sara Cresswell, on a footstool opposite her godmamma, and talking to
her. I cannot say Sara was in a pretty attitude. Young ladies now-a-days are
sadly careless in their ways. She was stooping quite double, with one of her
hands thrust into her hair, and the fire scorching her complexion all to
nothing; and one of the long, uncovered windows, with the blind drawn up
to the very top, you may be sure by Sara’s own wilful hands, was letting in
the sky light over her, like a very tall spirit with pale blue eyes, so chilly,
and clear, and pale, that it looked the oddest contrast possible to the firelight
and the little velvet kitten then in front of it, all scorched and reddened over,
as you could fancy; velvet takes on that surface tint wonderfully. I could see
nothing of Sarah in the shelter of her screen; but there sat the little puss in
velvet, straight before her, talking to her as nobody else ever ventured to
talk. I have been long telling you how that fireside scene looked, just to get
my breath. I had been trying to work myself up to the proper pitch to enter
upon that subject again with my poor sister. But lo! here had little Sara
come on her own account and got it all over. I could see at a glance that
there was no more to be said.
I came forward quietly and dropped into my own seat without saying
anything. Dear, dear! had it been an insane, unreasonable terror, or had it
been something real and serious that she knew, and she alone? Sarah was
leaning a little towards the fire, rubbing the joints of her fingers, which
were rheumatic, as I have mentioned before; but it was not what she was
doing that struck me; it was the strange look of ease and comfort that had
somehow come upon her. Her whole person looked as if it had relaxed out
of some bondage. Her head drooped a little in a kind of easy languor: her
muslin shawl, lined with pale blue, hung lightly off her shoulders. Her pins
were laid down orderly and neat on her basket with the wools. Her very foot
was at ease on the footstool. How was it? If it had been incipient madness,
could this grateful look of rest have come so easily? Would the fever have
gone down only at knowing he was away? Heavens know! I sat all silent in
my own chair in the shadow, and felt the water moisten my old eyes. What
she must have gone through before this sudden ease could show itself so
clearly in every limb and movement! What an iron bondage she must have
been putting on! What a relief this was! Her comfort and sudden relaxation
struck me dumb. I was appalled at the sight of it. My notion about insanity,
dreadful to think of, but still natural and innocent, was shaken; a restless
uneasiness of a different description rose upon my mind. Could he indeed
be anything to her, this young stranger? Could she in her own knowledge
have some mysterious burden which was connected with his coming or
going? Could she have recognised, instead of only finding an insanely
fanciful destiny in his strange face? Impossible! That foreign life of hers, so
obscure and mysterious to me, was of an older period than his existence. He
could bring no gossip, no recollections to confound her. At the time of her
return he could scarcely have been born. Thus I was plunged into a perfect
wilderness of amazed questions again.
“When little Sara went off to dress,—she dressed every evening, though
we never saw anybody,—I stole to the door after her, and caught her little
pink ear outside the door in the half-lighted hall. She gave a little shriek
when I came suddenly behind her. I believe she thought I was angry, and
came to take her punishment into my own hand.
“What did you say to your godmamma, Sara?” said I.
“Nothing,” said the perverse child. Then, after a little pause, “I told her
that your Mr. Luigi was gone, godmamma; and that he was a very pretty-
behaved young man; and asked her who the Countess Sermoneta was.”
“You did?”
“Yes; but she did not mind,” said Sara. “I am not sure if she heard me;
she gave such a long sigh, half a year long. Godmamma Sarah’s heart must
be very deep down if it took that to ease it; and melted all out, as if frost
was over somehow, and thaw had come.”
“Ah! and what more?” said I.
“Nothing more,” cried the child. “Don’t you think I have a little heart,
godmamma? If she felt it so, could I go poking at her with that Countess’s
name? Ah! you should have seen her. She thawed out as if the sun was
shining and the frost gone.”
“Ah!” I cried again. It went to my heart as well. “Come down and talk,
little Sara,” said I, and so went back to the drawing room, where she sat
looking so eased and relieved, poor soul, poor soul! I was very miserable. I
had not the heart to ring for lights. I sat down in my chair with all sorts of
dismal thoughts in my heart. She did not speak either. She was rubbing her
rheumatic fingers, and taking in all the warmth and comfort. She looked as
if somehow she had escaped—good heavens! from what?

Chapter IX.

N EXT day that change upon Sarah’s whole appearance continued, and
throughout the whole week. She was like herself once more. Carson
made no more stealthy expeditions out of doors before my sister set out
on her drive. Sarah did not stir in her chair and eye me desperately when the
door opened. She even seemed to fall deaf again with that old, soft, slight
hardness of hearing which I used to suspect in her. There was no pressure
on her heart to startle her ears.
While I in the meantime tried my best to think nothing about it, tried to
turn a blank face towards what might happen, and to take the days as they
came. I have not come to be fifty without having troubles in plenty. For the
last dozen years, to be sure, there had been only common embarrassments.
The fewer people one has to love, the fewer pleasures and joys are possible,
the less grow our sorrows. It is cold comfort, but it is a fact
notwithstanding. Grief and delight go hand in hand in full lives; when we
are stinted down into a corner both fall off. We suffer less, we enjoy less;
we suffer nothing, we enjoy nothing in time, only common pricks and
vexations, which send no thrill to the slumbering heart. So we had been
living for years; happy enough, nothing to disturb us; or not happy at all, if
you choose to take that view of the subject; true either way. Not such a
thing as real emotion lighting upon our house, only secondary feelings; no
love to speak of, but kindness; no joy, but occasional pleasure; no grief, but
sometimes regret. A very composed life, which had been broken in upon
quite suddenly by a bewildering shadow,—tragic fear, doubt, alarm,—
sudden mystery no ways explainable, or madness explainable but hopeless.
In this pause of dismay and doubt, while the dark, unknown, inexplicable
figure had turned away from the door a little, it was hard to turn from its
fascination and go quietly back to that quiet life.
