There is an idea already fermenting in the brains of many publishers
that their present method of printing personal assurances as to the
merits of their new productions is unsatisfactory. It is felt that these
eulogies are open to the suspicion of prejudice and should be replaced,
or supplemented, by the advance publication of the final chapter of the
author's work. _Mr. Punch_, anxious to promote this excellent change by
the publication of a specimen finale, has pleasure in anticipating the
fifty-first, and concluding, chapter of Mrs. H-mphry W-rd's projected
romance, _The Winning of Aurora_; and he is convinced that his readers
will not rest till they have secured the remaining fifty chapters.
Aurora let fall the book she was reading, a celebrated pamphlet on the
Oxford Tractarian movement, in a cover which was a miracle of
Italo-Moroccan tooling, and gazed thoughtfully at the scene before her.
Viewed thus in outline, her head in repose had something of the delicacy
of a Tanagra figure, while to the eye of a connoisseur the magnificent
yet girlish torso might have recalled a Bacchante by Skopas. To her
right rose the rugged sides of Garthfell, purple and scarlet in the
subdued light; to the left was Felsbeck, and from her feet the ground
fell away abruptly till it met the immemorial woods of Supwell. Among
them Aurora could distinguish the massive Boadicean keep of Supwell
Castle, strangely yet harmoniously blended with the neo-Byzantine
portico of white marble designed by Inigo Jones for the thirty-first
Earl. She remembered vaguely that she was attending a reception there
to-night; but her gaze soon left the noble pile--so typical of all that
is best in English architecture--to rest upon the humbler neighbouring
group of Lowmere cottages. In one she knew old Ralph, the shepherd, was
dying of a painful form of spinal catarrh, directly attributable to the
cesspool at his front door; in another the mother of fifteen children
was nursing the only remaining one through an attack of mumps, and in a
third the breadwinner was lying in the malignant grip of abdominal
influenza. Aurora mentally reviewed the chief points of Socialism,
Individualism, Syndicalism and Socinianism, as represented by the select
group of thinkers to which Cecil belonged.
Following a noiseless footman in the gorgeous Supwell liveries, Mrs.
Lovelord and Aurora took up their position under a rare palm at the head
of the great ebony staircase, which a royal personage was said to have
coveted, and watched the Earl and Countess receive their guests. Mrs.
Lovelord's keen eye noted that the Earl was standing on the Countess's
train, a priceless piece of Venetian point which had once belonged to
the Empress Theodora. Aurora's attention was attracted by a tall
grey-haired man wearing the Ribbon of the Garter half-hidden under a
variety of lesser decorations; he was talking eagerly, vivaciously to
the notorious Duchess of Almondsbury. Cecil, who had joined Aurora at
once, whispered that the man was Professor Villeray.
"They say he knows every crowned head in Europe," he said. The great
scientist was relating anecdote after anecdote of the people he had
known--Charlemagne, Machiavelli, Newman, Dickens, the Shakspeares,
father and son. There followed a racy story, inimitably told, of Miss
Mitford in her less regenerate days. Aurora turned away.
"Would you care to take a turn through the rooms?" Cecil asked. "The
Rembrandts are in tremendous form to-night--what?"
The house was one of historic interest and importance, with that blend
of magnificence and domesticity so typical of all that is best in
English life. Aurora's eyes wandered from the massive emerald
chandeliers, the envy of every connoisseur in Europe, to Raphael's
masterly "Madonna," which, with a daring harmony by Sargent, filled the
niches on either side of the great mantelpiece, itself a triumph of the
art of Niccola of Pisa.
"There's Sir John. I didn't think he'd be here with all this rumpus over
the Bill," said Cecil. The Prime Minister was deep in conversation with
the Marquis of Falutin, P.T.O., Q.T., R.S.V.P., the famous diplomat,
whose recent intervention in the Nice imbroglio had saved the European
situation. Aurora could see the flashes of his wit illuminating Sir
John's saturnine countenance. Her further progress was barred by Lady
Highflyer, who nodded to her, and said to Cecil, whose _petite intimité_
with all this great world struck Aurora anew:
"You heard Philip's got Jericho?" He nodded. "Such a relief. The Duke's
delighted, of course, especially after poor Erskine's fiasco, or perhaps
I should say _fiancée_. He's infatuated, I hear. Only £20,000 a year
between them! Ah, there's Madeline Duchess. Well, _a rivederci_."
She passed on, her dress, which had taxed the resources of the first
modistes of the day, Rue de la Paix, trailing heedlessly over the
priceless Aubusson. Aurora turned to find the Home Secretary at her
elbow. Instantly she was all eagerness and vivacity.
"Will there be a division?" she asked.
"Dear lady," he replied, "_qui vivra verra_. The Anabaptists are up in
arms, but----" He screwed his glass into his eye. "Had anything to eat?"
he asked, as three of the footmen passed with a jewelled tray of Pêches
Melba. "A Benvenuto Cellini, if I am not mistaken," he continued,
tapping the tray with his ring, a unique Pompeian intaglio of Venus
Anadyomene with the iynx. "The plates are fourteenth-century Venetian.
The only other set is in the Vatican, you remember." He removed a drop
of the Earl's champagne from his moustache. "Ah, I see Cantoforte's
going to sing. Marvellous man! I remember him in Paris in the
'forties--the roaring 'forties, as poor Dizzy called them."
"He only plays when Royalty's present," a woman behind Aurora whispered,
as the great artist broke into Palestrina's _Andante Furioso_. "They say
he charges a thousand a minute."
A memory of the Lowmere cottages assailed Aurora. At last she saw her
way clearly. Never had she so realised the possibilities of life.
"I will marry Cecil," she said to herself. "With his brains, a million a
year, and the breeding to which only the highest circles can attain, we
will regenerate England."
* * * * *
[Illustration:
Men of Criccieth, on to glory!
See, this banner, fam'd in story,
Waves these burning words before ye--
"David scorns to yield!"
(_With acknowledgments to the author of "The March of the Men of
Harlech."_)
["If there was any movement in the Liberal party ... it was a
movement forward. The message of the by-elections to Liberals
was ... to press on."--_Mr. Lloyd George at Criccieth._]]
* * * * *
Little-known Heroes.
"On Saturday last, an up-country woman attempted to commit
suicide by laying herself across the rails. At that time the
second up Passenger train was passing but slowly and the
cow-catcher of the train almost touched the woman. The Driver
stopped the train with great pluck."--_Times of Assam._
* * * * *