THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1876.

The Atonement of Leam Dundas.

HE frost came early this year; and by the second week in December the ponds and shallows in the neighbourhood of North Aston were covered with ice that made good slidinggrounds for the children. Presently it grew and spread till the deeper waters were frozen over, and a skating-rink was formed of the Broad that bore the heavier weights without danger.

It was a merry time for the North Astonians; and even the elder men strapped on their skates and took colds and con

tusions in their endeavours to double back on their supple youth and to forget the stiffer facts of time. As for the young people, they were in the full swing of innocent enjoyment; and the girls wished that the

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frost would last through the whole of the winter, so that they might make up skating parties with the boys every day, and avoid the unmeaning deadness of " tender" weather.

This ice had been in perfect condition for three days, and the Broad had been thronged; but Leam had not appeared. All the other young ladies of the country had come- -Adelaide Birkett one of the most diligent in her attendance, for was not Edgar Harrowby one of the most constant in his? But though more than one pair of eyes had looked anxiously along the road that led to Ford House, which some people still continued to call Andalusia Cottage, no lithe graceful figure had been seen gliding between the frosted hedgerows, and Edgar, like Alick, had skated in disappointment: the former with the feeling of an actor playing to an empty house when he made his finest turns and she was not there to see them; the latter with the self-reproach of one taking enjoyment abroad while the beloved is sitting in solitude and dreariness at home.

At last, on the fourth day, she came down with her father; and to at least two on the ground the advent of a slender-waisted girl, with dark eyes and small feet, changed the whole aspect of things, and made life for the moment infinitely more beautiful and desirable than it had been.

It was a brilliant day, with as fine a sun as England can show in winter; no wind but a clear air, crisp, dry, and exhilarating. Every one was there-Edgar, the most graceful of the skaters; Alick, the most awkward; Dr. Corfield, essaying careful little spurts, schoolboy fashion, along the edges; and the portly rector, proud to show his past superiority in sharp criticism on the style of the present day, as a voucher for his own greater grace and skill in the days when he too was an Adonis for the one part and an Admirable Crichton for the other, and carried no superfluous flesh about his ribs.

Among them too, looking on the scene as if it was something in which he had no inherited share, as if these were not men and women to whom he was sib on Adam's side, but cunningly contrived machines whose movements he contemplated with benign indifference, was to be seen the mild philosophic occupant of Lionnet-that Mr. Gryce of whom no one knew more than that he studied dead languages through the day and caught moths and beetles in the twilight; had come without letters of introduction, and was never seen at church; hence that he was a man of whom to beware, and a dangerous element among them. The pendulum of acceptance, which had swung so far on one side in the unguaranteed reception of Madame de Montfort, had now gone back to the corresponding extent on the other; and no one, not even Mr. Birkett as the clergyman, nor Mr. Dundas as the landlord, had held out a finger to the new comer, not to speak of a hand; while all regarded his presence at North Aston as rather a liberty than otherwise. Nevertheless, as time would show, though he had come there without purpose and lived among the people without interest, he would not be found without his uses; and

one at least of the threads making up the skein of life at North Aston would be placed in his hands.

As Leam came to the side, both Edgar Harrowby and Alick Corfield turned to greet her; the usually sad face of the curate, already brightened by fresh air and exercise, brighter still at seeing her; the handsome head of the squire held a little higher, as his figure involuntarily straightened and he put out his best powers in her honour. But Alick's shambling legs carried him faster, and he was first at the edge; the neighbourhood looking on, prepared to build a Tower of Babel heaven high on the foundation of a single brick. Leam Dundas had not yet been fitted with her hypothetical mate, and people wanted to see to whom they were to give her.

"Oh! come on with me!" cried Alick as soon as he came up, speaking with the unconscious familiarity of gladness at the advent for which he had watched so long. He held out his arm to Leam, crooked awkwardly at the elbow.

"No," said Leam, a little shortly.

She always stiffened when Alick spoke to her before folk with anything like intimacy in his manner. He was her good friend, granted, and she liked him in a way, and respected him in a way; though he was still too much after the pattern of her former slave and dog to gain her best esteem. She was one of those women who are arbitrary and disdainful to masculine weakness, and require to be absolutely dominated by men if they are to respect them as men like to be respected by women, and as-pace the Shriekers-the true woman likes to respect men. And Alick, though he had her in his hands and might destroy her at a word-clergyman too as he was and thus possessing the key to higher things than she knew-was always so humble, so subservient, he made her feel as if she was his superior, not, as it should have been, that he was hers.

In consequence, girl-like, proud and shy, she treated him with more disdain than she ought to have done, and used the power which he himself gave her without much consideration as to its effect. Besides, she did not wish to let people think he knew too much of her. With the nervous fancy of youth, ever believing itself to be transparent and understood all · through, she imagined it would be seen that he had the right to speak to her familiarly—that he had her in his hand to destroy her at a word if so minded. Wherefore she said "No" shortly, and turned away her eyes as her protest against his glad face, crooked elbow, and eager offer.

