CHAPTER VIII.

A STARTLING DISCLOSURE.

And how had things fared at The Lilies all this time? Sir Simon had

behaved in the strangest way. Immediately after Clide’s departure, he

came, according to his promise, and explained it after a plausible

fashion to M. de la Bourbonais, who, unsuspecting as an infant, accepted

the story without surprise or question.

At the end of a week Sir Simon knew that the worst fears were confirmed;

the identity of the supposed Isabel had been disproved, and the existence

of the real one ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt. Clide was on

her track, but when or how he should find her was yet the secret of the

future.

The one thing clear in it was, that it was a miserable business and

could end in nothing but shame and sorrow for every one connected with

it. Sir Simon was helpless and bewildered. He was always slow at taking

in bad news, and when he succeeded in doing it, his first idea was, not

to take the bull by the horns and face the facts manfully, but to stave

off the evil day, to gain time, to trust to something turning up that

would avert the inevitable. He had never in the whole course of his life

felt so helpless in the face of evil tidings as on the present occasion.

He foresaw, all too plainly, what the effect was likely to be on the

innocent young creature on whom he had brought so terrible a share in

the catastrophe. It was no comfort to him that it was not his fault. He

would willingly have taken the fault on his own shoulders, if thereby

he could have lifted the pain from hers. He was too generously absorbed

in the thought of Franceline’s trouble to split hairs on the difference

between remorse and regret; he cursed his own meddling as bitterly as

if he had acted like a deliberate villain towards her; he felt there

was nothing for him to do but blow his brains out. He passed the day he

received the admiral’s letter in this suicidal and despairing state of

mind. The next day his indignation against himself found some solace in

vituperating Clide’s ill-luck, and the villainy of the woman who had led

him such a devil’s-dance. This diversion soothed him; he slept better

that night, and next morning he awoke refreshed; cheered up according to

his happy matutinal habit, and took a brighter view of everything. It

remained no doubt a most unfortunate affair, look at it as one might, but

Franceline would get over it by and by. Why not? All the nicest girls he

knew when he was a young fellow had been crossed in love, and they had

all got over it, and married somebody else and lived happily ever after.

Why should not Franceline do the same? De Winton was a very nice fellow,

but there were other nice fellows in the world. There was Roxham, for

instance. If he, Sir Simon, was a pretty girl, he was not sure but he

should like Roxham best of the two; he was deuced good-looking, and the

eldest son of a peer to boot; that counts with every girl, why shouldn’t

it with Franceline? “But is she like every girl? Is she a butterfly to

be caught by any candle?” whispered somebody at Sir Simon’s ear; but

he pooh-poohed the unwelcome busybody, as he would have brushed away a

buzzing fly. She must get over it; Roxham should come in and cut out

this unlucky Clide. The worst of it was that conversation Sir Simon had

had with Raymond before Franceline’s visit to London. If he had but had

the wit to hold his tongue a little longer! Well, biting it off now

would not mend matters. Roxham must come to the rescue. He had evidently

been smitten the night of the ball. Sir Simon had intentionally brought

him into the field to rouse Clide’s jealousy, and bring him to the

point; he had invoked every species of anathema on himself for it ever

since, but it was going to turn out the luckiest inspiration after all.

While the baronet was performing his toilet, he arranged matters thus

satisfactorily to his own mind, and by the time he came down to breakfast

he was fully convinced that everything was going to be for the best. He

read his letters, wished a few unpleasant little eventualities to the

writers of most of them, and crammed them into a drawer where they were

not likely to be disturbed for some time to come. The others he answered;

then he read the newspapers, and that done, ordered his horse round, and

rode to Rydal, Lady Anwyll’s place.

The conversation naturally fell on the recent ball at the Court,

and from that to the acknowledged belle of the evening, Mlle. de la

Bourbonais. In answer to the plump little dowager’s enthusiastic praises

of his young friend’s beauty the baronet remarked that it was a pity she

did not live nearer The Lilies. “It is dull for the little thing, you

see,” he said; “Bourbonais is up to his eyes in books and study, and she

has no society to speak of within reach; she and the Langrove girls don’t

seem to take to each other much; she is a peculiar child, Franceline; you

see she has never mixed with children, she has been like a companion to

her father, and the result is that she has fallen into a dreamy kind of

world of her own, and that’s not good for a girl; she is apt to prey upon

herself. I wish you were a nearer neighbor of ours.”

“I am near enough for all intents and purposes,” said Lady Anwyll,

promptly; “what is it but an hour’s drive? There’s nothing I should like

better than to take her about, pretty creature, with her great gazelle

eyes; but I dare say she would bore herself with me; they don’t care for

old women’s society, those young things--why should they? I hated an old

woman like a sour apple when I was her age.”

“Oh! but Franceline is not a bit like most girls of her age; she would

enjoy you very much, I assure you she would,” protested Sir Simon warmly.

“There is nothing she likes better than talking to me now, and I might be

your father,” he added, with more gallantry than truth; but Lady Anwyll

laughed a contemptuous, little, good-humored laugh without contradicting

him. “She has seen very little and read a great deal--too much in fact;

you would be surprised to see how much she has read about all sorts of

things that most girls only know by name; her father was for teaching her

Greek and Latin, but I bullied him out of that nonsense; it would have

been a downright crime to spoil such a creature by making her blue. I’ve

saved her from that, at any rate.”

“I dare say that is not the only good service she owes you,” observed the

dowager, “nor is it likely to be the last. When is your young relation

coming back?”

“De Winton, you mean? He’s hardly a relation--a connection at most. I

don’t know when he is likely to turn up; I believe he’s on his way to the

North Pole at present.”

“Really! I thought there was a magnet drawing him nearer home.”

“What! Franceline, eh? Well, I thought myself he was a trifle spooney

in that quarter,” said the baronet, bending down to examine his boots,

“but it would seem not, or he would not have decamped; he’s an odd fish,

Clide--a capital fellow, but odd.”

“I thought him original, and liked him very much, what little I saw of

him,” replied Lady Anwyll. “However, I am glad to hear it is not a case

between him and your pretty friend; if there is a thing I _hate_”--with

ten drops of vitriol in the monosyllable--“it’s chaperoning a girl in

love. You have no satisfaction in her; nothing interests or amuses her;

she is ready to bite the nose off any man that looks civil at her; she

is a social nuisance in fact, and I make a point of having nothing to do

with her.”

Sir Simon threw back his head and laughed.

“How about young Charlton?” resumed the dowager; “he is the match of the

county. Has he gone in for the prize?”

“He’s too great an ass,” was the rejoinder.

“Humph! Asses are proof, then, against the power of a beautiful face?

It’s the first time I’ve heard it.”

“The fact is, I don’t think he has had a chance yet,” said Sir Simon;

“Bourbonais is peculiar, and does not encourage people to go and see him;

he only admits a select circle of old fogies, and I think he fancies

Charlton is a bit of a puppy.”

“Perhaps he’s not much out in that,” assented the lady.

“Roxham struck me as being rather smitten the other night; did you notice

anything in that direction,” inquired Sir Simon carelessly, as he rose

to go. “I was too busy to see much of what was going on in the way of

flirtation, but I fancied he was rather assiduous!”

“Now, that would be a very nice thing!” And the mother who had made many

matches brightened up with lively interest. “I should like to help on

that; it would be quite an exciting amusement, and I have nothing to do

just now.”

“Take care!” and Sir Simon raised his finger with a warning gesture; “you

may have a social nuisance on your hands before you know where you are.”

“Oh! I don’t mind when it’s of my own making,” said the dowager; “that

quite alters the case.”

“Then you will drive over to-morrow or next day and call at The Lilies?”

Sir Simon mounted Nero in high good humor; whistled a hunting air as he

dashed through the stiff Wellingtonias that flanked the long avenue at

Rydal, and never drew rein until he alighted at his own door.

M. de la Bourbonais greeted Lady Anwyll with the innate courtesy of a

grand seignior, and never let her see by so much as a look that her

visit was not an agreeable surprise. Yet it was not so. Since that

conversation with Sir Simon about Franceline’s fortune, an uneasy

feeling had possessed him, and he had shrunk back more sensitively than

ever into his shell of reserve and isolation. He had been content, or

rather compelled, to leave matters entirely in Sir Simon’s hands, or

in the hands of fate, but he did not feel at rest, and he had no mind

to launch out into new acquaintances just at a moment when his mind

was disturbed by strange probabilities, and his habitual abstraction

broken up by vague anxieties, that could not take any definite shape as

yet. But Lady Anwyll saw nothing of this in the old gentleman’s courtly

greeting; she saw that Franceline had welcomed her with a warmth that

was unmistakable--childlike and gleeful, and fettered by no ice bands of

conventional politeness.

The dowager’s visit was indeed welcome; the utter silence that had

succeeded to the stir and agitation of the past few weeks had fallen

upon Franceline like a snow-drift in the midst of summer; the return to

the old stagnant life was dreadful--she felt chilled to death by it.

The reaction was natural enough to one of her age and circumstances;

but we know that there was a deeper reason for her sense of loneliness

and weariness than the mere relapse into routine and dulness after a

season of excitement. Where was Mr. de Winton, and why had he gone off

in that strange way, without a sign or a word, leaving her trembling and

expectant on the threshold of her awakened womanhood?

It was more than a week now since he went, and she had not heard his name

once mentioned, and there was no prospect of her hearing any one speak

of him; since neither her father nor Sir Simon did so. Lady Anwyll came

like a messenger and a link; Lady Anwyll was in Clide’s world, the wide,

wide world beyond her own small sphere where no one knew him. This was

unconsciously the reason of Franceline’s joyous greeting. Sir Simon had

come with the dowager; they had walked down through the park together,

and it was the first time in her life that Franceline was not thoroughly

glad to see him. He was not quite like his usual self either, to her, she

fancied. He rattled on in his own way, telling stories and making jokes,

and then catching up some chance words of Raymond’s and quarrelling with

them, until their author waxed warm, and was drawn out into an elaborate

refutation of some meaning that he never dreamed of giving them, but into

which Sir Simon had purposely twisted them; and finally accomplishing his

aim of keeping the conversation on abstract subjects and not letting it

slip into the dangerous path of personal or local events.

“So you will let me come and take you out for a drive sometimes,” Lady

Anwyll said, as she rose to take leave, “and by-and-by, when you get used

to the old woman, perhaps you will come and spend a day or two with her

in her big, lonely house? You will not be always afraid of her?”

“I am not afraid of her now,” protested Franceline, looking with her

radiant dark eyes straight into the old lady’s face, “you don’t look

wicked at all.”

“Don’t I? Then more shame for me; that shows I’m a hypocrite, a whitened

sepulchre, my dear,” and she nodded emphatically at Franceline, and gave

a little groan.

“For goodness’ sake don’t come Miss Bulpit over us!” cried Sir Simon,

holding up his hands. “I’ll bolt at once if you take to that.” And with

this pretence of alarm he hurried out of the room.

“Then, since you are not frightened at me, you will promise to come very

soon. Let us settle it at once--for Thursday next?” and she held the

young girl’s hand in both her own, and looked to M. de la Bourbonais for

assent.

But Raymond began to settle his spectacles, and was for explaining how

difficult it would be for him to part with his daughter even for a day,

and how unaccustomed she was to going anywhere alone, when Sir Simon

called out from the garden:

“Tut, tut, Bourbonais, that’s precisely why she must go; you must not

mope the child in this way; she must gad about a bit, like other girls.

