"Everything is wrong." Then he stood with his back to the kitchen

fire for nearly half an hour without speaking a word. He was trying

to force himself to follow out her idea of manliness, and telling

himself that it was impossible. The first tone of her voice, the

first glance at her face, had driven him home. Why had she called him

Larry again and again, so tenderly, in that short moment, and looked

at him with those loving eyes? Then he declared to himself, without

uttering a word, that she did not understand anything about it; she

did not comprehend the fashion of his love when she thought, as she

did think, that a soft word would be compensation. He looked round

to see if his mother or the servant were there, and when he found

that the coast was clear, he dashed his hands to his eyes and knocked

away the tears. He threw up both his arms and groaned, and then he

remembered her message, "Bid him be a man."

At that moment he heard the sound of horses, and going near the

window, so as to be hidden from curious eyes as they passed, he saw

the first whip trot on, with the hounds after him, and Tony Tuppett

among them. Then there was a long string of horsemen, all moving up

to the wood, and a carriage or two, and after them the stragglers

of the field. He let them all go by, and then he repeated the words

again, "Bid him be a man." He took up his hat, jammed it on his head,

and went out into the yard. As he crossed to the stables Runciman

came up alone. "Why, Larry, you'll be late," he said.

"Go on, Mr. Runciman, I'll follow."

"I'll wait till you are mounted. You'll be better for somebody with

you. You've got the mare, have you? You'll show some of them your

heels if they get away from here. Is she as fast as she was last

year, do you think?"

"Upon my word I don't know," said Larry, as he dragged himself into

the saddle.

"Shake yourself, old fellow, and don't carry on like that. What is

she after all but a girl?" The poor fellow looked at his intending

comforter, but couldn't speak a word. "A man shouldn't let hisself

be put upon by circumstances so as to be only half hisself. Hang it,

man, cheer up, and don't let 'em see you going about like that. It

ain't what a fellow of your kidney ought to be. If they haven't found

I'm a nigger,--and by the holy he's away. Come along Larry and forget

the petticoats for half an hour." So saying, Runciman broke into a

gallop, and Larry's mare doing the same, he soon passed the innkeeper

and was up at the covert side just as Tony Tuppett with half a score

of hounds round him, was forcing his way through the bushes, out of

the coverts into the open field. "There ain't no poison this time,

Mr. Twentyman," said the huntsman, as, setting his eye on a gap in

the further fence, he made his way across the field.

The fox headed away for a couple of miles towards Impington, as was

the custom with the Dillsborough foxes, and then turning to the left

was soon over the country borders into Ufford. The pace from the

first starting was very good. Larry, under such provocation as that

of course would ride, and he did ride. Up as far as the country

brook, many were well up. The land was no longer deep; and as the

field had not been scattered at the starting, all the men who usually

rode were fairly well placed as they came to the brook; but it was

acknowledged afterwards that Larry was over it the first. Glomax got

into it,--as he always does into brooks, and young Runce hurt his

horse's shoulder at the opposite bank. Lord Rufford's horse balked

it, to the Lord's disgust; but took it afterwards, not losing very

much ground. Tony went in and out, the crafty old dog knowing the one

bit of hard ground. Then they crossed Purbeck field, as it is still

called--which, twenty years since was a wide waste of land, but is

now divided by new fences, very grievous to half-blown horses. Sir

John Purefoy got a nasty fall over some stiff timber, and here many

a half-hearted rider turned to the right into the lane. Hampton and

his Lordship, and Battersby, with Fred Botsey and Larry, took it all

as it came, but through it all not one of them could give Larry a

lead. Then there was manoeuvring into a wood and out of it again, and

that saddest of all sights to the riding man, a cloud of horsemen

on the road as well placed as though they had ridden the line

throughout. In getting out of the road Hampton's horse slipped up

with him, and, though he saw it all, he was never able again to

compete for a place. The fox went through the Hampton Wick coverts

without hanging a moment, just throwing the hounds for two minutes

off their scent at the gravel pits. The check was very useful to

Tony, who had got his second horse and came up sputtering, begging

the field for G----'s sake to be,--in short to be anywhere but

where they were. Then they were off again down the hill to the left,

through Mappy springs and along the top of Ilveston copse, every yard

of which is grass,--till the number began to be select. At last in a

turnip field, three yards from the fence, they turned him over, and

Tony, as he jumped off his horse among the hounds, acknowledged to

himself that Larry might have had his hand first upon the animal had

he cared to do so.

"Twentyman, I'll give you two hundred for your mare," said Lord

Rufford.

"Ah, my Lord, there are two things that would about kill me."

"What are they, Larry?" asked Harry Stubbings.

"To offend his Lordship, or to part with the mare."

"You shall do neither," said Lord Rufford; "but upon my word I think

she's the fastest thing in this county." All of which did not cure

poor Larry, but it helped to enable him to be a man.

The fox had been killed close to Norrington, and the run was

remembered with intense gratification for many a long day after.

"It's that kind of thing that makes hunting beat everything else,"

said Lord Rufford, as he went home. That day's sport certainly had

been "tanti," and Glomax and the two counties boasted of it for the

next three years.

CHAPTER XX.

BENEDICT.

Lady Penwether declared to her husband that she had never seen her

brother so much cowed as he had been by Miss Trefoil's visit to

Rufford. It was not only that he was unable to assert his usual

powers immediately after the attack made upon him, but that on the

following day, at Scrobby's trial, on the Saturday when he started

to the meet, and on the Sunday following when he allowed himself to

be easily persuaded to go to church, he was silent, sheepish, and

evidently afraid of himself. "It is a great pity that we shouldn't

take the ball at the hop," she said to Sir George.

"What ball;--and what hop?"

"Get him to settle himself. There ought to be an end to this kind of

thing now. He has got out of this mess, but every time it becomes

worse and worse, and he'll be taken in horribly by some harpy if we

don't get him to marry decently. I fancy he was very nearly going in

this last affair." Sir George, in this matter, did not quite agree

with his wife. It was in his opinion right to avoid Miss Trefoil, but

he did not see why his brother-in-law should be precipitated into

matrimony with Miss Penge. According to his ideas in such matters a

man should be left alone. Therefore, as was customary with him when

he opposed his wife, he held his tongue. "You have been called in

three or four times when he has been just on the edge of the cliff."

"I don't know that that is any reason why he should be pushed over."

"There is not a word to be said against Caroline. She has a fine

fortune of her own, and some of the best blood in the kingdom."

"But if your brother does not care for her,--"

"That's nonsense, George. As for liking, it's all the same to him.

Rufford is good-natured, and easily pleased, and can like any woman.

Caroline is very good-looking,--a great deal handsomer than that

horrid creature ever was,--and with manners fit for any position.

I've no reason to wish to force a wife on him; but of course he'll

marry, and unless he's guided, he'll certainly marry badly."

"Is Miss Penge in love with him?" asked Sir George in a tone of voice

that was intended to be provoking. His wife looked at him, asking him

plainly by her countenance whether he was such a fool as that? Was

it likely that any untitled young lady of eight-and-twenty should be

wanting in the capacity of being in love with a young lord, handsome

and possessed of forty thousand a year without encumbrances? Sir

George, though he did not approve, was not eager enough in his

disapproval to lay any serious embargo on his wife's proceedings.

The first steps taken were in the direction of the hero's personal

comfort. He was flattered and petted, as his sister knew how to

flatter and pet him;--and Miss Penge in a quiet way assisted Lady

Penwether in the operation. For a day or two he had not much to say

for himself;--but every word he did say was an oracle. His horses

were spoken of as demigods, and his projected fishing operations for

June and July became matters of most intense interest. Evil things

were said of Arabella Trefoil, but in all the evil things said no

hint was given that Lord Rufford had behaved badly or had been in

danger. Lady Penwether, not quite knowing the state of his mind,

thought that there might still be some lurking affection for the

young lady. "Did you ever see anybody look so vulgar and hideous as

she did when she marched across the park?" asked Lady Penwether.

"Thank goodness I did not see her," said Miss Penge.

"I never saw her look so handsome as when she came up to me," said

Lord Rufford.

"But such a thing to do!"

"Awful!" said Miss Penge.