"I will not let you fall, and it is very jolly!" cried Alick cheerily, more like the boyish Alick of former days than the ascetic young curate of modern times.

"I do not like it," said Leam.

Alick's countenance fell; and when his face, always long, became longer still, with a congealed-looking skin, sad red-lidded eyes, and a hanging underlip, it was not lovely. Indeed, according to the miserable

fatality which so often makes the spiritually best the physically worstlike the gods whom the Athenians enclosed in outer cases of satyrs and hideous masks of misshapen men-Alick's face was never lovely. But his soul? If that could have been seen, the old carved parable of the Greeks would have been justified.

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Nonsense, Leam! why cannot you do as others do?" cried Mr.

Dundas.

He wanted to get rid of her for a while, and he was not unwilling that Alick, whose affection he suspected, should rid him of her for ever, if he cared to saddle himself for life with such an uncomfortable companion.

"I do not like it," repeated Leam.

"Nonsense!" said her father again. "Other girls are on. Why should you not join them? I see Adelaide Birkett and the Fairbairns; why not go to them with Alick?"

"It looks silly, balancing oneself on the edge of a knife. And I should fall," said Leam.

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No, you

shall not fall!" Alick pleaded. "I will undertake that you shall not."

His arm was still held out, always awkwardly crooked.

Leam lifted her eyes.

"No," she said with her old calm decision, and moved away. Four years ago she would have supplemented her refusal by the words, "You are stupid; you tease me." Now she contented herself with action and accent.

Alick, very sorry, moist-eyed from disappointment, but not caring to stand there and get chilled-for our good Alick was a little afraid of cold, after the manner of mothers' sons in general-skated off again to keep up his circulation, his knees bent, his chin forward, his arms swinging as balance-weights to his long body, the ends of his white woollen comforter flying behind him, and his legs running anywhere— the clumsiest and most ungraceful skater on the Broad. All the same, he never fell, and he went faster than even Edgar in his perfection of manly elegance.

Edgar had watched the whole of this little scene between Leam and Alick, while seeming to be occupied only in executing his spread eagles and outside curves to perfection; and it was no secret to him what it meant. The demon of masculine vanity, never far off where a pretty woman was concerned, entered and took possession of him. He would succeed where Alick Corfield had failed; and Leam, who refused her old friend, should gratify her new.

He had been guiding Adelaide over the ice; but she was rather too stiff in her movements, not sufficiently i nt nor yielding to be a very pleasant skating companion. And he had been pushing Josephine along the slide; but Joseph was too stout and short-breathed to be an ideal convoy; also he had been racing and half romping with the Fairbairn girls, who slipped and tumbled and laughed and screamed-more

hoydenish than he thought pleasing; but now he intended to reward himself with Leam, whose action he was sure would be all that was delightful, even though unaccustomed, and who would look so well on his arm! Her slight and supple figure against his breadth and height and sense of solidity and strength; her dark hair and his beard of tawny brown; her large dark eyes and his of true Saxon blue; her southern face, oval in shape, cream-coloured in tint, and his, square, open, ruddy, Scandinavian-yes, they would make a splendid pair by their very contrast; and Edgar, narrowing his ambition to his circumstances, was quietly resolved to win the day over Alick Corfield by inducing Leam to cross the Broad with him after she had so manifestly refused her old friend. It was but a small object of ambition, but we must do what we can, thought Edgar; and it is the best wisdom to content ourselves with mice when we have no lions to destroy.

He did not however rush up to her with Alick's tactless precipitancy. He waited just long enough for her to desire, and not so long as to disappoint; then speaking to Adelaide by the way, and giving her and Josephine each a helping hand, he came in a series of clean, showy curves to where Leam and her father were standing.

Leam was glad to meet again this handsome man who had seen so much and who talked so well. He was something different from the rest, and so far superior to them all! But not being one of those instinctive girls who yield without pressure, and fall in love at first sight, there were no flushings nor palpitations as Edgar came up; only a grave little smile stole half timidly over her face, and she forgot that he had insulted her mother's country by calling her the prettiest Andalusian he had ever seen.

"Do you skate, Miss Dundas?" asked Edgar after a while, during which he had been talking of different matters, beginning with the weather, that camel of English conversation, and ending with the state of the ice and the chances of a thaw. His five minutes of commonplaces seemed an eternity to Adelaide, watching them jealously from a distance.

"I want her to learn; and this is a good opportunity," put in her father.

"You are right. It is a capital exercise and a graceful accomplishment," said Edgar. "I think a woman never looks better than when she is skating," he added carelessly.

"I think she looks silly," said Leam.

He laughed.

"That is because you are not English pur sang," he cried gaily. "If you had only the brave old Norse blood in you you would take to the frost and ice like second nature."

"No, I am not English pur sang," answered Leam gravely. "I am more than half Spanish," a little proudly.