It will do her good; it will do her good.”

The three came out and joined him, walking round to the back entrance

through which the visitors were going to re-enter the park.

“I shall get a few young people together, so it will not be so very dull

for you, my dear,” continued Lady Anwyll, as they walked four abreast on

the grass; “and I can mount you; I know you ride.”

“Oh! I don’t think she would care--” began Raymond; but Sir Simon cut him

short again.

“Is your son coming down for a shot at the partridges?”

“Not he; at least not that I know of; he is off fishing near Norway, or

was the last time I heard of him; but for all I know he may have joined

your friend young De Winton at the North Pole by this. Well, good-by, my

dear. I should dearly like a kiss. Would you mind kissing the old woman?”

Franceline put her soft, vermilion lips to the wrinkled cheek. Neither

Lady Anwyll nor Raymond saw how instantaneously the blood had forsaken

them, leaving them white as her brow; but Sir Simon did, and it smote

him to the heart. He walked on before the good-bys were over, ostensibly

to give some order about the carriage that was drawn up at a turn in the

avenue, but in reality to avoid meeting Raymond’s glance.

Late that evening a note came to The Lilies to say that he was obliged

to start at a moment’s notice for the south of France, where his

step-mother, Lady Rebecca, was dangerously ill. He was sorry to have to

rush off without saying good-by, but he had not a moment to lose to catch

the express.

Sir Simon did start by the express, and after a day or two in London,

where he saw Admiral de Winton, and ascertained that nothing new had

turned up in Clide’s affairs, he thought he might just as well go to

the south of France, where he would be within reach of his interesting

relative in case she should need him, or die, which the older she grew

the less she seemed inclined to do, in spite of Mr. Simpson’s periodical

tolling of her death-knell. Fate, that abstract divinity invoked by

pagans and novelists, interfered with the fulfilment of Franceline’s

engagement to Lady Anwyll. A letter--a real letter--awaited her at

home from her son-in-law, saying that his wife was taken suddenly ill,

and entreated her mother to come to her without delay. Franceline was

rather glad than sorry when the note came to postpone her visit. The

desire to go to Rydal was gone. She wanted to be left alone. She was

not equal to the effort of seeming amused. And yet, again, in another

way she regretted it. A day or two’s absence from her father would

have been a relief; the strain of keeping up false appearances before

him was worse than it need have been amongst strangers; it would have

sufficed them to be calm; at home she must be gay. After the sudden shock

which those words so carelessly uttered by Lady Anwyll had caused her,

Franceline’s first thought was to screen her feelings from her father.

She was helped in her effort to do this by her certainty that he had no

key to them, that he had not for a moment connected her and Clide de

Winton in his thoughts. If she had known how much had been disclosed to

him, how closely he had watched her ever since that fatal conversation

with Sir Simon, concealment would have been impossible. As it was, she

found it hard enough; but there was an unsuspected strength of will,

a vitality of power in her, that enabled her to act the part she had

resolved upon. She called up all her love for her father and all her

native woman’s pride and maiden delicacy to the effort, and she achieved

it. Her father watched her with the jealous eye of anxious affection,

but he could see nothing forced in her spirits; he heard no hollow note

in her laugh; he saw no trace of sadness in her smile. She was merrier,

brighter, more talkative for several days after Lady Anwyll’s visit than

he remembered to have seen her. Raymond sighed with relief many times

a day as he heard her singing to herself, or caressing her doves with

new names of endearment and fresh delight. She succeeded perfectly in

blinding him, but not in silencing the wild tumult of her own heart. It

was all mystery yet; pain and wonder were predominant, but hope was not

absent from the chaos of conflicting emotions, and there was nothing of

wounded self-respect, no definite feeling of reproach towards Clide. It

seemed as if everything were a mistake; no one had done anything wrong,

and yet everything had gone wrong. Was it all a dream the life she had

been living for those few blissful weeks? Was his devotion to her, his

exclusive assiduity during all that time, nothing but the customary

demeanor of a gentleman to a young girl in whose society chance had

thrown him? Franceline asked herself this over and over again, and could

only find one answer to it--the echo of her own heart. But what did she

really know about such things--what standard had she to go by? What had

she ever seen to guide her in forming a reasonable conclusion?--for

she wanted to be reasonable: to judge calmly without listening to the

longings and tyrannical affirmations of this heart. “He may have been

so assiduous in attending me in my rides simply to please Sir Simon,”

whispered reason; but the response came quickly: “Need he have looked and

spoken as he did to please Sir Simon? And that night of the ball, was it

to please Sir Simon that he was stung and angry when I deserted him for

Lord Roxham? Was it for that that he spoke those words that had set my

every fibre thrilling? ‘What does anything matter to us, Franceline, as

long as we are not angry with each other?’ To what melting tenderness

was his voice toned as he uttered them! How his glance sought mine and

rested in it, completing all that the words had left unsaid! And I am

to believe that he had meant no more than the customary gallantries of

a man of the world to his partner in the dance?” She laughed to herself

as the outrageous question rose in her thoughts. Then, apart from this

unanswerable testimony, there was evidence of Clide’s feelings and

motives towards herself in his conduct towards her father. How anxious he

had shown himself to please M. de la Bourbonais, to secure his advice and

follow it, and make her aware that he did so! No; she had not assuredly

been won unsought. This certainty supported and cheered her. If she had

been sought, she would be sought again. Clide would return and claim

what he had won. It was impossible to doubt but that he would. Whenever

Franceline arrived at this point in her cogitations her spirits rose to

singing pitch, and she would break out into carol and song, like a bird,

and run down to Angélique and tease her to exasperation, pulling out her

knitting-needles and playing tricks like a kitten, till she drove her

nearly frantic, and sent her complaining to M. le Comte that _la petite_

was grown as full of mischief as a squirrel; there was no being safe a

minute from her tricks once your back was turned. And Raymond would look

up with a beaming face, and beg pardon for the culprit. “She keeps life

in our old veins, ma bonne,” he would say; “what should we do without our

singing bird?”

But there were days when the singing bird was silent, when there

was no music in her, and when she could have broken into passionate

tears if they had not been restrained by a strong effort of will.

These alternations, however, passed unobserved by the two who might

have noticed them. Raymond had made up his mind that Sir Simon’s

brilliant scheme had failed, and that as the failure had dealt no blow

at Franceline’s happiness, it was not to be regretted. It had been

altogether too brilliant to be practicable; he felt that from the first,

and his instinct served him better than Sir Simon’s experience, shrewd

man of the world though he was. “Kind, foolish friend, his affection

blinded him and made him see everything as he desired it for Franceline,

and now he is vexed with himself, and ashamed very likely, and so he

keeps away from me. Perhaps he imagines I would reproach him. This poor,

dear Simon has more heart than head.”

And with these indulgent reflections, Raymond sank back into his dreamy

historical world, and left off watching the changeful aspects of his

child. She was safe; things were just as they used to be.

A month went by; during that time one letter had come from the baronet,

affectionate as ever, but evidently written under some feeling of

restraint. He talked of the annoyances he had had on the road, and

the loss of some of his luggage, and about French politics. M. de le

Bourbonais fancied he saw through the awkwardness; he answered the letter

in a more than usually affectionate strain; was very communicative about

himself and Franceline, who was growing quite beyond Angélique’s and his

control, he assured his friend, and required Sir Simon’s hand to keep

her within bounds, so he had better hasten home as quickly as possible

if he had any pity for the two victims of her tyranny and numberless

caprices. This letter had the effect intended; it brought another without

many days’ delay, and written with all the _abandon_ and spirit of the

writer’s most cheerful mood.

Lady Anwyll returned at the end of the month, and bore down on The Lilies

the very next day. Franceline would have fought off if she could have

done so with any chance of success; but the dowager was peremptory in

claiming what had been distinctly promised, and she agreed to be ready

the next day to accompany the old lady to Rydal.

Angélique put her biggest irons in the fire, and smoothed out her young

mistress’s prettiest white muslin dress, and set her sashes and ribbons

in order, and was as full of bustle as if the quiet visit a few miles off

had been a wedding.

“I am glad the _petite_ is going; it will do her good,” she observed,

complacently, as she brought in the lamp and set it down on the count’s

table that evening.

“Why do you think it will do her good? Is she suffering in any way?” said

the father, a sudden sting of the old fear giving sharpness to his voice.

“Bonté divine! How monsieur takes the word out of one’s mouth!”

ejaculated Angélique, throwing up her hands like an aggrieved woman;

“why, a little distraction always does good at mamselle’s age; look at

me: it would put new blood into my old veins if I could go somewhere and

distract myself.”

“You find it very dull, my good Angélique?” And the master turned a

kindly, almost penitent glance on the nut-brown face.

“Hé! listen to him again! One does not want to be dying of _ennui_ to

enjoy a little distraction; one does not think of it, but when it comes

one may like it!” She gave the shade a jerk that made it spin round the

lamp, and walked off in high dudgeon.

Franceline was conscious of a pleasurable flutter next day, when she

heard the carriage crunching the gravel, and presently Lady Anwyll came

round on foot, followed by the footman, who carried off her box and

secured it in some mysterious part of the vehicle. She was flushed when

she kissed her father and said good-by; he thought it was the pleasure of

the “little distraction” that heightened her color, and that took away

the pang of the short parting.

“Yes, decidedly, a change does her good,” he mentally remarked; “I must

let her take advantage of any pleasant one that offers.”

It was an event in Franceline’s life, going to stay at a strange house.

The Court was too much like her own home, and she had known it too long

and too early to feel like a visitor there, or to be overpowered by its

splendors. Rydal was not to be compared to it either for architectural

beauty or magnitude, or for the extent and beauty of the grounds and

surrounding scenery. The Court was a grand baronial hall; Rydal was

an old-fashioned manor house; low-roofed, straggling, and picturesque

outside; spacious and comfortable inside; with enough of the marks of

time on the furniture and decorations to stamp it as the abode of many

generations of gentlemen. A low-ceiled square hall, with sitting-rooms

opening into it on either side, and quaint pictures and arms ornamenting

its walls, received you with a hospitable hearth, where a huge log

was blazing cheerily under a high, carved oak mantel-piece. It was not

flagged with marble, nor supported by majestic columns like the Gothic

hall of the Court, but it had a charm of its own that Franceline felt,

and expressed by a bright exclamation as she alighted in it.

“Come in and sit down for a moment in the drawing-room,” said Lady

Anwyll. “I always rest before toiling up-stairs, my dear; and you must

fancy yourself an old woman and do so too.”

Franceline followed her into the handsome square room. Two projecting

windows thrust themselves out to the west to catch the last rays of the

setting sun at one end, and another bulged out southward to sun itself

in the noon-tide warmth; an old-fashioned sofa was drawn close to the

fire. Franceline fancied she saw the soles of two boots resting on the

arm facing the door; and was beginning to wonder where the body was that

they might belong to, when the dowager suddenly cried out in tones of

amazement rather than delight:

“Good gracious, Ponce! what brought you back, and when did you come? I

verily believe you have got some talisman like Riquet with the Tuft for

flying about the world like a bird! Where have you come from now?”