Little Sara Cresswell came much about me in the library in those days;
she interested herself in my business much; she tried to interfere with my
work and help me, as the kitten called it. All the outlays on the estate, the
works that were going on, the improvements I loved to set a-going—which
did not all come to anything,—and the failures, of which to be sure there
were plenty—pleased the impatient creature mightily. I was considered
rather speculative and fanciful among the Cheshire squires; they did not
approve of my goings on; they thought me a public nuisance for preserving
no game, and making a fuss about cottages. But I am sorry to say little Sara
did not agree with the squires. She thought my small bits of improvements
very slow affairs indeed; she grew indignant at my stinginess and
contracted ideas. She thought any little I did were just preliminary attempts
not worth mentioning. When was I to begin the work in earnest she wanted
to know?
“What work, Sara?”
“What work? Why, here are you, godmamma, an old lady—you will
never grow any wiser or any better than you are,” cried the intolerable
child. “You can’t get any more good out of all that belongs to the Park than
just your nice little dinners, and teas, and the carriage, and the servants, and,
perhaps, half-a-dozen dresses in the year,—though I do believe three would
be nearer true,—and to keep all these farms, and fields, and meadows, and
orchards, and things, all for godmamma Sarah and you! Don’t you feel
frightened sometimes when you wake up suddenly at night?”
“You saucy little puss!—why?” cried I.
“To think of the poor,” said Sara, with a solemn look. She held herself
straight up, and looked quite dignified as she turned her reproving eyes on
me. “Quantities of families without any homes, quantities of little children
growing up worse than your pigs, godmamma, quantities of people starving,
and living, and crowding, and quarrelling in black streets not as broad as
this room, with courts off from them, like those horrid, frightful places in
Liverpool. While out here you are living in your big rooms, in your big
house, with the green park all round and round you, and farmers, and
gardeners, and cottagers, and servants, and all sorts of people, working to
make you comfortable; with more money than you know what to do with,
and everything belonging to yourself, and nobody to interfere with you.
And why have you any right to it more than them?”
Little Sara’s figure swelled out, and her dark eyes shone bright as she
was speaking. It took away my breath. “Are you a Chartist, child?” I cried.
“I think I am a Socialist,” said Sara, very composedly; “but I don’t quite
know. I think we should all go shares. I have told you so a dozen times,
godmamma. Suppose papa has twelve hundred a year,—I do believe he has
a great deal more,—isn’t it dreadful? and all, not out of the ground like
yours, but from worrying people into lawsuits and getting them into trouble.
Well, suppose it was all divided among a dozen families, a hundred a year.
People can live very comfortably, I assure you, godmamma, upon a hundred
a year.”
“Who told you, child?” said I.
“The curate has only eighty,” said Sara; “his wife dresses the baby and
makes all its things herself, and they have very comfortable little dinners.
The window in my old nursery—the end window you know—just
overlooks their little parlour. They look so snug and comfortable when the
baby is good. To be sure it must be a bore taking one’s dinner with the baby
in one’s lap; and I am sure she is always in a fright about visitors coming. I
think it would be quite delightful to give them one of papa’s hundreds a
year.”
 “In addition to their eighty?” said I. “Why, then, there is an end of going
shares.”
Sara coughed and stammered for a moment over this, quite at fault; but
not being troubled either about logic or consistency, soon plunged on again
as bold as ever.
“Whatever you say, godmamma, people can live quite comfortable on a
hundred a year. I have reckoned it all up; and I don’t see really any reason
why anybody should have more. Only fancy what a quantity of hundreds a
year you and godmamma Sarah might distribute if you would. And, instead
of that, you only build a few cottages and give a few people work—work!
as if they had not as good a right as anybody to their living. People were not
born only to work, and to be miserable, and to die.”
“People were born to do a great many harder things than you think for,
Sara,” said I. “Do you think I am going to argue with a little velvet kitten
like you? I advise you to try your twelve families on the twelve hundreds a
year. But what do you suppose you would do if your godmamma and I,
having no heirs, left the Park to you, and you had your will, and might do
what you pleased?”
What put this into my head I cannot say; but I gave it utterance on the
spur of the moment. Sara stared at me for a moment, with her pretty mouth
falling a little open in astonishment. Then she jumped up and clapped her
hands. “Do, godmamma!” she cried out, “oh do; such a glorious scatter I
should make! everybody should have enough, and we’d build the loveliest
little chapel in existence to St. Millicent, if there is such a saint. I have
always thought it would be perfectly delightful to be a great heiress.
Godmamma, do!”
To see her all sparkling with delight and eagerness quite charmed me.
Had she ever heard a hint of being left heiress to the Park, of course she
must have looked wretched and conscious. Anybody would that had thought
of such a great acquisition. Sara had not an idea of that. She thought it the
best fun possible. She clapped her hands and cried, “Do, godmamma!” She
was as bold as an innocent young lion, without either guile or fear.
“It should be tied down so that you could not part with a single acre, nor
give away above five pounds at a time,” said I.
“Ah!” said Sara, thoughtfully; “I dare say there would be a way of
cheating you somehow though, godmamma,” she said, waking up again
with a touch of malice. “People are always cheated after they are dead. I
knew a dear old lady that would not have her portrait taken for anybody but
one friend whom she loved very much; but, what do you think? after she
was gone they found the wicked wretch of a photographic man that kept the
thing,—the negative they call it,—and printed scores of portraits, and let
everybody have one. I would have given my little finger to have had one;
but to go and cheat her, and baulk her after she was dead, and all for love,
that is cruel. I would rather go against what you said right out, godmamma,
than go against what I knew was in your heart.”
