Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) ROBERT ELSMERE BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD AUTHOR OF 'MISS BRETHERTON' London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1888 All rights reserved Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. * * * * * Dedicated to the Memory OF MY TWO FRIENDS, SEPARATED, IN MY THOUGHT OF THEM, BY MUCH DIVERSITY OF CIRCUMSTANCE AND OPINION; LINKED, IN MY FAITH ABOUT THEM, TO EACH OTHER, AND TO ALL THE SHINING ONES OF THE PAST, BY THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE SERVICE OF MAN: THOMAS HILL GREEN (LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD), _Died 26th March 1882_; AND LAURA OCTAVIA MARY LYTTELTON, _Died Easter Eve 1886_. * * * * * CONTENTS PAGE BOOK I WESTMORELAND 1 BOOK II SURREY 149 BOOK III THE SQUIRE 251 BOOK IV CRISIS 333 BOOK V ROSE 387 BOOK VI NEW OPENINGS 461 BOOK VII GAIN AND LOSS 549 * * * * * NOTE The quotations given in the present book on pp. 58, 330, and 536, are either literally or substantially taken from a volume of Lay Sermons, called _The Witness of God_, by the late Professor T. H. Green. * * * * * BOOK I WESTMORELAND CHAPTER I It was a brilliant afternoon towards the end of May. The spring had been unusually cold and late, and it was evident from the general aspect of the lonely Westmoreland valley of Long Whindale that warmth and sunshine had only just penetrated to its bare green recesses, where the few scattered trees were fast rushing into their full summer dress, while at their feet, and along the bank of the stream, the flowers of March and April still lingered, as though they found it impossible to believe that their rough brother, the east wind, had at last deserted them. The narrow road, which was the only link between the farmhouses sheltered by the crags at the head of the valley and those far-away regions of town and civilisation suggested by the smoke wreaths of Whinborough on the southern horizon, was lined with masses of the white heckberry or bird-cherry, and ran, an arrowy line of white, through the greenness of the sloping pastures. The sides of some of the little becks running down into the main river and many of the plantations round the farms were gay with the same tree, so that the farmhouses, gray-roofed and gray-walled, standing in the hollows of the fells, seemed here and there to have been robbed of all their natural austerity of aspect, and to be masquerading in a dainty garb of white and green imposed upon them by the caprice of the spring.