She stooped down to kiss the invisible head that lay at the other end of

the figure, and a voice from the cushions answered: “I pledged my word I

would be back in a day and a month; did you ever know me break my word,

lady mother?”

“You so seldom commit yourself by pledging it to me that I hardly

remember; however, now that you are here, I am glad to see you, and to

be able to offer you a reward for your punctuality. Come here, my dear,

and let me introduce my son Ponsonby to you.”

The recumbent giant was on his feet in an instant, with an involuntary

“Hollo!” as Franceline advanced at his mother’s bidding.

“This is Mlle. de la Bourbonais, Ponce; my son, Captain Anwyll.”

“It is not often punishment overtakes the guilty so fast,” said the

gentleman, with a very low bow, and an awkward laugh; “I so seldom

indulge in the laziness of stretching my long legs on a sofa, that it’s

rather hard on me that I should be caught in the act by a lady. Mother,

you ought to have given me notice in time.”

“Served you right! I’m glad you were caught; and, my dear, don’t you mind

his _seldom_; when he is not flying through the air or over the water,

this big son of mine is stretching himself somewhere. Come, now, and get

your things off.” As they were leaving the room, she looked back to ask

her son if he “had brought the regiment down with him,” and on hearing

that he had left that appendage in Yorkshire, his mother observed that it

was like him to leave it behind just when it might have been useful.

There are some people who, though inert and quiet themselves, have a

faculty for putting everybody about them in a commotion. Ponsonby Anwyll

was one of these. When he came down to Rydal it was as if an earthquake

shook the place. He wanted next to no waiting on, yet somehow every

servant in the house was busied about him. He was like a baby in a house,

exacting nothing, but occupying everybody.

He was constantly either overturning something, or on the point of doing

it. Like so many men of the giant type, he was as gentle as a woman and

as easily cowed; and like a woman, he always wanted somebody at his elbow

to look after him. If he attempted to light a lamp, ten to one he upset

it and spoiled a table-cover or a carpet, or he let the chimney fall, and

cut his fingers picking up the bits to prevent some one else’s being cut.

He took next to no interest practically in the estate; yet his tenantry

were very fond of him; he never bothered them about improvements or

abuses, and they were more obliged to him for letting them alone than for

benefiting them against their will. Whenever he interfered it was to take

their part against the agent, who could not see why the tenants were to

be let off paying full rents because the harvest happened to be a failure

one year, when it had been good so many preceding ones. Lady Anwyll would

bully and storm and protest that he was ruining the property, and that

they would all end in the Union; but Ponsonby soon petted her into good

humor. In her heart of hearts she was proud of her big, easy-going son,

who cared so little for money, and she was as pleased to be patronized by

him as a little kitten is when the powerful Newfoundland condescends to a

game of romps with it.

When Franceline, in her white muslin dress, floated into the

drawing-room, like a summer cloud, the Newfoundland was standing on the

hearth-rug, with its eyes fixed expectantly on the door. Lady Anwyll was

generally down long before her son. Ponce took an age to get out of one

set of clothes and into another; but he had the start of her to-day.

“You have had a nice drive from Dullerton,” he began; how else could he

begin? “But I fear the weather is on the turn; those clouds over the

common look mischievous.”

“Are you weatherwise?” inquired Franceline, following his eyes to the

window.

“Not he, my dear! He’s not wise in anything!” answered a voice from

behind her.

“Mother, this is positively too bad of you! I protest against your taking

away my character in this fashion, before I have a chance of making one

with Miss Franceline. You begin by making me out the laziest dog in

Christendom, and now you would rob me of my one intellectual quality! You

know I am weatherwise! They call me Girouette in the 10th, because I can

tell to a feather how the wind is blowing; ’pon my honor they do, Miss

Franceline!”

Franceline was going to assure him of her entire faith in this assertion

when dinner was announced, and they crossed the hall into the dining-room.

“Now, tell us something about where you’ve been and what you’ve seen and

done,” said the dowager; “and try and be as entertaining as you can, for

you see there is no one else to amuse my young friend.”

“I’m sure I should be very proud; I wish I could remember something

amusing to tell; but that’s the deuce of it, the more a fellow wants to

be pleasant the less he can. Do you care to hear about fishing?” This was

addressed to Franceline. There was something so boyish in his manner,

such an entire absence of conceit or affectation, that, in spite of other

deficiencies, she liked the shy hussar, and felt at ease with him.

“I dare say I should if I understood it at all; but I do not. But I am

always curious to know about foreign places and people,” she said.

“Oh! I’m glad of that; I can tell you plenty about no end of places,”

answered the traveller promptly; “but I dare say you’ve seen them all

yourself; everybody goes everywhere nowadays.”

“I have never been out of Dullerton since I came here as a child, but

once for a few days to London,” said Franceline; “so you can hardly go

wrong in telling me about any foreign place.”

“How odd! Well, its rather refreshing too. I suppose you are nervous,

afraid of the water, or the railway?”

“Not the least. I am too poor to travel.” She said it as simply as if she

had stated that the rain had prevented her going for a walk.

“Oh, indeed! That is a hindrance to be sure,” blundered out Ponsonby;

“but people are better off that stay at home. One is always within an

inch of getting one’s neck broken, or one’s eye put out; and people very

often do come to grief travelling. I dare say you wouldn’t like it at

all.”

“Getting her eyes put out? I should think not!” chimed in his mother,

with a mocking chuckle.

“I meant the whole thing,” pursued Ponce. “The only chance one has is to

go straight through like a letter in the post, from one place to another,

and stick there, and not go posting about from place to place, as we did

in Rome, now. That is a pleasant place to go to. I bet anything you’d

enjoy Rome awfully; everybody does; and now they’ve got good hotels, and

you can get as good a dinner as any fellow need care to eat. Only you

would not like the popish ways of the place. That’s the deuce of it, you

can’t get out of the way of that sort of thing; it’s in the air, you see;

but one grows used to it after a while, as one does to the bad smells.”

“I should not suffer from that. I am a Catholic,” said Franceline, her

color rising slightly.

“Oh, indeed! I beg your pardon; I had no idea; of course that makes all

the difference,” stammered the hussar, mentally comparing himself to

Patrick, who could never open his mouth without putting his foot in it.

Lady Anwyll had now despatched her dinner, or as much of the long meal as

she ever partook of. Feeling that the conversation was not progressing

very favorably between her son and her guest, she took the reins in her

own hand, and by dint of direct questions and an occasional touch of the

spur she managed to make time trot on in a straggling but on the whole

amusing style of talk, half narrative, half anecdote, until dinner was

ended, and she and Franceline migrated to the drawing-room, leaving the

captain to discuss the claret in solitary state.

* * * * *

The next morning at breakfast Lady Anwyll proposed that the two young

people should go for a ride after lunch. Franceline demurred, on the

plea that she had never ridden but one horse and was afraid to trust

herself on any other. The captain, however, settled this difficulty,

by volunteering to send a man over to Dullerton for Rosebud. She would

come at an easy pace, and after an hour’s rest be ready for the road.

On seeing the point so satisfactorily arranged, Franceline immediately

dismissed her terrors, and thought it would be rather desirable to try

how she could manage on a strange horse. She could not plead that she

had forgotten her riding habit, for Angélique had remembered it, as well

as the hat and gloves and whip, all of which had been packed up with her

other clothes.

The weather was fine, a bright sun beamed from a stainless sky; the furze

on the common was yellow enough still to illuminate the flat expanse of

the country round Rydal, and as Franceline dashed through the golden

bushes on her spirited steed, her youth vindicated itself, the young

blood coursed joyously through her veins, her spirits rose, and soon

the exercise that she begun reluctantly became one of keen enjoyment.

Capt. Anwyll was not a very interesting companion, but he was natural

and good-natured, and anxious to please; he knew now what ground he was

treading, too, and made no more blunders, but chatted on without shyness

or effort, and was pleasant enough.

“Roxham is coming to dinner. You know Roxham? A capital fellow; a dead

shot; a clever fellow too; goes in strong for politics and philanthropy

and so forth. He’ll be in the ministry one of these days I dare say, and

setting the country by the ears with his reform crochets, and that sort

of thing: his head is full of them.”

“Not a bad sort of furniture either. Why don’t you follow his example?”

demanded Franceline.

“Me! How satirical you are! That’s not my line at all. I don’t go in for

politics--only for soldiering, if there were any to do. They set me up as

liberal candidate for the last elections, but when I found it was not to

be a walk-over, and that I was to contest it, I backed out. My mother was

dreadfully savage. But bless her! she does not understand it a bit. I’m

no hand at making speeches and addressing constituents. Now, Roxham can

hold forth by the hour to a mob, or to any set of fellows; it’s wonderful

to see how he spins out the palaver--and first-rate palaver it is, I can

tell you. You should hear him on the hustings! We’ll make him describe a

great row he and the liberal candidate had at the last elections, when

Roxham beat him out of the field in grand style; he was no match for

Roxham anyhow, and besides he had a stutter, and when he was in a passion

he couldn’t get a word out without stamping like a vicious horse. It’s

great fun to hear Roxham tell it; we’ll make him do so this evening. It

will amuse you.”

Franceline laughed. The name of Lord Roxham and the mention of his

electioneering feats recalled a scene that was seldom absent from her

memory now. Every trifling detail of that scene rose vividly before her

as she listened to Captain Anwyll. Would he never allude to one figure

in it that overshadowed every other? If she could but lead him to speak

of Clide! Perhaps he could tell her something of his present movements;

throw some light on her perplexity.

“Lord Roxham has a very handsome cousin, Lady Emily Fitznorman; do you

know her?” she asked, carelessly.

“Yes. A very nice girl as well as handsome.”

“I wonder she’s not married already.”

“You think she’s on the wane! Wait a while; you won’t think

three-and-twenty so antique by and by.”

“I did not mean that; I thought she was about my own age,” protested

Franceline with vivacity; “but when one is so much admired as Lady Emily

seemed to be that night at Dullerton, one wonders she is not carried off

by some devoted admirer.”

“Then you noticed that she had a great many? Would it be unfair to ask a

few names?”

“Mr. de Winton for one seemed very devoted.”

“De Winton! Humph! Who else?”

“Why do you say ‘humph’? Is there reason why he should not be amongst the

number?”

“Rather--that is to say perhaps--in fact, thereby hangs a tale.” His face

wore a quizzical expression as he spoke.

“What tale?” She looked round with a quick, curious glance.

“Oh! it’s not fair to tell tales out of school, is it?”

“Certainly not; I had no idea there was a secret in the way,” said

Franceline, bridling.

Ponsonby was not gifted with the knack of calm irrelevance; instead of

dropping the subject and turning to something else, he resumed presently:

“De Winton is a capital shot too--better than Roxham; I went boar-hunting

with him in Germany three years ago, and then black-cock shooting in

Prussia, and I never knew him to miss his aim once.”

“He will come home laden with bears this time no doubt,” she remarked

with affected coolness.

“Bears! not he. He has other game to follow now. Are you up to taking

that fence, or shall we go round by the bridle-path? It makes it a good

bit longer?”

“I don’t care to take the fence. Let us go round.”

She put her horse at a canter, and they scarcely spoke again until they

reached Rydal.