“Ah, Sara, you don’t know anything about it,” said I. “If you had a great
deal of money all to yourself, and could do anything you liked with it,—as
heaven knows you may have soon enough!—and were just as foolish with it
as you intend, how disgusted you would be with your charity, to be sure,
after a while! What a little misanthrope you would grow! What mercenary,
discontented wretches you would think all the people! I think I can see you
fancying how much good you are doing, and yet doing only harm instead.
Then that disagreeable old fellow, experience, would take you in hand. The
living are cheated as well as the dead. We are all cheated, and cheat
ourselves. Nothing would make me go and have my portrait taken; but I
don’t deny if I found out that people had got it spontaneously, and handed it
about among themselves all for love, I should not be angry. You are a little
goose. You don’t know what manner of spirit you are of.”
“It is very easy talking, godmamma,” said Sara. “I was watching
yesterday when godmamma Sarah went out for her drive. The groom and
the boy were hard at work ever so long with the carriage and horses before
it was ready. I saw them out of the window of Alice’s room while she was
mending my dress for me. Then came old Jacob to the door with the
carriage. Then came godmamma Sarah leaning on Carson’s arm to go
downstairs. So there were two great horses and four human creatures,—
three men and a woman,—all employed for ever so long to give one old
lady a half-hour’s drive, when a walk would have done her twenty times as
much good,” concluded the child hastily, under her breath.
“You speak in a very improper manner;—an old lady! You ought to have
more respect for your godmamma,” said I, indignantly. “Your godmamma
has nothing that is not perfectly suitable to her condition of life.”
 “But godmamma Sarah is an old lady, whether I am respectful or not,”
said the girl stoutly. “When I see ladies driving about I wonder at them.
Two great horses that could fight or plough; and two great men that might
do the same; and all occupied about one lady’s drive! If I were queen I
would do away with drives! Ah! shouldn’t I like to be Semiramis, the
Semiramis of the story, that persuaded the king to let her be queen for a day,
and turned everything upside down, and then——”
“Cut off the king’s head. Would you do it, Sara, after he had trusted
you?” said I.
Sara came to a sudden pause. “I would not mind about cutting off his
head; but, to be sure, being trusted is different. As if it were not a story, not
a word true! But please, godmamma,” cried the wild creature, making me a
curtsey, “don’t leave me the Park. I don’t want to be trusted, please. I want
to have my own way.”
Which was the truest word she ever said.

Chapter X.

T HE days wore away thus in talks with little Sara, and vague expeditions
out of doors, a misty sort of confused life. I felt as one feels when one
knows of some dreadful storm, or trial, that has passed over for a little,
only to come again by and by. After seeing Sarah show so much feeling of
one kind and another,—distress, anxiety, and apprehension one day, and
comfort and relief another,—I could not bind myself with the thought that
this could possibly pass off and come to nothing. Such things don’t happen
once and get done with. There was a secret reason somewhere working all
the same, either in her own mind alone, or in the past and her history as
well; and one time or other it must make its appearance again. Whether it
was her mind giving way; and in that case it did not matter whether Mr.
Luigi came back or not, for if he did not appear, fancy would, doubtless
seize upon some other; or whether it was some person this young man
resembled, or some part of her life which she was afraid to hear of again
which he recalled to her, in any case it was sure to break out some other
day; and I cannot tell what a strange uncomfortable excitement it brought
into my life, and how the impulse of watching came upon me. Sarah’s
smallest motions got a meaning in my eyes. I could not take things easily as
I had used to do. She had always, of course, been very important in the
house; but she had been a kind of still life for a long time now. She would
not be consulted about leases or improvements, or anything done on the
estate. So long as everything was very comfortable and nice about her,—the
fire just to her liking, which Ellis managed to a nicety; the cooking
satisfactory; her wools nicely matched, and plenty of new patterns; her
screen just in the proper position, protecting her from the draught; and the
Times always ready when she was ready for it,—Sarah got on, as it
appeared, very comfortably. Despite all that, to be sure she would get angry
sometimes; but I was used to it, and did not mind much. Only to think that a
person, who had either in the past or in her own mind something to work
her up to such a pitch of excitement, could live such a life! She seemed to
have quite resumed it now with a strange kind of unreasoning self-
consolation. If it was the Italian that disturbed her, how could she persuade
herself that he was not coming back again? Her quiet falling back into her
old way was inexplicable to me.
I seemed to myself to stand just then in a very strange position. Sarah on
one side of me all shut up and self secluded, with a whole life all full of
strange incidents, dazzling, brilliant, unforgotten years, actual things that
had happened locked in her silent memory; and little Sara on tiptoe, on the
other side, eager to plunge in her own way into the life she dreamt of, but
knew nothing about. All the wild notions of the little girl, ridiculous-wise
opinions, poor dear child, her principles of right and justice with which she
would rule the world, and all her innocent break-downs and failures, ever in
her fancy, came pouring down upon me, pelting me at all times. And on the
other side was my sister, content to spend her life in that easy-chair, my
sister whom I knew nothing about, whose memory could go out of the Park
drawing-room into exciting scenes and wonderful events which I had never
heard of. How strange it was! I don’t remember much that I did in those
days. I lived under a confused, uneasy cloud, ready enough to be amused
with Sara’s philosophy. I am not sure that I was not all the more disposed to
smile at and tease the dear child, and be amused by all the new ideas she
started, for the troubled sensation in my own mind. Nothing could have
happened, I think, that would have surprised me. Sometimes it came into
my head whether my father could have done, or tried to do, something
when he was abroad, to cut us off from the succession; and once I jumped
bolt upright out of my seat, thinking—what if my father had married abroad
and had a son, and we were living usurpers, and Sarah knew of it! How that
idea did set my heart beating! If I had not been so much frightened for her
passions, I should have gone to her directly and questioned her. But to be
sure my father was not the man to leave off his own will for any
consideration about his daughters; and would have been only too proud to
have had a son. After thinking, I gave up that idea; but my heart went at a
gallop for hours after, and I should not have been surprised to hear that
anything had happened, or was going to happen. Really, anything real and
actual, however bad, would have been a relief from the mystery which
preyed upon me.