"She is the pluckiest girl I ever came across in my life," said Lord

Rufford. He knew very well what they were at, and was already almost

inclined to think that they might as well be allowed to have their

way. Miss Penge was ladylike, quiet, and good, and was like a cool

salad in a man's mouth after spiced meat. And the money would enable

him to buy the Purefoy property which would probably be soon in the

market. But he felt that he might as well give them a little trouble

before he allowed himself to be hooked. It certainly was not by any

arrangement of his own that he found himself walking alone with Miss

Penge that Sunday afternoon in the park;--nor did it seem to be by

hers. He thought of that other Sunday at Mistletoe, when he had been

compelled to wander with Arabella, when he met the Duchess, and when,

as he often told himself, a little more good-nature or a little more

courage on her grace's part would have completed the work entirely.

Certainly had the Duke come to him that night, after the journey from

Stamford, he would have capitulated. As he walked along and allowed

himself to be talked to by Miss Penge, he did tell himself that she

would be the better angel of the two. She could not hunt with him,

as Arabella would have done; but then a man does not want his wife

to gallop across the country after him. She might perhaps object to

cigars and soda water after eleven o'clock, but then what assurance

had he that Arabella would not have objected still more loudly. She

had sworn that she would never be opposed to his little pleasures;

but he knew what such oaths were worth. Marriage altogether was a

bore; but having a name and a large fortune, it was incumbent on him

to transmit them to an immediate descendant. And perhaps it was a

worse bore to grow old without having specially bound any other human

being to his interests. "How well I recollect that spot," said Miss

Penge. "It was there that Major Caneback took the fence."

"That was not where he fell."

"Oh no;--I did not see that. It would have haunted me for ever had I

done so. But it was there that I thought he must kill himself. That

was a terrible time, Lord Rufford."

"Terrible to poor Caneback certainly."

"Yes, and to all of us. Do you remember that fearful ball? We were

all so unhappy,--because you suffered so much."

"It was bad."

"And that woman who persecuted you! We all knew that you felt it."

"I felt that poor man's death."

"Yes;--and you felt the other nuisance too."

"I remember that you told me that you would cling on to my legs."

"Eleanor said so;--and when it was explained to me, what clinging on

to your legs meant, I remember saying that I wished to be understood

as being one to help. I love your sister so well that anything which

would break her heart would make me unhappy."

"You did not care for my own welfare in the matter?"

"What ought I say, Lord Rufford, in answer to that? Of course I did

care. But I knew that it was impossible that you should really set

your affections on such a person as Miss Trefoil. I told Eleanor that

it would come to nothing. I was sure of it."

"Why should it have come to nothing,--as you call it?"

"Because you are a gentleman and because she--is not a lady. I don't

know that we women can quite understand how it is that you men amuse

yourselves with such persons."

"I didn't amuse myself."

"I never thought you did very much. There was something I suppose

in her riding, something in her audacity, something perhaps in her

vivacity;--but through it all I did not think that you were enjoying

yourself. You may be sure of this, Lord Rufford, that when a woman is

not specially liked by any other woman, she ought not to be specially

liked by any man. I have never heard that Miss Trefoil had a female

friend."

From day to day there were little meetings and conversations of this

kind till Lord Rufford found himself accustomed to Miss Penge's

solicitude for his welfare. In all that passed between them the lady

affected a status that was altogether removed from that of making or

receiving love. There had come to be a peculiar friendship,--because

of Eleanor. A week of this kind of thing had not gone by before

Miss Penge found herself able to talk of and absolutely to describe

this peculiar feeling, and could almost say how pleasant was such

friendship, divested of the burden of all amatory possibilities. But

through it all Lord Rufford knew that he would have to marry Miss

Penge.

It was not long before he yielded in pure weariness. Who has not

felt, as he stood by a stream into which he knew that it was his

fate to plunge, the folly of delaying the shock? In his present

condition he had no ease. His sister threatened him with a return of

Arabella. Miss Penge required from him sensational conversation. His

brother-in-law was laughing at him in his sleeve. His very hunting

friends treated him as though the time were come. In all that he did

the young lady took an interest which bored him excessively,--to put

an end to which he only saw one certain way. He therefore asked her

to be Lady Rufford before he got on his drag to go out hunting on

the last Saturday in March. "Rufford," she said, looking up into his

face with her lustrous eyes, and speaking with a sweet, low, silvery

voice,--"are you sure of yourself?"

"Oh, yes."

"Quite sure of yourself?"

"Never so sure in my life."

"Then dearest, dearest Rufford, I will not scruple to say that I also

am sure." And so the thing was settled very much to his comfort.

He could hardly have done better had he sought through all England

for a bride. She will be true to him, and never give him cause for

a moment's jealousy. She will like his title, his house, and his

property. She will never spend a shilling more than she ought to do.

She will look very sharply after him, but will not altogether debar

him from his accustomed pleasures. She will grace his table, nurse

his children, and never for a moment give him cause to be ashamed of

her. He will think that he loves her, and after a lapse of ten or

fifteen years will probably really be fond of her. From the moment

that she is Lady Rufford, she will love him,--as she loves everything

that is her own.

In spite of all his antecedents no one doubted his faith in this

engagement;--no one wished to hurry him very much. When the

proposition had been made and accepted, and when the hero of it had

gone off on his drag, Miss Penge communicated the tidings to her

friend. "I think he has behaved very wisely," said Lady Penwether.

"Well;--feeling as I do of course I think he has. I hope he thinks

the same of me. I had many doubts about it, but I do believe that

I can make him a good wife." Lady Penwether thought that her friend

was hardly sufficiently thankful, and strove to tell her so in her

own gentle, friendly way. But Miss Penge held her head up and was

very stout, and would not acknowledge any cause for gratitude. Lady

Penwether, when she saw how it was to be gave way a little. Close

friendship with her future sister-in-law would be very necessary to

her comfort, and Miss Penge, since the law-suit was settled, had

never been given to yielding.

"My dear Rufford," said the sister affectionately, "I congratulate

you with all my heart; I do indeed. I am quite sure that you could

not have done better."

"I don't know that I could."

"She is a gem of inestimable price, and most warmly attached to you.

And if this property is to be bought, of course the money will be a

great thing."

"Money is always comfortable."

"Of course it is, and then there is nothing to be desired. If I had

named the girl that I would have wished you to love, it would have

been Caroline Penge." She need hardly have said this as she had in

fact been naming the girl for the last three or four months. The news

was soon spread about the country and the fashionable world; and

everybody was pleased,--except the Trefoil family.

CHAPTER XXI.

ARABELLA'S SUCCESS.

When Arabella Trefoil got back to Portugal Street after her visit

to Rufford, she was ill. The effort she had made, the unaccustomed

labour, and the necessity of holding herself aloft before the man who

had rejected her, were together more than her strength could bear,

and she was taken up to bed in a fainting condition. It was not till

the next morning that she was able even to open the letter which

contained the news of John Morton's legacy. When she had read the

letter and realized the contents, she took to weeping in a fashion

very unlike her usual habits. She was still in bed, and there she

remained for two or three days, during which she had time to think

of her past life,--and to think also a little of the future. Old Mrs.

Green came to her once or twice a day, but she was necessarily left

to the nursing of her own maid. Every evening Mounser Green called

and sent up tender enquiries; but in all this there was very little

to comfort her. There she lay with the letter in her hand, thinking

that the only man who had endeavoured to be of service to her was he

whom she had treated with unexampled perfidy. Other men had petted

her, had amused themselves with her, and then thrown her over, had

lied to her and laughed at her, till she had been taught to think

that a man was a heartless, cruel, slippery animal, made indeed to be

caught occasionally, but in the catching of which infinite skill was

wanted, and in which infinite skill might be thrown away. But this

man had been true to her to the last in spite of her treachery!