Lady Anwyll’s voice sounded from the drawing-room, summoning her to

come in before going upstairs, but Franceline did not heed it. She went

straight to her room; she must have a few moments alone; she could not

talk or listen just now. While she was flying through the air, it seemed

as if motion suspended thought, and kept her poised above the mental

whirlwind that Capt. Anwyll’s words had evoked; but once standing with

the ground firm under her feet, thought resumed its power, and shook

off the temporary torpor. She closed her door, and proceeded quietly to

take off her habit. As she did so a voice kept repeating distinctly in

her ears, “He has other game to follow now!” What did it, could it mean?

Why, since he had said so much, could he not in mercy have said something

more? But what did Capt. Anwyll know about mercy in the matter? What

was Mr. de Winton to her in his eyes? Nothing, thank heaven! Nor in any

one else’s. It was from mystery to mystery; she could make nothing out

of it. One fact alone grew clearer and clearer to her amidst the dim

chaos--Clide de Winton was the loadstar that was drawing her thoughts,

her longings, her life after him wherever he was. Everything else was

vague and undefined. She could not blame any one; she could not grieve or

lament; she could only lose herself in torturing conjecture. It wanted

more than an hour to dinner-time. Franceline had not the courage to spend

it in the drawing-room, where she would be the object of Lady Anwyll’s

motherly petting, and Ponsonby’s flat gossip; she must have the interval

to school herself for the effort that was before her for the rest of the

evening. There were steps on the landing; she opened her door; one of the

maids was passing.

“Please tell her ladyship that I am a little tired, and shall lie down

for half an hour before I dress.” The servant took the message.

Franceline did not lie down, however; she seated herself before the

window, and thought. The exercise was not soothing, but it was a respite;

and when she made her appearance in the drawing-room, there was so little

trace of fatigue about her that Lady Anwyll rallied her good-naturedly on

the cruelty of having stayed away under false pretences.

Lord Roxham met her with the frankness of an old acquaintance, and

had many pretty speeches to make about their last meeting. Franceline

responded with sprightly grace, and hoped he had come prepared to

complete her education in parliamentary matters. The evening passed off

gaily. Lord Roxham was a fluent if not a brilliant talker, and under the

animating influence of his lively rattle, Franceline’s spirits rose,

and her hosts, who had hitherto seen her rather willing to be amused

than amusing, were surprised to see with what graceful spirit she kept

the ball going, bandying light repartee with Lord Roxham, and pricking

Ponsonby into joining in the game with a liveliness that astonished him

and enchanted his mother. The dowager chuckled inwardly, and applauded

herself on the success of her little matrimonial scheme; she already saw

Franceline a peeress, and happily settled as a near neighbor of her own.

None of the party were musical, but they did not miss this delightful

element of sociability, so unflagging was the flow of talk and anecdote;

and when Lord Roxham started up at eleven o’clock to ring for his horse,

every one protested he must have heard the clock strike one too many.

“Come and lunch to-morrow, and join these two in their ride,” said Lady

Anwyll, as she shook hands with him.

“Am I going to ride home?” inquired Franceline, surprised.

“Certainly not! Nor drive either. You don’t suppose I’m going to let you

off with one day’s penance?”

“O dear Lady Anwyll! papa will expect me to-morrow, and he will be uneasy

if he does not see me; I assure you he will,” pleaded Franceline.

“I can remove that obstacle,” said Lord Roxham promptly. “I must ride

over to Dullerton early to-morrow morning, and I can have the honor of

calling at M. de la Bourbonais’, and setting his mind at rest about you.”

“The very thing!” cried Lady Anwyll, shutting up Franceline, who had an

excuse ready; “you can call at The Lilies on your way back, and tell the

count he is to expect this young lady when he sees her.”

Luckily Franceline was ignorant of the juxtaposition of the various seats

round Dullerton, or it might have struck her as odd that Lady Anwyll

should propose the messenger’s going a round of fifteen miles to call at

The Lilies “on his way back.” But she suspected nothing, and when Lord

Roxham alighted at Rydal next day punctually as the clock struck two P.M.

she greeted him with unabashed cordiality, and was all eagerness to know

if he had seen her father, and what the latter had said.

She had slept restlessly, but she had slept; her anxiety had not as yet

the sting in it that destroys sleep. She did not fail to notice with

renewed wonder that Lord Roxham had studiously avoided mentioning Mr.

de Winton’s name. Studiously it must have been; for what more natural

than to have mentioned him when discussing the fairy _festa_ where they

had first met? She felt certain there must be a motive for so palpable a

reticence, and the thought did not tend to reassure her. She had dressed

herself before luncheon, so when the horses came round, they mounted at

once. Franceline, on starting, had mentally resolved to make Lord Roxham

speak on the subject that was uppermost in her mind--to put a direct

question in fact, if everything else failed--but, strive as she might, he

would not be lured into the trap, and her courage sank so much on seeing

this that she dared not venture on a direct interrogation.

They stayed out until near sundown; the day was breezy and bright, and

Franceline looked radiant with the excitement and exercise.

“Let us ride up to the knoll and see the sun go down behind the common,”

proposed Capt. Anwyll, as they were about to pass the park gate; “the

sunset is the only thing we have worth showing at Rydal, and I’d like

Mlle. de la Bourbonais to see it.”

His companions gladly assented, and the party turned off the road into

a bridle-path across the fields which led to the elevation commanding

an unbroken view of the spectacle. It seemed as if everything had been

purposely cleared away from the landscape that could divert attention

for an instant from the glorious pageant of the western skies. Not a

house was visible, and scarcely a habitation; the cottages were hid in

the flanks of the valley, and only reminded you of their existence by a

thin vapor that curled up from a solitary chimney and quickly lost itself

in the trees. Nothing gave any sign of life but the sheep browsing on the

gilded emerald of the shorn meadows. The red and gold waves flooded the

vast expanse of the horizon, flowing further and higher as the spectators

gazed, until half heaven was on fire with a conflagration of rainbows.

Swiftly the colors changed, crimson and orange first, then deep and

tender shades of purple and green, until all melted into uniform violet,

the herald of the gathering darkness. They stood watching it in silence,

Franceline with bated breath. The sunset always had a solemn charm for

her, and she had never seen so vast and gorgeous a one as this. It was

like watching the dying throes of a divinity.

“The play is over, the audience may retire!” said Ponsonby, breaking the

pause; even he had been subdued by the sublimity of the scene.

“If I were a pagan I should be a fire-worshipper,” said Franceline, as

they moved away. “I think the worship of the sun is the most natural as

well as the most poetic of all forms of idolatry.”

“That’s just what De Winton said the first time he saw the sun set from

here!” exclaimed Capt. Anwyll triumphantly; “how comical that you should

have hit on the very same idea! He said, by the way, that it was the

finest sunset he had ever seen in England; it’s so wide and low, you

see; he showed me a sketch he made of a sunset somewhere in the Vosges

that he said it reminded him of. I forget the name of the valley; but it

was uncommonly like; do you know the Vosges?”

“No; I have never been to that part of France.”

Lord Roxham glanced at her as she said this in a clear, low voice. He

saw nothing in her countenance that afforded a clew to whatever he was

looking for.

It had grown chilly now that the sun had set, and they had been standing

several minutes on the knoll. Of one accord the three riders broke into

a gallop as they entered the park, and dashed along between the pollard

Wellingtonias, standing stiff and stark as tumuli on either side of the

long avenue.

Lady Anwyll had gone to visit some poor sick woman in the neighborhood,

and had not yet returned. The gentlemen went round to the stables, and

Franceline to her room. She dressed herself quickly, wrote a short letter

to her father according to her promise of writing to him every day during

her absence, and then threw the window wide open and sat down beside it.

It was fresh enough, and she wore only her muslin dress, but she did not

feel the freshness of the air--she was too excited to be conscious of any

external influence of the kind. She sat as motionless as a statue, gazing

abstractedly over the empurpled sky where the moon appeared like a shred

of white cloud. She had not sat there long when the fragrant fumes of a

cigar came floating in through her window, followed soon by a sound of

footsteps and voices. Ponsonby and his guest were coming in. Franceline

did not close the window or move away, though the voices were now

audible; the speakers had not entered the house; they were walking under

the veranda that ran round the front. What matter? They were not likely

to be talking secrets; she was welcome to listen, no doubt, to whatever

they might have to say.

“There is the carriage coming,” said Ponsonby; “my mother is out too late

with her rheumatism; I’ll pitch into her for it.”

“Yes; it doesn’t do to stay out after sunset when one has any chronic

ailment of that sort. By the way, you mentioned De Winton just now; have

you heard of him lately?”

“No; not since he left Berlin. It seems he was very near kicking the

bucket there; he was awfully bad, and nobody with him but his man

Stanton.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“Through Parker, a fellow in our regiment whose brother is _attaché_ at

Berlin; the story made a sensation there, but no one knew of it until De

Winton had left.”

The speakers passed on to the end of the veranda, and Franceline could

catch nothing more until they drew near again. Lord Roxham was speaking.

“Poor fellow! It’s tremendously hard on him, and I believe there is no

redress; nothing to make out a case for divorce.”

“I fancy not; but even if there were it would not be available, since

he’s a Romanist.”

“Ah! to be sure; I forgot that; but what a mystification the whole

business is! I’ve known De Winton since we were both boys--we were Eton

chums, you know--but he never breathed a word of it to me. Yet he’s not a

close fellow; quite the contrary. And who the deuce is the woman? Where

did he come across her?”

They passed out of hearing again, and when they returned the tramping of

horses and the crunching of wheels overtopped their voices. The sounds

all died away; Lady Anwyll had come in, and gone to her room--every

one was waiting in the drawing-room, but Franceline did not appear.

Her hostess, thinking she had not heard the dinner-bell, sent for her.

Presently the maid came rushing down the stairs and into the forbidden

precincts of the drawing-room with a scared face.

“Please, my lady, she’s in a dead faint! I found her all in a heap on the

floor, ready dressed. I lifted her on to the bed, but she don’t move!”

An exclamation burst simultaneously from the three listeners. In a moment

they were all in Franceline’s room; there she lay stretched on the bed,

as the woman had said, white and still as death, one hand hanging, and

her hair, that had been loosened in the fall, dropping on her shoulder.

The usual restoratives were applied, and in about a quarter of an hour

she gave signs of awakening--the veined lids quivered, the mouth twitched

convulsively, and a short sigh escaped her. Lady Anwyll signed to her

son and Lord Roxham to withdraw; they had scarcely left the room when

Franceline opened her eyes and stared about her with the blank gaze

of returning consciousness. She swallowed some wine at Lady Anwyll’s

request, but soon put the glass away with a gesture of disgust. In answer

to her hostess’ anxious entreaties to say where she suffered, and why she

had swooned, the young girl could only say she had felt tired and weary,

and that she longed to be left alone and go to sleep. Lady Anwyll agreed

that sleep would be the best restorative, and insisted on staying till

she saw her settled in bed; then she kissed her, and promising to come

soon and see if she was asleep, she left the room with a noiseless step.

“What is it? Is there anything much amiss, mother?” was the captain’s

exclamation. Lord Roxham was equally concerned.

“Nothing, except you have nearly killed her, both of you. You have ridden

the child to death; she is not accustomed to it, and she has overdone

herself; but she will be all right I hope in the morning. There’s nothing

the matter but fatigue, she assures me.”

