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We know that we never can be happier than we were in the old house at Norton Bury, or in this little Longfield. By making her lady of Beechwood I should double her responsibilities and treble her cares; give her an infinitude of new duties, and no pleasures half so sweet as those we leave behind. Still, of herself and for herself, my wife shall decide."
"Hearken, children! father says we shall go for three whole months to live at Longfield." The three boys set up a shout of ecstacy. "I'll swim boats down the stream, and catch and ride every one of the horses. Hurrah!" shouted Guy. "And I'll see after the ducks and chickens, and watch all the threshing and winnowing," said Edwin, the practical and grave.
A very simple family we must have been for this Longfield was only a small farm-house, about six miles off, where once we had been to tea, and where ever since we had longed to live.
Once or twice she stooped from the organ-loft to ask me where was Brother Anselmo, who usually met us in the church of evenings, and whom to-night this last night before the general household moved back to Longfield we had fully expected. At last he came, sat down by me, and listened. She was playing a fragment of one of his Catholic masses. When it ended, he called "Muriel!"
Perhaps, ere very long only the mother said privately, rather anxiously too, that she did not wish this part of the scheme to be mentioned to Guy just now perhaps, ere long it would be "Guy Halifax, Esquire, of Beechwood;" and "the old people" at happy little Longfield. As yet Guy had seen nobody but ourselves, and nobody had seen Guy.
John recurred, with a kind of trembling tenacity, to the old saying in our house, that "nothing ever harmed Muriel." "Since it is safe over, and she can walk you are sure you can, my pet? I think we will not say anything about this to the mother; at least not till we reach Longfield." But it was too late. There was no deceiving the mother. Every change in every face struck her instantaneously.
London, 28, 29, 58, 59, 66, 99. London County Council, 60. Longfield, 28, 29. Louis XVI., 57. Lucerne, 94. Lunnasting, Shetland, 100. Lydd, 29. Magh Solga, 102. Malahide, 79. Maroun, Isle of Man, 102. Mary, Queen of Scots, 109. Medway Marshes, 23. Meopham, 16. Metropolitan Board of Works, 60. Moorish graveyards, 62. Muckross Abbey, 82. Neglected gravestones, 64, 71. Neuhausen, 92, 93.
So saying, he held the carriage-door open for Lord Ravenel, who took his place with a subdued and thoughtful air: then mounting the box-seat, John drove, in somewhat melancholy silence, across the snowy, starlit moors to Beechwood. In the home-light. It was a scene glowing almost as those evening pictures at Longfield.
March died then the night at Longfield, when the little white ghost had crossed by my bed's foot, into the room where Mary Baines' dead boy lay. And continually, towards morning, I fancied I heard through my window, which faced the church, the faint, distant sound of the organ, as when Muriel used to play it. Long before it was light I rose.
"And I'll get a 'ittle 'amb to p'ay wid me," lisped Walter still "the baby" or considered such, and petted accordingly. "But what does my little daughter say?" said the father, turning as he always turned, at the lightest touch of those soft, blind fingers, creeping along his coat sleeve. "What will Muriel do at Longfield?" "Muriel will sit all day and hear the birds sing."
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