'Really, one would imagine that women wrote their books during those

dreams in which people have no moral sense, to see how improper some,

even virtuous, ladies become when they get into print.'

'I might have done a much more unnatural thing than write those poems.

And perhaps I might have done a much better thing, and got less praise.

But that's the world's fault, not mine.'

'You might have left them unwritten, and shown more fidelity.'

'Fidelity! it is more a matter of humour than principle. What has

fidelity to do with it?'

'Fidelity to my dear boy's memory.'

'It would be difficult to show that because I have written so-called

tender and gay verse, I feel tender and gay. It is too often assumed

that a person's fancy is a person's real mind. I believe that in the

majority of cases one is fond of imagining the direct opposite of one's

principles in sheer effort after something fresh and free; at any rate,

some of the lightest of those rhymes were composed between the deepest

fits of dismals I have ever known. However, I did expect that you might

judge in the way you have judged, and that was my chief reason for not

telling you what I had done.'

'You don't deny that you tried to escape from recollections you ought to

have cherished? There is only one thing that women of your sort are as

ready to do as to take a man's name, and that is, drop his memory.'

'Dear Lady Petherwin-don't be so unreasonable as to blame a live person

for living! No woman's head is so small as to be filled for life by a

memory of a few months. Four years have passed since I last saw my boy-

husband. We were mere children; see how I have altered since in mind,

substance, and outline-I have even grown half an inch taller since his

death. Two years will exhaust the regrets of widows who have long been

faithful wives; and ought I not to show a little new life when my

husband died in the honeymoon?'

'No. Accepting the protection of your husband's mother was, in effect,

an avowal that you rejected the idea of being a widow to prolong the

idea of being a wife; and the sin against your conventional state thus

assumed is almost as bad as would have been a sin against the married

state itself. If you had gone off when he died, saying, "Thank heaven, I

am free!" you would, at any rate, have shown some real honesty.'

'I should have been more virtuous by being more unfeeling. That often

happens.'

'I have taken to you, and made a great deal of you-given you the

inestimable advantages of foreign travel and good society to enlarge

your mind. In short, I have been like a Naomi to you in everything, and

I maintain that writing these poems saps the foundation of it all.'

'I do own that you have been a very good Naomi to me thus far; but Ruth

was quite a fast widow in comparison with me, and yet Naomi never blamed

her. You are unfortunate in your illustration. But it is dreadfully

flippant of me to answer you like this, for you have been kind. But why

will you provoke me!'

'Yes, you are flippant, Ethelberta. You are too much given to that sort

of thing.'

'Well, I don't know how the secret of my name has leaked out; and I am

not ribald, or anything you say,' said Ethelberta, with a sigh.

'Then you own you do not feel so ardent as you seem in your book?'

'I do own it.'

'And that you are sorry your name has been published in connection with

it?'

'I am.'

'And you think the verses may tend to misrepresent your character as a

gay and rapturous one, when it is not?'

'I do fear it.'

'Then, of course, you will suppress the poems instantly. That is the

only way in which you can regain the position you have hitherto held

with me.'

Ethelberta said nothing; and the dull winter atmosphere had far from

light enough in it to show by her face what she might be thinking.

'Well?' said Lady Petherwin.

'I did not expect such a command as that,' said Ethelberta. 'I have been

obedient for four years, and would continue so-but I cannot suppress the

poems. They are not mine now to suppress.'

'You must get them into your hands. Money will do it, I suppose?'

'Yes, I suppose it would-a thousand pounds.'

'Very well; the money shall be forthcoming,' said Lady Petherwin, after

a pause. 'You had better sit down and write about it at once.'

'I cannot do it,' said Ethelberta; 'and I will not. I don't wish them to

be suppressed. I am not ashamed of them; there is nothing to be ashamed

of in them; and I shall not take any steps in the matter.'

'Then you are an ungrateful woman, and wanting in natural affection for

the dead! Considering your birth-'

'That's an intolerable-'

Lady Petherwin crashed out of the room in a wind of indignation, and

went upstairs and heard no more. Adjoining her chamber was a smaller one

called her study, and, on reaching this, she unlocked a cabinet, took

out a small deed-box, removed from it a folded packet, unfolded it,

crumpled it up, and turning round suddenly flung it into the fire. Then

she stood and beheld it eaten away word after word by the flames,

'Testament'-'all that freehold'-'heirs and assigns' appearing

occasionally for a moment only to disappear for ever. Nearly half the

document had turned into a glossy black when the lady clasped her hands.

'What have I done!' she exclaimed. Springing to the tongs she seized

with them the portion of the writing yet unconsumed, and dragged it out

of the fire. Ethelberta appeared at the door.

'Quick, Ethelberta!' said Lady Petherwin. 'Help me to put this out!' And

the two women went trampling wildly upon the document and smothering it

with a corner of the hearth-rug.

'What is it?' said Ethelberta.

'My will!' said Lady Petherwin. 'I have kept it by me lately, for I have

wished to look over it at leisure-'

'Good heavens!' said Ethelberta. 'And I was just coming in to tell you

that I would always cling to you, and never desert you, ill-use me how

you might!'

'Such an affectionate remark sounds curious at such a time,' said Lady

Petherwin, sinking down in a chair at the end of the struggle.

'But,' cried Ethelberta, 'you don't suppose-'

'Selfishness, my dear, has given me such crooked looks that I can see it

round a corner.'

'If you mean that what is yours to give may not be mine to take, it

would be as well to name it in an impersonal way, if you must name it at

all,' said the daughter-in-law, with wet eyelids. 'God knows I had no

selfish thought in saying that. I came upstairs to ask you to forgive

me, and knew nothing about the will. But every explanation distorts it

all the more!'

'We two have got all awry, dear-it cannot be concealed-awry-awry. Ah,

who shall set us right again? However, now I must send for Mr.

Chancerly-no, I am going out on other business, and I will call upon

him. There, don't spoil your eyes: you may have to sell them.'

She rang the bell and ordered the carriage; and half-an-hour later Lady

Petherwin's coachman drove his mistress up to the door of her lawyer's

office in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

11. SANDBOURNE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD-SOME LONDON STREETS

While this was going on in town, Christopher, at his lodgings in

Sandbourne, had been thrown into rare old visions and dreams by the

appearance of Ethelberta's letter. Flattered and encouraged to ambition

as well as to love by her inspiriting sermon, he put off now the last

remnant of cynical doubt upon the genuineness of his old mistress, and

once and for all set down as disloyal a belief he had latterly acquired

that 'Come, woo me, woo me; for I am like enough to consent,' was all a

young woman had to tell.

All the reasoning of political and social economists would not have

convinced Christopher that he had a better chance in London than in

Sandbourne of making a decent income by reasonable and likely labour;

but a belief in a far more improbable proposition, impetuously

expressed, warmed him with the idea that he might become famous there.

The greater is frequently more readily credited than the less, and an

argument which will not convince on a matter of halfpence appears

unanswerable when applied to questions of glory and honour.

The regulation wet towel and strong coffee of the ambitious and

intellectual student floated before him in visions; but it was with a

sense of relief that he remembered that music, in spite of its drawbacks

as a means of sustenance, was a profession happily unencumbered with

those excruciating preliminaries to greatness.

Christopher talked about the new move to his sister, and he was vexed

that her hopefulness was not roused to quite the pitch of his own. As

with others of his sort, his too general habit of accepting the most

clouded possibility that chances offered was only transcended by his

readiness to kindle with a fitful excitement now and then. Faith was

much more equable. 'If you were not the most melancholy man God ever

created,' she said, kindly looking at his vague deep eyes and thin face,

which was but a few degrees too refined and poetical to escape the

epithet of lantern-jawed from any one who had quarrelled with him, 'you

would not mind my coolness about this. It is a good thing of course to

go; I have always fancied that we were mistaken in coming here.

Mediocrity stamped "London" fetches more than talent marked

"provincial." But I cannot feel so enthusiastic.'

'Still, if we are to go, we may as well go by enthusiasm as by

calculation; it is a sensation pleasanter to the nerves, and leads to

just as good a result when there is only one result possible.'

'Very well,' said Faith. 'I will not depress you. If I had to describe

you I should say you were a child in your impulses, and an old man in

your reflections. Have you considered when we shall start?'

'Yes.'

'What have you thought?'

'That we may very well leave the place in six weeks if we wish.'

'We really may?'

'Yes. And what is more, we will.'

Christopher and Faith arrived in London on an afternoon at the end of

winter, and beheld from one of the river bridges snow-white scrolls of

steam from the tall chimneys of Lambeth, rising against the livid sky

behind, as if drawn in chalk on toned cardboard.

The first thing he did that evening, when settled in their apartments

near the British Museum, before applying himself to the beginning of the

means by which success in life might be attained, was to go out in the

direction of Ethelberta's door, leaving Faith unpacking the things, and

sniffing extraordinary smoke-smells which she discovered in all nooks

and crannies of the rooms. It was some satisfaction to see Ethelberta's

house, although the single feature in which it differed from the other

houses in the Crescent was that no lamp shone from the fanlight over the

entrance-a speciality which, if he cared for omens, was hardly

encouraging. Fearing to linger near lest he might be detected,

Christopher stole a glimpse at the door and at the steps, imagined what

a trifle of the depression worn in each step her feet had tended to

produce, and strolled home again.

Feeling that his reasons for calling just now were scarcely sufficient,

he went next day about the business that had brought him to town, which

referred to a situation as organist in a large church in the north-west

district. The post was half ensured already, and he intended to make of

it the nucleus of a professional occupation and income. Then he sat down

to think of the preliminary steps towards publishing the song that had

so pleased her, and had also, as far as he could understand from her

letter, hit the popular taste very successfully; a fact which, however

little it may say for the virtues of the song as a composition, was a

great recommendation to it as a property. Christopher was delighted to

perceive that out of this position he could frame an admissible, if not

an unimpeachable, reason for calling upon Ethelberta. He determined to

do so at once, and obtain the required permission by word of mouth.

He was greatly surprised, when the front of the house appeared in view

on this spring afternoon, to see what a white and sightless aspect

pervaded all the windows. He came close: the eyeball blankness was

caused by all the shutters and blinds being shut tight from top to

bottom. Possibly this had been the case for some time-he could not tell.

In one of the windows was a card bearing the announcement, 'This House

to be let Furnished.' Here was a merciless clash between fancy and fact.

Regretting now his faint-heartedness in not letting her know beforehand

by some means that he was about to make a new start in the world, and

coming to dwell near her, Christopher rang the bell to make inquiries. A

gloomy caretaker appeared after a while, and the young man asked whither

the ladies had gone to live. He was beyond measure depressed to learn

that they were in the South of France-Arles, the man thought the place

was called-the time of their return to town being very uncertain; though

one thing was clear, they meant to miss the forthcoming London season

altogether.

As Christopher's hope to see her again had brought a resolve to do so,

so now resolve led to dogged patience. Instead of attempting anything by

letter, he decided to wait; and he waited well, occupying himself in

publishing a 'March' and a 'Morning and Evening Service in E flat.' Some

four-part songs, too, engaged his attention when the heavier duties of

the day were over-these duties being the giving of lessons in harmony

and counterpoint, in which he was aided by the introductions of a man

well known in the musical world, who had been acquainted with young

Julian as a promising amateur long before he adopted music as the staff

of his pilgrimage.

It was the end of summer when he again tried his fortune at the house in

Exonbury Crescent. Scarcely calculating upon finding her at this

stagnant time of the town year, and only hoping for information, Julian

was surprised and excited to see the shutters open, and the house

wearing altogether a living look, its neighbours having decidedly died

off meanwhile.

'The family here,' said a footman in answer to his inquiry, 'are only

temporary tenants of the house. It is not Lady Petherwin's people.'

'Do you know the Petherwins' present address?'

'Underground, sir, for the old lady. She died some time ago in

Switzerland, and was buried there, I believe.'

'And Mrs. Petherwin-the young lady,' said Christopher, starting.

'We are not acquainted personally with the family,' the man replied. 'My

master has only taken the house for a few months, whilst extensive

alterations are being made in his own on the other side of the park,

which he goes to look after every day. If you want any further

information about Lady Petherwin, Mrs. Petherwin will probably give it.

I can let you have her address.'

'Ah, yes; thank you,' said Christopher.

The footman handed him one of some cards which appeared to have been

left for the purpose. Julian, though tremblingly anxious to know where

Ethelberta was, did not look at it till he could take a cool survey in

private. The address was 'Arrowthorne Lodge, Upper Wessex.'

'Dear me!' said Christopher to himself, 'not far from Melchester; and

not dreadfully far from Sandbourne.'

12. ARROWTHORNE PARK AND LODGE

Summer was just over when Christopher Julian found himself rattling

along in the train to Sandbourne on some trifling business appertaining

to his late father's affairs, which would afford him an excuse for

calling at Arrowthorne about the song of hers that he wished to produce.

He alighted in the afternoon at a little station some twenty miles short

of Sandbourne, and leaving his portmanteau behind him there, decided to

walk across the fields, obtain if possible the interview with the lady,

and return then to the station to finish the journey to Sandbourne,

which he could thus reach at a convenient hour in the evening, and, if

he chose, take leave of again the next day.