Ponsonby rated himself soundly for being such a brute as to have let

her tire herself; he ought to have remembered that she was done up the

day before after a much shorter ride. He was awfully sorry. His remorse

was no doubt quite genuine, but when they sat down to dinner he proved

to demonstration that that feeling is compatible with an unimpaired

appetite. Lady Anwyll left them before they had finished to see how

Franceline was going on; she found her awake, but quite well, and going

to sleep very soon, she assured the kind old lady.

“Then, my dear child, I will not have you disturbed again; if you wake

and want anything, strike this gong, and Trinner will come at once. I

will make her sleep in the room next yours to-night.”

Franceline protested, but the dowager silenced her with a kiss; put out

the light, and left her.

She lay very still, but there was no chance of sleep for her. Sleep had

fled from her eyes as peace had fled from her heart. She longed to get

up, and find relief from the intolerable strain of immobility, but she

dared not; her room was over a part of the drawing-room, and she might

be heard. The evening seemed to drag on with preternatural slowness. She

could hear the low hum of voices through the ceiling. Once there was a

clatter of porcelain--probably Ponce overturning the tea-tray. At last

the stable-clock struck eleven; there was opening and shutting of doors

for a while, and then silence. Franceline sat up and listened until not a

sound was anywhere to be heard. Every soul in the house had gone to bed.

Trinner had come last of all to her room. The star made by her candle

gleamed through the key-hole for a long time; at last it disappeared,

and soon the loud, regular breathing told that she was fast asleep.

Franceline rose, threw her dressing-wrapper round her, and drew back the

curtain from the window. It was a relief to let the night-lights in upon

her solitude; the glorious gaze of the moon seemed to chase away phantoms

with the darkness. She felt awake now. All this time, lying there in the

utter darkness, it seemed as if she were still in a swoon, or held in the

grip of a nightmare; she shook herself free from the benumbing clutch,

and sat down close by the window, and tried to collect her thoughts.

There was one phantom which the moonlight could not dispel; it stood out

now distinctly as she looked at it with revived consciousness. Clide

de Winton was a married man. It was to the husband of another that she

had given her heart with its first pure vintage of impassioned love.

He who had looked at her with those ardent eyes, penetrating her soul

like flame, had all along been another woman’s husband. There was no

more room for hope, even for doubt; suspense was at an end; the period

of dark conjecture was gone. It was clear enough, all that had been so

inexplicable,--clear as when the lightning flashes out of a lurid sky,

and illuminates the scene of an earthquake; a sea lashed to fury by winds

that have lost their current, ships sinking in billows that break before

they heave, the land gaping and groaning, trees uprooted, habitations

falling with a crash of thunder, all live things clinging and flying in

wild disorder. Franceline considered it all as she sat, still and white

as a stone, without missing a single detail in the scene.

Violent demonstration was not in her nature. In pain or in joy it was

her habit to be self-contained. She had as yet been called upon but

for very slight trials of strength and self-control; but such as the

experience was it had left behind it an innate though unconscious sense

of power that rose instinctively to her aid now. She had fainted away

under the first shock of the discovery; but that tribute of weakness paid

to nature, she would yield no more. Tears might come later; but now she

would not indulge in them. She must face the worst without flinching.

What was the worst? Clide was a married man. That was bad enough in all

conscience; yet there might be worse behind. Circumstances might cast a

blacker dye even on this. Lord Roxham had spoken in a tone of sympathy:

“Poor fellow! It’s tremendously hard on him.…” He would have spoken

differently if there were any villany in question. But if Lord Roxham

had not thus indirectly acquitted him, Franceline would have done so

spontaneously. Yes, even in the first moment of despair, while the flood

was sweeping over her, she acquitted him. He had dragged her down into

unsounded depths of agony and shame, but he had not done it deliberately;

he was neither a liar nor a traitor. Had he not been brought to the jaws

of death himself only a month ago? There was an indescribable comfort

in the pang those words had inflicted. He too, then, was suffering;

they were both victims. Clide had never meant to deceive her; she would

have sworn it on the altar of her unshaken faith in him; she wanted

no stronger evidence than the promptings of her own heart. She was

confident there would be some adequate explanation of whatever now seemed

ambiguous, when she should have learned all. No; she need not separate

the attribute of truth and honor from his image; she could no more do

it than she could separate the idea of light from the pure maiden moon

that was looking down on her from heaven; she would see darkness in light

before she would believe Clide de Winton false.

This irrepressible need of her heart once satisfied--Clide judged and

acquitted--what then? Granted that he was innocent as yonder stars, how

did it affect her? What did it signify to her henceforth whether he was

innocent or guilty, true or false? He was the husband of another woman;

as good as dead to Franceline de la Bourbonais; parted from her by a more

impassable barrier than death. If he were only dead she might love him

still, hold him enshrined in her heart’s core with a clasp that death

could not sever--only strengthen. But he was worse than dead; he was

married. She must banish him even from her thoughts; his memory must

henceforth be as far from her as the thought of murder, or any other

crime that her crystal conscience shuddered even to name. She might

acquit him, crown him with the noblest attributes of manhood; but that

done, she must dismiss him from her remembrance, and forget him as if he

had never lived.

Franceline had remained seated, her hands locked passively in her lap,

while these thoughts shaped themselves in her mind. When they reached the

climax, expressed in these words: “I must forget him as if he had never

lived!” she rose to her feet, clasped her forehead in both hands, and an

inarticulate cry broke from her: “It would be easier to die!… If I had

anything to forgive, that would help me! But I have nothing to forgive!”

It would not have helped her, though she fancied so; it would have turned

the bitterness of the cup into poison. But she could not realize this

now. It seemed harder to renounce what was good and beautiful than to

cast away what was unworthy. If the idol had uttered one false oracle,

demanded anything base, betrayed itself before betraying her, it would

have been easier, she thought, to overturn it. Indignation would have

nerved her to the deed, and she would have dealt the blow without

compunction. But it had done nothing to forfeit her love and trust, and

nevertheless she must dash it down and cast the fragments into the fire,

and not preserve even the dust as a precious thing. What a merciful doom

his death would have been compared to this!

How was she to do it? Who would help her to so ruthless a demolition?

Did any one speak in the silence, or was it only the unspoken cry of

her own soul that answered? She had fancied herself alone; she had

forgotten that a Presence was close to her, waiting to be invoked,

patient, faithful, and protecting even while forgotten. The voice

sounded sweet in its warning solemnity, and filled the lonely chamber

with a more benign ray than ever shone from midnight sky or blazing

noon. Franceline stretched out her arms to meet it, and with a loud

sob fell upon her knees. “O my God! forgive me! Forgive me, and help

me! I have sinned, but my punishment is greater than I can bear!” The

floodgates were thrown back; the tears fell in hot showers, the sobs

shook her as the storm shakes the sapling. She knelt there crouching in

the darkness, her head leaning on her folded arms, and gave herself up

to the passionate outburst, like a child weeping itself to sleep on its

mother’s breast. But this could not last. It was only a truce. The real

battle, the decisive one, had only now begun; what had gone before were

but the preliminaries. Hitherto she had thought only of her grief and

humiliation; she was now brought face to face with her sin--the sin of

idolatry. She had made unto herself an idol of clay, and placed it on the

altar of her heart, and burned incense before it with every breath she

drew; the smoke had made a mist before her eyes, but it was dissolving.

She looked into the desecrated sanctuary, and struck her breast with

humility and self-abasement. Her tears were flowing copiously, but they

were not all brine; she was drawing strength from their bitterness.

Victory was not for “the days of peace,” but for such an hour as this.

She had been trained from childhood in the hope of heaven, in the firm

belief that this life was but the transitory passage to the true home;

that its sorrows and joys were too evanescent, too unreal to be counted

of more importance than the rain and wind that scatter the sunshine of a

summer’s day; she had been taught, too, that the bliss of that immortal

home is purchased by suffering--a thing to be taken by violence, a crown

to be grasped through thorns. Hitherto her adherence to this creed had

been entirely theoretical; she accepted it, but in some vague way felt

that she, personally, was beyond its action. Her father had suffered; her

mother, too, cut off in her happy bloom, had won the crown by a lingering

illness and an early death; but she, Franceline, enjoyed, it would seem,

some privileged immunity from the stern law. Such had unawares been her

reasoning. But now she was undeceived; her hour had come, and she must

meet it as a Christian. Now was the time to prove the sincerity of her

faith, the strength of her principles; if they failed her, they were no

better than stubble and brass that dissolve at the first breath of the

furnace.

A duel to the death is always brief: the foes close in mortal conflict;

the thrusts come fast and sharp; one or other falls. When Franceline

lifted her head from her arms, the expression of the tear-stained face

showed which way the battle had gone: the victor stood erect with his

foot upon the victim’s neck, unscathed, serene, and pitiless. Love lay

bleeding and maimed, but Conscience smiled in triumph. “I will not let

thee go until thou hast blessed me,” the wrestler had said, and the

angel had blessed her before he fled.

The night was nearly spent when Franceline rose up from her knees, numbed

and shivering, although the weather was not cold. She walked rapidly up

and down for a few moments to warm herself; there was a spring in her

step, a light in her eyes, that told of recovered energy and unshaken

purpose; her nerves might tingle, her heart might grieve, but they would

neither faint nor quail. She dropped on her knees again for one moment

and uttered a prayer, more of thanksgiving this time than supplication,

and then lay down and soon fell asleep.

* * * * *

When Franceline came down next morning, after breakfasting in her room

as if she had been ailing, there was scarcely any trace in her aspect

of the conflict of the night. Eyes do not retain the stains of tears

very long at eighteen, and if she was a trifle paler than usual, it was

accounted for by the over-exertion which had brought the fainting fit.

She expressed a wish to go home as early as was convenient to her hosts,

and they consented with reluctance, but without offering any resistance.

Lady Anwyll said the child was weary and dull, and that the next time she

came to Rydal they should make it livelier for her.

With what a feeling of regaining a haven of rest did Franceline enter

the little garden at The Lilies, where her father, warned by the sound

of the wheels, hastened out and stood waiting to clasp her!--Angélique

graciously letting him have the first kiss, before she claimed her turn.

“We have been like fishes out of water without thee!--have we not, ma

bonne?” was Raymond’s joyful exclamation, as he gathered his child to

his heart, and then held her from him to look wistfully into the sweet,

smiling face.

“Yes, we were dull enough without our singing bird, though I dare say she

didn’t miss us much!” was Angélique’s rejoinder. Franceline declared she

would go away very soon again to teach them to value her more.

But the singing bird was not the same after this. The spirit that had

found utterance in its joyous voice was dead. A lark rises from the

clover-field, and pours out its sweet, “harmonious madness” over the

earth; swiftly it soars away--away--into fathomless space, and while,

spell-bound, we strain after the fading notes, lo! the sportsman’s arrow

hisses by, a cry rends the welkin, the songster is struck--he will never

sing again.

Perhaps you despise Franceline for allowing the loss of an imaginary

possession to put the light out of her life in this way. As if our

lives were not made desolate half the time by the loss of what we never

had! You will say that self-respect and pride ought to have come to her

aid, and enabled her to quench in blood, if needs be, the fire that her

conscience pronounced guilty. But is the process so quickly accomplished,

think you? Franceline was doing her best; she was concentrating all the

energies of her mind and soul in the struggle, but it was not to be done

in a day; the very purity of her love constituted its strength. If there

had been the smallest element of corruption in it, it would have died

quicker; but its fibres were enduring because they were pure.

