the time of our engagement was a very happy time for me. it was so heavenly to be continually with fay, and not to feel myself bound in honour to dissemble my love. and the more i saw of her the more devotedly i loved her. surely there never was anybody so gay and loving and light-hearted as she.

when frank came down from oxford at christmas, he added to the general hilarity, and welcomed me as a brother with an unconscious condescension which amused as much as it gratified me. he, fay and i, formed a triple entente, from which everything that appertained to middle age was excluded. so that i was not only happy for the first time in my life—i was also young.

there was only one drawback to my perfect bliss—one crumpled rose-leaf in my bed of roses, and that was my consciousness of the fact that fay and annabel did not appreciate one another as thoroughly as i could have wished. of course i could see the reasonableness—one might almost say the inevitableness—of this. in the first place, i could not disguise it from myself that my marriage, even to any one as completely adorable as fay, was something of a blow to annabel, who had ruled so long and so undisputedly over her family circle. ever since she had been old enough to take the reins, she had taken them and had grasped them firmly; neither i nor my father before me had ever dared to lay so much as a restraining finger on them: therefore it must have been terribly hard for her to find herself equalled—in some things even superseded—by a girl nearly thirty years her junior. it was not in human nature to avoid, however silently, resenting this, and annabel, though one of the best and wisest women that ever lived, was nevertheless quite human.

on the other hand, i could not fail to see that annabel's admirable behaviour in accepting the situation as she did was utterly lost upon fay. annabel was really behaving splendidly, and fay was totally unconscious of it. with (i am bound to admit it) the hardness of youth, fay was absolutely blind to annabel's suffering; but at the same time she was quick to perceive and to resent any curtness of manner or sharpness of speech which were really only the outward symptoms of that suffering. i own i was disappointed at this, but it could not be helped, and i decided in my own mind to make up to annabel in every way that i could for fay's lack of appreciation, of my sister's sacrifice, until the time came—as it surely would come when they grew to know each other better—when fay would learn to love annabel as i loved her. that annabel would ever learn to love fay as i loved my darling was obviously beyond the realms of possibility, for surely no human being ever loved another as i loved fay; but i felt sure that as the child grew older and annabel recognised the beautiful and endearing qualities which were hidden under the bewitchingly frivolous and off-hand manner, she too would recognise fay's charm and reverence her character. at any rate, i felt it would not be my fault if these, my two dearest, failed eventually to love and appreciate one another; for i meant to make it the object of my life to bring them to a fuller mutual understanding, and to enable each to see and admire the good qualities of the other.

so i was confident that the one crumpled rose-leaf would soon be ironed flat again, and that the one tiny cloud was only a passing summer one.

there was another thing, too, which made me very happy at that time, and filled my already brimming cup of joy to overflowing.

one morning the wife of one of my labourers stopped me in the village.

"beg pardon, sir reginald," said she, "but my boy, willie, has twisted his back, and the pain be something fearful. something fearful it be."

"i am sorry for that, mrs. jackson," i said, "very sorry indeed. how did he do it?"

"by doin' what he ought not, sir reginald, him bein' a boy and climbin' on to one of the big ricks in the rick-yard and tumblin' off."

"has dr. jeffson seen him?"

"yes, sir reginald, that he has, but he don't seem to know what to do to do him good. and willie has taken it into his head that if you'd come and lay your hands on him, like as you did on the young lady at the rectory, you'd stop the pain and make his back all right again, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

this request naturally caused me some astonishment. it had not occurred to me that my gift of healing was a permanent possession. i had imagined that my earnest prayer to god and my intense love for fay had made me, for that one occasion, a channel of the divine grace. then i remembered how st. paul had said that among the diverse gifts of the spirit of god one is the gift of healing; and how mr. henderson—who undoubtedly had himself been endowed with this gift—had said that he believed it had been entrusted to me also. therefore i acceded to mrs. jackson's request, and accompanied her to her cottage.

willie was lying in the parlour on a horse-hair sofa, groaning with pain.

