The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-10-16 00:00:00

a request that the gentleman would step in, and
ushered him into the presence of the great lady of the

Grange.
A far grander person than her mistress, in her own
estimation, was Mrs. Wickham who had indeed been
identified with the house and its inmates for more

than thirty years. She rose, stately and dignified, in
a rustling black silk dress and white lace cap, to
receive the visitor, who announced himself as a friend
of Miss Atherstone, and courteously begged him to
stay and rest.
"You will take lunch, sir?" she asked. "You
must have had a fatiguing walk this warm day,"
The doctor thanked her for her hospitality, and
would gladly take some refreshment. He was tired, he
said, having mistaken his road. He would be glad to
know when Miss Atherstone would be back again,
for he was leaving England very soon, and wanted

much to see her first.
"Well, in three weeks for certain, sir," Mrs. Wick-
ham, replied, "The wedding is be in about six
from now—things are all being prepared. Miss
Atherstone was kind enough to say I could see to

everything here as well as she cOuld. She takes
strangely little interest in the preparations for her
marriage," added the housekeeper, with a little sigh.
"A most unusual thing inn young lady, is it not ?"

asked the doctor. " I thought- at such a time their
heads ran on nothing else."
Miss Atherstone doesn't seem like other girls. She

is a sweet creature—so considerate and kind-to every-
one about her. The servants dote on her, but there

is always a • something about her, as though her
thoughts were a long way off. I think it has been
more so since Mrs. Dalton came."
"Mrs. Dalton !"

"Yes, sir. You know her, perhaps? Will you
draw to the table, and try the cold beef? It was fed
on the estate, and our beef has quite a name in the
county."
"Thank you. I don't know Mrs. Dalton personally,
but I have heard of her. Miss Atherstone knew her
in Australia, I believe?"
"Yes, her mother died in Mrs. Dalton's house; and
it was her granddaughter that wr.4s coming home with
our young lady. She died on shipboard—a most
melancholy thing—and poor Miss Beryl had to come
home by herself."
"Ah, I know all about that part of Miss Ather-
stone's adventures," said Dr. Twist, gravely. "I was
the ship doctor. She seems a very generous young
lady."
"She is, indeed, sir. She said she owed the poor
old lady a home for taking her grandchild away from
her; and she never rested, nor let her lawyer rest,
till arrangements were made for her coming over.
She's a nice old lady, though rather above her station,
and seems very grateful that Miss Atherstone is kind
to her. I have heard her speak of you, sir, many
times. She will be very sorry to have missed seeing
you."
"I shall try and see her before her marriage, if
possible. This beef is, indeed, fine. I have come from
a part of the world where the oxen are more muscle
and sinew than fat—so I can appreciate it. Miss
Atherstone does seem to remember her old friends,
indeed. I have met a protege of hers already, whom
I have seen before."
"Have you, sir ?"
"Yes, a lad. Jack Blogg, I think his name is. I
was sorry to see him about the place, for he seems a
sulky, ill-conditioned sort of fellow. He was at
serious mischief, too. The gamekeeper and I caught
him snaring pheasants in the plantation yonder;
and the man told me he dare not punish him for
it.,,
"No, sir. It would be as much as Ben Stake's
place is worth to punish him. Miss Atherstone does
not choose he should be interfered with. He was
something in the ship she came over in, I have heard.
and she has taken a fancy to him. It seems a pity,
for I don't think he is a good boy; and kindness
seems wasted on him."
"He was nothing on board the ship but a young
vagabond who stowed himself away to get. a passage
for nothing. I knew him the moment I saw him to-
day. He is a strange pet for a young lady. Not
a morsel more, thank you. I have made a hearty
lunch."
"Try another glass of ale, sir. Mr. Carson, our
young lady's lawyer, takes ale nowhere but here. He
says the Atherstone brewing will bear comparison
with the best in England. I don't think he approves
of the boy Blogg and his uncle having so much
liberty about the place; but our young lady, bless
her, is a true Atherstone—she does like her own way,
and what is more, she will have it, too."
"Mr. Carson! Ah, by the way, that was the name,
I remember. Was anything ever heard about the
young gentleman who went out to Melbourne, and
was missing when the Psyche sailed?"
"_Heard of him? Oh, yes. He is at home again'
safe and well. He was very ill out there—nearly
murdered, and out of his mind, I believe. There are
all sorts of stories told about it, but I haven't heard
him say much himself. He's a nice young gentleman,
is Mr. Graham Carson, and he's going to marry Miss
Lilly Atherstone—Miss Beryl's cousin."
"And has Miss Atherstone—your mistress, I mean,
seen him since he came back ?" asked Dr. Twist, with
a puzzled look.
"Seem him I" said Mrs. Wickham, elevating her
eyebrows at the strangeness of the question. Oh,
'es, many times. He is often here." -
"And Mrs, Dalton ?"
"Yes, she's seen him, too."
"And he knew them both?"
"Oh, yes. He knew them directly. He asn't as
bad as that. He was quite well when he got to
England."
Mrs. Wickham thought she understood the drift of
his questions now, but she was very wide of the mark,
and she little thought how her answers had perplexed
her guest. She went on gossipping about the Grange,
and her old master and new mistress, in a fashion
that had interested him more than she had any idea
of. She told him how the squire was never the same
man after his son's death; thcugh he had lived so
many years; and how nobody at the Grange had ever
seen Mrs. Leonard Atherstone, though everyone had
heard what a good, gentle, amiable lady she was,
though she was an actress. All their hearts went out
to her child, she said, the moment she came heme—
for she was her father's living image—and it seemed
such a melancholy thing for the poor young creature
o come home alone to strangers as she had done.

