At Love's Cost

She went down the road at a swift trot, and presently it was blocked by

a pair of wrought-iron gates, so exquisite in their antique

conscientiousness that many a mushroom peer would have given almost

their weight in gold to place them at the beginning of his newly made

park; but no one came to open them, they were closed by a heavily

padlocked chain, and the lodge beside them was empty and dilapidated;

and the girl rode beside the lichen-covered wall in which they stood

until she came to an opening leading to an old arch which faced a broad

and spacious court-yard. As she rode beneath the arch a number of dogs

yelped a welcome from kennels or behind stable half-doors, and a bent

old man, dressed like something between a stableman and a butler, came

forward, touching his forehead, to take her horse. She slipped from the

saddle, patted the horse, and murmured a word or two of endearment; but

her bright eyes flashed round the court-yard with a glance of

responsibility.

"Have you brought the colt in, Jason?" she asked.

Jason touched his forehead again.

"Yes, Miss Ida. It took me three-quarters of an hour; it won't come to

me like it does to you. It's in a loose stall."

"Saddle it to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will come and try it.

The brindle cow has got into the corn, and the fence wants mending down

by the pool; you must get William to help you, and do it at once. He

has taken the steers to market, I suppose? I didn't see them in the

three acre. Oh, and, Jason, I found someone fishing in the dale; you

must get a notice board and put it up where the road runs near the

river; the tourists' time is coming on, and though they don't often

come this side of the lake, some of them may, and we can't afford to

have the river poached. And, Jason, look to Ruppert's off-hind shoe; I

think it's loose; and--" She stopped with a short laugh. "But that's

enough for one time, isn't it? Oh, Jason, if I were only a man, how

much better it would be!"

"Yes, miss," assented Jason, simply, with another touch of his

forehead.

She sighed and laughed again, and gathering up her habit--she hadn't to

raise it much--she went through an open door-way into a wild, but

pretty garden, and so to the back of one of the most picturesque houses

in this land of the picturesque. It was built of grey stone which age

had coloured with a tender and an appreciative hand; a rich growth of

ivy and clematis clung lovingly over a greater portion of it so that

the mullioned windows were framed by the dark leaves and the purple

flower. The house was long and rambling and had once been flourishing

and important, but it was now eloquent of decay and pathetic with the

signs of "better times" that had vanished long ago. A flight of worn

steps led to a broad glass door, and opening the latter, the girl

passed under a curved wooden gallery into a broad hall. It was dimly

lit by an oriel window of stained glass, over which the ivy and

clematis had been allowed to fall; there was that faint odour which

emanates from old wood and leather and damask; the furniture was

antique and of the neutral tint which comes from age; the weapons and

the ornaments of brass, the gilding of the great pictures, were all dim

and lack-lustre for want of the cleaning and polishing which require

many servants. In the huge fire-place some big logs were burning, and

Donald and Bess threw themselves down before it with a sigh of

satisfaction. The girl looked round her, just as she had looked round

the stable-yard; then, tossing her soft hat and whip on the old oak

table, she went to one of the large heavy doors, and knocking, said in

her clear voice: "Father, are you there?"