"well, my boy," i said, "i am sorry to hear you have hurt yourself. is there anything that i can do for you?"

"thank you for comin' to see me, sir reginald," replied the child, pulling at his forelock in the absence of a cap; "i feel sartain that if you'll lay your hands on me, like as you did on miss wildacre when her was so bad, i'll get rid o' this dreadful pain, and be able to get about again."

"i'll do what i can, willie," i said, sitting down beside the sofa; "but you must remember that i cannot cure you myself. there is only one person who can cure you, and that is christ. i have no power—neither has the doctor any power—except what christ gives us. he may choose to cure you by means of the doctor's medicine or by means of my prayers; but whichever it may be, remember it is christ's doing, and not ours. we are only the means that he chooses to make use of."

"but some folks do seem to have what you might call the gift o' healin', sir reginald," said mrs. jackson. "my mother was a scotchwoman, and she said there was allus healin' in the touch of a seventh son. many and many a time has she seen it for herself, and in the place where she came from folks 'ud send all over the country for a seventh son if they was in pain."

if mrs. jackson had said this to me a year earlier, i should probably have laughed at it as an ignorant superstition. now, i saw no improbability in it at all. i have learnt that that is the way with many old wives' tales: behind the superstition there lies a scientific truth, but during the march of the centuries the truth has been lost, while the superstition has remained. for instance, in many country places there is a tradition that to carry a potato in one's pocket is a cure for rheumatism, and modern medical science has discovered that one of the best cures for rheumatic affections is the juice of the potato. again, it was a superstition of our great-grandmothers that if a cat sneezed it was a premonition that colds were coming to all the household; now we know that colds are infectious, and can be caught from animals as well as from human beings. in the same way, doubtless, most of the superstitions about plants had their origin in knowledge of the medicinal properties of those plants, and the old idea that a maid could make herself beautiful by bathing her face in dew on a may morning was, after all, nothing but a testimony to the beneficial effects on the complexion of early rising and soft water.

what the "seventh son" had to do with the matter—or whether he had anything to do with it at all—i do not pretend to say; but the tradition about him is a proof that through all ages there have been certain persons endowed with a soothing and a healing touch, with a certain fulness of vitality which they could impart to their fellow creatures.

then one is faced by a difficulty as to how much or this power is natural and how much is supernatural, which to me is no difficulty at all, as i simply decline to differentiate between the two. to me everything in life is natural because everything is supernatural: there is really no difference. the only difference i can discover—which is, after all, only a superficial one—is between the usual and the unusual.

i have waded through countless books on the workings of the subconscious mind—on the powers of the subliminal self—on the depth of that mysterious thing we call personality—until my faith has staggered before the demands made upon it. i found myself asked to believe in impossibilities which would shake the credulity of a child—to swallow camels which were too huge for the most efficient digestion. so i humbly confessed that i had not sufficient faith to accept these transcendental doctrines, and turned instead to the older and simpler and more practical explanation of natural and spiritual phenomena as set forth in the four gospels.

i do not aspire to the transcendental knowledge of the modern mystic, nor to the blind and childlike faith of the pure materialist. such things are beyond me. to me, it is as inconceivable that the soul should save and satisfy itself out of its own fulness as that the body should create and form itself out of the floating atoms of a mechanical cosmos. the only satisfactory answer that i have ever found to the riddle of the universe is the answer of the living christ. st. paul had prepared for himself a complete curriculum of necessary knowledge when he said: "i am determined to know nothing among you, save jesus christ and him crucified."

so in the question of healing; when one realises that the only healer is christ, it becomes a mere matter of detail whether he chooses to use as his instrument the skill of a physician, the self-conquest of the patient, or the power of a natural healer: just as in old times it was a mere matter of detail whether he anointed with clay the eyes of the blind, or laid his hand on the sick person, or spake the word only. it was not the hem of the garment that healed, it was christ himself. the hem was only the chosen channel of his divine power.