Yet she was not forgetful of her father and of all that he had hitherto

been to her, and she to him; far from it. The effort to conceal her

sufferings from him was a great help to her in controlling them, though

it often taxed her strength severely. Sometimes, when the feeling of

isolation pressed on her almost beyond endurance, when she felt that she

must have the solace of his sympathy, cost what it might, she would steal

into his study, determined to speak and let the murder out; but the sight

of the venerable head bowed over his books, absorbed, and happy in his

unconsciousness, would arrest her words and choke them back into silence.

The strain was hard, but was it not a mercy that she had as yet only

her own burden to bear? What a price would she not have to pay for the

momentary relief of leaning it on him! What might not be dreaded from the

effect of the revelation on his sensitive pride, and still more sensitive

love? And then the inevitable breach between him and his oldest, almost

his only friend, Sir Simon! They would leave The Lilies and go forth she

knew not where. No; silence indubitably was best. To speak might be to

kill her father.

This state of things lasted for a week, and then there was granted an

alleviation. Father Henwick had been called to a distance to see his

mother, who was dying; he arrived in time to assist her with his filial

ministry in the last passage; remained to settle all that followed, and

then came back to resume the even tenor of his life at Dullerton.

Father Henwick was one of those men whom you may know for a lifetime,

and never find out until some special circumstance reveals them. There

was no sign in his outward man of anything remarkable in the inner man.

He had not acquired, or at any rate retained, any French polish or grace

from his early sojourn at the French seminary. His manners were very

homely, and abrupt almost to brusqueness; he was neither tall nor small,

but of that height which steers between the two, and so escapes notice;

his voice had the unmistakable ring of refinement and early education,

yet he seldom associated with his equals, his intercourse being confined

chiefly to the poor. These and their children were his familiars at

Dullerton. The latter looked on him as their especial property, and took

all manner of liberties with him unrebuked--hanging on to his coat-tails,

and plunging their audacious little paws into the sacred precincts of

his pockets, whence experience had taught them something might turn up

to their advantage: penny whistles, Dutch dolls, buns, lollypops, and

crackers were continually issuing from those mysterious depths which the

small fry sounded behind Father Henwick’s back, and apparently unbeknown

to him, while he administered comfort of another description to their

elders.

The fact of his having been educated in France, and speaking French like

a Frenchman, accounted to the general mind of Dullerton for the eccentric

habits and unconventional manners of the Catholic priest, especially for

his shyness with his own class, and undue familiarity with those in the

humbler ranks. It ought to have established him on the footing of close

intimacy at The Lilies; and yet it had not done so. M. de le Bourbonais

professed and felt the greatest esteem for him, and made him welcome in

his gracious way; but Father Henwick was too shrewd an observer of human

nature not to see exactly how far this was meant to go. Franceline’s

early instruction had been confided to him, and the remembrance of the

pains he had taken with the little catechumen, the fondness with which

he had planted and fostered the good seed in her heart, made a claim

on Raymond’s gratitude; but it did not remove an intangible barrier

between the father in the flesh and the father in the spirit. M. de la

Bourbonais was a Catholic; if anybody had dared to impugn by one word the

stanchness of his Catholicity, he would have felt it his painful duty to

run that person through the body; but, as with so many of his countrymen,

his faith ended here; it was altogether theoretical; he was ready at a

moment’s notice to fight or die for it; but it did not enter into his

views to live for it. For Franceline, however, it was a different thing.

Religion was made for women, and women for religion. With that tender

reverence for his child’s faith, which in France is so often the last

bulwark of the father’s, Raymond had been at considerable pains to hide

from Franceline the inconsistency that existed between his own practice

and teaching. When the great event was approaching which, in the life of

a French child especially, is surrounded by such touching solemnity, he

made it his delight to assist Father Henwick in preparing her for it,

making her rehearse his instructions between times, or teaching her the

catechism himself. Then, to anticipate awkward questions and impossible

explanations, he made a point of rising early on Sundays and festivals

and going to first Mass before Franceline was out of bed. The habit once

contracted, he continued it; so it came about naturally that she took

for granted her father did at a different hour what he attached so much

importance to her doing. In conversation with Father Henwick she had more

than once incidentally let this belief transpire; but he was not the one

to undeceive her, or tear away the veil that parental sensitiveness had

drawn between itself and those childlike eyes. Neither was he one to

broach the subject indiscreetly to M. de la Bourbonais. A day might come

for speaking; meanwhile he was content to be silent and to wait.

The day Father Henwick returned to Dullerton after his mother’s funeral,

his confessional was surrounded by a greater crowd than usual; his

parishioners had a whole week’s arrears of troubles and questions,

spiritual and temporal, to settle with him, and it was late when he

was able to speak to Franceline. The conference was a long one; by the

time it was over the church was nearly empty; only a few figures were

still kneeling in the shadows as the young girl, coming out through

a side-door, walked through the graves with a quick, light step and

proceeded homewards. Tears were falling under her veil, and a sob every

now and then showed that the source was still full to overflowing; but

her heart was lighter than it had been for many days, her will was

strengthened and her purpose fixed. She was bent on being courageous, on

walking forward bravely and never looking back. She blessed God for the

comfort she had received and the strength that had been imparted to her.

Oh! she was glad now that she had resisted the first impulse to speak to

her father, and had been silent.

That evening M. de la Bourbonais and Angélique remarked how cheerful she

was. She stayed up later than usual reading to Raymond, and commenting

spiritedly on what she read; then bade him good-night with almost a

rejoicing heart, and slept soundly until long past daybreak.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A VISIT TO IRELAND IN 1874.

“Yes,” said Mr. Bernard at the close of a long discussion, “it _is_ quite

marvellous how little Englishmen know about Ireland! And their prejudices

are the necessary consequence of such ignorance! I wish they could be

_made_ to travel there more!”

No one, perhaps, more heartily agreed with him than I did, taught by my

experiences of last autumn, which occurred in the following manner.

I had been sometime absent from that country, a resident in London,

when I unexpectedly received a pressing invitation last September,

from a friend living in the County Westmeath, to cross St. George’s

Channel and pay her my long-promised visit. “Westmeath!” exclaimed my

London circle--“Westmeath! You must not dream of it! You’ll be shot, my

dear!” said one old lady. “Taken up by the police!” said another. “It’s

ridiculous, absurd!” cried a third. “Remember the Peace-Preservation

Act and all that implies--murders, Fenians, Ribbonmen, police! Don’t

risk your precious life amongst them, or we shall never lay eyes upon

you again!” And they all looked as solemn as if they had received an

invitation to attend my Requiem, and were meditating what flowers to

choose for the wreaths each meant to lay upon my coffin.

Nothing, however, made me hesitate. Go I would, in defiance of all their

remonstrances; for, I argued, if my friend, who herself owned land in

Westmeath, could live there and see no impropriety in asking me, as a

matter of course I should run no risk in accepting her invitation. At

length, finding me obstinate, my cousin, Harry West, came forward, and,

volunteering to escort me, promised my relatives that he would judge for

himself, and if he saw danger would insist on my returning with him. He

was a middle-aged man, land agent of an estate in Buckinghamshire--one

of the most peaceful counties in the United Kingdom--had never set

foot in Ireland, but, having been studying the Irish question--as he

thought--and poring over the debates on this same Peace-Preservation Act

last session, held even gloomier views concerning Ireland than any of my

other numerous acquaintances. In consequence, I looked upon this as the

most self-sacrificing act of friendship he could possibly offer. At the

same time, I accepted it.

Accordingly, we started by the night mail which leaves Euston Square at

twenty-five minutes past eight P.M.

For the first two hours I was haunted, I confess, by the dread of the

Scotch limited mail running into us, as I knew it was to leave the same

spot only five minutes later; and both trains being express, if any hitch

should occur to us between the stations, we might “telescope” each other

without any means of preventing it. At least, so it seemed to my ignorant

mind. Harry fortunately knew nothing of this; but his thoughts were

none the less running upon danger, remembering some terrible accidents

to this same Irish mail--notably the one some four years ago, when Lord

and Lady Farnham, Judge Berwick and his sister, and others we knew, were

reduced to a heap of ashes in a few minutes by an explosion of petroleum

which caught fire in a collision. Luckily, Harry fell asleep on quitting

Chester, and never noticed the fatal spot, nor awoke until we drew up at

five minutes past three A.M. alongside the mail packet _Leinster_ some

way out on the pier at Holyhead.

The night was fine, the sea calm, the passengers tired; so every one

slept tranquilly until the stewardess, rushing into the ladies’ cabin,

announced that we had passed the Kish light some time, and should be “in”

in half an hour.

Without conveying any meaning to an English lady close by, the word

quickly roused me; for it was full of memories--sad, yet happy. Many

and many an evening, when living once on the Wicklow shore, had I

sat watching on the far horizon the sparkling light which marked the

well-known light-ship nine miles off the Irish coast. Of a summer’s night

it shone like a twinkling star, suggestive of cool, refreshing breezes

far away upon the calm waters, when perchance a hot breeze hung heavily

over the land; but in winter the simple knowledge of its existence, with

two men living there on board in a solitude that was broken only once a

month, while the winds and waves raged fiercely around the ship, often

haunted my dreams and made the stormy nights doubly dreary all along the

Wicklow sea-board.

“The Kish light! Has not that a delightful, pleasant home sound?” said a

middle-aged woman near, looking at me as if she had divined my thoughts.

“And these boats--there are no others to be compared to them! The English

have no excuse for not coming to Ireland,” she continued, “with vessels

of this kind, that are like true floating bridges, so steady, swift, and

large. Who could be ill in them? No one!”

I was puzzled to think who she could be; for though the face was not

unfamiliar, I could give it no name. It was that of a lady, certainly,

with a bright, intelligent, happy expression; but I saw that her garb was

coarse as she bent and rummaged for something in her bag. In a moment,

however, the mystery was solved by her lightly throwing a snow-white

piece of linen over her head, which, as if by magic, took the form of the

cornet of a Sister of S. Vincent de Paul.

“Sister Mary!” I exclaimed, “whom I knew at Constantinople!”

“The same,” she answered. “I thought I knew you!” And shaking hands

cordially, we sat down to talk over the past.

She was a native of Ireland--her accent alone betrayed her, though she

had not seen her native land for years--and I had known her in the East,

after which she had been to Algiers and various other parts. Now, to her

great joy, she had been ordered for a while to one of the convents of

the order in Dublin--a joy which, though she tried, nun-like, to subdue

it, burst forth uncontrollably the nearer we approached the land. Coming

with me on deck to watch our entrance into Kingstown Harbor, the first

person we met was Harry West, who eyed my companion with amazement; for

he had never seen a Sister of Charity in living form before, though he

entertained that sort of romantic admiration for them which the most

rigid Protestants often accord to this order, though they deny it to

every other. Turning round again, my surprise was great at encountering

the Bishop--the _Catholic_ Bishop--of ----shire, on his way to the

consecration of a church in the far west of Ireland. “Quelle heureuse

rencontre!” said his lordship playfully; for we were very old friends.

“You see I am attracted also to the _dear_ old country! You smile,” he

continued, noticing my amused expression as I introduced Harry to him.