She knew that she was heartless herself, and that she belonged to a

heartless world;--but she knew also that there was a world of women

who were not heartless. Such women had looked down upon her as from a

great height, but she in return had been able to ridicule them. They

had chosen their part, and she had chosen hers,--and had thought that

she might climb to the glory of wealth and rank, while they would

have to marry hard-working clergymen and briefless barristers. She

had often been called upon to vindicate to herself the part she had

chosen, and had always done so by magnifying in her own mind the sin

of the men with whom she had to deal. At this moment she thought that

Lord Rufford had treated her villainously, whereas her conduct to

him had been only that which the necessity of the case required. To

Lord Rufford she had simply behaved after the manner of her class,

heartless of course, but only in the way which the "custom of the

trade" justified. Each had tried to circumvent the other, and she as

the weaker had gone to the wall. But John Morton had believed in her

and loved her. Oh, how she wished that she had deserted her class,

and clung to him,--even though she should now have been his widow.

The legacy was a burden to her. Even she had conscience enough to be

sorry for a day or two that he had named her in his will.

And what would she do with herself for the future? Her quarrel

with her mother had been very serious, each swearing that under no

circumstances would she again consent to live with the other. The

daughter of course knew that the mother would receive her again

should she ask to be received. But in such case she must go back with

shortened pinions and blunted beak. Her sojourn with Mrs. Green was

to last for one month, and at the end of that time she must seek

for a home. If she put John Morton's legacy out to interest, she

would now be mistress of a small income;--but she understood money

well enough to know to what obduracy of poverty she would thus be

subjected. As she looked the matter closer in the face the horrors

became more startling and more manifest. Who would have her in their

houses? Where should she find society,--where the possibility of

lovers? What would be her life, and what her prospects? Must she

give up for ever the game for which she had lived, and own that she

had been conquered in the fight and beaten even to death? Then she

thought over the long list of her past lovers, trying to see whether

there might be one of the least desirable at whom she might again

cast her javelins. But there was not one.

The tender messages from Mounser Green came to her day by day.

Mounser Green, as the nephew of her hostess, had been very kind to

her; but hitherto he had never appeared to her in the light of a

possible lover. He was a clerk in the Foreign Office, waiting for his

aunt's money;--a man whom she had met in society and whom she knew to

be well thought of by those above him in wealth and rank; but she had

never regarded him as prey,--or as a man whom any girl would want to

marry. He was one of those of the other sex who would most probably

look out for prey,--who, if he married at all, would marry an

heiress. She, in her time, had been on good terms with many such

a one,--had counted them among her intimate friends, had made use

of them and been useful to them,--but she had never dreamed of

marrying any one of them. They were there in society for altogether

a different purpose. She had not hesitated to talk to Mounser Green

about Lord Rufford,--and though she had pretended to make a secret

of the place to which she was going when he had taken her to the

railway, she had not at all objected to his understanding her

purpose. Up to that moment there had certainly been no thought on

her part of transferring what she was wont to call her affections to

Mounser Green as a suitor.

But as she lay in bed, thinking of her future life, tidings were

brought to her by Mrs. Green that Mounser had accepted the mission

to Patagonia. Could it be that her destiny intended her to go out

to Patagonia as the wife, if not of one minister, then of another?

There would be a career,--a way of living, if not exactly that which

she would have chosen. Of Patagonia, as a place of residence, she

had already formed ideas. In some of those moments in which she had

foreseen that Lord Rufford would be lost to her, she had told herself

that it would be better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. Among

Patagonian women she would probably be the first. Among English

ladies it did not seem that at present she had prospect of a high

place. It would be long before Lord Rufford would be forgotten,--and

she had not space enough before her for forgettings which would

require time for their accomplishment. Mounser Green had declared

with energy that Lord Rufford had behaved very badly. There are men

who feel it to be their mission to come in for the relief of ladies

who have been badly treated. If Mounser Green wished to be one of

them on her behalf, and to take her out with him to his very far-away

employment, might not this be the best possible solution of her

present difficulties?

On the evening of the third day after her return she was able to come

down-stairs and the line of thought which has been suggested for her

induced her to undertake some trouble with the white and pink robe,

or dressing-gown in which she had appeared. "Well, my dear, you are

smart," the old lady said.

"'Odious in woollen;--'twould a saint provoke,

Were the last words which poor Narcissa spoke.'"

said Arabella, who had long since provided herself with this

quotation for such occasions. "I hope I am not exactly dying, Mrs.

Green; but I don't see why I should not object to be 'frightful,' as

well as the young lady who was."

"I suppose it's all done for Mounser's benefit?"

"Partly for you, partly for Mounser, and a good deal for myself. What

a very odd name. Why did they call him Mounser? I used to think it

was because he was in the Foreign Office,--a kind of chaff, as being

half a Frenchman."

"My mother's maiden name was Mounser, and it isn't French at all. I

don't see why it should not be as good a Christian name as Willoughby

or Howard."

"Quite as good, and much more distinctive. There can't be another

Mounser Green in the world."

"And very few other young men like him. At my time of life I find

it very hard his going away. And what will he do in such a place as

that,--all alone and without a wife?"

"Why don't you make him take a wife?"

"There isn't time now. He'll have to start in May."

"Plenty of time. Trousseaus are now got up by steam, and girls are

kept ready to marry at the shortest notice. If I were you I should

certainly advise him to take out some healthy young woman, capable of

bearing the inclemencies of the Patagonian climate."

"As for that the climate is delicious," said Mrs. Green, who

certainly was not led by her guest's manner to suspect the nature of

her guest's more recent intentions.

Mounser Green on this afternoon came to Portugal Street before he

himself went out to dinner, choosing the hour at which his aunt was

wont to adorn herself. "And so you are to be the hero of Patagonia?"

said Arabella as she put out her hand to congratulate him on his

appointment.

"I don't know about heroism, but it seems that I am to go there,"

said Mounser with much melancholy in his voice.

"I should have thought you were the last man to leave London

willingly."

"Well, yes; I should have said so myself. And I do flatter myself

I shall be missed. But what had I before me here? This may lead to

something."

"Indeed you will be missed, Mr. Green."

"It's very kind of you to say so."

"Patagonia! It is such a long way off!" Then she began to consider

whether he had ever heard of her engagement with the last

Minister-elect to that country. That he should know all about Lord

Rufford was a matter of course; but what chance could there be for

her if he also knew that other affair? "We were intimately acquainted

with Mr. Morton in Washington and were surprised that he should have

accepted it."

"Poor Morton. He was a friend of mine. We used to call him the

Paragon because he never made mistakes. I had heard that you and Lady

Augusta were a good deal with him in Washington."

"We were, indeed. You do not know my good news as yet, I suppose.

Your Paragon, as you call him, has left me five thousand pounds." Of

course it would be necessary that he should know it some day if this

new plan of hers were to be carried out;--and if the plan should

fail, his knowing it could do no harm.

"How very nice for you. Poor Morton!"

"It is well that somebody should behave well, when others treat one

so badly, Mr. Green. Yes; he has left me five thousand pounds." Then

she showed him the lawyer's letter. "Perhaps as I am so separated at

present from all my own people by this affair with Lord Rufford, you

would not mind seeing the man for me." Of course he promised to see

the lawyer and to do everything that was necessary. "The truth is,

Mr. Green, Mr. Morton was very warmly attached to me. I was a foolish

girl, and could not return it. I thought of it long and was then

obliged to tell him that I could not entertain just that sort of

feeling for him. You cannot think now how bitter is my regret;--that

I should have allowed myself to trust a man so false and treacherous

as Lord Rufford, and that I should have perhaps added a pang to the

deathbed of one so good as Mr. Morton." And so she told her little

story;--not caring very much whether it were believed or not, but

finding it to be absolutely essential that some story should be told.

During the next day or two Mounser Green thought a great deal about

it. That the story was not exactly true, he knew very well. But it is

not to be expected that a girl before her marriage should be exactly

true about her old loves. That she had been engaged to Lord Rufford

and had been cruelly jilted by him he did believe. That she had at

one time been engaged to the Paragon he was almost sure. The fact

that the Paragon had left her money was a strong argument that she

had not behaved badly to him. But there was much that was quite

certain. The five thousand pounds were quite certain; and the money,

though it could not be called a large fortune for a young lady, would

pay his debts and send him out a free man to Patagonia. And the

family honours were certainly true. She was the undoubted niece of

the Duke of Mayfair, and such a connection might in his career be

of service to him. Lord Mistletoe was a prig, but would probably be

a member of the Government. Mounser Green liked Dukes, and loved a

Duchess in his heart of hearts. If he could only be assured that this

niece would not be repudiated he thought that the speculation might

answer in spite of any ambiguity in the lady's antecedents.