i knelt down beside willie jackson's sofa, and laid my hands upon him as i had laid them on fay, at the same time lifting up my soul in prayer that the boy's pain might cease and his injury be cured. again i felt the blessed presence in the room, and the wonderful power rushing through me, and when at last i rose from my knees, willie exclaimed that the pain had gone.

and so it had for that day, but i had to lay my hands upon him in prayer twice again before it disappeared altogether, and the doctor pronounced him perfectly cured. why this was i cannot explain, and have never attempted to explain. it was enough for me—and quite enough for willie—that in three days' time he was absolutely well. we left explanations to those less simple souls who worship the law rather than the law-giver.

but my healing experiences did not end here. ponty, who was a martyr to rheumatism, asked me to treat her as i had treated willie jackson, which i did, with marked success. her pain disappeared, and her limbs grew much more supple. gradually it became quite a custom in the village for any one in pain or sickness to send for me, and i helped them as far as i was able. sometimes my ministrations were absolutely successful, sometimes only partially so; but i do not think they ever failed to bring a certain amount of relief to the sufferers. again i do not attempt an explanation: i only know that it was so.

people often ask me whether i consider this gift of healing a natural or a spiritual gift. my answer is that there is no fundamental difference between the two, since "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the father of lights." but of this i am sure, that it is not a gift bestowed upon every one alike, and those who have it not should not therefore conclude that they are farther from the kingdom of heaven than are those who have it. we are expressly told that there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit, and it is not for us to choose which gift shall be ours.

i remember discussing this one day with blathwayte when we were walking home together from rabbit shooting.

"although i agree with you, reggie," he said, "that it saves a good deal of needless confusion when once we realise that what we call the natural and the supernatural are in reality one, and that the distinction between them is purely artificial, that does not explain why you are more successful at some times than at others. christ's power is always the same."

"no, arthur, it isn't, because he has chosen to limit his power by our faith. remember 'he could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief.' when i fail, it may be that either i or my patient is lacking in faith at the time."

arthur nodded. "that may be so. faith is always the one condition that he imposes."

"and there may be another reason," i said slowly, "though it is one which i find rather difficult to put into words. i think that we human beings are very apt to confuse two things which in god's eyes are essentially different: i mean prayer and magic. they are both mysterious connections with the unseen powers through the mediums of a form of words, by which we induce those powers to act in accordance with our own desires. i think i may say without injustice that most people who believe in either or both of them regard them as a spiritual form of wirepulling."

arthur smiled. "i fancy you are not far out there, old man."

"i am not an authority on these matters," i continued; "i am only airing my own perhaps worthless opinions; but i do honestly believe that there is such a thing as magic, and that the earlier races of mankind knew far more about it than we do; and by magic i mean the power to move or control by some mysterious ritual the great forces of nature."

"you believe that this really can be done?"

"i do. whether it is right to do it is another matter, and one on which i do not feel competent to express an opinion. but that it can be done—and has been done—i have no doubt whatsoever. if man was made in the image of god, then surely some of the power of god is inherent in him, even if he does not know how to wield it properly. my only doubt is whether it is safe for him to try to wield it, as long as his ignorance of it is as great as it is in the present stage of human history."

"they knew more about it in ancient egypt," arthur said.

"and in earlier civilisations even than that," i added. "i believe that in those far-away days men practised the rites and the mysteries which brought them into contact with, and by which they controlled to some extent, the principalities and powers of the vast universe which for want of a better word we call nature. then man—as is unfortunately his habit—fell away from his first estate, and began to worship the principalities and the powers instead of the god who made him and them, and then god drew a veil between man and the great powers, so that man should not be tempted by knowing them to worship them. and that is where we are at present. but even now the veil sometimes wears thin in places, and some stray mortal peeps through and catches faint glimpses of the glories and the grandeurs on the other side."