It was an afternoon which had a fungous smell out of doors, all being

sunless and stagnant overhead and around. The various species of trees

had begun to assume the more distinctive colours of their decline, and

where there had been one pervasive green were now twenty greenish

yellows, the air in the vistas between them being half opaque with blue

exhalation. Christopher in his walk overtook a countryman, and inquired

if the path they were following would lead him to Arrowthorne Lodge.

''Twill take 'ee into Arr'thorne Park,' the man replied. 'But you won't

come anigh the Lodge, unless you bear round to the left as might be.'

'Mrs. Petherwin lives there, I believe?'

'No, sir. Leastwise unless she's but lately come. I have never heard of

such a woman.'

'She may possibly be only visiting there.'

'Ah, perhaps that's the shape o't. Well, now you tell o't, I have seen a

strange face thereabouts once or twice lately. A young good-looking maid

enough, seemingly.'

'Yes, she's considered a very handsome lady.'

'I've heard the woodmen say, now that you tell o't, that they meet her

every now and then, just at the closing in of the day, as they come home

along with their nitches of sticks; ay, stalking about under the trees

by herself-a tall black martel, so long-legged and awful-like that you'd

think 'twas the old feller himself a-coming, they say. Now a woman must

be a queer body to my thinking, to roam about by night so lonesome and

that? Ay, now that you tell o't, there is such a woman, but 'a never

have showed in the parish; sure I never thought who the body was-no, not

once about her, nor where 'a was living and that-not I, till you spoke.

Well, there, sir, that's Arr'thorne Lodge; do you see they three elms?'

He pointed across the glade towards some confused foliage a long way

off.

'I am not sure about the sort of tree you mean,' said Christopher, 'I

see a number of trees with edges shaped like edges of clouds.'

'Ay, ay, they be oaks; I mean the elms to the left hand.'

'But a man can hardly tell oaks from elms at that distance, my good

fellow!'

'That 'a can very well-leastwise, if he's got the sense.'

'Well, I think I see what you mean,' said Christopher. 'What next?'

'When you get there, you bear away smart to nor'-west, and you'll come

straight as a line to the Lodge.'

'How the deuce am I to know which is north-west in a strange place, with

no sun to tell me?'

'What, not know nor-west? Well, I should think a boy could never live

and grow up to be a man without knowing the four quarters. I knowed 'em

when I was a mossel of a chiel. We be no great scholars here, that's

true, but there isn't a Tom-rig or Jack-straw in these parts that don't

know where they lie as well as I. Now I've lived, man and boy, these

eight-and-sixty years, and never met a man in my life afore who hadn't

learnt such a common thing as the four quarters.'

Christopher parted from his companion and soon reached a stile,

clambering over which he entered a park. Here he threaded his way, and

rounding a clump of aged trees the young man came in view of a light and

elegant country-house in the half-timbered Gothic style of the late

revival, apparently only a few years old. Surprised at finding himself

so near, Christopher's heart fluttered unmanageably till he had taken an

abstract view of his position, and, in impatience at his want of nerve,

adopted a sombre train of reasoning to convince himself that, far from

indulgence in the passion of love bringing bliss, it was a folly,

leading to grief and disquiet-certainly one which would do him no good.

Cooled down by this, he stepped into the drive and went up to the house.

'Is Mrs. Petherwin at home?' he said modestly.

'Who did you say, sir?'

He repeated the name.

'Don't know the person.'

'The lady may be a visitor-I call on business.'

'She is not visiting in this house, sir.'

'Is not this Arrowthorne Lodge?'

'Certainly not.'

'Then where is Arrowthorne Lodge, please?'

'Well, it is nearly a mile from here. Under the trees by the high-road.

If you go across by that footpath it will bring you out quicker than by

following the bend of the drive.'

Christopher wondered how he could have managed to get into the wrong

park; but, setting it down to his ignorance of the difference between

oak and elm, he immediately retraced his steps, passing across the park

again, through the gate at the end of the drive, and into the turnpike

road. No other gate, park, or country seat of any description was within

view.

'Can you tell me the way to Arrowthorne Lodge?' he inquired of the first

person he met, who was a little girl.

'You are just coming away from it, sir,' said she. 'I'll show you; I am

going that way.'

They walked along together. Getting abreast the entrance of the park he

had just emerged from, the child said, 'There it is, sir; I live there

too.'

Christopher, with a dazed countenance, looked towards a cottage which

stood nestling in the shrubbery and ivy like a mushroom among grass. 'Is

that Arrowthorne Lodge?' he repeated.

'Yes, and if you go up the drive, you come to Arrowthorne House.'

'Arrowthorne Lodge-where Mrs. Petherwin lives, I mean.'

'Yes. She lives there along wi' mother and we. But she don't want

anybody to know it, sir, cause she's celebrate, and 'twouldn't do at

all.'

Christopher said no more, and the little girl became interested in the

products of the bank and ditch by the wayside. He left her, pushed open

the heavy gate, and tapped at the Lodge door.

The latch was lifted. 'Does Mrs. Petherwin,' he began, and, determined

that there should be no mistake, repeated, 'Does Mrs. Ethelberta

Petherwin, the poetess, live here?' turning full upon the person who

opened the door.

'She does, sir,' said a faltering voice; and he found himself face to

face with the pupil-teacher of Sandbourne.

13. THE LODGE (continued)-THE COPSE BEHIND

'This is indeed a surprise; I-am glad to see you!' Christopher

stammered, with a wire-drawn, radically different smile from the one he

had intended-a smile not without a tinge of ghastliness.

'Yes-I am home for the holidays,' said the blushing maiden; and, after a

critical pause, she added, 'If you wish to speak to my sister, she is in

the plantation with the children.'

'O no-no, thank you-not necessary at all,' said Christopher, in haste.

'I only wish for an interview with a lady called Mrs. Petherwin.'

'Yes; Mrs Petherwin-my sister,' said Picotee. 'She is in the plantation.

That little path will take you to her in five minutes.'

The amazed Christopher persuaded himself that this discovery was very

delightful, and went on persuading so long that at last he felt it to be

so. Unable, like many other people, to enjoy being satirized in words

because of the irritation it caused him as aimed-at victim, he sometimes

had philosophy enough to appreciate a satire of circumstance, because

nobody intended it. Pursuing the path indicated, he found himself in a

thicket of scrubby undergrowth, which covered an area enclosed from the

park proper by a decaying fence. The boughs were so tangled that he was

obliged to screen his face with his hands, to escape the risk of having

his eyes filliped out by the twigs that impeded his progress. Thus

slowly advancing, his ear caught, between the rustles, the tones of a

voice in earnest declamation; and, pushing round in that direction, he

beheld through some beech boughs an open space about ten yards in

diameter, floored at the bottom with deep beds of curled old leaves, and

cushions of furry moss. In the middle of this natural theatre was the

stump of a tree that had been felled by a saw, and upon the flat stool

thus formed stood Ethelberta, whom Christopher had not beheld since the

ball at Wyndway House.

Round her, leaning against branches or prostrate on the ground, were

five or six individuals. Two were young mechanics-one of them evidently

a carpenter. Then there was a boy about thirteen, and two or three

younger children. Ethelberta's appearance answered as fully as ever to

that of an English lady skilfully perfected in manner, carriage, look,

and accent; and the incongruity of her present position among lives

which had had many of Nature's beauties stamped out of them, and few of

the beauties of Art stamped in, brought him, as a second feeling, a

pride in her that almost equalled his first sentiment of surprise.

Christopher's attention was meanwhile attracted from the constitution of

the group to the words of the speaker in the centre of it-words to which

her auditors were listening with still attention.

It appeared to Christopher that Ethelberta had lately been undergoing

some very extraordinary experiences. What the beginning of them had been

he could not in the least understand, but the portion she was describing

came distinctly to his ears, and he wondered more and more.

'He came forward till he, like myself, was about twenty yards from the

edge. I instinctively grasped my useless stiletto. How I longed for the

assistance which a little earlier I had so much despised! Reaching the

block or boulder upon which I had been sitting, he clasped his arms

around from behind; his hands closed upon the empty seat, and he jumped

up with an oath. This method of attack told me a new thing with wretched

distinctness; he had, as I suppose, discovered my sex, male attire was

to serve my turn no longer. The next instant, indeed, made it clear, for

he exclaimed, "You don't escape me, masquerading madam," or some such

words, and came on. My only hope was that in his excitement he might

forget to notice where the grass terminated near the edge of the cliff,

though this could be easily felt by a careful walker: to make my own

feeling more distinct on this point I hastily bared my feet.'

The listeners moistened their lips, Ethelberta took breath, and then

went on to describe the scene that ensued, 'A dreadful variation on the

game of Blindman's buff,' being the words by which she characterized it.

Ethelberta's manner had become so impassioned at this point that the

lips of her audience parted, the children clung to their elders, and

Christopher could control himself no longer. He thrust aside the boughs,

and broke in upon the group.

'For Heaven's sake, Ethelberta,' he exclaimed with great excitement,

'where did you meet with such a terrible experience as that?'

The children shrieked, as if they thought that the interruption was in

some way the catastrophe of the events in course of narration. Every one

started up; the two young mechanics stared, and one of them inquired, in

return, 'What's the matter, friend?'

Christopher had not yet made reply when Ethelberta stepped from her

pedestal down upon the crackling carpet of deep leaves.

'Mr. Julian!' said she, in a serene voice, turning upon him eyes of such

a disputable stage of colour, between brown and grey, as would have

commended itself to a gallant duellist of the last century as a point on

which it was absolutely necessary to take some friend's life or other.

But the calmness was artificially done, and the astonishment that did

not appear in Ethelberta's tones was expressed by her gaze. Christopher

was not in a mood to draw fine distinctions between recognized and

unrecognized organs of speech. He replied to the eyes.

'I own that your surprise is natural,' he said, with an anxious look

into her face, as if he wished to get beyond this interpolated scene to

something more congenial and understood. 'But my concern at such a

history of yourself since I last saw you is even more natural than your

surprise at my manner of breaking in.'

'That history would justify any conduct in one who hears it-'

'Yes, indeed.'

'If it were true,' added Ethelberta, smiling. 'But it is as false as-'

She could name nothing notoriously false without raising an image of

what was disagreeable, and she continued in a better manner: 'The story

I was telling is entirely a fiction, which I am getting up for a

particular purpose-very different from what appears at present.'

'I am sorry there was such a misunderstanding,' Christopher stammered,

looking upon the ground uncertain and ashamed. 'Yet I am not, either,

for I am very glad you have not undergone such trials, of course. But

the fact is, I-being in the neighbourhood-I ventured to call on a matter

of business, relating to a poem which I had the pleasure of setting to

music at the beginning of the year.'

Ethelberta was only a little less ill at ease than Christopher showed

himself to be by this way of talking.

'Will you walk slowly on?' she said gently to the two young men, 'and

take the children with you; this gentleman wishes to speak to me on

business.'

The biggest young man caught up a little one under his arm, and plunged

amid the boughs; another little one lingered behind for a few moments to

look shyly at Christopher, with an oblique manner of hiding her mouth

against her shoulder and her eyes behind her pinafore. Then she

vanished, the boy and the second young man followed, and Ethelberta and

Christopher stood within the wood-bound circle alone.

'I hope I have caused no inconvenience by interrupting the proceedings,'

said Christopher softly; 'but I so very much wished to see you!'

'Did you, indeed-really wish to see me?' she said gladly. 'Never mind

inconvenience then; it is a word which seems shallow in meaning under

the circumstances. I surely must say that a visit is to my advantage,

must I not? I am not as I was, you see, and may receive as advantages

what I used to consider as troubles.'

'Has your life really changed so much?'

'It has changed. But what I first meant was that an interesting visitor

at a wrong time is better than a stupid one at a right time.'

'I had been behind the trees for some minutes, looking at you, and

thinking of you; but what you were doing rather interrupted my first

meditation. I had thought of a meeting in which we should continue our

intercourse at the point at which it was broken off years ago, as if the

omitted part had not existed at all; but something, I cannot tell what,

has upset all that feeling, and-'

'I can soon tell you the meaning of my extraordinary performance,'

Ethelberta broke in quickly, and with a little trepidation. 'My mother-

in-law, Lady Petherwin, is dead; and she has left me nothing but her

house and furniture in London-more than I deserve, but less than she had

distinctly led me to expect; and so I am somewhat in a corner.'

'It is always so.'

'Not always, I think. But this is how it happened. Lady Petherwin was

very capricious; when she was not foolishly kind she was unjustly harsh.

A great many are like it, never thinking what a good thing it would be,

instead of going on tacking from side to side between favour and

cruelty, to keep to a mean line of common justice. And so we quarrelled,

and she, being absolute mistress of all her wealth, destroyed her will

that was in my favour, and made another, leaving me nothing but the fag-

end of the lease of the town-house and the furniture in it. Then, when

we were abroad, she turned to me again, forgave everything, and,

becoming ill afterwards, wrote a letter to the brother, to whom she had

left the bulk of her property, stating that I was to have twenty-

thousand of the one-hundred-thousand pounds she had bequeathed to him-as

in the original will-doing this by letter in case anything should happen

to her before a new will could be considered, drawn, and signed, and

trusting to his honour quite that he would obey her expressed wish

should she die abroad. Well, she did die, in the full persuasion that I

was provided for; but her brother (as I secretly expected all the time)

refused to be morally bound by a document which had no legal value, and

the result is that he has everything, except, of course, the furniture

and the lease. It would have been enough to break the heart of a person

who had calculated upon getting a fortune, which I never did; for I felt

always like an intruder and a bondswoman, and had wished myself out of

the Petherwin family a hundred times, with my crust of bread and

liberty. For one thing, I was always forbidden to see my relatives, and

it pained me much. Now I am going to move for myself, and consider that

I have a good chance of success in what I may undertake, because of an

indifference I feel about succeeding which gives the necessary coolness

that any great task requires.'