“Papa is coming to fetch me, to-morrow,” said Sara Cresswell, in rather
a discontented tone. “There is to be some ridiculous ball, or something. Can
anybody imagine anything so absurd as asking people to a ball when you
want to show you’re sorry to part with them? and papa might have known,
if he had ever taken the trouble to think, that I have no dress——”
“Sara, child! how many hundreds a year do you give your dressmaker?”
said I.
“That has nothing whatever to do with it, godmamma,” said Sara,
making a slightly confused pause; and then resuming, with a defiant look
into my face,—“if I might give one hundred a year away out of all papa has
got, I could live upon one dress in a year; but what is the use of shillings
and sixpences to beggars, or of saving up a few pounds additional to papa? I
don’t call that any economy. If we were living according to nature, it would
be quite different; then I should want no ball-dresses. Besides,” continued
the refractory creature, “I don’t want to go; and if papa insists on me going,
why shouldn’t I get some pleasure out of it? Everything else will be just the
same as usual, of course.—Godmamma,” exclaimed Sara suddenly, with a
new thought, “will you ask papa anything about this business? it is not done
with yet. He will come back, and all will have to be gone over again. Will
you mention it to papa?”
She had been thinking of it too,—she, thoughtless as she was, found
something in it not of a kind to die away and be passed over. I could not
mistake, nor pretend to mistake, what she meant; it was to be read in her
very eyes.
“My dear, I have told you already that your godmamma can have
nothing whatever to do with this young man,” said I, with a little irritation;
“if she is out of sorts it is nobody’s business. Do you fancy she could keep
up an acquaintance with an Italian countess for more than twenty years, and
I know nothing of it? Nonsense! Some fancy, or some old recollections, or
something, had an effect upon her just at the moment. Speak to your father!
Why, you told me he knew nothing about the Countess Sermoneta. Shall I
ask him to feel your godmamma’s pulse and prescribe for her? or do you
suppose, even if he were fit for that, your godmamma would allow it,
without feeling herself ill? Your papa is highly respectable, and has always
been much trusted by the family. But there are things with which one’s
solicitor has nothing whatever to do; there are things which belong to one’s
self, and to nobody else in the world.”
Poor little Sara! I did not mean to mortify the child! She grew crimson
with pride and annoyance. I had no intention of reminding her that she was
only the attorney’s daughter; but she reminded herself of it on the instant,
with all the pride of a duchess. She did not say a syllable, the little proud
creature; but turned away with such an air, her cheek burning, her eyes
flashing, her little foot spurning the ground. She went off with a great
sweep of her full skirts, disturbing the air to such an extent that I quite felt
the breeze on my cheek. Perhaps it was just as well. Of course there was a
difference between the Mortimers and the Cresswells. Because we did not
stand on our dignity, people were so ready to forget what they owed to us. It
was just as well the spoiled child could learn, for once in her life, that it was
all of grace and favour that she was made so much of at the Park.
I made quite sure that she went to her own room directly, to see after the
packing of her things, with some thoughts of starting for home at once,
without even waiting for her father. However, when she began to talk to her
little maid Alice, about that ball-dress, I daresay the other matter went out
of the child’s head. The next that I saw of her was when she made a rush
downstairs to ask me for postage stamps, with a letter in her hand, all closed
ready to go off. She was still pouting and ill-tempered; but she contrived to
show me the address of the letter. Alas, poor dear Bob Cresswell! it was to
the Chester milliner, the best one we had, no doubt ordering a dress for the
ball. Yet I do believe, for all that, the child could really have done what she
said. I believe, if some great misfortune had happened, and her father had
lost all his money, Sara’s first impulse would have been to clap her hands
and cry, “Now everybody shall see!” Of course it is very dreadful to lose
one’s fortune and become poor and have to work. But I wonder are there no
other spoiled creatures in the world like Sara, who have their own ideas
about such calamities, and think they would be the most famous fun in the
world? Too much of anything makes a revulsion in the mind. Such over-
indulged, capricious, spoiled children have often hardy bold spirits, and
would be thankful for some real, not sham necessity. But, in the meantime,
she had not the slightest idea of doing without her ball-dress.

Chapter XI.

M R. CRESSWELL came next day accordingly. I confess the very sight

of him was a sort of solace to me in my perplexities; that solid steady
man, with his sharp keen eyes and looks, as if he knew everything
going on round about him. To be sure, being a lawyer, he must have
pretended to know a great many more things than he could have any insight
into. Still, when one is in great doubt, and cannot tell where to turn, the
sight of one of these precise men, with a vast knowledge about other
people, and no affairs of their own of any consequence, is a kind of relief to
one. Such men can throw light on quantities of things quite out of their way.
I could not help saying to myself, though I had snubbed Sara for saying it,
that he might, perhaps, have helped to clear up this mystery. But, of course,
he was always a last resort if anything more happened. They were to have
dinner before they went away, and Mr. Cresswell reached the Park by noon;
so there was plenty of time to tell him anything. He came into the drawing-
room rubbing his hands. Sarah had just come down-stairs and taken her
seat. She was looking just as she always did, no tremble in her head to
speak of, her attention quite taken up with her wools, attending to what was
said, but with no anxiety about it. When Mr. Cresswell came in her face
changed a little; she looked as if all at once she had thought of something,
and gave me a sign, which I knew meant he was to come to her. I brought
him directly, not without a great deal of curiosity. It was a warm day for the
season; and just immediately before the fire, where the good man had to sit
to listen, was not just the most comfortable position in the world. He even
contrived to make a kind of appeal to me. Couldn’t I hear what it was, and
tell him afterwards? I took no notice; I confess it was rather agreeable to me
than otherwise,—to set him down there to get roasted before the fire.