"Have you heard about Arabella's good fortune?" young Glossop asked

the next morning at the office.

"You forget, my boy," said Mounser Green, "that the young lady of

whom you speak is a friend of mine."

"Oh lord! So I did. I beg your pardon, old fellow." There was no one

else in the room at the moment, and Glossop in asking the question

had in truth forgotten what he had heard of this new intimacy.

"Don't you learn to be ill-natured, Glossop. And remember that there

is no form so bad as that of calling young ladies by their Christian

names. I do know that poor Morton has left Miss Trefoil a sum of

money which is at any rate evidence that he thought well of her to

the last."

"Of course it is. I didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't do it for

worlds,--as you are going away." That afternoon, when Green's back

was turned, Glossop gave it as his opinion that something particular

would turn up between Mounser and Miss Trefoil, an opinion which

brought down much ridicule upon him from both Hoffmann and Archibald

Currie. But before that week was over,--in the early days of

April,--they were forced to retract their opinion and to do honour to

young Glossop's sagacity. Mounser Green was engaged to Miss Trefoil,

and for a day or two the Foreign Office could talk of nothing else.

"A very handsome girl," said Lord Drummond to one of his

subordinates. "I met her at Mistletoe. As to that affair with

Lord Rufford, he treated her abominably." And when Mounser showed

himself at the office, which he did boldly, immediately after the

engagement was made known, they all received him with open arms and

congratulated him sincerely on his happy fortune. He himself was

quite contented with what he had done and thought that he was taking

out for himself the very wife for Patagonia.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WEDDING.

No sooner did the new two lovers, Mounser Green and Arabella Trefoil,

understand each other, than they set their wits to work to make the

best of their natural advantages. The latter communicated the fact

in a very dry manner to her father and mother. Nothing was to be got

from them, and it was only just necessary that they should know what

she intended to do with herself. "My dear mamma. I am to be married

some time early in May to Mr. Mounser Green of the Foreign Office.

I don't think you know him, but I daresay you have heard of him. He

goes to Patagonia immediately after the wedding, and I shall go with

him. Your affectionate daughter, Arabella Trefoil." That was all she

said, and the letter to her father was word for word the same. But

how to make use of those friends who were more happily circumstanced

was matter for frequent counsel between her and Mr. Green. In these

days I do not think that she concealed very much from him. To tell

him all the little details of her adventures with Lord Rufford would

have been neither useful nor pleasant; but, as to the chief facts,

reticence would have been foolish. To the statement that Lord Rufford

had absolutely proposed to her she clung fast, and really did believe

it herself. That she had been engaged to John Morton she did not

deny; but she threw the blame of that matter on her mother, and

explained to him that she had broken off the engagement down at

Bragton, because she could not bring herself to regard the man with

sufficient personal favour. Mounser was satisfied, but was very

strong in urging her to seek, yet once again, the favour of her

magnificent uncle and her magnificent aunt.

"What good can they do us?" said Arabella, who was almost afraid to

make the appeal.

"It would be everything for you to be married from Mistletoe," he

said. "People would know then that you were not blamed about Lord

Rufford. And it might serve me very much in my profession. These

things do help very much. It would cost us nothing, and the proper

kind of notice would then get into the newspapers. If you will write

direct to the Duchess, I will get at the Duke through Lord Drummond.

They know where we are going, and that we are not likely to want

anything else for a long time."

"I don't think the Duchess would have mamma if it were ever so."

"Then we must drop your mother for the time;--that's all. When my

aunt hears that you are to be married from the Duke's, she will be

quite willing that you should remain with her till you go down to

Mistletoe."

Arabella, who perhaps knew a little more than her lover, could not

bring herself to believe that the appeal would be successful, but she

made it. It was a very difficult letter to write, as she could not

but allude to the rapid transference of her affections. "I will not

conceal from you," she said, "that I have suffered very much from

Lord Rufford's heartless conduct. My misery has been aggravated by

the feeling that you and my uncle will hardly believe him to be so

false, and will attribute part of the blame to me. I had to undergo

an agonizing revulsion of feeling, during which Mr. Green's behaviour

to me was at first so considerate and then so kind that it has gone

far to cure the wound from which I have been suffering. He is so well

known in reference to foreign affairs, that I think my uncle cannot

but have heard of him; my cousin Mistletoe is certainly acquainted

with him; and I think that you cannot but approve of the match. You

know what is the position of my father and my mother, and how little

able they are to give us any assistance. If you would be kind enough

to let us be married from Mistletoe, you will confer on both of us

a very, very great favour." There was more of it, but that was the

first of the prayer, and most of the words given above came from

the dictation of Mounser himself. She had pleaded against making

the direct request, but he had assured her that in the world, as at

present arranged, the best way to get a thing is to ask for it. "You

make yourself at any rate understood," he said, "and you may be sure

that people who receive petitions do not feel the hardihood of them

so much as they who make them." Arabella, comforting herself by

declaring that the Duchess at any rate could not eat her, wrote the

letter and sent it.

The Duchess at first was most serious in her intention to refuse. She

was indeed made very angry by the request. Though it had been agreed

at Mistletoe that Lord Rufford had behaved badly, the Duchess was

thoroughly well aware that Arabella's conduct had been abominable.

Lord Rufford probably had made an offer, but it had been extracted

from him by the vilest of manoeuvres. The girl had been personally

insolent to herself. And this rapid change, this third engagement

within a few weeks,--was disgusting to her as a woman. But, unluckily

for herself, she would not answer the letter till she had consulted

her husband. As it happened the Duke was in town, and while he was

there Lord Drummond got hold of him. Lord Drummond had spoken very

highly of Mounser Green, and the Duke, who was never dead to the

feeling that as the head of the family he should always do what he

could for the junior branches, had almost made a promise. "I never

take such things upon myself," he said, "but if the Duchess has no

objection, we will have them down to Mistletoe."

"Of course if you wish it," said the Duchess,--with more acerbity in

her tone than the Duke had often heard there.

"Wish it? What do you mean by wishing it? It will be a great bore."

"Terrible!"

"But she is the only one there is, and then we shall have done with

it."

"Done with it! They will be back from Patagonia before you can turn

yourself, and then of course we must have them here."

"Drummond tells me that Mr. Green is one of the most useful men they

have at the Foreign Office;--just the man that one ought to give a

lift to." Of course the Duke had his way. The Duchess could not bring

herself to write the letter, but the Duke wrote to his dear niece

saying that "they" would be very glad to see her, and that if she

would name the day proposed for the wedding, one should be fixed for

her visit to Mistletoe.

"You had better tell your mother and your father," Mounser said to

her.

"What's the use? The Duchess hates my mother, and my father never

goes near the place."

"Nevertheless tell them. People care a great deal for appearances."

She did as she was bid, and the result was that Lord Augustus and his

wife, on the occasion of their daughter's marriage, met each other at

Mistletoe,--for the first time for the last dozen years.

Before the day came round Arabella was quite astonished to find how

popular and fashionable her wedding was likely to be, and how the

world at large approved of what she was doing. The newspapers had

paragraphs about alliances and noble families, and all the relatives

sent tribute. There was a gold candlestick from the Duke, a gilt dish

from the Duchess,--which came however without a word of personal

congratulation,--and a gorgeous set of scent-bottles from cousin

Mistletoe. The Connop Greens were lavish with sapphires, the De

Brownes with pearls, and the Smijths with opal. Mrs. Gore sent a huge

carbuncle which Arabella strongly suspected to be glass. From her

paternal parent there came a pair of silver nut-crackers, and from

the maternal a second-hand dressing-case newly done up. Old Mrs.

Green gave her a couple of ornamental butter-boats, and salt-cellars

innumerable came from distant Greens. But there was a diamond

ring--with a single stone,--from a friend, without a name, which she

believed to be worth all the rest in money value. Should she send it

back to Lord Rufford, or make a gulp and swallow it? How invincible

must be the good-nature of the man when he could send her such a

present after such a rating as she had given him in the park at

Rufford! "Do as you like," Mounser Green said when she consulted him.