“Oh! yes, I know I am a Saxon, _pur sang_. But we English bishops and

priests always feel as if we were at home the instant we put our foot

on shore in the Green Isle. There’s Kingstown and its church, where I

shall go to say Mass the moment we land. Watch, now!” he added, as we

drew up alongside the jetty; “you’ll see how civil the men will be the

instant they perceive I am a bishop.” As he spoke a porter rushed by, and

an impulse seized me to give him a hint to this effect. At once the man

knelt down, in all his hurry, “for his lordship’s blessing;” nor did he

limit his attentions to this, but insisted on carrying his luggage, not

only on shore, but up to the hotel, refusing, as the bishop later told

us, to accept a penny for his time and trouble--“the honor of serving his

lordship and of getting his blessing was quite reward enough!”

Harry, standing by, could not believe his eyes. It was a phase of life

quite unknown to him. But there was no time for meditation; the train was

on the pier, the whistle sounded, and we were soon on the road to Dublin.

It was Sunday--the one day of all others which, had I wished to show

Harry the difference between the two countries, I should have purposely

chosen; the one morning in the week when Dublin is astir from early dawn,

and London, on the other hand, sleeps. Residents in the latter, Catholic

residents especially, are painfully aware of the difficulty of finding

cab or conveyance of any kind to take them to early Mass, and know how,

in the finest summer weather, they may wander through the parks without

meeting a human being until the afternoon. In England church-going

commences, properly speaking, at eleven o’clock only, and then chiefly

for the upper classes; the evening services, on the contrary, are largely

attended by the servants and trades-people, to meet which custom a

vast majority of families dine on cold viands, or even relinquish the

meal altogether, substituting tea, with cold meat--or “heavy tea,” as

it is generally called--for the ordinary social gathering. In Ireland,

as in every Catholic country, the whole system is reversed, as the

natural consequence of the church discipline, which enjoins the hearing

of Mass on the whole community, high and low; and--contrary to the

Protestant system--once this obligation fulfilled, the attendance at

evening service is necessarily much smaller. Harry never having even

been out of England, except for a “run up the Rhine” some years before,

and knowing no Catholic but myself, it never occurred to him to think

of these distinctions, nor to suppose that he would find anything in

Ireland different from English ways, except that unlimited lawlessness

the existence of which he believed made life so impossible there.

He was in the process of recovering from his astonishment at the

unfamiliar phraseology of the Westland Row railway porters when our

passage to the cab was impeded by a crowd suddenly rushing along the

footway, met by an advancing one from the opposite direction, composed

of the very poorest class, men, women, and children. Harry’s lively

imagination and preconceived ideas led him at once to conclude that it

must be a Fenian Hyde Park mob _renforcé_; and the bewildered horror of

his countenance at thus finding his worst fears realized the instant he

arrived at the Dublin terminus was beyond all description comic.

“Ah! sure, your honor, it’s the seven o’clock Mass that’s just over,

and the half-past seven that is going to begin,” explained the cabman,

pointing to the large church which stands at Westland Row adjoining

the railway station. “Sure, this goes on every half-hour until one

o’clock. An’t we all obliged to hear Mass, whatever else we do?” And

as we proceeded, I cross-questioned him for the benefit of my cousin.

We discovered that this same man had been to church at six o’clock

that morning, belonged to a confraternity, approached the sacraments

regularly, and performed various acts of charity in sickness and distress

amongst his fellow-members, in accordance with the rules of the said

society; yet he was but poorly clad, and showed no outward signs of the

remarkable intelligence with which he answered me on every point.

As usual on these occasions, the choice of a hotel had been puzzling,

the Shelbourne, Morrison’s, Maple’s, each having their distinctive

advantages; but at last we decided in favor of the Imperial, a quiet but

comfortable establishment facing the General Post-Office in Sackville

Street. The streets were alive with people as we crossed Carlisle Bridge,

past Smith O’Brien’s white marble statue; and Harry could not help

noticing the contrast to England at that early Sunday hour.

Refreshed by our ablutions and clean toilets, we were comfortably seated

at breakfast, when sounds of music approaching caused us to rush to the

window, and showed us a wagonette full of musicians in green uniform,

playing “Garry Owen” and “Patrick’s Day,” followed by half a dozen

outside cars full of men and women.

“Fenians!” cried Harry. “I told you I could not be mistaken.”

“Only some trade guild going out for an innocent day’s pleasure in the

country; after having been to Mass too, I have no doubt,” observed a

gentleman close by, whose accent was unmistakably English. “This is not

the only custom that will seem new to you, if you are strangers,” he

continued, addressing Harry, and smiling meanwhile. “No two countries

ever were more different than England and Ireland. I shall never

forget my astonishment on arriving here two years ago. I could not

get accustomed to it at all at first. I remember one circumstance

particularly which greatly struck me. I arrived on a Sunday morning,

as you have done, and taking up the _Freeman’s Journal_--one of the

best Dublin papers--on Monday, perceived a short paragraph in a corner,

headed, ‘A Bishop Killed,’ so small that it might easily have escaped

notice. Nor was there any allusion to it in any other part of the paper;

but, reading on, you may conceive my surprise at finding that ‘a bishop’

was no one less than the Bishop of Winchester, _the_ leading bishop

in England, whose death by a fall from his horse, you will remember,

convulsed that country through its length and breadth. Not one of my

acquaintances even--and I had many in Dublin--took the smallest interest

in it. They had not followed his career; he had not the slightest

influence in Ireland; and few knew his name, or that he was any relation

to the great Wilberforce. On the other hand, they were at the time

living upon news from the North, where a police officer was on his trial

for the murder of a bank manager--a fact which no one in England gave

the smallest heed to. I had never heard of it. But that same afternoon

the head waiter of the hotel, unable to conceal his excitement, came

up and whispered to me, ‘He is condemned, sir! I have got a telegram

from Omagh myself this instant.’ I had only been thirty-six hours in

Ireland at the time, and, having merely glanced at the newspaper, knew

nothing of the trial; so I was electrified and mystified beyond measure,

and had no remedy but to sit down and study it. I then discovered it

was deeply interesting from its bearing upon all classes, and I could

not resist writing to some of the English papers and endeavoring to

excite them on the subject. But it would not do! No paper inserted my

letter. The similarity of interest is not kept up continuously between

the two countries, owing very much, I think, to the little interchange

of newspapers between them. I hope you have ordered your _Times_ to be

forwarded, sir,” he continued; “for you can’t expect to find one to buy

in Dublin. They’ll always give you the _Irish Times_, if you merely ask

for the _Times_; they never think about the latter--far less than on the

Continent.”

This was a dreadful blow to Harry; for, like all Englishmen, he could

not exist without his _Times_ at breakfast, and, though I proposed that

he should write for it by that night’s mail, his reviving spirits were

sadly checked by the feeling of being in a land which apparently did

not believe in _his_ guide and vade-mecum. I felt it would be heartless

under such circumstances to leave him alone; yet, I should go to Mass. At

length, not liking to let me wander by myself in “such a dangerous city,”

he offered to accompany me and give up his own service for the day. A

little curiosity, I thought, lurked beneath the kindness; but if so, it

was amply rewarded.

Following the porter’s direction of “first to the right and then to

the left,” we soon reached the handsome church in Marlborough Street,

opposite the National Schools. As at Westland Row, so here an immense

crowd was pouring out, but a far larger one pushing in; so that, although

long before twelve o’clock, we considered ourselves fortunate in getting

any places whatever. Unaware that this was the cathedral, and without

any expectations regarding it in consequence, our surprise was great

when a long procession moved up the centre, closed by His Eminence

Cardinal Cullen, in full pontificals, blessing us as he passed. “Those

are the canons who attend on all great occasions, and the young men are

the students at Clonliffe Seminary,” whispered a young woman next me in

answer to my inquiries, while his eminence was taking his seat on the

throne, to Harry’s infinite edification. “And we shall have a sermon from

Father Burke after Mass,” she continued--“‘our Prince of Preachers,’ as

the cardinal calls him. I came here more than an hour ago, in order to

get a place. I promise you it’ll be worth hearing. Oh! there’s no one

like him. God bless him!”

And as she said, so it happened. The instant Mass was over, not before,

the famous Dominican was seen ascending the pulpit. The centre of the

church was filled with benches, and a standing mass in the passage

between, while the aisles were so packed by the poorest classes that

a pin could not be dropped amongst them. Of that vast multitude not

one individual had stirred, and in a few seconds they hung with rapt

attention upon every word spoken by the gifted preacher. By their

countenances it was easy to see how they followed all his arguments,

drank in every sentiment, and--who could wonder at it?--were entranced by

his lofty accents. Harry himself was mesmerized. The subject was charity,

and the cause an appeal for schools under Sisters of Charity. In all his

experience of English preachers--and it was varied--Harry confessed that

he had never heard anything like this. Whether for sublime language,

beautiful, delicate action, pathetic tone, quotations from Scripture Old

and New, or eloquence of appeal, he considered it unrivalled. It lasted

an hour, but seemed not five minutes. As we passed out of the door, the

plates were filled with piles of those one-pound notes which in Ireland

represent the gold. I saw Harry’s hand glide almost unconsciously into

his pockets, and beheld a sovereign fall noiselessly amongst the paper.

“One certainly is the better of a fine sermon,” he remarked, as we

sauntered back to the hotel; “and I never heard a finer. Altogether, it

was a remarkable sight, and the people looked mild enough. But we must

not trust to appearances nor be deceived too easily, you know,” he added

after a few moments.

I knew nothing of the kind, but thought the best reply would be a

proposal to follow the multitude who were now crowding the tram-carriages

that start from Nelson’s Pillar to all the suburbs. “In half an hour the

streets will be deserted until evening,” said our English acquaintance,

whom we again met accidentally, and who recommended a walk on the pier

at Kingstown as the least fatiguing trip, volunteering, moreover, to

accompany us part of the way, as he was going to visit friends on that

line at the “Rock,” as Blackrock is usually called. It was contrary to

Harry’s customs on the “Sabbath”; yet, after all the church-going he had

seen that morning, he could not deny that air and exercise were most

legitimate. Accordingly, entering a crowded train to Westland Row, we

soon found ourselves retracing the route we came a few hours before.

Most truly has it been said that no city has more varied or beautiful

suburbs than Dublin, and no population which so much enjoy them. Hitherto

we had seen few but the lower and middle classes; for the wealthier

side of Dublin is south of the Liffey. Moreover, being autumn, the

“fashionables” were not in town. They were either travelling on the

Continent or scattered in the vicinity. The train, however, was full of

smart dresses and bright faces, “wreathed in smiles” and brimming over

with merriment. Every one, too, seemed more or less to know every one

else, and even our English friend was acquainted with many. “That is

Judge Keogh,” he said, as he bowed to a short, square-built man waiting

on the platform near us--“Keogh, of the celebrated Galway judgment--a man

of first-rate talent, as you may guess from his broad forehead and long

head; but he has ruined himself by his violence on that occasion. He is

quite ‘broken’ since then, and his spirits gone; for he knows what his

fellow-countrymen think of him, and he rarely appears in public except

upon the bench. He is probably going to Bray now, where he is spending

the summer quietly and unnoticed. And that is Judge Monahan getting into

the next carriage with those ladies--he who presided at the Yelverton

trial; also of great legal capacity and a most kindly, tender-hearted

man, always surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Sir Dominic

Corrigan, the eminent physician, is in that corner yonder; his fame has

doubtless reached you too,” he continued, addressing Harry, who had been

contemplating the two legal celebrities, well known to him through his

oracle, the _Times_, which, from their connection with the above-named

events, had noticed them on both occasions. “I could point out many

others, if I could escort you to Kingstown”; but as we halted at the

Blackrock Station a smart carriage was awaiting and carried him off

inland, whilst we dashed onwards, the blue waters of Dublin Bay, bounded

by the hill of Howth, on our left, and rows of terraces and pretty villas

along the shore on our right.