“I want to know what you have done about Richard Mortimer,” said
Sarah in her shrill whisper; “there has been no advertisement in the Times
nor the Chester papers. I hope you are not losing time; what have you
done?”
It struck me that Mr. Cresswell looked just a little abashed and put out by
this question; but it might be the fire. He put up his hand to shelter his face,
and hitched round his chair; then shrugged his shoulders a little, insinuating
that she was making far too much of it. “My dear lady, advertisements are
the last resort. I hope to do without any such troublesome process,” said Mr.
Cresswell. “All the Mortimers in England will rouse up at the sight of an
advertisement. I should prefer to take a little time. Information is always to
be obtained privately when one has any clue at all.”
“Then have you obtained any private information?” said Sarah, in rather
a sharp tone. She had no inclination to let him slide away till she was quite
satisfied.
“Such things take their time,” said Mr. Cresswell, devoting all his
attention to screening himself from the fire. “How you ladies can bear
cooking yourselves up so, on this mild day, I cannot understand! I can hear
you perfectly, Miss Mortimer, thank you; your voice is as distinct as it
always was, though, unfortunately not the same tone. What a voice your
sister used to have, to be sure!—went through people’s hearts like a bell.”
This was addressed to me, in the idea of being able to wriggle out of the
conversation altogether. It is my conviction he had not taken a single step in
the matter of Richard Mortimer; but if he thought he could shake off
Sarah’s inquiries so, he deceived himself. She never was, all her life, to be
turned from her own way.
“It is sometime now since we instructed you on this subject,” said Sarah.
“If you have not made any discovery, at least you can tell us what you are
doing. Milly, there, like a fool, does not care. She talks of Providence
dropping us an heir at our door,—a foundling, I suppose, with its name on a
paper pinned to its frock,” said Sarah, growing rather excited, and turning
an angry look on me.
To my astonishment Mr. Cresswell also looked at me; his was a guilty,
conscious, inquiring look. What strange creatures we all are! This shrewd
lawyer, far from thinking that Sarah’s words referred to any mysterious
trouble or derangement in her own mind, took them up, knowing his own
thoughts, with all the quickness of guilt, to refer to Sara! He thought we had
probably had a quarrel about leaving her our heiress; that I had stood up for
her, and Sarah had opposed it. So he turned his eyes to me to see if I would
make any private telegraphic communication to him of the state of affairs.
And when he found nothing but surprise in my eyes, turned back a little
disappointed, but quite cool and ready to stand to his arms, though he had
failed of this mark.
“The truth is, there is nothing so easy as finding an heir. I’ll ensure you
to hunt him up from the backwoods, or China, or anywhere in the world.
There’s a fate connected with heirs,” said Mr. Cresswell, pleasantly,
“whether one wants them or not they turn up with all their certificates in
their pocket-books! Ah! they’re a long-lived, sharp-sighted race; they’re
sure to hear somehow when they’re wanted. Don’t be afraid—we’ll find
him, sure enough. If you had made up your minds to disown him, and shut
him out, he’d turn up all the same.”
“Milly,” cried Sarah suddenly, with her little shriek of passion, all so
unexpected and uncalled for that I fairly jumped from the table I was
standing at, and had nearly overturned her screen on the top of her, “what
do you mean by that fixed look at me? How dare you look so at me? Did I
speak of disowning any one? Richard Mortimer, when he’s found, shall
have the park that moment, if I lived a dozen years after it. Nobody shall
venture, so long as I live, to cast suspicious looks at me!”
I declare, freely, I was unconscious of looking at her as though I had
been a hundred miles away at the moment! I stood perfectly still, gaping
with consternation and amazement. Such an unwarranted, unexpected
accusation, fairly took away my breath. Mr. Cresswell, accustomed to
observe people, was startled, and woke up from those dreams of his own
which clouded his eyesight in this particular case. He looked at her keenly
for a moment, then, turned with a rapid question in his eyes to me; he
seemed to feel in a moment there was somehow some strange new element
in the matter. But, of course, I had no answer to make to him, either with
voice or eyes.
“I was not looking at you at all, Sarah,” faltered I. “I was not looking at
anything in particular. Nobody is going to be disowned, that I know of.
Nobody is seeking our property, that I know of,” I said again involuntarily,
my eye turning with a kind of stupid consciousness, the very last feeling in
the world which I wished or intended to show, upon Mr. Cresswell, who
was quite watching my looks to see what this little episode meant.
 He coloured up in a moment. He stumbled up from his chair, looking
very much confused. He dared not pretend to know what I meant, nor show
himself conscious, even that I had looked at him. He went across the room
to the window, looked out, and came back again. It was odd to see such a
man, accustomed and trained to conceal his sentiments, so betrayed into
showing them. When he sat down again he turned his face to the fire, and
almost his back to me. Matters had changed. It appeared I was not such a
safe confidante as he had supposed.
“You shall very soon be satisfied about Mr. Richard Mortimer,” he said,
looking into the fire. “Don’t be afraid; I am on the scent; you may trust it to
me. But, really, I don’t wonder to see Miss Milly take it very reasonably.
What do you want with heirs yet? If I had any thoughts of that kind, I
should put all my powers in motion to get that little kitten of mine married.
If I leave her by herself she will throw away my poor dear beautiful
dividends in handfuls. But, somehow, the idea doesn’t oppress me; and, of
course, I am older than any lady in existence can be supposed to be. I am
——”
“Hold your tongue, Cresswell,” cried Sarah crossly. “I daresay we know
what each other’s ages are. Attend to business, please. I want Richard
Mortimer found, I tell you. You can tell him his cousin Sarah wants him. He
will come, however far off he may be, when he hears that. You can put it in
the papers, if you please.”
Saying this Sarah gave her muslin scarf a little twitch over her elbow,
and held up her head with a strange little vain self-satisfied movement. Oh,
how Mr. Cresswell did look at her! how he chuckled in his secret soul!