"then you do not believe that pan is dead?" said arthur.

"no more dead than anybody else is dead," i answered, "only separated from us, like all the other so-called dead people, until we are sufficiently advanced in our spiritual life to meet them again. that is really all that death amounts to, when you look it in the face."

"that is so," said blathwayte in that quiet voice so right.

"i love to think of those early days," i went on, waxing garrulous and tiresome, as i always do when i get on to this subject, "when man was conversant with the great forces of nature; when he saw white presences among the hills, and heard the message of the whirlwind and the fire, and took his part in the chantings of the morning stars. it was only when he began to worship these that the evil came. they were but the choirs and the servers and the acolytes in the vast temple of his god, and he did evil when he fell down and worshipped them. it was then that the veil of the temple was let down between them and him."

"and will it soon be lifted again, i wonder?"

"it will be rent in twain when man is once more in absolute harmony with the infinite. don't you remember that in st. john's vision of the throne, in addition to the spirits and the elders, there were four beasts full of eyes, each with six wings? i believe that these six-winged beasts—which isaiah speaks of as seraphim—are the great forces of nature, the powers of wind and water and earth and fire: those powers which the ancients set up as gods and worshipped."

"then you believe in the old gods?"

i shook my head. "not as gods, but as great forces; man's initial error lay in treating them as gods."

"and you believe that these strange beings—these principalities and powers—are not of evil?" asked arthur.

"on the contrary, they are wholly of good when put in their proper places, and regarded not as man's masters, but as man's fellow-worshippers of the most high. they rest not day or night, crying, 'holy, holy, holy'; but man is at present so stupid that he hasn't ears to hear their sanctus."

arthur was silent for a moment, then he said: "i like these ideas of yours, reggie; they blow through one's dusty, stereotyped notions like a strong wind from the mountains. that is a fine conception of yours of a temple where the choristers are the constellations, and the acolytes the powers of the air. it makes one feel that the universe is so big and wide. but i don't quite see how all this explains your original proposition that magic must not be confounded with prayer."

"i'm sorry," i said; "i fear i am generally more or less of a wandering sheep where conversation is concerned. but what i mean—to put it tersely—is that magic is more or less of a command, while prayer altogether is a supplication. both involve a mystical communion with an unseen power; but while we may command the lesser powers, we can do nothing but abase ourselves before the highest power of all."

"i see your point," said arthur. "since magic is, so to speak, more or less mechanical, certain results must necessarily follow certain rituals; but with prayer the final result lies with the power to whom the request is made, and is therefore what one might call optional."

"exactly. and i believe the reason why prayer is not invariably answered at once—and not always in the way we expect—is to teach us that we are not controlling a spiritual force but are supplicating a living person; therefore the final decision lies with him and not with us, and we must be content to leave it there. if, by uttering certain words and performing certain ceremonies, i was invariably able to heal a patient, i should be healing by magic, a thing, mind you, which has been done—and possibly still is done—in the history of the world; but if i lay what natural and spiritual gifts i may possess at the patient's service, and leave the result in christ's hands, then christ does what he thinks fit in his love and his own way. in dealing with a person one must allow for the personal equation, even though that person be our lord himself."

"i am glad to hear you say this," said blathwayte as we parted, "as i was afraid that the idea of magic—in conjunction with the healing powers which you undoubtedly possess—might get hold of a man of your peculiar temperament. but you seem to look at it as simply and naturally as henderson does."

a few days after this conversation with arthur, annabel startled me by suddenly coming into the library, and saying without any preamble, as she stood beside my chair at the writing-table: "where do you think i had better take a house, reggie? somewhere near here or in london?"

"take a house? what on earth do you mean?" i asked in amazement.

"well, i must live somewhere, and i can't stay on very well here after you are married."