It was a bright afternoon, with a cool, refreshing breeze, and the pier

was one gay mass of pedestrians. The whole of Dublin might have been

there, so great was the gathering; but we afterwards found that every

other side of the capital was equally frequented. Fully an English mile

in length, it is of substantial masonry, which on the outer side slopes

by large blocks of granite into the sea, while a broad road skirts the

inner line next to the harbor, terminated by a lighthouse at the extreme

point. Old and young were here congregated; children playing amongst the

granite rocks; clerks and shop-girls, mixed with whole families of the

professional classes of the capital, perambulating in groups, dressed in

their prettiest and brightest, looking the very pictures of enjoyment and

friendly intercourse. A man-of-war was anchored in the harbor, which was

also full of graceful yachts and alive with boating parties rowing about

in all directions. A more healthful, innocent afternoon it were difficult

to conceive, and even Harry admitted the general _brio_ which seemed to

pervade the air. Nor could he any longer deny the proverbial beauty of

the Dublin maidens; and I found him quite ready to linger on a seat and

watch the clear complexions and faultless features that passed in such

constant succession before us.

After some time that tinge of melancholy common to strangers in a crowd

began imperceptibly to steal over us, as we awoke to the recollection

that we alone seemed without acquaintances in that throng, and we moved

to the station on our way Dublin-ward. Suddenly the one defect to us

was repaired; for on the platform we found the Bishop of ----shire

going to Dalkey to dine with some old friends. Harry had made rapid

strides since the morning; for his face brightened as he recognized our

fellow-passenger, and the next moment, undisguisedly admitting that he

had spent a charming day, he dwelt with earnestness on the splendid

sermon of the morning.

“Oh! yes,” observed a priest who accompanied his lordship, “even a

Protestant clergyman told me lately that he considered the only orators

in the true sense of the word now in the United Kingdom to be Gladstone,

Bright, and Father Burke. But Father Burke has something more than mere

oratory,” said he, smiling. “You ought to hear him at his own church

in Dominic Street, where he is to preach again to-night. He is more at

home there than anywhere else. If you want a real treat in the matter of

preaching, I recommend you to go there.”

The remark was dropped at random; but, to my excessive surprise, Harry

caught fire, and, finding me willing, he hurried through his dinner in

a manner that was perfectly astounding. Then, in feverish haste, we

made our way to S. Saviour’s. It was not yet eight o’clock, but still

the church was so full that entrance was quite impossible. There was no

standing room even, said those at the door, and we were turning away, to

Harry’s deep disappointment, when a beggar-woman accosted us with “Won’t

your honor give me something for a cup of tea? Sure, I dreamt last night

that your honor would give me a pound of tea and her ladyship a pound of

sugar. Ye were the very faces I saw in my drame. And may God reward ye!”

“Dreams go by contraries,” replied Harry testily, so vexed at missing the

sermon that he was in no humor to be teased.

“Indeed! then, that’s just it,” answered the woman, an arch wink lighting

up her wizened features. “It’s just your honor, then, that’s to give me

the sugar and her ladyship the tea; so it’ll be good luck for me anyhow!

And may God bless you and his holy Mother watch over you!” she continued,

as Harry, unable to resist a hearty laugh at the woman’s readiness, drew

out his purse and handed her a shilling. “And now, sure, I’ll show ye how

to get in to hear his riverence! There’s no one all the world over like

Father Burke!--the darlin’. It would be a sin for you to go away without

hearing him; so I’ll bring ye round to the sacristy door, and you’ll get

in quite comfortable!”

“You must be very much at home here, if you can manage that,” observed

Harry, amused at the whole performance, as we meekly followed our

tattered guide.

“Oh! then, don’t I spend half my time in the church, your honor! A poor

body like me can’t work; but sure an’ can’t I pray? I hear three Masses

every Sunday and one every week-day. Sure, it’d be a sin if I didn’t. Oh!

I don’t mane it’d be a sin on week-days, but it’d be a mortal sin if I

didn’t hear one on Sundays. Sure, every one knows that!” …

This was, however, precisely the kind of knowledge in which Harry was

utterly deficient. Mortal sin and venial sin were to him, as to most

Englishmen, unknown terms, and he gaped with bewilderment as this ragged

woman proceeded to develop to him the difference in the clearest possible

language. There is no saying to what length the catechetical instruction

might have extended, if we had not reached the sacristy door, where, true

enough, the clerk, noticing we were strangers, led us into reserved seats

beside the sanctuary, though even there but scant room then remained.

S. Saviour’s, built by the Dominicans within the last fifteen years,

is an excellent specimen of Gothic, and, filled to overflowing with a

devout, earnest congregation, upon whom brilliant gaseliers now shed a

flood of light, no sight could be more impressive. The devotions, so

fitting in a Dominican church, commenced with the Rosary, which being

over, the black mantle, white robe, and striking head of the favorite

preacher rose above the pulpit ledge. His text was again on charity; and

if anything were needed to show his powers, the versatility with which

he treated the same theme would have been all-sufficient. Harry was lost

in admiration, especially as it was extempore, in contradistinction to

the Protestant habit of _reading_ sermons; nor could he believe, on

looking at his watch, that we had once more been listening for an entire

hour. He could have remained there for many more quarters; and, to judge

from their countenances, so could the whole congregation, even to the

very poorest. Benediction followed, and, as deeply impressed as in the

morning, we pursued our way back with the crowd through Dominic Street

into Sackville street and to our “home” at the Imperial Hotel.

Next morning Harry West was a different man. I sought, however, for an

explanation in vain. No _Times_, it is true, was forthcoming; but then

it was Monday, and in his Buckinghamshire retreat this likewise happened

on the first day of the week. The Irish papers doubtless irritated him

by their paucity of English news--not even “a bishop killed!”--and their

volubility on topics quite unfamiliar to him was very vexatious. Still

this was not sufficient to account for the change which had come over

the spirit of his dream. At length, by a slight hint, I discovered that

he thought he had allowed himself to be carried away giddily by the

excitement of the previous day, and that he must look at matters more

soberly if he really were to be an impartial judge. This was the day of

our departure for Westmeath, and he would not be influenced by any one.

Our train did not leave until three P.M., and I urged a ramble through

the town; but in his present mood he viewed everything askance, and would

not even smile at the many witticisms and pleasant answers which I found

it possible to draw forth from the guides, porters, and cabmen, almost

unconsciously to themselves.

At last we started from the Broadstone station. The afternoon was cloudy,

and, as we advanced, the country became dull and uninteresting. The line

ran beside a canal--on which there seemed but poor traffic--bordered by

broad fields of pasture, so thinly stocked with cattle, however, and

so deserted-looking, though in the vicinity of Dublin, that the effect

was even depressing upon me. Two ladies in our compartment, certainly,

noticed it as something unusual, saying some mysterious words about

Ballinasloe fair and how different it would be when that event took

place; but they left the carriage immediately, so we had no opportunity

of cross-questioning them. In the course of two and a half hours we

reached our terminus at Athboy, and the porter, asking if we were the

friends expected by Mrs. Connor, handed me a note just brought from

her. It explained that one of her horses being laid up and she likewise

ailing, she could neither come herself nor send her carriage; she hoped,

therefore, that we might be content with the “outside car,” a cart going

at the same time for our luggage. Content I certainly was, for I loved

the national vehicle; but Harry had never tried one, and in his present

temper nothing pleased him. The civility of the coachman even provoked

him, and made him whisper something about “blarney” in my ear. However,

putting our cloaks and bundles in the “well,” we got up back to back, one

on each side and the coachman on the seat in the middle.

Athboy, too, known to Harry from the debates as a focus of Ribbonism, was

an unlucky starting-point, and the number of barefooted though well-made,

handsome children running about its streets, greatly shocked him.

Whether the coachman really urged on the horse faster than on subsequent

occasions, or the turnings were sharper, or that Harry was startled by

the difficulty every novice experiences in holding on, I have never

since been able to ascertain; but, looking around at him in less than

five minutes after we left, his piteous expression convulsed me with

laughter. From him, however, it met with no response, and he either

could not or would not admire the brilliant sunset sky, which in autumn

is often so exquisite in this part of Ireland. With every step the

road grew prettier, thickly overshadowed by the large, spreading trees

of the beautiful gentlemen’s seats in this district; though here and

there a wretched roadside cabin startled Harry from his revery, and

the recurrence of a black cross now and again on a wall attracted his

attention.

“O sir! that’s only where some one was killed,” answered Dan, the

coachman, most innocently, making Harry shudder meanwhile; though in

the same breath he added: “This is where Mr. W---- was killed by a fall

from his horse, and the last one was put up where poor Biddy Whelan was

thrown out of the cart when returning from market at Delvin two years

last Michaelmas, by the old horse shying. She died on the spot in a few

minutes, and these crosses are painted that way on the wall to remind us

to say a prayer for the poor souls. God be merciful to them!”

Harry’s sidelong glances towards me, however, plainly proved that he

mistrusted the man’s words and gave them a very different meaning. By

degrees--as always does happen on these cars, which amongst their many

advantages cannot boast their adaptation for conversation--we grew

silent, and no one had spoken for the next ten minutes, when we turned

down a long, straight road, rendered still darker by the magnificent elms

which stretched across it as in a high arch. Suddenly a feeble shot was

heard not far off, and at the same moment Harry jumped off the car, put

his hand to his heart, and cried out: “I’m killed! I’m killed!” What

words can express my horror? To this day I know not how I too jumped

off; I only know that I found myself standing beside him in an agony

of mind. Had all my vain boasting, all my obstinacy, resulted in this?

Was poor Harry West thus to be sacrificed to my foolhardiness? But the

agony though sharp was--must I betray my cousin’s weakness, and confess

it?--short. I looked for blood, for fainting, for anything resembling

my preconceived notions of a “roadside murder”; when, as quickly as he

had jumped off the car, so quickly he now seemed to recover. Ashamed of

himself he certainly was, when, taking away his hand, he was obliged to

admit “it was all a mistake!” After all, he had never been touched! But

the shot had been so unexpected, and he had at the time been brooding

so deeply over all the stories he had read of “agrarian outrages,” that

he had positively thought he had been hit; and very natural it seemed

to him, as no doubt he had been already recognized as a _land agent_

by the Irish population![178] Quite impossible is it to describe my

mingled feelings of vexation at the needless fright and of uncontrollable

amusement at my English friend’s unexampled folly. Dan, the coachman,

underwent the same process, only in an aggravated form; for, while he

felt indignant at the implied insult to his countrymen, every feature in

his face betrayed the most uncontrollable amusement, mixed with supreme

contempt; for he declared that the shot was fired by his own son running

in search of hedge-sparrows, as was his wont at that hour, and he pointed

him out to us in the next field, which belonged to Mrs. Connor. The gate

of her avenue was only a few yards further on.