She very much wished to keep it. "But what am I to say, and to whom?"

"Write a note to the jewellers saying that you have got it." She did

write to the jeweller saying that she had got the ring,--"from a

friend;" and the ring with the other tribute went to Patagonia. He

had certainly behaved very badly to her, but she was quite sure that

he would never tell the story of the ring to any one. Perhaps she

thought that as she had spared him in the great matter of eight

thousand pounds, she was entitled to take this smaller contribution.

It was late in April when she went down to Mistletoe, the marriage

having been fixed for the 3rd of May. After that they were to spend a

fortnight in Paris, and leave England for Patagonia at the end of the

month. The only thing which Arabella dreaded was the meeting with the

Duchess. When that was once over she thought that she could bear with

equanimity all that could come after. The week before her marriage

could not be a pleasant week, but then she had been accustomed

to endure evil hours. Her uncle would be blandly good-natured.

Mistletoe, should he be there, would make civil speeches to

compensate for his indifference when called upon to attack Lord

Rufford. Other guests would tender to her the caressing observance

always shown to a bride. But as she got out of the ducal carriage at

the front door, her heart was uneasy at the coming meeting.

The Duchess herself almost went to bed when the time came, so much

did she dread the same thing. She was quite alone, having felt that

she could not bring herself to give the affectionate embrace which

the presence of others would require. She stood in the middle of the

room and then came forward three steps to meet the bride. "Arabella,"

she said, "I am very glad that everything has been settled so

comfortably for you."

"That is so kind of you, aunt," said Arabella, who was watching the

Duchess closely,--ready to jump into her aunt's arms if required to

do so, or to stand quite aloof.

Then the Duchess signified her pleasure that her cheek should be

touched,--and it was touched. "Mrs. Pepper will show you your room.

It is the same you had when you were here before. Perhaps you know

that Mr. Green comes down to Stamford on the first, and that he will

dine here on that day and on Sunday."

"That will be very nice. He had told me how it was arranged."

"It seems that he knows one of the clergymen in Stamford, and will

stay at his house. Perhaps you will like to go upstairs now."

That was all there was, and that had not been very bad. During

the entire week the Duchess hardly spoke to her another word, and

certainly did not speak to her a word in private. Arabella now could

go where she pleased without any danger of meeting her aunt on her

walks. When Sunday came nobody asked her to go to church. She did go

twice, Mounser Green accompanying her to the morning service;--but

there was no restraint. The Duchess only thought of her as a

disagreeable ill-conducted incubus, who luckily was about to be taken

away to Patagonia.

It had been settled on all sides that the marriage was to be very

quiet. The bride was of course consulted about her bridesmaids, as

to whom there was a little difficulty. But a distant Trefoil was

found willing to act, in payment for the unaccustomed invitation to

Mistletoe, and one Connop Green young lady, with one De Browne young

lady, and one Smijth young lady came on the same terms. Arabella

herself was surprised at the ease with which it was all done. On the

Saturday Lady Augustus came, and on the Sunday Lord Augustus. The

parents of course kissed their child, but there was very little said

in the way either of congratulation or farewell. Lord Augustus did

have some conversation with Mounser Green, but it all turned on the

probability of there being whist in Patagonia. On the Monday morning

they were married, and then Arabella was taken off by the happy

bridegroom.

When the ceremony was over it was expected that Lady Augustus should

take herself away as quickly as possible,--not perhaps on that very

afternoon, but at any rate, on the next morning. As soon as the

carriage was gone, she went to her own room and wept bitterly. It was

all done now. Everything was over. Though she had quarrelled daily

with her daughter for the last twelve years,--to such an extent

lately that no decently civil word ever passed between them,--still

there had been something to interest her. There had been something

to fear and something to hope. The girl had always had some prospect

before her, more or less brilliant. Her life had had its occupation,

and future triumph was possible. Now it was all over. The link by

which she had been bound to the world was broken. The Connop Greens

and the Smijths would no longer have her,--unless it might be on

short and special occasions, as a great favour. She knew that she was

an old woman, without money, without blood, and without attraction,

whom nobody would ever again desire to see. She had her things

packed up, and herself taken off to London, almost without a word of

farewell to the Duchess, telling herself as she went that the world

had produced no other people so heartless as the family of the

Trefoils.

"I wonder what you will think of Patagonia," said Mounser Green as he

took his bride away.

"I don't suppose I shall think much. As far as I can see one place is

always like another."

"But then you will have duties."

"Not very heavy I hope."

Then he preached her a sermon, expressing a hope as he went on, that

as she was leaving the pleasures of life behind her, she would learn

to like the work of life. "I have found the pleasures very hard,"

she said. He spoke to her of the companion he hoped to find, of the

possible children who might be dependent on their mother, of the

position which she would hold, and of the manner in which she should

fill it. She, as she listened to him, was almost stunned by the

change in the world around her. She need never again seem to be gay

in order that men might be attracted. She made her promises and made

them with an intention of keeping them; but it may, we fear, be

doubted whether he was justified in expecting that he could get a

wife fit for his purpose out of the school in which Arabella Trefoil

had been educated. The two, however, will pass out of our sight, and

we can only hope that he may not be disappointed.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SENATOR'S LECTURE.--NO. I.

Wednesday, April 14th, was the day at last fixed for the Senator's

lecture. His little proposal to set England right on all those

matters in which she had hitherto gone astray had created a

considerable amount of attention. The Goarly affair with the

subsequent trial of Scrobby had been much talked about, and the

Senator's doings in reference to it had been made matter of comment

in the newspapers. Some had praised him for courage, benevolence, and

a steadfast purpose. Others had ridiculed his inability to understand

manners different from those of his own country. He had seen a good

deal of society both in London and in the country, and had never

hesitated to express his opinions with an audacity which some had

called insolence. When he had trodden with his whole weight hard

down on individual corns, of course he had given offence,--as

on the memorable occasion of the dinner at the parson's house in

Dillsborough. But, on the whole, he had produced for himself a

general respect among educated men which was not diminished by

the fact that he seemed to count quite as little on that as on

the ill-will and abuse of others. For some days previous to the

delivery of the lecture the hoardings in London were crowded with

sesquipedalian notices of the entertainment, so that Senator

Gotobed's great oration on "The Irrationality of Englishmen" was

looked to with considerable interest.

When an intelligent Japanese travels in Great Britain or an

intelligent Briton in Japan, he is struck with no wonder at national

differences. He is on the other hand rather startled to find how like

his strange brother is to him in many things. Crime is persecuted,

wickedness is condoned, and goodness treated with indifference in

both countries. Men care more for what they eat than anything else,

and combine a closely defined idea of meum with a lax perception as

to tuum Barring a little difference of complexion and feature the

Englishman would make a good Japanese, or the Japanese a first-class

Englishman. But when an American comes to us or a Briton goes to

the States, each speaking the same language, using the same cookery,

governed by the same laws, and wearing the same costume, the

differences which present themselves are so striking that neither can

live six months in the country of the other without a holding up of

the hands and a torrent of exclamations. And in nineteen cases out of

twenty the surprise and the ejaculations take the place of censure.

The intelligence of the American, displayed through the nose, worries

the Englishman. The unconscious self-assurance of the Englishman, not

always unaccompanied by a sneer, irritates the American. They meet

as might a lad from Harrow and another from Mr. Brumby's successful

mechanical cramming establishment. The Harrow boy cannot answer a

question, but is sure that he is the proper thing, and is ready to

face the world on that assurance. Mr. Brumby's paragon is shocked

at the other's inaptitude for examination, but is at the same time

tortured by envy of he knows not what. In this spirit we Americans

and Englishmen go on writing books about each other, sometimes with

bitterness enough, but generally with good final results. But in the

meantime there has sprung up a jealousy which makes each inclined

to hate the other at first sight. Hate is difficult and expensive,

and between individuals soon gives place to love. "I cannot bear

Americans as a rule, though I have been very lucky myself with a few

friends." Who in England has not heard that form of speech, over and

over again? And what Englishman has travelled in the States without

hearing abuse of all English institutions uttered amidst the pauses

of a free-handed hospitality which has left him nothing to desire?