'I presume you mean to write more poems?'

'I cannot-that is, I can write no more that satisfy me. To blossom into

rhyme on the sparkling pleasures of life, you must be under the

influence of those pleasures, and I am at present quite removed from

them-surrounded by gaunt realities of a very different description.'

'Then try the mournful. Trade upon your sufferings: many do, and

thrive.'

'It is no use to say that-no use at all. I cannot write a line of verse.

And yet the others flowed from my heart like a stream. But nothing is so

easy as to seem clever when you have money.'

'Except to seem stupid when you have none,' said Christopher, looking at

the dead leaves.

Ethelberta allowed herself to linger on that thought for a few seconds;

and continued, 'Then the question arose, what was I to do? I felt that

to write prose would be an uncongenial occupation, and altogether a poor

prospect for a woman like me. Finally I have decided to appear in

public.'

'Not on the stage?'

'Certainly not on the stage. There is no novelty in a poor lady turning

actress, and novelty is what I want. Ordinary powers exhibited in a new

way effect as much as extraordinary powers exhibited in an old way.'

'Yes-so they do. And extraordinary powers, and a new way too, would be

irresistible.'

'I don't calculate upon both. I had written a prose story by request,

when it was found that I had grown utterly inane over verse. It was

written in the first person, and the style was modelled after De Foe's.

The night before sending it off, when I had already packed it up, I was

reading about the professional story-tellers of Eastern countries, who

devoted their lives to the telling of tales. I unfastened the manuscript

and retained it, convinced that I should do better by telling the

story.'

'Well thought of!' exclaimed Christopher, looking into her face. 'There

is a way for everybody to live, if they can only find it out.'

'It occurred to me,' she continued, blushing slightly, 'that tales of

the weird kind were made to be told, not written. The action of a teller

is wanted to give due effect to all stories of incident; and I hope that

a time will come when, as of old, instead of an unsocial reading of

fiction at home alone, people will meet together cordially, and sit at

the feet of a professed romancer. I am going to tell my tales before a

London public. As a child, I had a considerable power in arresting the

attention of other children by recounting adventures which had never

happened; and men and women are but children enlarged a little. Look at

this.'

She drew from her pocket a folded paper, shook it abroad, and disclosed

a rough draft of an announcement to the effect that Mrs. Petherwin,

Professed Story-teller, would devote an evening to that ancient form of

the romancer's art, at a well-known fashionable hall in London. 'Now you

see,' she continued, 'the meaning of what you observed going on here.

That you heard was one of three tales I am preparing, with a view of

selecting the best. As a reserved one, I have the tale of my own life-to

be played as a last card. It was a private rehearsal before my brothers

and sisters-not with any view of obtaining their criticism, but that I

might become accustomed to my own voice in the presence of listeners.'

'If I only had had half your enterprise, what I might have done in the

world!'

'Now did you ever consider what a power De Foe's manner would have if

practised by word of mouth? Indeed, it is a style which suits itself

infinitely better to telling than to writing, abounding as it does in

colloquialisms that are somewhat out of place on paper in these days,

but have a wonderful power in making a narrative seem real. And so, in

short, I am going to talk De Foe on a subject of my own. Well?'

The last word had been given tenderly, with a long-drawn sweetness, and

was caused by a look that Christopher was bending upon her at the

moment, in which he revealed that he was thinking less of the subject

she was so eagerly and hopefully descanting upon than upon her aspect in

explaining it. It is a fault of manner particularly common among men

newly imported into the society of bright and beautiful women; and we

will hope that, springing as it does from no unworthy source, it is as

soon forgiven in the general world as it was here.

'I was only following a thought,' said Christopher:-'a thought of how I

used to know you, and then lost sight of you, and then discovered you

famous, and how we are here under these sad autumn trees, and nobody in

sight.'

'I think it must be tea-time,' she said suddenly. 'Tea is a great meal

with us here-you will join us, will you not?' And Ethelberta began to

make for herself a passage through the boughs. Another rustle was heard

a little way off, and one of the children appeared.

'Emmeline wants to know, please, if the gentleman that come to see 'ee

will stay to tea; because, if so, she's agoing to put in another

spoonful for him and a bit of best green.'

'O Georgina-how candid! Yes, put in some best green.'

Before Christopher could say any more to her, they were emerging by the

corner of the cottage, and one of the brothers drew near them. 'Mr.

Julian, you'll bide and have a cup of tea wi' us?' he inquired of

Christopher. 'An old friend of yours, is he not, Mrs. Petherwin? Dan and

I be going back to Sandbourne to-night, and we can walk with 'ee as far

as the station.'

'I shall be delighted,' said Christopher; and they all entered the

cottage. The evening had grown clearer by this time; the sun was peeping

out just previous to departure, and sent gold wires of light across the

glades and into the windows, throwing a pattern of the diamond quarries,

and outlines of the geraniums in pots, against the opposite wall. One

end of the room was polygonal, such a shape being dictated by the

exterior design; in this part the windows were placed, as at the east

end of continental churches. Thus, from the combined effects of the

ecclesiastical lancet lights and the apsidal shape of the room, it

occurred to Christopher that the sisters were all a delightful set of

pretty saints, exhibiting themselves in a lady chapel, and backed up by

unkempt major prophets, as represented by the forms of their big

brothers.

Christopher sat down to tea as invited, squeezing himself in between two

children whose names were almost as long as their persons, and whose tin

cups discoursed primitive music by means of spoons rattled inside them

until they were filled. The tea proceeded pleasantly, notwithstanding

that the cake, being a little burnt, tasted on the outside like the

latter plums in snapdragon. Christopher never could meet the eye of

Picotee, who continued in a wild state of flushing all the time, fixing

her looks upon the sugar-basin, except when she glanced out of the

window to see how the evening was going on, and speaking no word at all

unless it was to correct a small sister of somewhat crude manners as

regards filling the mouth, which Picotee did in a whisper, and a gentle

inclination of her mouth to the little one's ear, and a still deeper

blush than before.

Their visitor next noticed that an additional cup-and-saucer and plate

made their appearance occasionally at the table, were silently

replenished, and then carried off by one of the children to an inner

apartment.

'Our mother is bedridden,' said Ethelberta, noticing Christopher's look

at the proceeding. 'Emmeline attends to the household, except when

Picotee is at home, and Joey attends to the gate; but our mother's

affliction is a very unfortunate thing for the poor children. We are

thinking of a plan of living which will, I hope, be more convenient than

this is; but we have not yet decided what to do.' At this minute a

carriage and pair of horses became visible through one of the angular

windows of the apse, in the act of turning in from the highway towards

the park gate. The boy who answered to the name of Joey sprang up from

the table with the promptness of a Jack-in-the-box, and ran out at the

door. Everybody turned as the carriage passed through the gate, which

Joey held open, putting his other hand where the brim of his hat would

have been if he had worn one, and lapsing into a careless boy again the

instant that the vehicle had gone by.

'There's a tremendous large dinner-party at the House to-night,' said

Emmeline methodically, looking at the equipage over the edge of her

teacup, without leaving off sipping. 'That was Lord Mountclere. He's a

wicked old man, they say.'

'Lord Mountclere?' said Ethelberta musingly. 'I used to know some

friends of his. In what way is he wicked?'

'I don't know,' said Emmeline, with simplicity. 'I suppose it is because

he breaks the commandments. But I wonder how a big rich lord can want to

steal anything.' Emmeline's thoughts of breaking commandments

instinctively fell upon the eighth, as being in her ideas the only case

wherein the gain could be considered as at all worth the hazard.

Ethelberta said nothing; but Christopher thought that a shade of

depression passed over her.

'Hook back the gate, Joey,' shouted Emmeline, when the carriage had

proceeded up the drive. 'There's more to come.'

Joey did as ordered, and by the time he got indoors another carriage

turned in from the public road-a one-horse brougham this time.

'I know who that is: that's Mr. Ladywell,' said Emmeline, in the same

matter-of-fact tone. 'He's been here afore: he's a distant relation of

the squire's, and he once gave me sixpence for picking up his gloves.'

'What shall I live to see?' murmured the poetess, under her breath,

nearly dropping her teacup in an involuntary trepidation, from which she

made it a point of dignity to recover in a moment. Christopher's eyes,

at that exhibition from Ethelberta, entered her own like a pair of

lances. Picotee, seeing Christopher's quick look of jealousy, became

involved in her turn, and grew pale as a lily in her endeavours to

conceal the complications to which it gave birth in her poor little

breast likewise.

'You judge me very wrongly,' said Ethelberta, in answer to Christopher's

hasty look of resentment.

'In supposing Mr. Ladywell to be a great friend of yours?' said

Christopher, who had in some indescribable way suddenly assumed a right

to Ethelberta as his old property.

'Yes: for I hardly know him, and certainly do not value him.'

After this there was something in the mutual look of the two, though

their words had been private, which did not tend to remove the anguish

of fragile Picotee. Christopher, assured that Ethelberta's embarrassment

had been caused by nothing more than the sense of her odd social

subsidence, recovered more bliss than he had lost, and regarded calmly

the profile of young Ladywell between the two windows of his brougham as

it passed the open cottage door, bearing him along unconscious as the

dead of the nearness of his beloved one, and of the sad buffoonery that

fate, fortune, and the guardian angels had been playing with Ethelberta

of late. He recognized the face as that of the young man whom he had

encountered when watching Ethelberta's window from Rookington Park.

'Perhaps you remember seeing him at the Christmas dance at Wyndway?' she

inquired. 'He is a good-natured fellow. Afterwards he sent me that

portfolio of sketches you see in the corner. He might possibly do

something in the world as a painter if he were obliged to work at the

art for his bread, which he is not.' She added with bitter pleasantry:

'In bare mercy to his self-respect I must remain unseen here.'

It impressed Christopher to perceive how, under the estrangement which

arose from differences of education, surroundings, experience, and

talent, the sympathies of close relationship were perceptible in

Ethelberta's bearing towards her brothers and sisters. At a remark upon

some simple pleasure wherein she had not participated because absent and

occupied by far more comprehensive interests, a gloom as of banishment

would cross her face and dim it for awhile, showing that the free habits

and enthusiasms of country life had still their charm with her, in the

face of the subtler gratifications of abridged bodices, candlelight, and

no feelings in particular, which prevailed in town. Perhaps the one

condition which could work up into a permanent feeling the passing

revival of his fancy for a woman whose chief attribute he had supposed

to be sprightliness was added now by the romantic ubiquity of station

that attached to her. A discovery which might have grated on the senses

of a man wedded to conventionality was a positive pleasure to one whose

faith in society had departed with his own social ruin.

The room began to darken, whereupon Christopher arose to leave; and the

brothers Sol and Dan offered to accompany him.

14. A TURNPIKE ROAD

'We be thinking of coming to London ourselves soon,' said Sol, a

carpenter and joiner by trade, as he walked along at Christopher's left

hand. 'There's so much more chance for a man up the country. Now, if you

was me, how should you set about getting a job, sir?'

'What can you do?' said Christopher.

'Well, I am a very good staircase hand; and I have been called neat at

sash-frames; and I can knock together doors and shutters very well; and

I can do a little at the cabinet-making. I don't mind framing a roof,

neither, if the rest be busy; and I am always ready to fill up my time

at planing floor-boards by the foot.'

'And I can mix and lay flat tints,' said Dan, who was a house painter,

'and pick out mouldings, and grain in every kind of wood you can

mention-oak, maple, walnut, satinwood, cherry-tree-'

'You can both do too much to stand the least chance of being allowed to

do anything in a city, where limitation is all the rule in labour. To

have any success, Sol, you must be a man who can thoroughly look at a

door to see what ought to be done to it, but as to looking at a window,

that's not your line; or a person who, to the remotest particular,

understands turning a screw, but who does not profess any knowledge of

how to drive a nail. Dan must know how to paint blue to a marvel, but

must be quite in the dark about painting green. If you stick to some

such principle of specialty as this, you may get employment in London.'

'Ha-ha-ha!' said Dan, striking at a stone in the road with the stout

green hazel he carried. 'A wink is as good as a nod: thank'ee-we'll mind

all that now.'

'If we do come,' said Sol, 'we shall not mix up with Mrs. Petherwin at

all.'

'O indeed!'

'O no. (Perhaps you think it odd that we call her "Mrs. Petherwin," but

that's by agreement as safer and better than Berta, because we be such

rough chaps you see, and she's so lofty.) 'Twould demean her to claim

kin wi' her in London-two journeymen like we, that know nothing besides

our trades.'

'Not at all,' said Christopher, by way of chiming in in the friendliest

manner. 'She would be pleased to see any straightforward honest man and

brother, I should think, notwithstanding that she has moved in other

society for a time.'

'Ah, you don't know Berta!' said Dan, looking as if he did.

'How-in what way do you mean?' said Christopher uneasily.