"but why not? you simply must stay on with us, and manage the house as you have always done; i couldn't bear the manor without you."

"it is very nice of you, reggie, to want me to go on living here; but i am sure fay would not like it."

i was simply aghast at this revelation of the utterly absurd and untrue ideas which even the nicest women get about each other. "my dear annabel, what utter nonsense! and most unjust to fay, too! why, there is nothing that fay would like so much as for you to live on here with her and me after we are married: i know her well enough to answer for that."

annabel looked doubtful. "are you sure, reggie?"

"absolutely certain. not only for the unselfish reason that such an arrangement would be the only really happy one for you and me, but also for the selfish one—if anything that fay did or thought could by any possibility be selfish—that you would take all the bother of managing this large household off her hands. why, my dear annabel, you yourself have said that she is far too young to take on such a job as this."

annabel looked thoughtful. "that is quite true. i'm afraid you wouldn't be very comfortable with only fay to look after things."

"i'm not thinking of myself," i replied, rather huffily; "i'm really not such a selfish brute as you make out. i'm thinking of what a cruel thing it would be to put such a lot of care and responsibility on the shoulders of a child like fay, for she is but a child as yet, though she has all the depth and the charm of a woman."

annabel was still doubtful. "she would learn."

"and why should she be bothered to learn, if you are willing to take all the trouble off her hands? let the darling be young as long as she can! in spite of you and arthur, i still have scruples as to whether it is right to let her share such a dull, middle-aged lot as mine; but at any rate i will strive my utmost to shield her from the cares and burdens of married life, and to make her life as free and joyous as possible. therefore, annabel, i beseech you to stay on here, and to take all household and social duties off fay's shoulders."

"well, reggie, if you put it like that——"

"i do put it like that, and that closes the matter. i will go and tell fay how good you are in consenting to stay, as i know how relieved and happy it will make her."

i straightway went in search of my darling, and found her curled up with a book on one of the settees by the hall fire.

"i have got such a glorious piece of news for you, sweetheart," i said, sitting down beside her and taking one of her dear hands in mine. "annabel has consented to live with us after we are married, and to take all the trouble of managing the house off your hands. so that my little darling will have no housekeeping or servants to worry her, but will have nothing to do but enjoy herself and make love to her devoted husband."

now one of fay's most compelling charms was her infinite variety: she was a creature of a thousand moods—sometimes talkative, sometimes silent, sometimes sad, and sometimes merry—but never the same two hours together, and always utterly adorable. her changes of mood had nothing to do with outer circumstances: they were the outcome of her own sweet variableness and versatility.

this morning she was evidently in a silent mood, for all she said was, "oh!"

i expatiated upon the advantages of annabel's permanent support. "you see, darling, it would have been an awful bother for you to have to do all the tiresome old things that annabel does. she is so used to them that they are easy to her, but i couldn't have borne to see the burden of them laid on your dear shoulders."

"i dare say i could have learnt to do them all right." how like my darling not to spare herself in her readiness to serve me.

"so annabel said, but i would not hear of it! do you think that i am marrying you, you lovely wild elfin thing, in order to turn you into a staid housekeeper? it would be sacrilege to put so exquisite a creature to such ignoble uses!"

fay did not reply, so i continued: "and it will be so nice for you too, dear heart, always to have a woman at hand to turn to in any trouble or difficulty."

"i shall have you, and that is all i want."

"but i am only a stupid man, and could never understand and help you as another woman could. i don't believe that any man is sufficiently fine and subtle properly to understand a woman: especially when there is such a difference between them in age, as there is, alas! between you and me."

"there is more difference between annabel and me: five years more."

"but she is a woman, and women can always understand each other."