Mr. Senator Gotobed had expressed his mind openly wheresoever he

went, but, being a man of immense energy, was not content with such

private utterances. He could not liberate his soul without doing

something in public to convince his cousins that in their general

practices of life they were not guided by reason. He had no object of

making money. To give him his due we must own that he had no object

of making fame. He was impelled by that intense desire to express

himself which often amounts to passion with us, and sometimes to fury

with Americans, and he hardly considered much what reception his

words might receive. It was only when he was told by others that his

lecture might give offence which possibly would turn to violence,

that he made inquiry as to the attendance of the police. But though

they should tear him to pieces he would say what he had to say. It

should not be his fault if the absurdities of a people whom he really

loved were not exposed to light, so that they might be acknowledged

and abandoned.

He had found time to travel to Birmingham, to Manchester, to

Liverpool, to Glasgow, and to other places, and really thought that

he had mastered his great subject. He had worked very hard, but was

probably premature in thinking that he knew England thoroughly. He

had, however, undoubtedly dipped into a great many matters, and could

probably have told many Englishmen much that they didn't know about

their own affairs. He had poked his nose everywhere, and had scrupled

to ask no question. He had seen the miseries of a casual ward, the

despair of an expiring strike, the amenities of a city slum, and the

stolid apathy of a rural labourer's home. He had measured the animal

food consumed by the working classes, and knew the exact amount of

alcohol swallowed by the average Briton. He had seen also the luxury

of baronial halls, the pearl-drinking extravagances of commercial

palaces, the unending labours of our pleasure-seekers--as with Lord

Rufford, and the dullness of ordinary country life--as experienced by

himself at Bragton. And now he was going to tell the English people

at large what he thought about it all.

The great room at St. James's Hall had been secured for the occasion,

and Lord Drummond, the Minister of State in foreign affairs, had

been induced to take the chair. In these days our governments are

very anxious to be civil to foreigners, and there is nothing that a

robust Secretary of State will not do for them. On the platform there

were many members of both Houses of Parliament, and almost everybody

connected with the Foreign Office. Every ticket had been taken

for weeks since. The front benches were filled with the wives and

daughters of those on the platform, and back behind, into the distant

spaces in which seeing was difficult and hearing impossible, the

crowd was gathered at 2_s._ 6_d._ a head, all of which was going to

some great British charity. From half-past seven to eight Piccadilly

and Regent Street were crammed, and when the Senator came himself

with his chairman he could hardly make his way in at the doors. A

great treat was expected, but there was among the officers of police

some who thought that a portion of the audience would not bear

quietly the hard things that would be said, and that there was an

uncanny gathering of roughs about the street, who were not prepared

to be on their best behaviour when they should be told that old

England was being abused.

Lord Drummond opened the proceedings by telling the audience, in

a voice clearly audible to the reporters and the first half-dozen

benches, that they had come there to hear what a well-informed and

distinguished foreigner thought of their country. They would not,

he was sure, expect to be flattered. Than flattery nothing was more

useless or ignoble. This gentleman, coming from a new country, in

which tradition was of no avail, and on which the customs of former

centuries had had no opportunities to engraft themselves, had seen

many things here which, in his eyes, could not justify themselves by

reason. Lord Drummond was a little too prolix for a chairman, and

at last concluded by expressing "his conviction that his countrymen

would listen to the distinguished Senator with that courtesy which

was due to a foreigner and due also to the great and brotherly nation

from which he had come."

Then the Senator rose, and the clapping of hands and kicking of

heels was most satisfactory. There was at any rate no prejudice at

the onset. "English Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "I am in the

unenviable position of having to say hard things to you for about

an hour and a half together, if I do not drive you from your seats

before my lecture is done. And this is the more the pity because I

could talk to you for three hours about your country and not say an

unpleasant word. His Lordship has told you that flattery is not my

purpose. Neither is praise, which would not be flattery. Why should

I collect three or four thousand people here to tell them of virtues

the consciousness of which is the inheritance of each of them? You

are brave and generous,--and you are lovely to look at, with sweetly

polished manners; but you know all that quite well enough without my

telling you. But it strikes me that you do not know how little prone

you are to admit the light of reason into either your public or

private life, and how generally you allow yourselves to be guided

by traditions, prejudices, and customs which should be obsolete. If

you will consent to listen to what one foreigner thinks,--though he

himself be a man of no account,--you may perchance gather from his

words something of the opinion of bystanders in general, and so be

able, perhaps a little, to rectify your gait and your costume and the

tones of your voice, as we are all apt to do when we come from our

private homes, out among the eyes of the public."

This was received very well. The Senator spoke with a clear, sonorous

voice, no doubt with a twang, but so audibly as to satisfy the room

in general. "I shall not," he said, "dwell much on your form of

government. Were I to praise a republic I might seem to belittle your

throne and the lady who sits on it,--an offence which would not be

endured for a moment by English ears. I will take the monarchy as it

is, simply remarking that its recondite forms are very hard to be

understood by foreigners, and that they seem to me to be for the most

part equally dark to natives. I have hardly as yet met two Englishmen

who were agreed as to the political power of the sovereign; and

most of those of whom I have enquired have assured me that the

matter is one as to which they have not found it worth their while

to make inquiry." Here a voice from the end of the hall made some

protestation, but the nature of the protest did not reach the

platform.

"But," continued the Senator, now rising into energy, "tho' I will

not meddle with your form of government, I may, I hope, be allowed

to allude to the political agents by which it is conducted. You are

proud of your Parliament."

"We are," said a voice.

"I wonder of which house. I do not ask the question that it may be

answered, because it is advisable at the present moment that there

should be only one speaker. That labour is, unfortunately for me, at

present in my hands, and I am sure you will agree with me that it

should not be divided. You mean probably that you are proud of your

House of Commons,--and that you are so because it speaks with the

voice of the people. The voice of the people, in order that it may be

heard without unjust preponderance on this side or on that, requires

much manipulation. That manipulation has in latter years been

effected by your Reform bills, of which during the last half century

there have in fact been four or five,--the latter in favour of the

ballot having been perhaps the greatest. There have been bills

for purity of elections,--very necessary; bills for creating

constituencies, bills for abolishing them, bills for dividing them,

bills for extending the suffrage, and bills, if I am not mistaken,

for curtailing it. And what has been the result? How many men are

there in this room who know the respective nature of their votes?

And is there a single woman who knows the political worth of her

husband's vote? Passing the other day from the Bank of this great

metropolis to its suburb called Brentford, journeying as I did the

whole way through continuous rows of houses, I found myself at first

in a very ancient borough returning four members,--double the usual

number,--not because of its population but because it has always been

so. Here I was informed that the residents had little or nothing to

do with it. I was told, though I did not quite believe what I heard,

that there were no residents. The voters however, at any rate the

influential voters, never pass a night there, and combine their city

franchise with franchises elsewhere. I then went through two enormous

boroughs, one so old as to have a great political history of its own,

and the other so new as to have none. It did strike me as odd that

there should be a new borough, with new voters, and new franchises,

not yet ten years old, in the midst of this city of London. But when

I came to Brentford, everything was changed. I was not in a town at

all though I was surrounded on all sides by houses. Everything around

me was grim and dirty enough, but I am supposed to have reached,

politically, the rustic beauties of the country. Those around me, who

had votes, voted for the County of Middlesex. On the other side of

the invisible border I had just past the poor wretch with 3_s._ a day

who lived in a grimy lodging or a half-built hut, but who at any rate

possessed the political privilege. Now I had suddenly emerged among

the aristocrats, and quite another state of things prevailed. Is

that a reasonable manipulation of the votes of the people? Does

that arrangement give to any man an equal share in his country? And

yet I fancy that the thing is so little thought of that few among

you are aware that in this way the largest class of British labour

is excluded from the franchise in a country which boasts of equal

representation.