'So lofty-so very lofty! Isn't she, Sol? Why she'll never stir out from

mother's till after dark, and then her day begins; and she'll traipse

about under the trees, and never go into the high-road, so that nobody

in the way of gentle-people shall run up against her and know her living

in such a little small hut after biding in a big mansion-place. There,

we don't find fault wi' her about it: we like her just the same, though

she don't speak to us in the street; for a feller must be a fool to make

a piece of work about a woman's pride, when 'tis his own sister, and

hang upon her and bother her when he knows 'tis for her good that he

should not. Yes, her life has been quare enough. I hope she enjoys it,

but for my part I like plain sailing. None of your ups and downs for me.

There, I suppose 'twas her nater to want to look into the world a bit.'

'Father and mother kept Berta to school, you understand, sir,' explained

the more thoughtful Sol, 'because she was such a quick child, and they

always had a notion of making a governess of her. Sums? If you said to

that child, "Berta, 'levenpence-three-farthings a day, how much a year?"

she would tell 'ee in three seconds out of her own little head. And that

hard sum about the herrings she had done afore she was nine.'

'True, she had,' said Dan. 'And we all know that to do that is to do

something that's no nonsense.'

'What is the sum?' Christopher inquired.

'What-not know the sum about the herrings?' said Dan, spreading his gaze

all over Christopher in amazement.

'Never heard of it,' said Christopher.

'Why down in these parts just as you try a man's soul by the Ten

Commandments, you try his head by that there sum-hey, Sol?'

'Ay, that we do.'

'A herring and a half for three-halfpence, how many can ye get for

'levenpence: that's the feller; and a mortal teaser he is, I assure 'ee.

Our parson, who's not altogether without sense o' week days, said one

afternoon, "If cunning can be found in the multiplication table at all,

Chickerel, 'tis in connection with that sum." Well, Berta was so clever

in arithmetic that she was asked to teach summing at Miss Courtley's,

and there she got to like foreign tongues more than ciphering, and at

last she hated ciphering, and took to books entirely. Mother and we were

very proud of her at that time: not that we be stuck-up people at all-be

we, Sol?'

'Not at all; nobody can say that we be that, though there's more of it

in the country than there should be by all account.'

'You'd be surprised to see how vain the girls about here be getting.

Little rascals, why they won't curtsey to the loftiest lady in the land;

no, not if you were to pay 'em to do it. Now, the men be different. Any

man will touch his hat for a pint of beer. But then, of course, there's

some difference between the two. Touching your hat is a good deal less

to do than bending your knees, as Berta used to say, when she was blowed

up for not doing it. She was always one of the independent sort-you

never seed such a maid as she was! Now, Picotee was quite the other

way.'

'Has Picotee left Sandbourne entirely?'

'O no; she is home for the holidays. Well, Mr. Julian, our road parts

from yours just here, unless you walk into the next town along with us.

But I suppose you get across to this station and go by rail?'

'I am obliged to go that way for my portmanteau,' said Christopher, 'or

I should have been pleased to walk further. Shall I see you in

Sandbourne to-morrow? I hope so.'

'Well, no. 'Tis hardly likely that you will see us-hardly. We know how

unpleasant it is for a high sort of man to have rough chaps like us

hailing him, so we think it best not to meet you-thank you all the same.

So if you should run up against us in the street, we should be just as

well pleased by your taking no notice, if you wouldn't mind. 'Twill save

so much awkwardness-being in our working clothes. 'Tis always the plan

that Mrs. Petherwin and we agree to act upon, and we find it best for

both. I hope you take our meaning right, and as no offence, Mr. Julian.'

'And do you do the same with Picotee?'

'O Lord, no-'tisn't a bit of use to try. That's the worst of Picotee-

there's no getting rid of her. The more in the rough we be the more

she'll stick to us; and if we say she shan't come, she'll bide and fret

about it till we be forced to let her.'

Christopher laughed, and promised, on condition that they would retract

the statement about their not being proud; and then he wished his

friends good-night.

15. AN INNER ROOM AT THE LODGE

At the Lodge at this time a discussion of some importance was in

progress. The scene was Mrs. Chickerel's bedroom, to which,

unfortunately, she was confined by some spinal complaint; and here she

now appeared as an interesting woman of five-and-forty, properly dressed

as far as visible, and propped up in a bed covered with a quilt which

presented a field of little squares in many tints, looking altogether

like a bird's-eye view of a market garden.

Mrs. Chickerel had been nurse in a nobleman's family until her marriage,

and after that she played the part of wife and mother, upon the whole,

affectionately and well. Among her minor differences with her husband

had been one about the naming of the children; a matter that was at last

compromised by an agreement under which the choice of the girls' names

became her prerogative, and that of the boys' her husband's, who limited

his field of selection to strict historical precedent as a set-off to

Mrs. Chickerel's tendency to stray into the regions of romance.

The only grown-up daughters at home, Ethelberta and Picotee, with their

brother Joey, were sitting near her; the two youngest children, Georgina

and Myrtle, who had been strutting in and out of the room, and otherwise

endeavouring to walk, talk, and speak like the gentleman just gone away,

were packed off to bed. Emmeline, of that transitional age which causes

its exponent to look wistfully at the sitters when romping and at the

rompers when sitting, uncertain whether her position in the household is

that of child or woman, was idling in a corner. The two absent brothers

and two absent sisters-eldest members of the family-completed the round

ten whom Mrs. Chickerel with thoughtless readiness had presented to a

crowded world, to cost Ethelberta many wakeful hours at night while she

revolved schemes how they might be decently maintained.

'I still think,' Ethelberta was saying, 'that the plan I first proposed

is the best. I am convinced that it will not do to attempt to keep on

the Lodge. If we are all together in town, I can look after you much

better than when you are far away from me down here.'

'Shall we not interfere with you-your plans for keeping up your

connections?' inquired her mother, glancing up towards Ethelberta by

lifting the flesh of her forehead, instead of troubling to raise her

face altogether.

'Not nearly so much as by staying here.'

'But,' said Picotee, 'if you let lodgings, won't the gentlemen and

ladies know it?'

'I have thought of that,' said Ethelberta, 'and this is how I shall

manage. In the first place, if mother is there, the lodgings can be let

in her name, all bills will be receipted by her, and all tradesmen's

orders will be given as from herself. Then, we will take no English

lodgers at all; we will advertise the rooms only in Continental

newspapers, as suitable for a French or German gentleman or two, and by

this means there will be little danger of my acquaintance discovering

that my house is not entirely a private one, or of any lodger being a

friend of my acquaintance. I have thought over every possible way of

combining the dignified social position I must maintain to make my

story-telling attractive, with my absolute lack of money, and I can see

no better one.'

'Then if Gwendoline is to be your cook, she must soon give notice at her

present place?'

'Yes. Everything depends upon Gwendoline and Cornelia. But there is time

enough for them to give notice-Christmas will be soon enough. If they

cannot or will not come as cook and housemaid, I am afraid the plan will

break down. A vital condition is that I do not have a soul in the house

(beyond the lodgers) who is not one of my own relations. When we have

put Joey into buttons, he will do very well to attend to the door.'

'But s'pose,' said Joey, after a glassy look at his future appearance in

the position alluded to, 'that any of your gentle-people come to see ye,

and when I opens the door and lets 'em in a swinging big lodger stalks

downstairs. What will 'em think? Up will go their eye-glasses at one

another till they glares each other into holes. My gracious!'

'The one who calls will only think that another visitor is leaving,

Joey. But I shall have no visitors, or very few. I shall let it be well

known among my late friends that my mother is an invalid, and that on

this account we receive none but the most intimate friends. These

intimate friends not existing, we receive nobody at all.'

'Except Sol and Dan, if they get a job in London? They'll have to call

upon us at the back door, won't they, Berta?' said Joey.

'They must go down the area steps. But they will not mind that; they

like the idea.'

'And father, too, must he go down the steps?'

'He may come whichever way he likes. He will be glad enough to have us

near at any price. I know that he is not at all happy at leaving you

down here, and he away in London. You remember that he has only taken

the situation at Mr. Doncastle's on the supposition that you all come to

town as soon as he can see an opening for getting you there; and as

nothing of the sort has offered itself to him, this will be the very

thing. Of course, if I succeed wonderfully well in my schemes for story-

tellings, readings of my ballads and poems, lectures on the art of

versification, and what not, we need have no lodgers; and then we shall

all be living a happy family-all taking our share in keeping the

establishment going.'

'Except poor me!' sighed the mother.

'My dear mother, you will be necessary as a steadying power-a flywheel,

in short, to the concern. I wish that father could live there, too.'

'He'll never give up his present way of life-it has grown to be a part

of his nature. Poor man, he never feels at home except in somebody

else's house, and is nervous and quite a stranger in his own. Sich is

the fatal effects of service!'

'O mother, don't!' said Ethelberta tenderly, but with her teeth on edge;

and Picotee curled up her toes, fearing that her mother was going to

moralize.

'Well, what I mean is, that your father would not like to live upon your

earnings, and so forth. But in town we shall be near him-that's one

comfort, certainly.'

'And I shall not be wanted at all,' said Picotee, in a melancholy tone.

'It is much better to stay where you are,' her mother said. 'You will

come and spend the holidays with us, of course, as you do now.'

'I should like to live in London best,' murmured Picotee, her head

sinking mournfully to one side. 'I HATE being in Sandbourne now!'

'Nonsense!' said Ethelberta severely. 'We are all contriving how to live

most comfortably, and it is by far the best thing for you to stay at the

school. You used to be happy enough there.'

Picotee sighed, and said no more.

16. A LARGE PUBLIC HALL

It was the second week in February, Parliament had just met, and

Ethelberta appeared for the first time before an audience in London.

There was some novelty in the species of entertainment that the active

young woman had proposed to herself, and this doubtless had due effect

in collecting the body of strangers that greeted her entry, over and

above those friends who came to listen to her as a matter of course. Men

and women who had become totally indifferent to new actresses, new

readers, and new singers, once more felt the freshness of curiosity as

they considered the promise of the announcement. But the chief

inducement to attend lay in the fact that here was to be seen in the

flesh a woman with whom the tongue of rumour had been busy in many

romantic ways-a woman who, whatever else might be doubted, had certainly

produced a volume of verses which had been the talk of the many who had

read them, and of the many more who had not, for several consecutive

weeks.

What was her story to be? Persons interested in the inquiry-a small

proportion, it may be owned, of the whole London public, and chiefly

young men-answered this question for themselves by assuming that it

would take the form of some pungent and gratifying revelation of the

innermost events of her own life, from which her gushing lines had

sprung as an inevitable consequence, and which being once known, would

cause such musical poesy to appear no longer wonderful.

The front part of the room was well filled, rows of listeners showing

themselves like a drilled-in crop of which not a seed has failed. They

were listeners of the right sort, a majority having noses of the

prominent and dignified type, which when viewed in oblique perspective

ranged as regularly as bow-windows at a watering place. Ethelberta's

plan was to tell her pretended history and adventures while sitting in a

chair-as if she were at her own fireside, surrounded by a circle of

friends. By this touch of domesticity a great appearance of truth and

naturalness was given, though really the attitude was at first more

difficult to maintain satisfactorily than any one wherein stricter

formality should be observed. She gently began her subject, as if

scarcely knowing whether a throng were near her or not, and, in her fear

of seeming artificial, spoke too low. This defect, however, she soon

corrected, and ultimately went on in a charmingly colloquial manner.

What Ethelberta relied upon soon became evident. It was not upon the

intrinsic merits of her story as a piece of construction, but upon her

method of telling it. Whatever defects the tale possessed-and they were

not a few-it had, as delivered by her, the one pre-eminent merit of

seeming like truth. A modern critic has well observed of De Foe that he

had the most amazing talent on record for telling lies; and Ethelberta,

in wishing her fiction to appear like a real narrative of personal

adventure, did wisely to make De Foe her model. His is a style even

better adapted for speaking than for writing, and the peculiarities of

diction which he adopts to give verisimilitude to his narratives

acquired enormous additional force when exhibited as viva-voce

mannerisms. And although these artifices were not, perhaps, slavishly

copied from that master of feigning, they would undoubtedly have

reminded her hearers of him, had they not mostly been drawn from an

easeful section in society which is especially characterized by the

mental condition of knowing nothing about any author a week after they

have read him. The few there who did remember De Foe were impressed by a

fancy that his words greeted them anew in a winged auricular form,

instead of by the weaker channels of print and eyesight. The reader may

imagine what an effect this well-studied method must have produced when

intensified by a clear, living voice, animated action, and the brilliant

and expressive eye of a handsome woman-attributes which of themselves

almost compelled belief. When she reached the most telling passages,

instead of adding exaggerated action and sound, Ethelberta would lapse

to a whisper and a sustained stillness, which were more striking than

gesticulation. All that could be done by art was there, and if

inspiration was wanting nobody missed it.

It was in performing this feat that Ethelberta seemed first to discover

in herself the full power of that self-command which further onward in

her career more and more impressed her as a singular possession, until

at last she was tempted to make of it many fantastic uses, leading to

results that affected more households than her own. A talent for

demureness under difficulties without the cold-bloodedness which renders

such a bearing natural and easy, a face and hand reigning unmoved

outside a heart by nature turbulent as a wave, is a constitutional

arrangement much to be desired by people in general; yet, had Ethelberta

been framed with less of that gift in her, her life might have been more

comfortable as an experience, and brighter as an example, though perhaps

duller as a story.

'Ladywell, how came this Mrs. Petherwin to think of such a queer trick

as telling romances, after doing so well as a poet?' said a man in the

stalls to his friend, who had been gazing at the Story-teller with a

rapt face.