CHAPTER XL.
PERPLEXITY.
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest ;
Lend less than thou owest ;
Learn more than thou trowost ;
Set less than thou throwest.—SHAKESPEAnE.
MRS. WICKHAM'S conversation interested the doctor
very much. He seemed eager for any information
respecting Miss Atherstone, and when she proposed
to show him the house and the family portraits, he
acquiesced, eagerly.
"The Grange is always considered an interesting
place," she said. "We have a good many visitors
here in fine weather. You see the Atherstones are an
old family, and my young mistress is a worthy des-
cendant of the race.'
"Is she ?" thought Dr. Twist to himself. "Old
servants don't know everything. What if I were to
open this good lady's eyes, and tell her—Bah! What
have Ito tell? Only that I was the fellow traveller
of her young mistress, and one that she did not
much like, or I am very much mistaken. How
strangely things come about I To think that I should
be here at Atherstone Grange, looking at the home of
Miss Beryl Atherstone, a young, respected, wealthy
heiress, and happy, too ! hardly, I suspect,
mademoiselle. I know of one skeleton in your house-
hold cupboard already. Yonder sailor lad and his
uncle, whoever he is, are crumpled rose leaves in your
bed of flowers, I suspect."
Mrs. Wickham's heart was quite won by the way
her guest peeped about and examined everything.
She loved the old house—it was a home to her, the
only home she had known for half her life—the only
one she would ever know now in this world, and she
was never tired of pointing out its beauties to those
who came to see it.
The drawing-rooms were noble, handsome apart-
ments—three en suite, opening one from the other,
the last being a very small one, lighted only from the
top. A curtain was drawn across the wide doorway
which separated it from the other two, and the doctor
had no idea what might be behind it as he walked
about examining the fine pictures—portraits, most
of them—that adorned the walls. There were Atha-
stones of all times, beginning with a very mythical
personage, indeed, who was represented in a suit of
chain armour and peaked shoes, and whose particular
date was unknown or forgotten. The Rev. Norton
Atherstone laughed at the picture, and scouted the
idea of its ever having had an original. He vowed
the whole thing was a piece of Wardour-street
trumpery, and ought to be burned. But the old
squire had believed in his mythical ancestor, and the
picture had remained side by side with that of the
authentic Atherstone who fell at Edgehill, fighting on
the right side, as the old housekeeper said, proud:y,
and the members of the family of later generations.
This last picture interested Dr. Twist very much.
There was a good deal of smoke and indistinct vision
of whirling legs and tails, and, in a cavalier dress,
bare-headed, looking straight at the spectator with
the Atherstone eyes—the blue, expressive eyes, almost
black in the shadow, which were such a marked
peculiarity of the family.
"I can understand now what family faces are,"
the doctor said, as he looked at the fresh, boyish
features which had mouldered in the grave for two
hundred years. "Why, this picture looks like a thing
of yesterday."
"It is leoked upon as very fine, sir. The squire had
this one painted as a pendant to it."
She pointed out a painting between the next two
windows, so strikingly like that of the young soldier
who died for his king and country in the days of
civil war, that the doctor uttered an exclamation of
surprise.
"Good Lord!" he said; "they might be twin
brothers. But that this one is in a modern dress, "
should fancy they were the same. Who is the you',
sailer? He looks a lad that anyone might be proud
of. Is he alive?"
" Ah, no, sir. He is under the sea—somewhete
out towards India, I believe. He was Mr. Norton
Atherstone's eldest son, named Leonard, like my dear
young master. A mid•hipman he was, and died like
a brave young hero, in a shipwreck. The squire
used to say he liked two brave boys to he tcgether,
and bad that pique done from one they had at the