From what I had seen once before I understood perfectly well what he
meant. He had once taken the liberty to fall in love with Sarah Mortimer
himself; and now to see the old faded beauty putting on one of her old airs,
and reckoning on the fidelity of a man who, no doubt—it was to be hoped,
or what was to become of our search for heirs?—had married and forgotten
all about her years ago—tickled him beyond measure. He felt himself quite
revenged when he saw her self-complacence. He ventured to chuckle at it
secretly. I should have liked, above all things, to box his ears.
“Ah! to be sure; I’ll use all possible means immediately. It’s to be hoped
he has ten children,” said Mr. Cresswell, with a very quiet private laugh.
Sarah did not observe that he was laughing at her. I believe such an idea
could never have entered her head. She began, with an habitual motion she
had got whenever she left off knitting, to rub her fingers and stoop to the
fire.
“And I insist you should come and report to us what you are doing,” said
Sarah; “and never mind Milly; see me. It is I who am interested. Milly, as I
tell you, thinks Providence will drop her an heir at the door.”
What could she mean by these spiteful sneering suggestions? I had
thought no more of heirs for many a day—never since I got involved in this
bewildering business, which I could see no way through. Her sudden attack
sent a little thrill of terror through me. I was casting suspicious looks at her;
an heir was to be dropped at our door; somebody was plotting against her
fortune and honour. Good heavens! what could it mean but one thing? Mad
people are always watched, pursued, persecuted, thwarted. I was cast from
one guess to another, as if from wave to wave of a sea. I came back to that
idea again; and trembled in spite of myself to think of little Sara and her
father leaving us, and of being left alone to watch the insane haze spreading
over her mind. It was sure to spread if it was there.

Chapter XII.

I WILL not undertake to say that we were a particularly sociable party at

dinner that day. The stranger, Mr. Cresswell, who might have been
supposed likely to give us a little news, and refresh us with the air of out
of doors, was constrained and uncomfortable with the idea of having been
found out. I am sure it was the last idea in the world which I wanted to
impress upon him. But still, in spite of myself, I had betrayed it. Then Sara,
without the faintest idea of her father’s uneasiness, had a strong
remembrance of my unlucky words on the previous day, and was very high
and stately, by way of proving to me that an attorney’s daughter could be
quite as proud as a Mortimer—as if I ever doubted it!—and a great deal
prouder. For really, when one knows exactly what one’s position is, and that
nobody can change it, one does not stand upon one’s defence for every
unwary word. However, so it was that we were all a little constrained, and I
felt as one generally feels after a pretty long visit, even from a dear friend,
that to be alone and have the house to one’s self will just at first be a luxury
in its way.
 Not having any free and comfortable subject to talk of, we naturally fell
to books, though Mr. Cresswell, I believe, never opened one. He wanted to
know if Sara had been reading novels all day long, and immediately Sara
turned to me to ask whether she might have one home with her which she
had begun to read. Then there burst on my mind an innocent way of putting
a question to Mr. Cresswell which I had been very anxious to ask without
seeing any way to do it.
“I don’t think you will care for it when you do read it Sara; it is all about
a poor boy who gets persuaded not to marry, and breaks the poor creature’s
heart who is engaged to him, because there has been madness in the family.
High principle, you know. I am not quite so sure in my own mind that I
don’t think him a humbug; but I suppose it’s all very grand and splendid to
you young people. Young persons should be trained very closely in their
own family history if that is to be the way of it. I hope there never was a
Cresswell touched in his brain, or, Sara, it would be a bad prospect for
you.”
“If you suppose I should think it a bad prospect to do as Gilbert did, you
are very wrong, godmamma,” cried Sara. “Why shouldn’t he have been
quite as happy one way as the other? Do you suppose people must be
married to be happy? it is dreadful to hear such a thing from you!”
“Well, to be sure, so it would be,” said I, “if I had said it. I am not
unhappy that I know of, nor happy either. Oh, you little velvet kitten, how
do you know how people get through life? One goes jog-jog, and does not
stop to find out how one feels. But I’d rather—though I daresay it’s very
bad philosophy—have creatures like you do things innocently, without
being too particular about the results. Besides, I think Cheshire air is good
steady air for the mind,—not exciting, you know. I don’t think we’ve many
mad people in our county, eh, Mr. Cresswell?—Did you ever hear of a
crazy Mortimer?”
Mr. Cresswell looked up at me a little curiously—which, to be sure, not
having any command over my face, or habit of concealing what I thought,
made me look foolish. Sarah lifted her eyes, too, with a kind of smile which
alarmed me—a smile of ridicule and superior knowledge. Perhaps I had
exposed my fears to both of them by that question. I shrank away from it
immediately, frightened at my own rashness. But Mr. Cresswell would not
let me off.
 “I have always heard that your grand-uncle Lewis was very peculiar,”
said Mr. Cresswell,—“he that your cousin is descended from. Let us hope it
doesn’t run in Mr. Richard’s family. I suppose there’s no reason to imagine
that such a motive would prevent him from marrying?” he continued, rather
spitefully. “And it was no wonder if Lewis Mortimer was a little queer.
What could you expect? he was the second son! an unprecedented accident.
The wonder is that something did not happen in consequence. Oh yes, he
was soft a little, was your grand-uncle Lewis; but most likely it descended
to him from his mother’s side of the house.”
“And my father was named after him!” cried I, with a certain dismay.
They all laughed, even Sarah. She kept her eyes on me as if searching
through me to find out what I meant. She was puzzled a little, I could see.
She saw it was not a mere idle question, and wanted to know the meaning.
She was not conscious, thank heaven! and people are dismally conscious, as
I have heard, when their brain is going. This was a little comfort to me
under the unexpected answer I had got, for I certainly never heard of a
crazy Mortimer all my life.
“If qualities descended by names, my little kitten would be in luck,” said
Mr. Cresswell. “But here is a new lot of officers coming, Miss Milly; what
would you recommend a poor man to do?”