'What-don't you know?-everybody did, I thought,' said the painter.

'A mistake. Indeed, I should not have come here at all had I not heard

the subject mentioned by accident yesterday at Grey's; and then I

remembered her to be the same woman I had met at some place-Belmaine's I

think it was-last year, when I thought her just getting on for handsome

and clever, not to put it too strongly.'

'Ah! naturally you would not know much,' replied Ladywell, in an eager

whisper. 'Perhaps I am judging others by myself a little more than-but,

as you have heard, she is an acquaintance of mine. I know her very well,

and, in fact, I originally suggested the scheme to her as a pleasant way

of adding to her fame. "Depend upon it, dear Mrs. Petherwin," I said,

during a pause in one of our dances together some time ago, "any public

appearance of yours would be successful beyond description."'

'O, I had no idea that you knew her so well! Then it is quite through

you that she has adopted this course?'

'Well, not entirely-I could not say entirely. She said that some day,

perhaps, she might do such a thing; and, in short, I reduced her vague

ideas to form.'

'I should not mind knowing her better-I must get you to throw us

together in some way,' said Neigh, with some interest. 'I had no idea

that you were such an old friend. You could do it, I suppose?'

'Really, I am afraid-hah-hah-may not have the opportunity of obliging

you. I met her at Wyndway, you know, where she was visiting with Lady

Petherwin. It was some time ago, and I cannot say that I have ever met

her since.'

'Or before?' said Neigh.

'Well-no; I never did.'

'Ladywell, if I had half your power of going to your imagination for

facts, I would be the greatest painter in England.'

'Now Neigh-that's too bad-but with regard to this matter, I do speak

with some interest,' said Ladywell, with a pleased sense of himself.

'In love with her?-Smitten down?-Done for?'

'Now, now! However, several other fellows chaff me about her. It was

only yesterday that Jones said-'

'Do you know why she cares to do this sort of thing?'

'Merely a desire for fame, I suppose.'

'I should think she has fame enough already.'

'That I can express no opinion upon. I am thinking of getting her

permission to use her face in a subject I am preparing. It is a fine

face for canvas. Glorious contour-glorious. Ah, here she is again, for

the second part.'

'Dream on, young fellow. You'll make a rare couple!' said Neigh, with a

flavour of superciliousness unheeded by his occupied companion.

Further back in the room were a pair of faces whose keen interest in the

performance contrasted much with the languidly permissive air of those

in front. When the ten minutes' break occurred, Christopher was the

first of the two to speak. 'Well, what do you think of her, Faith?' he

said, shifting restlessly on his seat.

'I like the quiet parts of the tale best, I think,' replied the sister;

'but, of course, I am not a good judge of these things. How still the

people are at times! I continually take my eyes from her to look at the

listeners. Did you notice the fat old lady in the second row, with her

cloak a little thrown back? She was absolutely unconscious, and stayed

with her face up and lips parted like a little child of six.'

'She well may! the thing is a triumph. That fellow Ladywell is here, I

believe-yes, it is he, busily talking to the man on his right. If I were

a woman I would rather go donkey-driving than stick myself up there, for

gaping fops to quiz and say what they like about! But she had no choice,

poor thing; for it was that or nothing with her.'

Faith, who had secret doubts about the absolute necessity of

Ethelberta's appearance in public, said, with remote meanings, 'Perhaps

it is not altogether a severe punishment to her to be looked at by well-

dressed men. Suppose she feels it as a blessing, instead of an

affliction?'

'She is a different sort of woman, Faith, and so you would say if you

knew her. Of course, it is natural for you to criticize her severely

just now, and I don't wish to defend her.'

'I think you do a little, Kit.'

'No; I am indifferent about it all. Perhaps it would have been better

for me if I had never seen her; and possibly it might have been better

for her if she had never seen me. She has a heart, and the heart is a

troublesome encumbrance when great things have to be done. I wish you

knew her: I am sure you would like each other.'

'O yes,' said Faith, in a voice of rather weak conviction. 'But, as we

live in such a plain way, it would be hardly desirable at present.'

Ethelberta being regarded, in common with the latest conjurer, spirit-

medium, aeronaut, giant, dwarf or monarch, as a new sensation, she was

duly criticized in the morning papers, and even obtained a notice in

some of the weekly reviews.

'A handsome woman,' said one of these, 'may have her own reasons for

causing the flesh of the London public to creep upon its bones by her

undoubtedly remarkable narrative powers; but we question if much good

can result from such a form of entertainment. Nevertheless, some praise

is due. We have had the novel-writer among us for some time, and the

novel-reader has occasionally appeared on our platforms; but we believe

that this is the first instance on record of a Novel-teller-one, that is

to say, who relates professedly as fiction a romantic tale which has

never been printed-the whole owing its chief interest to the method

whereby the teller identifies herself with the leading character in the

story.'

Another observed: 'When once we get away from the magic influence of the

story-teller's eye and tongue, we perceive how improbable, even

impossible, is the tissue of events to which we have been listening with

so great a sense of reality, and we feel almost angry with ourselves at

having been the victims of such utter illusion.'

'Mrs. Petherwin's personal appearance is decidedly in her favour,' said

another. 'She affects no unconsciousness of the fact that form and

feature are no mean vehicles of persuasion, and she uses the powers of

each to the utmost. There spreads upon her face when in repose an air of

innocence which is charmingly belied by the subtlety we discover beneath

it when she begins her tale; and this amusing discrepancy between her

physical presentment and the inner woman is further illustrated by the

misgiving, which seizes us on her entrance, that so impressionable a

lady will never bear up in the face of so trying an audience. . . . The

combinations of incident which Mrs. Petherwin persuades her hearers that

she has passed through are not a little marvellous; and if what is

rumoured be true, that the tales are to a great extent based upon her

own experiences, she has proved herself to be no less daring in

adventure than facile in her power of describing it.'

17. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE

After such successes as these, Christopher could not forego the

seductive intention of calling upon the poetess and romancer, at her now

established town residence in Exonbury Crescent. One wintry afternoon he

reached the door-now for the third time-and gave a knock which had in it

every tender refinement that could be thrown into the somewhat

antagonistic vehicle of noise. Turning his face down the street he

waited restlessly on the step. There was a strange light in the

atmosphere: the glass of the street-lamps, the varnished back of a

passing cab, a milk-woman's cans, and a row of church-windows glared in

his eyes like new-rubbed copper; and on looking the other way he beheld

a bloody sun hanging among the chimneys at the upper end, as a danger-

lamp to warn him off.

By this time the door was opened, and before him stood Ethelberta's

young brother Joey, thickly populated with little buttons, the remainder

of him consisting of invisible green.

'Ah, Joseph,' said Christopher, instantly recognizing the boy. 'What,

are you here in office? Is your-'

Joey lifted his forefinger and spread his mouth in a genial manner, as

if to signify particular friendliness mingled with general caution.

'Yes, sir, Mrs. Petherwin is my mistress. I'll see if she is at home,

sir,' he replied, raising his shoulders and winking a wink of strategic

meanings by way of finish-all which signs showed, if evidence were

wanted, how effectually this pleasant young page understood, though

quite fresh from Wessex, the duties of his peculiar position. Mr. Julian

was shown to the drawing-room, and there he found Ethelberta alone.

She gave him a hand so cool and still that Christopher, much as he

desired the contact, was literally ashamed to let her see and feel his

own, trembling with unmanageable excess of feeling. It was always so,

always had been so, always would be so, at these meetings of theirs: she

was immeasurably the strongest; and the deep-eyed young man fancied, in

the chagrin which the perception of this difference always bred in him,

that she triumphed in her superior control. Yet it was only in little

things that their sexes were thus reversed: Christopher would receive

quite a shock if a little dog barked at his heels, and be totally

unmoved when in danger of his life.

Certainly the most self-possessed woman in the world, under pressure of

the incongruity between their last meeting and the present one, might

have shown more embarrassment than Ethelberta showed on greeting him to-

day. Christopher was only a man in believing that the shyness which she

did evince was chiefly the result of personal interest. She might or

might not have been said to blush-perhaps the stealthy change upon her

face was too slow an operation to deserve that name: but, though pale

when he called, the end of ten minutes saw her colour high and wide. She

soon set him at his ease, and seemed to relax a long-sustained tension

as she talked to him of her arrangements, hopes, and fears.

'And how do you like London society?' said Ethelberta.

'Pretty well, as far as I have seen it: to the surface of its front

door.'

'You will find nothing to be alarmed at if you get inside.'

'O no-of course not-except my own shortcomings,' said the modest

musician. 'London society is made up of much more refined people than

society anywhere else.'

'That's a very prevalent opinion; and it is nowhere half so prevalent as

in London society itself. However, come and see my house-unless you

think it a trouble to look over a house?'

'No; I should like it very much.'

The decorations tended towards the artistic gymnastics prevalent in some

quarters at the present day. Upon a general flat tint of duck's-egg

green appeared quaint patterns of conventional foliage, and birds, done

in bright auburn, several shades nearer to redbreast-red than was

Ethelberta's hair, which was thus thrust further towards brown by such

juxtaposition-a possible reason for the choice of tint. Upon the glazed

tiles within the chimney-piece were the forms of owls, bats, snakes,

frogs, mice, spiders in their webs, moles, and other objects of aversion

and darkness, shaped in black and burnt in after the approved fashion.

'My brothers Sol and Dan did most of the actual work,' said Ethelberta,

'though I drew the outlines, and designed the tiles round the fire. The

flowers, mice, and spiders are done very simply, you know: you only

press a real flower, mouse, or spider out flat under a piece of glass,

and then copy it, adding a little more emaciation and angularity at

pleasure.'

'In that "at pleasure" is where all the art lies,' said he.

'Well, yes-that is the case,' said Ethelberta thoughtfully; and

preceding him upstairs, she threw open a door on one of the floors,

disclosing Dan in person, engaged upon a similar treatment of this floor

also. Sol appeared bulging from the door of a closet, a little further

on, where he was fixing some shelves; and both wore workmen's blouses.

At once coming down from the short ladder he was standing upon, Dan

shook Christopher's hand with some velocity.

'We do a little at a time, you see,' he said, 'because Colonel down

below, and Mrs. Petherwin's visitors, shan't smell the turpentine.'

'We be pushing on to-day to get it out of the way,' said Sol, also

coming forward and greeting their visitor, but more reluctantly than his

brother had done. 'Now I'll tell ye what-you two,' he added, after an

uneasy pause, turning from Christopher to Ethelberta and back again in

great earnestness; 'you'd better not bide here, talking to we rough

ones, you know, for folks might find out that there's something closer

between us than workmen and employer and employer's friend. So Berta and

Mr. Julian, if you'll go on and take no more notice o' us, in case of

visitors, it would be wiser-else, perhaps, if we should be found out

intimate with ye, and bring down your gentility, you'll blame us for it.

I get as nervous as a cat when I think I may be the cause of any

disgrace to ye.'

'Don't be so silly, Sol,' said Ethelberta, laughing.

'Ah, that's all very well,' said Sol, with an unbelieving smile; 'but if

we bain't company for you out of doors, you bain't company for we

within-not that I find fault with ye or mind it, and shan't take

anything for painting your house, nor will Dan neither, any more for

that-no, not a penny; in fact, we are glad to do it for 'ee. At the same

time, you keep to your class, and we'll keep to ours. And so, good

afternoon, Berta, when you like to go, and the same to you, Mr. Julian.

Dan, is that your mind?'

'I can but own it,' said Dan.

The two brothers then turned their backs upon their visitors, and went

on working, and Ethelberta and her lover left the room. 'My brothers,

you perceive,' said she, 'represent the respectable British workman in

his entirety, and a touchy individual he is, I assure you, on points of

dignity, after imbibing a few town ideas from his leaders. They are

painfully off-hand with me, absolutely refusing to be intimate, from a

mistaken notion that I am ashamed of their dress and manners; which, of

course, is absurd.'

'Which, of course, is absurd,' said Christopher.

'Of course it is absurd!' she repeated with warmth, and looking keenly

at him. But, finding no harm in his face, she continued as before: 'Yet,

all the time, they will do anything under the sun that they think will

advance my interests. In our hearts we are one. All they ask me to do is

to leave them to themselves, and therefore I do so. Now, would you like

to see some more of your acquaintance?'

She introduced him to a large attic; where he found himself in the

society of two or three persons considerably below the middle height,

whose manners were of that gushing kind sometimes called Continental,

their ages ranging from five years to eight. These were the youngest

children, presided over by Emmeline, as professor of letters, capital

and small.

'I am giving them the rudiments of education here,' said Ethelberta;

'but I foresee several difficulties in the way of keeping them here,

which I must get over as best I can. One trouble is, that they don't get

enough air and exercise.'

'Is Mrs. Chickerel living here as well?' Christopher ventured to

inquire, when they were downstairs again.

'Yes; but confined to her room as usual, I regret to say. Two more

sisters of mine, whom you have never seen at all, are also here. They

are older than any of the rest of us, and had, broadly speaking, no

education at all, poor girls. The eldest, Gwendoline, is my cook, and

Cornelia is my housemaid. I suffer much sadness, and almost misery

sometimes, in reflecting that here are we, ten brothers and sisters,

born of one father and mother, who might have mixed together and shared

all in the same scenes, and been properly happy, if it were not for the

strange accidents that have split us up into sections as you see,

cutting me off from them without the compensation of joining me to any

others. They are all true as steel in keeping the secret of our kin,

certainly; but that brings little joy, though some satisfaction

perhaps.'