"The chief object of your first Reform Bill was that of realising

the very fact of representation. Up to that time your members of the

House of Commons were in truth deputies of the Lords or of other rich

men. Lord A, or Mr. B, or perhaps Lady C, sent whom she pleased to

Parliament to represent this or that town, or occasionally this or

that county. That absurdity is supposed to be past, and on evils

that have been cured no one should dwell. But how is it now? I have

a list,--in my memory, for I would not care to make out so black

a catalogue in legible letters,--of forty members who have been

returned to the present House of Commons by the single voices of

influential persons. What will not forty voices do even in your

Parliament? And if I can count forty, how many more must there be

of which I have not heard?" Then there was a voice calling upon the

Senator to name those men, and other voices denying the fact. "I will

name no one," said the Senator. "How could I tell what noble friend I

might put on a stool of repentance by doing so?" And he looked round

on the gentlemen on the platform behind him. "But I defy any member

of Parliament here present to get up and say that it is not so." Then

he paused a moment. "And if it be so, is that rational? Is that in

accordance with the theory of representation as to which you have all

been so ardent, and which you profess to be so dear to you? Is the

country not over-ridden by the aristocracy when Lord Lambswool not

only possesses his own hereditary seat in the House of Lords, but

also has a seat for his eldest son in the House of Commons?"

Then a voice from the back called out, "What the deuce is all that to

you?"

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SENATOR'S LECTURE.--NO. II.

"If I see a man hungry in the street," said the Senator, instigated

by the question asked him at the end of the last chapter, "and give

him a bit of bread, I don't do it for my own sake but for his." Up to

this time the Britishers around him on the platform and those in the

benches near to him, had received what he said with a good grace. The

allusion to Lord Lambswool had not been pleasant to them, but it had

not been worse than they had expected. But now they were displeased.

They did not like being told that they were taking a bit of bread

from him in their own political destitution. They did not like that

he, an individual, should presume that he had bread to offer to them

as a nation. And yet, had they argued it out in their own minds, they

would have seen that the Senator's metaphor was appropriate. His

purpose in being there was to give advice, and theirs in coming to

listen to it. But it was unfortunate. "When I ventured to come before

you here, I made all this my business," continued the Senator. Then

he paused and glanced round the hall with a defiant look. "And now

about your House of Lords," he went on. "I have not much to say about

the House of Lords, because if I understand rightly the feeling of

this country it is already condemned." "No such thing." "Who told

you that?" "You know nothing about it." These and other words of

curt denial came from the distant corners, and a slight murmur of

disapprobation was heard even from the seats on the platform. Then

Lord Drummond got up and begged that there might be silence. Mr.

Gotobed had come there to tell them his views,--and as they had come

there expressly to listen to him, they could not without impropriety

interrupt him. "That such will be the feeling of the country before

long," continued the Senator, "I think no one can doubt who has

learned how to look to the signs of the times in such matters. Is it

possible that the theory of an hereditary legislature can be defended

with reason? For a legislature you want the best and wisest of your

people." "You don't get them in America," said a voice which was

beginning to be recognised. "We try at any rate," said the Senator.

"Now is it possible that an accident of birth should give you

excellence and wisdom? What is the result? Not a tenth of your

hereditary legislators assemble in the beautiful hall that you have

built for them. And of that tenth the greater half consists of

counsellors of state who have been placed there in order that the

business of the country may not be brought to a standstill. Your

hereditary chamber is a fiction supplemented by the element of

election,--the election resting generally in the very bosom of the

House of Commons." On this subject, although he had promised to be

short, he said much more, which was received for the most part in

silence. But when he ended by telling them that they could have no

right to call themselves a free people till every legislator in the

country was elected by the votes of the people, another murmur was

heard through the hall.

"I told you," said he waxing more and more energetic, as he felt the

opposition which he was bound to overcome, "that what I had to say

to you would not be pleasant. If you cannot endure to hear me, let

us break up and go away. In that case I must tell my friends at home

that the tender ears of a British audience cannot bear rough words

from American lips. And yet if you think of it we have borne rough

words from you and have borne them with good-humour." Again he

paused, but as none rose from their seats he went on, "Proceeding

from hereditary legislature I come to hereditary property. It is

natural that a man should wish to give to his children after his

death the property which he has enjoyed during their life. But let me

ask any man here who has not been born an eldest son himself, whether

it is natural that he should wish to give it all to one son. Would

any man think of doing so, by the light of his own reason,--out of

his own head as we say? Would any man be so unjust to those who are

equal in his love, were he not constrained by law, and by custom more

iron-handed even than the law?" The Senator had here made a mistake

very common with Americans, and a great many voices were on him at

once. "What law?" "There is no law." "You know nothing about it." "Go

back and learn."

"What!" cried the Senator coming forward to the extreme verge of the

platform and putting down his foot as though there were strength

enough in his leg to crush them all; "Will any one have the hardihood

to tell me that property in this country is not affected by

primogeniture?" "Go back and learn the law." "I know the law perhaps

better than most of you. Do you mean to assert that my Lord Lambswool

can leave his land to whom he pleases? I tell you that he has no

more than a life-interest in it, and that his son will only have the

same." Then an eager Briton on the platform got up and whispered

to the Senator for a few minutes, during which the murmuring was

continued. "My friend reminds me," said the Senator, "that the matter

is one of custom rather than law; and I am obliged to him. But the

custom which is damnable and cruel, is backed by law which is equally

so. If I have land I can not only give it all to my eldest son, but

I can assure the right of primogeniture to his son, though he be not

yet born. No one I think will deny that there must be a special law

to enable me to commit an injustice so unnatural as that.

"Hence it comes that you still suffer under an aristocracy almost as

dominant, and in its essence as irrational, as that which created

feudalism." The gentlemen collected on the platform looked at each

other and smiled, perhaps failing to catch the exact meaning of the

Senator's words. "A lord here has a power, as a lord, which he cannot

himself fathom and of which he daily makes an unconscious but most

deleterious use. He is brought up to think it natural that he should

be a tyrant. The proclivities of his order are generous, and as a

rule he gives more than he takes. But he is as injurious in the one

process as in the other. Your ordinary Briton in his dealing with a

lord expects payment in some shape for every repetition of the absurd

title;--and payment is made. The titled aristocrat pays dearer for

his horse, dearer for his coat, dearer for his servant than other

people. But in return he exacts much which no other person can get.

Knowing his own magnanimity he expects that his word shall not be

questioned. If I may be allowed I will tell a little story as to one

of the most generous gentlemen I have had the happiness of meeting in

this country, which will explain my meaning."

Then without mentioning names he told the story of Lord Rufford,

Goarly, and Scrobby, in such a way as partly to redeem himself with

his audience. He acknowledged how absolutely he had been himself

befooled, and how he had been done out of his money by misplaced

sympathy. He made Mrs. Goarly's goose immortal, and in imitating the

indignation of Runce the farmer and Bean the gamekeeper showed that

he was master of considerable humour. But he brought it all round at

last to his own purpose, and ended this episode of his lecture by his

view of the absurdity and illegality of British hunting. "I can talk

about it to you," he said, "and you will know whether I am speaking

the truth. But when I get home among my own people, and repeat my

lecture there, as I shall do,--with some little additions as to the

good things I have found here from which your ears may be spared,--I

shall omit this story as I know it will be impossible to make my

countrymen believe that a hundred harum-scarum tomboys may ride at

their pleasure over every man's land, destroying crops and trampling

down fences, going, if their vermin leads them there, with reckless

violence into the sweet domestic garden of your country residences;

and that no one can either stop them or punish them! An American will

believe much about the wonderful ways of his British cousin, but no

American will be got to believe that till he sees it."

"I find," said he, "that this irrationality, as I have ventured

to call it, runs through all your professions. We will take the

Church as being the highest at any rate in its objects." Then he

recapitulated all those arguments against our mode of dispensing

church patronage with which the reader is already familiar if he has

attended to the Senator's earlier words as given in this chronicle.

"In other lines of business there is, even here in England, some

attempt made to get the man best suited for the work he has to

do. If any one wants a domestic servant he sets about the work of

getting a proper person in a very determined manner indeed. But for

the care,--or, as you call it, the cure,--of his soul, he has to put

up with the man who has bought the right to minister to his wants;

or with him whose father wants a means of living for his younger

son,--the elder being destined to swallow all the family property;

or with him who has become sick of drinking his wine in an Oxford

college;--or with him, again, who has pleaded his cause successfully

with a bishop's daughter." It is not often that the British public

is angered by abuse of the Church, and this part of the lecture was

allowed to pass without strong marks of disapprobation.

