Shirley

possible in the present time), what would you do?«
    »Don't know – faint, perhaps – fall down, and have to be picked up again. But, doctor, if you assign me the post of honour, you must give me arms. What weapons are there in your stronghold?«
    »You could not wield a sword?«
    »No; I could manage the carving-knife better.«
    »You will find a good one in the dining-room side-board: a lady's knife, light to handle, and as sharp-pointed as a poniard.«
    »It will suit Caroline; but you must give me a brace of pistols: I know you have pistols.«
    »I have two pairs; one pair I can place at your disposal. You will find them suspended over the mantelpiece of my study in cloth cases.«
    »Loaded?«
    »Yes, but not on the cock. Cock them before you go to bed. It is paying you a great compliment, captain, to lend you these: were you one of the awkward squad you should not have them.«
    »I will take care. You need delay no longer, Mr. Helstone: you may go now. He is gracious to me to lend me his pistols,« she remarked, as the Rector passed out at the garden-gate. »But come, Lina,« she continued; »let us go in and have some supper: I was too much vexed at tea with the vicinage of Mr. Sam Wynne to be able to eat, and now I am really hungry.«
    Entering the house, they repaired to the darkened dining-room, through the open windows of which apartment stole the evening air, bearing the perfume of flowers from the garden, the very distant sound of far-retreating steps from the road, and a soft, vague murmur, whose origin Caroline explained by the remark, uttered as she stood listening at the casement:
    »Shirley, I hear the beck in the Hollow.«
    Then she rung the bell, asked for a candle and some bread and milk – Miss Keeldar's usual supper and her own. Fanny, when she brought in the tray, would have closed the windows and the shutters, but was requested to desist for the present: the twilight was too calm, its breath too balmy to be yet excluded. They took their meal in silence: Caroline rose once, to remove to the window-sill a glass of flowers which stood on the side-board; the exhalation from the blossoms being somewhat too powerful for the sultry room: in returning, she half opened a drawer, and took from it something that glittered clear and keen in her hand.
    »You assigned this to me, then, Shirley – did you? It is bright, keen-edged, finely-tapered: it is dangerous-looking. I never yet felt the impulse which could move me to direct this against a fellow-creature. It is difficult to fancy what circumstances could nerve my arm to strike home with this long knife.«
    »I should hate to do it,« replied Shirley; »but I think I could do it, if goaded by certain exigencies which I can imagine.« And Miss Keeldar quietly sipped her glass of new milk, looking somewhat thoughtful, and a little pale: though, indeed, when did she not look pale? She was never florid.
    The milk sipped and the bread eaten, Fanny was again summoned: she and Eliza were recommended to go to bed, which they were quite willing to do, being weary of the day's exertions, of much cutting of currant-buns, and filling of urns and teapots, and running backwards and forwards with trays. Erelong the maids' chamber-door was heard to close; Caroline took a candle, and went quietly all over the house, seeing that every window was fast and every door barred. She did not even evade the haunted back-kitchen, nor the vault-like cellars. These visited, she returned.
    »There is neither spirit nor flesh in the house at present,« she said, »which should not be there. It is now near eleven o'clock, fully bed-time, yet I would rather sit up a little longer, if you do not object, Shirley. Here,« she continued, »I have brought the brace of pistols from my uncle's study: you may examine them at your leisure.«
    She placed them on the table before her friend.
    »Why would you rather sit up longer?« asked Miss Keeldar, taking up the firearms, examining them, and again laying them down.
    »Because I have a strange, excited feeling in my heart.«
    »So have I.«
    »Is this state of steeplessness and restlessness caused by something electrical in the air, I wonder?«
    »No: the sky is clear, the stars numberless; it is a fine night.«
    »But very still. I hear the water fret over its stony bed in Hollow's Copse as distinctly as if it ran below the churchyard-wall.«
    »I am glad it is so still a night: a moaning wind or rushing rain would vex me to fever just