'You might be less despondent, I think. The tale-telling has been one of

the successes of the season.'

'Yes, I might; but I may observe that you scarcely set the example of

blitheness.'

'Ah-that's not because I don't recognize the pleasure of being here. It

is from a more general cause: simply an underfeeling I have that at the

most propitious moment the distance to the possibility of sorrow is so

short that a man's spirits must not rise higher than mere cheerfulness

out of bare respect to his insight.

"As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher

night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake

year to sorrow."'

Ethelberta bowed uncertainly; the remark might refer to her past conduct

or it might not. 'My great cause of uneasiness is the children,' she

presently said, as a new page of matter. 'It is my duty, at all risk and

all sacrifice of sentiment, to educate and provide for them. The grown-

up ones, older than myself, I cannot help much, but the little ones I

can. I keep my two French lodgers for the sake of them.'

'The lodgers, of course, don't know the relationship between yourself

and the rest of the people in the house?'

'O no!-nor will they ever. My mother is supposed to let the ground and

first floors to me-a strange lady-as she does the second and third

floors to them. Still, I may be discovered.'

'Well-if you are?'

'Let me be. Life is a battle, they say; but it is only so in the sense

that a game of chess is a battle-there is no seriousness in it; it may

be put an end to at any inconvenient moment by owning yourself beaten,

with a careless "Ha-ha!" and sweeping your pieces into the box.

Experimentally, I care to succeed in society; but at the bottom of my

heart, I don't care.'

'For that very reason you are likely to do it. My idea is, make ambition

your business and indifference your relaxation, and you will fail; but

make indifference your business and ambition your relaxation, and you

will succeed. So impish are the ways of the gods.'

'I hope that you at any rate will succeed,' she said, at the end of a

silence.

'I never can-if success means getting what one wants.'

'Why should you not get that?'

'It has been forbidden to me.'

Her complexion changed just enough to show that she knew what he meant.

'If you were as bold as you are subtle, you would take a more cheerful

view of the matter,' she said, with a look signifying innermost things.

'I will instantly! Shall I test the truth of my cheerful view by a word

of question?'

'I deny that you are capable of taking that view, and until you prove

that you are, no question is allowed,' she said, laughing, and still

warmer in the face and neck. 'Nothing but melancholy, gentle melancholy,

now as in old times when there was nothing to cause it.'

'Ah-you only tease.'

'You will not throw aside that bitter medicine of distrust, for the

world. You have grown so used to it, that you take it as food, as some

invalids do their mixtures.'

'Ethelberta, you have my heart-my whole heart. You have had it ever

since I first saw you. Now you understand me, and no pretending that you

don't, mind, this second time.'

'I understood you long ago; you have not understood me.'

'You are mysterious,' he said lightly; 'and perhaps if I disentangle

your mystery I shall find it to cover-indifference. I hope it does-for

your sake.'

'How can you say so!' she exclaimed reproachfully. 'Yet I wish it did

too-I wish it did cover indifference-for yours. But you have all of me

that you care to have, and may keep it for life if you wish to. Listen,

surely there was a knock at the door? Let us go inside the room: I am

always uneasy when anybody comes, lest any awkward discovery should be

made by a visitor of my miserable contrivances for keeping up the

establishment.'

Joey met them before they had left the landing.

'Please, Berta,' he whispered, 'Mr. Ladywell has called, and I've showed

him into the liberry. You know, Berta, this is how it was, you know: I

thought you and Mr. Julian were in the drawing-room, and wouldn't want

him to see ye together, and so I asked him to step into the liberry a

minute.'

'You must improve your way of speaking,' she said, with quick

embarrassment, whether at the mention of Ladywell's name before Julian,

or at the way Joey coupled herself with Christopher, was quite

uncertain. 'Will you excuse me for a few moments?' she said, turning to

Christopher. 'Pray sit down; I shall not be long.' And she glided

downstairs.

They had been standing just by the drawing-room door, and Christopher

turned back into the room with no very satisfactory countenance. It was

very odd, he thought, that she should go down to Ladywell in that

mysterious manner, when he might have been admitted to where they were

talking without any trouble at all. What could Ladywell have to say, as

an acquaintance calling upon her for a few minutes, that he was not to

hear? Indeed, if it came to that, what right had Ladywell to call upon

her at all, even though she were a widow, and to some extent chartered

to live in a way which might be considered a trifle free if indulged in

by other young women. This was the first time that he himself had

ventured into her house on that very account-a doubt whether it was

quite proper to call, considering her youth, and the fertility of her

position as ground for scandal. But no sooner did he arrive than here

was Ladywell blundering in, and, since this conjunction had occurred on

his first visit, the chances were that Ladywell came very often.

Julian walked up and down the room, every moment expanding itself to a

minute in his impatience at the delay and vexation at the cause. After

scrutinizing for the fifth time every object on the walls as if

afflicted with microscopic closeness of sight, his hands under his coat-

tails, and his person jigging up and down upon his toes, he heard her

coming up the stairs. When she entered the apartment her appearance was

decidedly that of a person subsiding after some little excitement.

'I did not calculate upon being so long,' she said sweetly, at the same

time throwing back her face and smiling. 'But I-was longer than I

expected.'

'It seemed rather long,' said Christopher gloomily, 'but I don't mind

it.'

'I am glad of that,' said Ethelberta.

'As you asked me to stay, I was very pleased to do so, and always should

be; but I think that now I will wish you good-bye.'

'You are not vexed with me?' she said, looking quite into his face. 'Mr.

Ladywell is nobody, you know.'

'Nobody?'

'Well, he is not much, I mean. The case is, that I am sitting to him for

a subject in which my face is to be used-otherwise than as a portrait-

and he called about it.'

'May I say,' said Christopher, 'that if you want yourself painted, you

are ill-advised not to let it be done by a man who knows how to use the

brush a little?'

'O, he can paint!' said Ethelberta, rather warmly. 'His last picture was

excellent, I think. It was greatly talked about.'

'I imagined you to say that he was a mere nobody!'

'Yes, but-how provoking you are!-nobody, I mean, to talk to. He is a

true artist, nevertheless.'

Christopher made no reply. The warm understanding between them had quite

ended now, and there was no fanning it up again. Sudden tiffs had been

the constant misfortune of their courtship in days gone by, had been the

remote cause of her marriage to another; and the familiar shadows seemed

to be rising again to cloud them with the same persistency as ever.

Christopher went downstairs with well-behaved moodiness, and left the

house forthwith. The postman came to the door at the same time.

Ethelberta opened a letter from Picotee-now at Sandbourne again; and,

stooping to the fire-light, she began to read:-

'MY DEAR ETHELBERTA,-I have tried to like staying at Sandbourne because

you wished it, but I can't endure the town at all, dear Berta;

everything is so wretched and dull! O, I only wish you knew how dismal

it is here, and how much I would give to come to London! I cannot help

thinking that I could do better in town. You see, I should be close to

you, and should have the benefit of your experience. I would not mind

what I did for a living could I be there where you all are. It is so

like banishment to be here. If I could not get a pupil-teachership in

some London school (and I believe I could by advertising) I could stay

with you, and be governess to Georgina and Myrtle, for I am sure you

cannot spare time enough to teach them as they ought to be taught, and

Emmeline is not old enough to have any command over them. I could also

assist at your dressmaking, and you must require a great deal of that to

be done if you continue to appear in public. Mr. Long read in the

papers the account of your first evening, and afterwards I heard two

ladies of our committee talking about it; but of course not one of them

knew my personal interest in the discussion. Now will you, Ethelberta,

think if I may not come: Do, there's a dear sister! I will do anything

you set me about if I may only come.-Your ever affectionate,

PICOTEE.'

'Great powers above-what worries do beset me!' cried Ethelberta, jumping

up. 'What can possess the child so suddenly?-she used to like Sandbourne

well enough!' She sat down, and hastily scribbled the following reply:-

'MY DEAR PICOTEE-There is only a little time to spare before the post

goes, but I will try to answer your letter at once. Whatever is the

reason of this extraordinary dislike to Sandbourne? It is a nice

healthy place, and you are likely to do much better than either of our

elder sisters, if you follow straight on in the path you have chosen.

Of course, if such good fortune should attend me that I get rich by my

contrivances of public story-telling and so on, I shall share everything

with you and the rest of us, in which case you shall not work at all.

But (although I have been unexpectedly successful so far) this is

problematical; and it would be rash to calculate upon all of us being

able to live, or even us seven girls only, upon the fortune I am going

to make that way. So, though I don't mean to be harsh, I must impress

upon you the necessity of going on as you are going just at present. I

know the place must be dull, but we must all put up with dulness

sometimes. You, being next to me in age, must aid me as well as you can

in doing something for the younger ones; and if anybody at all comes and

lives here otherwise than as a servant, it must be our father-who will

not, however, at present hear of such a thing when I mention it to him.

Do think of all this, Picotee, and bear up! Perhaps we shall all be

happy and united some day. Joey is waiting to run to the post-office

with this at once. All are well. Sol and Dan have nearly finished the

repairs and decorations of my house-but I will tell you of that another

time.-Your affectionate sister, BERTA.'

18. NEAR SANDBOURNE-LONDON STREETS-ETHELBERTA'S

When this letter reached its destination the next morning, Picotee, in

her over-anxiety, could not bring herself to read it in anybody's

presence, and put it in her pocket till she was on her walk across the

moor. She still lived at the cottage out of the town, though at some

inconvenience to herself, in order to teach at a small village night-

school whilst still carrying on her larger occupation of pupil-teacher

in Sandbourne.

So she walked and read, and was soon in tears. Moreover, when she

thought of what Ethelberta would have replied had that keen sister known

the wildness of her true reason in wishing to go, she shuddered with

misery. To wish to get near a man only because he had been kind to her,

and had admired her pretty face, and had given her flowers, to nourish a

passion all the more because of its hopeless impracticability, were

things to dream of, not to tell. Picotee was quite an unreasoning

animal. Her sister arranged situations for her, told her how to conduct

herself in them, how to make up anew, in unobtrusive shapes, the

valuable wearing apparel she sent from time to time-so as to provoke

neither exasperation in the little gentry, nor superciliousness in the

great. Ethelberta did everything for her, in short; and Picotee obeyed

orders with the abstracted ease of mind which people show who have their

thinking done for them, and put out their troubles as they do their

washing. She was quite willing not to be clever herself, since it was

unnecessary while she had a much-admired sister, who was clever enough

for two people and to spare.

This arrangement, by which she gained an untroubled existence in

exchange for freedom of will, had worked very pleasantly for Picotee

until the anomaly of falling in love on her own account created a jar in

the machinery. Then she began to know how wearing were miserable days,

and how much more wearing were miserable nights. She pictured

Christopher in London calling upon her dignified sister (for Ethelberta

innocently mentioned his name sometimes in writing) and imagined over

and over again the mutual signs of warm feeling between them. And now

Picotee resolved upon a noble course. Like Juliet, she had been troubled

with a consciousness that perhaps her love for Christopher was a trifle

forward and unmaidenly, even though she had determined never to let him

or anybody in the whole world know of it. To set herself to pray that

she might have strength to see him without a pang the lover of her

sister, who deserved him so much more than herself, would be a grand

penance and corrective.

After uttering petitions to this effect for several days, she still felt

very bad; indeed, in the psychological difficulty of striving for what

in her soul she did not desire, rather worse, if anything. At last,

weary of walking the old road and never meeting him, and blank in a

general powerlessness, she wrote the letter to Ethelberta, which was

only the last one of a series that had previously been written and torn

up.

Now this hope had been whirled away like thistledown, and the case was

grievous enough to distract a greater stoic than Picotee. The end of it

was that she left the school on insufficient notice, gave up her cottage

home on the plea-true in the letter-that she was going to join a

relative in London, and went off thither by a morning train, leaving her

things packed ready to be sent on when she should write for them.

Picotee arrived in town late on a cold February afternoon, bearing a

small bag in her hand. She crossed Westminster Bridge on foot, just

after dusk, and saw a luminous haze hanging over each well-lighted

street as it withdrew into distance behind the nearer houses, showing

its direction as a train of morning mist shows the course of a distant

stream when the stream itself is hidden. The lights along the riverside

towards Charing Cross sent an inverted palisade of gleaming swords down

into the shaking water, and the pavement ticked to the touch of

pedestrians' feet, most of whom tripped along as if walking only to

practise a favourite quick step, and held handkerchiefs to their mouths

to strain off the river mist from their lungs. She inquired her way to

Exonbury Crescent, and between five and six o'clock reached her sister's

door.

Two or three minutes were passed in accumulating resolution sufficient

to ring the bell, which when at last she did, was not performed in a way

at all calculated to make the young man Joey hasten to the door. After

the lapse of a certain time he did, however, find leisure to stroll and

see what the caller might want, out of curiosity to know who there could

be in London afraid to ring a bell twice.

Joey's delight exceeded even his surprise, the ruling maxim of his life

being the more the merrier, under all circumstances. The beaming young

man was about to run off and announce her upstairs and downstairs, left

and right, when Picotee called him hastily to her. In the hall her quick

young eye had caught sight of an umbrella with a peculiar horn handle-an

umbrella she had been accustomed to meet on Sandbourne Moor on many

happy afternoons. Christopher was evidently in the house.