"i see. because there is too much difference between forty-two and eighteen, you are trying to make forty-two plus forty-seven equal to eighteen. you always had a wonderful head for sums, reggie!" and with a laugh fay whisked herself off the settee, and went out of the hall.

i could not understand her present mood, and the fact that i could not understand it filled me with an agony that after all i was too old and dull and stupid ever to make her happy. then, with a blessed sense of relief, i remembered that i should not be alone in my sacred task of perfecting and beautifying the young life that i had dared to take into my keeping; annabel would be always at hand to assist my clumsy masculine attempts, and to correct my stupid masculine blunders. and i thought that between us we could succeed in making my darling happy; at any rate, we would try our best.

but a fresh feminine surprise awaited me. surely women are the most incomprehensible creatures, and on the time-honoured principle of "set a thief to catch a thief," it is only a woman who can be expected to fathom a woman. to my amazement ponty—whom i expected to be lifted into the seventh heaven of delight by the news that annabel would stay on at the manor—raised strong objections to this admirable arrangement. i really couldn't have believed such a thing of the faithful ponty, if i hadn't heard her with my own ears.

"i hear it is settled for miss annabel to go on living here after your marriage, master reggie," she said to me on one of my frequent visits to the old nursery—a room which had suddenly acquired a new and wonderful sanctity in my eyes.

"of course," i replied. "the manor wouldn't be the manor without miss annabel. i could never think of allowing her to leave it. i should have thought you would have been the first to rejoice at the news that she was staying on."

"well, then, i'm not, master reggie: neither the first nor the last nor any of the rejoicing sort at all. when folks are married, they'd best have their home to themselves, or else trouble'll come of it."

"no trouble possibly could come of miss annabel's being anywhere. she could never bring anything but peace and comfort, and that you know as well as i do." i felt that i did well to be angry with ponty just then.

but she didn't mind my anger in the least: she never had done. "i remember a man at poppenhall," she went on, urging her unwise saws by means of fictitious instances, "who married as suitable as never was, and all went as merry as a marriage-bell till his wife's sister came to live with them. then the two sisters took to quarrelling so awful that one of them had to go: and it was the wife as went and her sister as stayed."

"but, my good ponty, the cases are not parallel," i said, with much truth; "in your story it was the wife's sister and not the husband's, which makes all the difference."

"it doesn't matter on which side the sister was: it is the principle of having relations to live with newly-married people that i don't approve of. married folks are best left to themselves till the children come."

"but our marriage is an exceptional one," i urged.

"all marriages are exceptional to the bride and bridegroom," replied ponty, "just as all children are exceptional to their own parents. no, master reggie, mark my words, when a man and a woman join hands at the altar, they don't reckon to be starting a game of 'oranges and lemons,' with their relations hanging on to them behind and pulling them apart. and that's what married life comes to, if the relations on either side live with the parties concerned."

"you are talking about things you don't in the least understand."

but ponty took as little notice of me as she used to take when i was a child of six. it was never very wise of me to be dignified with ponty. "i understand that it's a big job anyway for a husband and wife to shake down together when first they are married, master reggie, and it makes the job ten times bigger when their relations begin helping them. it's a thing they can only do when they are left to their own two selves."

i still tried to be patient, though i was fully alive to my old nurse's narrowness and ignorance. how little she grasped the true relationship between fay and annabel! "your plan may be all very well when a man and his wife are about the same age, ponty; there is a freemasonry in youth which unaided must bring them a complete understanding of each other. but what you call the shaking down becomes much more difficult when there is nearly a quarter of a century between the two."

"then the more difficult it is, master reggie, the less they'll want anybody to help them. you may take my word for that. and if you follow my advice you won't allow miss annabel—nor mr. wildacre neither, one side being as bad as the other—to help you and miss fay to shake down together. you'll do the shaking down yourselves or else remain unshook. i remember there was a man in poppenhall who used to say as there was nobody as fermented a quarrel like the peacemakers, and the same holds good with relatives in the case of marriage."

i did not want to lose my temper with my old nurse, so i went out of the room. but i was dreadfully disappointed in ponty. i thought she would have known better.