“Papa!” cried Sara, with blazing indignation, “what does any one
suppose the officers are to me? You say so to make my own godmamma
despise me, though you know it isn’t true! I can bear anything that is true.
That is why we always quarrel, papa and I. He does not mind what stories
he tells, and thinks it good fun. I am not a flirt, nor never was—never, even
when I was too young to know any better. No, godmamma, no more than
you are!—nobody dares say it of me.”
We were just rising from table when she made this defence of herself. It
was not quite true. I know she tormented that poor boy Wilde as if he had
been a mouse, the cruel creature; and I am perfectly convinced that she was
much disappointed Mr. Luigi did not come to the Park, because she had
precisely the same intentions with regard to him. I must allow, though I was
very fond of Sara, that, professing to be mighty scornful and sceptical as to
hearts breaking, she loved to try when she had it in her power. I daresay she
was not conscious of her wicked arts, she used them by instinct; but it came
to much the same thing in the end.
 I went out of the room with her, under pretence of seeing that her boxes
were nicely packed; I did not say anything about it, whether I thought her a
flirt or not, and she quieted down immediately, with a perception that I had
something to say. I drew her into the great window of the hall, when Sarah,
and immediately after her Mr. Cresswell,—for, of course, to him our early
dinner only served as lunch, and no man would dream of sitting over his
wine at three o’clock in the afternoon, especially in a lady’s house,—had
passed into the drawing-room. It was a great round bay-window, at one end
of the hall, where our footmen used to lounge in my father’s time, when we
kept footmen. It had our escutcheon in it, in painted glass, and the lower
panes were obscured, I cannot tell why, unless because it made them look
ugly. The hall was covered with matting, and the fire had been lighted that
day, but must have gone out, it felt so cold.
“Sara, I wish to say to you—not that I don’t trust your discretion, my
dear child;” said I, “but you might not think I cared—don’t say anything
about your godmamma, or about this Mr. Luiggi, dear——”
I was quite prepared to see her resent this caution, but I was not prepared
for the burst of saucy laughter with which the foolish little girl replied to
me.
“Oh dear, godmamma, don’t be so comical! it isn’t Luiggi, it’s Luidgi,
that’s how it sounds,” cried Sara. “To think of any one murdering the
beautiful Italian so! Don’t you really think it’s a beautiful name?”
“I freely confess I never could see any beauty in Italian, nor any other
outlandish tongue,” said I. “Luidgi, be it, if that’s better. I can’t see how it
makes one morsel of difference; but you will remember what I say?”
“Luigi simply means Lewis; and how should you be pleased to hear
Lewis mispronounced? You said it was your father’s name, godmamma,”
said the incorrigible child.
I turned away, shaking my head. It was no use saying anything more;
most likely she would pay attention to what I said, though she was so
aggravating; oh, but she was contrairy. Never man spoke a truer word.
Nevertheless, as she stood there in her velvet jacket, with her close-cropped
pretty curls, and her eyes sparkling with laughter, I could not help admiring
her myself. I don’t mind saying I am very inconsistent. A little while before,
I had been thinking it would be rather pleasant to have the house quiet and
to ourselves. Now, I could not help thinking what a gap it would leave when
she was gone. Then the child, who at home was led into every kind of
amusement (to be sure procurable in Cheshire, must be added to this), had
been so contented, after all, to live with two old women, whom nobody
came to see, except now and then in a morning call; and though she was so
wicked, and provoking, and careless, she was at the same time so good and
clever (when she pleased) and captivating. One could have put her in the
corner, and kissed her the next moment. As she stood there in the light of
the great window, I, who had left her, shaking my head, and reflecting how
contrairy she was, went back to kiss her, though I gave her a little shake as
well. That is how one always feels to these creatures, half-and-half; ready to
punish them and to pet them all at once.
However, after a while (though it was no easy matter getting Sara’s
trunks on the carriage—I wonder Mr. Cresswell ventured on it, for his poor
horse’s sake), they went away; and feeling just a little dull after they were
gone, and as it was just that good-for-nothing time, which is the worst of an
early dinner, the interval between dinner and tea, I set out for a walk down
to the village. It was Sarah’s day for her drive, and she passed me on the
road, and kissed her hand to me out of the carriage window. No blinds
down now; the horses going at their steady pace, rather slowly than
otherwise, wheeling along through the soft hedgerows which began to have
some buds on them. I wonder what Jacob thought of it; I wonder what
Williams at the lodge had to say on the subject. Such a strange unreasonable
change!

Chapter XIII.

I CALLED at a good many houses in the village. I am thankful to say I

have rarely found myself unwelcome, to the best sort of people at least.
Most of us have known each other so long, and have such a long stretch
of memory to go back upon together, that we belong to each other in a way.
As for the scapegraces, they are a little frightened of me, I confess. They
say, Miss Milly comes a-worriting, when I speak my mind to them. I can’t
say the men reverence me, nor the women bless my influence, as I read they
do with some ladies in some of Miss Kate Roberts’ books. But we are good
friends on the whole. When the men have been drinking, and spent all their
wages, or saucy, and put out of their place, then they try their best to
deceive me, to be sure; but I know all their little contrivances pretty well by
this time. They don’t mean much harm after all, only to persuade one that
things are not so bad as they look.
After I had given a glance into the shop where I saw Mr. Luigi’s fat
servant,—I only saw him once, but yet the place seemed full of that fat,
funny, good-humoured, outlandish figure, with his bows and smiles, and
loquacious foreign speech, that poor Mrs. Taylor commiserated so deeply—
I stepped across to the rectory to make a call there. The poor young
shopkeeper, who had a night-class for the men and grown lads, and was
really an intelligent, well-meaning young man, had been confiding his
troubles to me. They did not care a bit about learning; they did not even
want to read. When they did read it was the most foolish books! Poor young
Taylor’s heart was breaking over their stupidity. And then, to keep a shop,
even a bookshop, hurt his “feelings,” poor lad. He had been brought up for
a teacher’s profession, he said—he even had some experience in “tuition.”