'Joey,' she said, as if she were ready to faint, 'don't tell Berta I am

come. She has company, has she not?'

'O no-only Mr. Julian!' said the brother. 'He's quite one of the

family!'

'Never mind-can't I go down into the kitchen with you?' she inquired.

There had been bliss and misery mingled in those tidings, and she

scarcely knew for a moment which way they affected her. What she did

know was that she had run her dear fox to earth, and a sense of

satisfaction at that feat prevented her just now from counting the cost

of the performance.

'Does Mr. Julian come to see her very often?' said she.

'O yes-he's always a-coming-a regular bore to me.'

'A regular what?'

'Bore!-Ah, I forgot, you don't know our town words. However, come

along.'

They passed by the doors on tiptoe, and their mother upstairs being,

according to Joey's account, in the midst of a nap, Picotee was

unwilling to disturb her; so they went down at once to the kitchen, when

forward rushed Gwendoline the cook, flourishing her floury hands, and

Cornelia the housemaid, dancing over her brush; and these having

welcomed and made Picotee comfortable, who should ring the area-bell,

and be admitted down the steps, but Sol and Dan. The workman-brothers,

their day's duties being over, had called to see their relations, first,

as usual, going home to their lodgings in Marylebone and making

themselves as spruce as bridegrooms, according to the rules of their

newly-acquired town experience. For the London mechanic is only nine

hours a mechanic, though the country mechanic works, eats, drinks, and

sleeps a mechanic throughout the whole twenty-four.

'God bless my soul-Picotee!' said Dan, standing fixed. 'Well-I say, this

is splendid! ha-ha!'

'Picotee-what brought you here?' said Sol, expanding the circumference

of his face in satisfaction. 'Well, come along-never mind so long as you

be here.'

Picotee explained circumstances as well as she could without stating

them, and, after a general conversation of a few minutes, Sol

interrupted with-'Anybody upstairs with Mrs. Petherwin?'

'Mr. Julian was there just now,' said Joey; 'but he may be gone. Berta

always lets him slip out how he can, the form of ringing me up not being

necessary with him. Wait a minute-I'll see.'

Joseph vanished up the stairs; and, the question whether Christopher

were gone or not being an uninteresting one to the majority, the talking

went on upon other matters. When Joey crept down again a minute later,

Picotee was sitting aloof and silent, and he accordingly singled her out

to speak to.

'Such a lark, Picotee!' he whispered. 'Berta's a-courting of her young

man. Would you like to see how they carries on a bit?'

'Dearly I should!' said Picotee, the pupils of her eyes dilating.

Joey conducted her to the top of the basement stairs, and told her to

listen. Within a few yards of them was the morning-room door, now

standing ajar; and an intermittent flirtation in soft male and female

tones could be heard going on inside. Picotee's lips parted at thus

learning the condition of things, and she leant against the stair-newel.

'My? What's the matter?' said Joey.

'If this is London, I don't like it at all!' moaned Picotee.

'Well-I never see such a girl-fainting all over the stairs for nothing

in the world.'

'O-it will soon be gone-it is-it is only indigestion.'

'Indigestion? Much you simple country people can know about that! You

should see what devils of indigestions we get in high life-eating

'normous great dinners and suppers that require clever physicians to

carry 'em off, or else they'd carry us off with gout next day; and

waking in the morning with such a splitting headache, and dry throat,

and inward cusses about human nature, that you feel all the world like

some great lord. However, now let's go down again.'

'No, no, no!' said the unhappy maiden imploringly. 'Hark!'

They listened again. The voices of the musician and poetess had changed:

there was a decided frigidity in their tone-then came a louder

expression-then a silence.

'You needn't be afeard,' said Joey. 'They won't fight; bless you, they

busts out quarrelling like this times and times when they've been over-

friendly, but it soon gets straight with 'em again.'

There was now a quick walk across the room, and Joey and his sister drew

down their heads out of sight. Then the room door was slammed, quick

footsteps went along the hall, the front door closed just as loudly, and

Christopher's tread passed into nothing along the pavement.

'That's rather a wuss one than they mostly have; but Lord, 'tis nothing

at all.'

'I don't much like biding here listening!' said Picotee.

'O, 'tis how we do all over the West End,' said Joey. ''Tis yer

ignorance of town life that makes it seem a good deal to 'ee.'

'You can't make much boast about town life; for you haven't left off

talking just as they do down in Wessex.'

'Well, I own to that-what's fair is fair, and 'tis a true charge; but if

I talk the Wessex way 'tisn't for want of knowing better; 'tis because

my staunch nater makes me bide faithful to our old ancient institutions.

You'd soon own 'twasn't ignorance in me, if you knowed what large

quantities of noblemen I gets mixed up with every day. In fact 'tis

thoughted here and there that I shall do very well in the world.'

'Well, let us go down,' said Picotee. 'Everything seems so overpowering

here.'

'O, you'll get broke in soon enough. I felt just the same when I first

entered into society.'

'Do you think Berta will be angry with me? How does she treat you?'

'Well, I can't complain. You see she's my own flesh and blood, and what

can I say? But, in secret truth, the wages is terrible low, and barely

pays for the tobacco I consooms.'

'O Joey, you wicked boy! If mother only knew that you smoked!'

'I don't mind the wickedness so much as the smell. And Mrs. Petherwin

has got such a nose for a fellow's clothes. 'Tis one of the greatest

knots in service-the smoke question. 'Tis thoughted that we shall make a

great stir about it in the mansions of the nobility soon.'

'How much more you know of life than I do-you only fourteen and me

seventeen!'

'Yes, that's true. You see, age is nothing-'tis opportunity. And even I

can't boast, for many a younger man knows more.'

'But don't smoke, Joey-there's a dear!'

'What can I do? Society hev its rules, and if a person wishes to keep

himself up, he must do as the world do. We be all Fashion's slave-as

much a slave as the meanest in the land!'

They got downstairs again; and when the dinner of the French lady and

gentleman had been sent up and cleared away, and also Ethelberta's

evening tea (which she formed into a genuine meal, making a dinner of

luncheon, when nobody was there, to give less trouble to her servant-

sisters), they all sat round the fire. Then the rustle of a dress was

heard on the staircase, and squirrel-haired Ethelberta appeared in

person. It was her custom thus to come down every spare evening, to

teach Joey and her sisters something or other-mostly French, which she

spoke fluently; but the cook and housemaid showed more ambition than

intelligence in acquiring that tongue, though Joey learnt it readily

enough.

There was consternation in the camp for a moment or two, on account of

poor Picotee, Ethelberta being not without firmness in matters of

discipline. Her eye instantly lighted upon her disobedient sister, now

looking twice as disobedient as she really was.

'O, you are here, Picotee? I am glad to see you,' said the mistress of

the house quietly.

This was altogether to Picotee's surprise, for she had expected a round

rating at least, in her freshness hardly being aware that this reserve

of feeling was an acquired habit of Ethelberta's, and that civility

stood in town for as much vexation as a tantrum represented in Wessex.

Picotee lamely explained her outward reasons for coming, and soon began

to find that Ethelberta's opinions on the matter would not be known by

the tones of her voice. But innocent Picotee was as wily as a

religionist in sly elusions of the letter whilst infringing the spirit

of a dictum; and by talking very softly and earnestly about the wondrous

good she could do by remaining in the house as governess to the

children, and playing the part of lady's-maid to her sister at show

times, she so far coaxed Ethelberta out of her intentions that she

almost accepted the plan as a good one. It was agreed that for the

present, at any rate, Picotee should remain. Then a visit was made to

Mrs. Chickerel's room, where the remainder of the evening was passed;

and harmony reigned in the household.

19. ETHELBERTA'S DRAWING-ROOM

Picotee's heart was fitfully glad. She was near the man who had enlarged

her capacity from girl's to woman's, a little note or two of young

feeling to a whole diapason; and though nearness was perhaps not in

itself a great reason for felicity when viewed beside the complete

realization of all that a woman can desire in such circumstances, it was

much in comparison with the outer darkness of the previous time.

It became evident to all the family that some misunderstanding had

arisen between Ethelberta and Mr. Julian. What Picotee hoped in the

centre of her heart as to the issue of the affair it would be too

complex a thing to say. If Christopher became cold towards her sister he

would not come to the house; if he continued to come it would really be

as Ethelberta's lover-altogether, a pretty game of perpetual check for

Picotee.

He did not make his appearance for several days. Picotee, being a

presentable girl, and decidedly finer-natured than her sisters below

stairs, was allowed to sit occasionally with Ethelberta in the

afternoon, when the teaching of the little ones had been done for the

day; and thus she had an opportunity of observing Ethelberta's emotional

condition with reference to Christopher, which Picotee did with an

interest that the elder sister was very far from suspecting.

At first Ethelberta seemed blithe enough without him. One more day went,

and he did not come, and then her manner was that of apathy. Another day

passed, and from fanciful elevations of the eyebrow, and long

breathings, it became apparent that Ethelberta had decidedly passed the

indifferent stage, and was getting seriously out of sorts about him.

Next morning she looked all hope. He did not come that day either, and

Ethelberta began to look pale with fear.

'Why don't you go out?' said Picotee timidly.

'I can hardly tell: I have been expecting some one.'

'When she comes I must run up to mother at once, must I not?' said

clever Picotee.

'It is not a lady,' said Ethelberta blandly. She came then and stood by

Picotee, and looked musingly out of the window. 'I may as well tell you,

perhaps,' she continued. 'It is Mr. Julian. He is-I suppose-my lover, in

plain English.'

'Ah!' said Picotee.

'Whom I am not going to marry until he gets rich.'

'Ah-how strange! If I had him-such a lover, I mean-I would marry him if

he continued poor.'

'I don't doubt it, Picotee; just as you come to London without caring

about consequences, or would do any other crazy thing and not mind in

the least what came of it. But somebody in the family must take a

practical view of affairs, or we should all go to the dogs.'

Picotee recovered from the snubbing which she felt that she deserved,

and charged gallantly by saying, with delicate showings of indifference,

'Do you love this Mr. What's-his-name of yours?'

'Mr. Julian? O, he's a very gentlemanly man. That is, except when he is

rude, and ill-uses me, and will not come and apologize!'

'If I had him-a lover, I would ask him to come if I wanted him to.'

Ethelberta did not give her mind to this remark; but, drawing a long

breath, said, with a pouting laugh, which presaged unreality, 'The idea

of his getting indifferent now! I have been intending to keep him on

until I got tired of his attentions, and then put an end to them by

marrying him; but here is he, before he has hardly declared himself,

forgetting my existence as much as if he had vowed to love and cherish

me for life. 'Tis an unnatural inversion of the manners of society.'

'When did you first get to care for him, dear Berta?'

'O-when I had seen him once or twice.'

'Goodness-how quick you were!'

'Yes-if I am in the mind for loving I am not to be hindered by shortness

of acquaintanceship.'

'Nor I neither!' sighed Picotee.

'Nor any other woman. We don't need to know a man well in order to love

him. That's only necessary when we want to leave off.'

'O Berta-you don't believe that!'

'If a woman did not invariably form an opinion of her choice before she

has half seen him, and love him before she has half formed an opinion,

there would be no tears and pining in the whole feminine world, and

poets would starve for want of a topic. I don't believe it, do you say?

Ah, well, we shall see.'

Picotee did not know what to say to this; and Ethelberta left the room

to see about her duties as public story-teller, in which capacity she

had undertaken to appear again this very evening.

20. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE HALL-THE ROAD HOME

London was illuminated by the broad full moon. The pavements looked

white as if mantled with snow; ordinary houses were sublimated to the

rank of public buildings, public buildings to palaces, and the faces of

women walking the streets to those of calendared saints and guardian-

angels, by the pure bleaching light from the sky.

In the quiet little street where opened the private door of the Hall

chosen by Ethelberta for her story-telling, a brougham was waiting. The

time was about eleven o'clock; and presently a lady came out from the

building, the moonbeams forthwith flooding her face, which they showed

to be that of the Story-teller herself. She hastened across to the

carriage, when a second thought arrested her motion: telling the man-

servant and a woman inside the brougham to wait for her, she wrapped up

her features and glided round to the front of the house, where she

paused to observe the carriages and cabs driving up to receive the

fashionable crowd stepping down from the doors. Standing here in the

throng which her own talent and ingenuity had drawn together, she

appeared to enjoy herself by listening for a minute or two to the names

of several persons of more or less distinction as they were called out,

and then regarded attentively the faces of others of lesser degree: to

scrutinize the latter was, as the event proved, the real object of the

journey from round the corner. When nearly every one had left the doors,

she turned back disappointed. Ethelberta had been fancying that her

alienated lover Christopher was in the back rows to-night, but, as far

as could now be observed, the hopeful supposition was a false one.

When she got round to the back again, a man came forward. It was

Ladywell, whom she had spoken to already that evening. 'Allow me to

bring you your note-book, Mrs. Petherwin: I think you had forgotten it,'

he said. 'I assure you that nobody has handled it but myself.'

Ethelberta thanked him, and took the book. 'I use it to look into

between the parts, in case my memory should fail me,' she explained. 'I

remember that I did lay it down, now you remind me.'

Ladywell had apparently more to say, and moved by her side towards the

carriage; but she declined the arm he offered, and said not another word

till he went on, haltingly:

'Your triumph to-night was very great, and it was as much a triumph to

me as to you; I cannot express my feeling-I cannot say half that I

would. If I might only-'

'Thank you much,' said Ethelberta, with dignity. 'Thank you for bringing

my book, but I must go home now. I know that you will see that it is not

necessary for us to be talking here.'

'Yes-you are quite right,' said the repressed young painter, struck by

her seriousness. 'Blame me; I ought to have known better. But perhaps a

man-well, I will say it-a lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.

Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms. I saw that,

and hoped that I might speak without real harm.'

'You calculated how to be uncalculating, and are natural by art!' she

said, with the slightest accent of sarcasm. 'But pray do not attend me

further-it is not at all necessary or desirable. My maid is in the

carriage.' She bowed, turned, and entered the vehicle, seating herself

beside Picotee.

'It was harsh!' said Ladywell to himself, as he looked after the

retreating carriage. 'I was a fool; but it was harsh. Yet what man on

earth likes a woman to show too great a readiness at first? She is

right: she would be nothing without repulse!' And he moved away in an

opposite direction.

'What man was that?' said Picotee, as they drove along.

'O-a mere Mr. Ladywell: a painter of good family, to whom I have been

sitting for what he calls an Idealization. He is a dreadful simpleton.'

'Why did you choose him?'

'I did not: he chose me. But his silliness of behaviour is a hopeful

sign for the picture. I have seldom known a man cunning with his brush

who was not simple with his tongue; or, indeed, any skill in particular

that was not allied to general stupidity.'

'Your own skill is not like that, is it, Berta?'

'In men-in men. I don't mean in women. How childish you are!'

The slight depression at finding that Christopher was not present, which

had followed Ethelberta's public triumph that evening, was covered over,

if not removed, by Ladywell's declaration, and she reached home serene

in spirit. That she had not the slightest notion of accepting the

impulsive painter made little difference; a lover's arguments being apt

to affect a lady's mood as much by measure as by weight. A useless

declaration like a rare china teacup with a hole in it, has its

ornamental value in enlarging a collection.

No sooner had they entered the house than Mr. Julian's card was

discovered; and Joey informed them that he had come particularly to

speak with Ethelberta, quite forgetting that it was her evening for

tale-telling.

This was real delight, for between her excitements Ethelberta had been

seriously sick-hearted at the horrible possibility of his never calling

again. But alas! for Christopher. There being nothing like a dead

silence for getting one's off-hand sweetheart into a corner, there is

nothing like prematurely ending it for getting into that corner one's

self.

'Now won't I punish him for daring to stay away so long!' she exclaimed

as soon as she got upstairs. 'It is as bad to show constancy in your

manners as fickleness in your heart at such a time as this.'

'But I thought honesty was the best policy?' said Picotee.

'So it is, for the man's purpose. But don't you go believing in sayings,

Picotee: they are all made by men, for their own advantages. Women who

use public proverbs as a guide through events are those who have not

ingenuity enough to make private ones as each event occurs.'

She sat down, and rapidly wrote a line to Mr. Julian:-

'EXONBURY CRESCENT.

'I return from Mayfair Hall to find you have called. You will, I know,

be good enough to forgive my saying what seems an unfriendly thing, when

I assure you that the circumstances of my peculiar situation make it

desirable, if not necessary. It is that I beg you not to give me the

pleasure of a visit from you for some little time, for unhappily the

frequency of your kind calls has been noticed; and I am now in fear that

we may be talked about-invidiously-to the injury of us both. The town,

or a section of it, has turned its bull's-eye upon me with a brightness

which I did not in the least anticipate; and you will, I am sure,

perceive how indispensable it is that I should be circumspect.-Yours

sincerely,

E. PETHERWIN.'

21. A STREET-NEIGH'S ROOMS-CHRISTOPHER'S ROOMS

As soon as Ethelberta had driven off from the Hall, Ladywell turned back

again; and, passing the front entrance, overtook his acquaintance Mr.

Neigh, who had been one of the last to emerge. The two were going in the

same direction, and they walked a short distance together.

'Has anything serious happened?' said Neigh, noticing an abstraction in

his companion. 'You don't seem in your usual mood to-night.'

'O, it is only that affair between us,' said Ladywell.

'Affair? Between you and whom?'

'Her and myself, of course. It will be in every fellow's mouth now, I

suppose!'

'But-not anything between yourself and Mrs. Petherwin?'

'A mere nothing. But surely you started, Neigh, when you suspected it

just this moment?'

'No-you merely fancied that.'

'Did she not speak well to-night! You were in the room, I believe?'

'Yes, I just turned in for half-an-hour: it seems that everybody does,

so I thought I must. But I had no idea that you were feeble that way.'

'It is very kind of you, Neigh-upon my word it is-very kind; and of

course I appreciate the delicacy which-which-'

'What's kind?'

'I mean your well-intentioned plan for making me believe that nothing is

known of this. But stories will of course get wind; and if our

attachment has made more noise in the world than I intended it should,

and causes any public interest, why-ha-ha!-it must. There is some little

romance in it perhaps, and people will talk of matters of that sort

between individuals of any repute-little as that is with one of the

pair.'

'Of course they will-of course. You are a rising man, remember, whom

some day the world will delight to honour.'

'Thank you for that, Neigh. Thank you sincerely.'

'Not at all. It is merely justice to say it, and one must he generous to

deserve thanks.'

'Ha-ha!-that's very nicely put, and undeserved I am sure. And yet I need

a word of that sort sometimes!'

'Genius is proverbially modest.'

'Pray don't, Neigh-I don't deserve it, indeed. Of course it is well

meant in you to recognize any slight powers, but I don't deserve it.

Certainly, my self-assurance was never too great. 'Tis the misfortune of

all children of art that they should be so dependent upon any scraps of

praise they can pick up to help them along.'

'And when that child gets so deep in love that you can only see the

whites of his eyes-'

'Ah-now, Neigh-don't, I say!'

'But why did-'

'Why did I love her?'

'Yes, why did you love her?'

'Ah, if I could only turn self-vivisector, and watch the operation of my

heart, I should know!'

'My dear fellow, you must be very bad indeed to talk like that. A poet

himself couldn't be cleaner gone.'

'Now, don't chaff, Neigh; do anything, but don't chaff. You know that I

am the easiest man in the world for taking it at most times. But I can't

stand it now; I don't feel up to it. A glimpse of paradise, and then

perdition. What would you do, Neigh?'

'She has refused you, then?'

'Well-not positively refused me; but it is so near it that a dull man

couldn't tell the difference. I hardly can myself.'

'How do you really stand with her?' said Neigh, with an anxiety ill-

concealed.

'Off and on-neither one thing nor the other. I was determined to make an

effort the last time she sat to me, and so I met her quite coolly, and

spoke only of technicalities with a forced smile-you know that way of

mine for drawing people out, eh, Neigh?'

'Quite, quite.'

'A forced smile, as much as to say, "I am obliged to entertain you, but

as a mere model for art purposes." But the deuce a bit did she care. And

then I frequently looked to see what time it was, as the end of the

sitting drew near-rather a rude thing to do, as a rule.'

'Of course. But that was your finesse. Ha-ha!-capital! Yet why not

struggle against such slavery? It is regularly pulling you down. What's

a woman's beauty, after all?'

'Well you may say so! A thing easier to feel than define,' murmured

Ladywell. 'But it's no use, Neigh-I can't help it as long as she

repulses me so exquisitely! If she would only care for me a little, I

might get to trouble less about her.'

'And love her no more than one ordinarily does a girl by the time one

gets irrevocably engaged to her. But I suppose she keeps you back so

thoroughly that you carry on the old adoration with as much vigour as if

it were a new fancy every time?'

'Partly yes, and partly no! It's very true, and it's not true!'

''Tis to be hoped she won't hate you outright, for then you would

absolutely die of idolizing her.'

'Don't, Neigh!-Still there's some truth in it-such is the perversity of

our hearts. Fancy marrying such a woman!'

'We should feel as eternally united to her after years and years of

marriage as to a dear new angel met at last night's dance.'

'Exactly-just what I should have said. But did I hear you say "We,"

Neigh? You didn't say "WE should feel?"'

'Say "we"?-yes-of course-putting myself in your place just in the way of

speaking, you know.'

'Of course, of course; but one is such a fool at these times that one

seems to detect rivalry in every trumpery sound! Were you never a little

touched?'

'Not I. My heart is in the happy position of a country which has no

history or debt.'

'I suppose I should rejoice to hear it,' said Ladywell. 'But the

consciousness of a fellow-sufferer being in just such another hole is

such a relief always, and softens the sense of one's folly so very

much.'

'There's less Christianity in that sentiment than in your confessing to

it, old fellow. I know the truth of it nevertheless, and that's why

married men advise others to marry. Were all the world tied up, the

pleasantly tied ones would be equivalent to those at present free. But

what if your fellow-sufferer is not only in another such a hole, but in

the same one?'

'No, Neigh-never! Don't trifle with a friend who-'

'That is, refused like yourself, as well as in love.'

'Ah, thanks, thanks! It suddenly occurred to me that we might be dead

against one another as rivals, and a friendship of many long-days be

snapped like a-like a reed.'

'No-no-only a jest,' said Neigh, with a strangely accelerated speech.

'Love-making is an ornamental pursuit that matter-of-fact fellows like

me are quite unfit for. A man must have courted at least half-a-dozen

women before he's a match for one; and since triumph lies so far ahead,

I shall keep out of the contest altogether.'

'Your life would be pleasanter if you were engaged. It is a nice thing,

after all.'

'It is. The worst of it would be that, when the time came for breaking

it off, a fellow might get into an action for breach-women are so fond

of that sort of thing now; and I hate love-affairs that don't end

peaceably!'

'But end it by peaceably marrying, my dear fellow!'

'It would seem so singular. Besides, I have a horror of antiquity: and

you see, as long as a man keeps single, he belongs in a measure to the

rising generation, however old he may be; but as soon as he marries and

has children, he belongs to the last generation, however young he may

be. Old Jones's son is a deal younger than young Brown's father, though

they are both the same age.'

'At any rate, honest courtship cures a man of many evils he had no power

to stem before.'

'By substituting an incurable matrimony!'

'Ah-two persons must have a mind for that before it can happen!' said

Ladywell, sorrowfully shaking his head.

'I think you'll find that if one has a mind for it, it will be quite

sufficient. But here we are at my rooms. Come in for half-an-hour?'

'Not to-night, thanks!'

They parted, and Neigh went in. When he got upstairs he murmured in his

deepest chest note, 'O, lords, that I should come to this! But I shall

never be such a fool as to marry her! What a flat that poor young devil

was not to discover that we were tarred with the same brush. O, the

deuce, the deuce!' he continued, walking about the room as if

passionately stamping, but not quite doing it because another man had

rooms below.

Neigh drew from his pocket-book an envelope embossed with the name of a

fashionable photographer, and out of this pulled a portrait of the lady

who had, in fact, enslaved his secret self equally with his frank young

friend the painter. After contemplating it awhile with a face of cynical

adoration, he murmured, shaking his head, 'Ah, my lady; if you only knew

this, I should be snapped up like a snail! Not a minute's peace for me

till I had married you. I wonder if I shall!-I wonder.'

Neigh was a man of five-and-thirty-Ladywell's senior by ten years; and,

being of a phlegmatic temperament, he had glided thus far through the

period of eligibility with impunity. He knew as well as any man how far

he could go with a woman and yet keep clear of having to meet her in

church without her bonnet; but it is doubtful if his mind that night

were less disturbed with the question how to guide himself out of the

natural course which his passion for Ethelberta might tempt him into,

than was Ladywell's by his ardent wish to secure her.

About the time at which Neigh and Ladywell parted company, Christopher

Julian was entering his little place in Bloomsbury. The quaint figure of

Faith, in her bonnet and cloak, was kneeling on the hearth-rug

endeavouring to stir a dull fire into a bright one.

'What-Faith! you have never been out alone?' he said.

Faith's soft, quick-shutting eyes looked unutterable things, and she

replied, 'I have been to hear Mrs. Petherwin's story-telling again.'

'And walked all the way home through the streets at this time of night,

I suppose!'

'Well, nobody molested me, either going or coming back.'

'Faith, I gave you strict orders not to go into the streets after two

o'clock in the day, and now here you are taking no notice of what I say

at all!'

'The truth is, Kit, I wanted to see with my spectacles what this woman

was really like, and I went without them last time. I slipped in behind,

and nobody saw me.'

'I don't think much of her after what I have seen tonight,' said

Christopher, moodily recurring to a previous thought.

'Why? What is the matter?'

'I thought I would call on her this afternoon, but when I got there I

found she had left early for the performance. So in the evening, when I

thought it would be all over, I went to the private door of the Hall to

speak to her as she came out, and ask her flatly a question or two which

I was fool enough to think I must ask her before I went to bed. Just as

I was drawing near she came out, and, instead of getting into the

brougham that was waiting for her, she went round the corner. When she

came back a man met her and gave her something, and they stayed talking

together two or three minutes. The meeting may certainly not have been

intentional on her part; but she has no business to be going on so

coolly when-when-in fact, I have come to the conclusion that a woman's

affection is not worth having. The only feeling which has any dignity or

permanence or worth is family affection between close blood-relations.'

'And yet you snub me sometimes, Mr. Kit.'