He had thought he could make a home for his mother and his little sister;
and now Dr. Appleby was grumbling that he did not succeed, and thought it
his own fault! Poor young fellow! to be sure, he should have gone stolidly
through with it, and had no business to have any “feelings.” But, you see,
people will be foolish in every condition of life.
So I stepped across the road to call on Miss Kate, thinking of him all the
way; thinking of him and that unknown young Italian, only once seen,
whom the apparition of the fat servant in Taylor’s shop somehow connected
with the young shopkeeper. How Mr. Luigi had forced himself into all my
thoughts! and yet the only one fact I knew about him was, that he was
looking for an apocryphal lady whom nobody ever heard of! Should I have
thought no more about him but for Sarah’s mysterious agitation? I really
cannot tell. Again and again his voice came back to me, independent of
Sarah. Whose voice was it? Where had he got that hereditary tone?
Miss Kate was in, for a great wonder. She was wonderfully active in the
parish. She was far more the rector, except in the pulpit, than good Dr.
Roberts was. I am sure he was very fortunate to have such an active sister. I
don’t think anything ever happened, within a space of three or four miles
round the village, that Miss Kate was not at the bottom of it. Of course I
expected to hear everything over again that Dr. Roberts had told us about
Mr. Luigi. But, so long as Sarah was not present, I could take that quite
easily. Indeed, I wished so much to know more of this stranger, somehow,
that I really felt I should be glad to hear all that they had to say.
 “I was indeed very much interested in the young man,” said Miss Kate,
starting the subject almost immediately, as I expected. “I think great efforts
should be made to lay hold of every one that comes out of his poor
benighted country. I said so to the Doctor; but the Doctor’s views, you
know, are very charitable. Mr. Hubert, however, quite agreed with me. I
asked him to come back when he came to this part of the country again, and
said I should be very glad to have some serious conversation with him. He
stared, but he was very polite; only, poor young man, his thoughts are all
upon this lady. I have no doubt he thought it was that business I wanted to
talk to him about.”
“But I suppose, like Dr. Roberts, you can throw no light upon her; who
she is, or where she is?” said I. “It is strange he should seem so positive she
was here, and yet nobody remembers her. For my own part, if I had once
heard it, I am sure I should never have forgotten that name. I have a
wonderful memory for names.”
“Very strange no doubt,” said Miss Kate, with a little cough. “And then,
that man of his. Alas, what an imprisoned soul! To think he should be in the
very midst of light and faithful preaching, and yet not be able to derive any
benefit from it! I never regretted more deeply not having kept up my own
Italian studies. And poor Mr. Hubert—but you would hear all about that; the
Doctor does so delight in an amusing story. They could not understand each
other in the very least, you know. Ah, what a matter it would be to get hold
of that poor Domenico—that’s his name. Why, he might be quite an apostle
among his countrymen, when he got back. But nothing can be done till he
can be taught English, or some agency can be found out in Italian. I can’t
tell you how much interest I feel in these poor darkened creatures. And to
think they should be in the midst of the light, and no possibility of bringing
them under its influence! I don’t speak of the master, of course, who knows
English very well; but I am not one that am a respecter of persons,—the
servant is quite as much, if not more, interesting to me.”
“If they stay long I daresay he’ll learn English,” I suggested modestly;
“but it will be a sad pity if the poor gentleman has come so far to seek out
this lady, and can’t find any trace of her. I promised him to do all I could to
find out for him; but nobody seems ever to have heard of her. It will be a
thousand pities if he has all his trouble for no end.”
 “Ah, Miss Milly! let us hope he may acquire something else that will far
more than repay him,” said Miss Kate; “disappointments are often great
blessings in directing one’s mind away from worldly things. We were all
very much interested in him, I assure you. Mr. Hubert promised to write to a
friend of his in Chester to ask if he could give him any assistance. If it were
only for the sake of that strange resemblance,—the Doctor would tell you,
of course, the resemblance which struck both him and myself?”
“No,” cried I; “did you find out anybody he was like? I only saw him in
the dark, and could not make out his face; but his voice has haunted me
ever since. I was sure I knew the voice.”
“I wonder the Doctor did not mention it,” said Miss Kate, with a little
importance. “The truth is, it struck us both a good deal; a resemblance to
your family, Miss Milly.”
I don’t know whether I was most disposed to sink down upon my chair
or start up from it with a cry; I did neither, however.
“To my family?” I gasped out. “Yes; it was very singular,” said Miss
Kate; “I daresay, of course, it was only one of those accidental likenesses. I
remember being once thought very like your sister. How strange you should
think you knew his voice! You have some relations in Italy, perhaps?”
“Not that I know of,” said I, feeling very faint. I cannot tell what I was
afraid of; but I felt myself trembling and shaken; and I durst not get up and
go out either, or Miss Kate would have had it all over the parish before
night, that something had gone wrong at the Park.
But I don’t remember another word she said. I kept my seat, and
answered her till I thought I might reasonably be supposed to have stayed
long enough. Then I left the rectory, my mind in the strangest agitation.
That this stranger, who had driven Sarah half mad, should be like our
family; what a bewildering, extraordinary thing to think of! But stranger
still, at this moment, when I had just heard such a wonderful aggravation of
my perplexity—that voice of his which had haunted me so long, and which
I felt sure I could identify at once, if the person it once belonged to was
named to me, vanished entirely from my mind as if by some conjuring trick.
It was extraordinary—it looked almost supernatural. I could no more recall
that tone, which I had recalled with perfect freshness and ease when I
entered the rectory garden, than I could clear up the extraordinary puzzle
thus gathering closer and closer round all my thoughts.
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