"I have been at some trouble," he continued, "to learn the very

complex rules by which your army is now regulated, and those by which

it was regulated a very short time since. Unhappily for me I have

found it in a state of transition, and nothing is so difficult to a

stranger's comprehension as a transition state of affairs. But this

I can see plainly;--that every improvement which is made is received

by those whom it most concerns with a horror which amounts almost to

madness. So lovely to the ancient British, well-born, feudal instinct

is a state of unreason, that the very absence of any principle

endears to it institutions which no one can attempt to support by

argument. Had such a thing not existed as the right to purchase

military promotion, would any satirist have been listened to who had

suggested it as a possible outcome of British irrationality? Think

what it carries with it! The man who has proved himself fit to serve

his country by serving it in twenty foughten fields, who has bled for

his country and perhaps preserved his country, shall rot in obscurity

because he has no money to buy promotion, whereas the young dandy who

has done no more than glitter along the pavements with his sword and

spurs shall have the command of men;--because he has so many thousand

dollars in his pocket."

"_Buncombe_," shouted the inimical voice.

"But is it _Buncombe_?" asked the intrepid Senator. "Will any one who

knows what he is talking about say that I am describing a state of

things which did not exist yesterday? I will acknowledge that this

has been rectified,--tho' I see symptoms of relapse. A fault that

has been mended is a fault no longer. But what I speak of now is the

disruption of all concord in your army caused by the reform which

has forced itself upon you. All loyalty has gone; all that love of

his profession which should be the breath of a soldier's nostrils.

A fine body of fighting heroes is broken-hearted, not because injury

has been done to them or to any of them, but because the system had

become peculiarly British by reason of its special absurdity, and

therefore peculiarly dear."

"Buncombe," again said the voice, and the word was now repeated by a

dozen voices.

"Let any one show me that it is Buncombe. If I say what is untrue,

do with me what you please. If I am ignorant, set me right and laugh

at me. But if what I say is true, then your interruption is surely a

sign of imbecility. I say that the change was forced upon you by the

feeling of the people, but that its very expediency has demoralized

the army, because the army was irrational. And how is it with the

navy? What am I to believe when I hear so many conflicting statements

among yourselves?" During this last appeal, however, the noise at

the back of the hall had become so violent, that the Senator was

hardly able to make his voice heard by those immediately around him.

He himself did not quail for a moment, going on with his gestures,

and setting down his foot as though he were still confident in his

purpose of overcoming all opposition. He had not much above half done

yet. There were the lawyers before him, and the Civil Service, and

the railways, and the commerce of the country, and the labouring

classes. But Lord Drummond and others near him were becoming

terrified, thinking that something worse might occur unless an end

was put to the proceedings. Then a superintendent of police came

in and whispered to his Lordship. A crowd was collecting itself in

Piccadilly and St. James's Street, and perhaps the Senator had better

be withdrawn. The officer did not think that he could safely answer

for the consequences if this were carried on for a quarter of an hour

longer. Then Lord Drummond having meditated for a moment, touched

the Senator's arm and suggested a withdrawal into a side room for a

minute. "Mr. Gotobed," he said, "a little feeling has been excited

and we had better put an end to this for the present."

"Put an end to it?"

"I am afraid we must. The police are becoming alarmed."

"Oh, of course; you know best. In our country a man is allowed to

express himself unless he utters either blasphemy or calumny. But I

am in your hands and of course you must do as you please." Then he

sat down in a corner, and wiped his brow. Lord Drummond returned to

the hall, and there endeavoured to explain that the lecture was over

for that night. The row was so great that it did not matter much what

he said, but the people soon understood that the American Senator was

not to appear before them again.

It was not much after nine o'clock when the Senator reached his

hotel, Lord Drummond having accompanied him thither in a cab. "Good

night, Mr. Gotobed," said his Lordship. "I cannot tell you how much I

respect both your purpose and your courage;--but I don't know how far

it is wise for a man to tell any other man, much less a nation, of

all his faults."

"You English tell us of ours pretty often," said the Senator.

When he found himself alone he thought of it all, giving himself no

special credit for what he had done, acknowledging to himself that he

had often chosen his words badly and expressed himself imperfectly,

but declaring to himself through it all that the want of reason among

Britishers was so great, that no one ought to treat them as wholly

responsible beings.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE LAST DAYS OF MARY MASTERS.

The triumph of Mary Masters was something more than a nine days'

wonder to the people of Dillsborough. They had all known Larry

Twentyman's intentions and aspirations, and had generally condemned

the young lady's obduracy, thinking, and not being slow to say,

that she would live to repent her perversity. Runciman who had

a thoroughly warm-hearted friendship for both the attorney and

Larry had sometimes been very severe on Mary. "She wants a touch of

hardship," he would say, "to bring her to. If Larry would just give

her a cold shoulder for six months, she'd be ready to jump into his

arms." And Dr. Nupper had been heard to remark that she might go

farther and fare worse. "If it were my girl I'd let her know all

about it," Ribbs the butcher had said in the bosom of his own family.

When it was found that Mr. Surtees the curate was not to be the

fortunate man, the matter was more inexplicable than ever. Had it

then been declared that the owner of Hoppet Hall had proposed to her,

all these tongues would have been silenced, and the refusal even of

Larry Twentyman would have been justified. But what was to be said

and what was to be thought when it was known that she was to be the

mistress of Bragton? For a day or two the prosperity of the attorney

was hardly to be endured by his neighbours. When it was first known

that the stewardship of the property was to go back into his hands,

his rise in the world was for a time slightly prejudicial to his

popularity; but this greater stroke of luck, this latter promotion

which would place him so much higher in Dillsborough than even

his father or his grandfather had ever been, was a great trial of

friendship.

Mrs. Masters felt it all very keenly. All possibility for reproach

against either her husband or her step-daughter was of course at

an end. Even she did not pretend to say that Mary ought to refuse

the squire. Nor, as far as Mary was concerned, could she have

further recourse to the evils of Ushanting, and the peril of social

intercourse with ladies and gentlemen. It was manifest that Mary was

to be a lady with a big house, and many servants, and, no doubt, a

carriage and horses. But still Mrs. Masters was not quite silenced.

She had daughters of her own, and would solace herself by declaring

to them, to her husband, and to her specially intimate friends, that

of course they would see no more of Mary. It wasn't for them to

expect to be asked to Bragton, and as for herself she would much

rather not. She knew her own place and what she was born to, and

wasn't going to let her own children spoil themselves and ruin their

chances by dining at seven o'clock and being waited upon by servants

at every turn. Thank God her girls could make their own beds, and she

hoped they might continue to do so at any rate till they had houses

of their own.

And there seemed to Dillsborough to be some justification for all

this in the fact that Mary was now living at Bragton, and that she

did not apparently intend to return to her father's house. At this

time Reginald Morton himself was still at Hoppet Hall, and had

declared that he would remain there till after his marriage. Lady

Ushant was living at the big house, which was henceforth to be her

home. Mary was her visitor, and was to be married from Bragton as

though Bragton were her residence rather than the squire's. The

plan had originated with Reginald, and when it had been hinted

to him that Mary would in this way seem to slight her father's

home, he had proposed that all the Masters should come and stay at

Bragton previous to the ceremony. Mrs. Masters yielded as to Mary's

residence, saying with mock humility that of course she had no room

fit to give a marriage feast to the Squire of Bragton; but she was

steadfast in saying to her husband, who made the proposition to her,

that she would stay at home. Of course she would be present at the

wedding; but she would not trouble the like of Lady Ushant by any

prolonged visiting.

The wedding was to take place about the beginning of May, and all

these things were being considered early in April. At this time one

of the girls was always at Bragton, and Mary had done her best, but

hitherto in vain, to induce her step-mother to come to her. When she

heard that there was a doubt as to the accomplishment of the plan for

the coming of the whole family, she drove herself into Dillsborough

in the old phaeton and then pleaded her cause for herself. "Mamma,"

she said, "won't you come with the girls and papa on the 29th?"

"I think not, my dear. The girls can go,--if they like it. But it

will be more fitting for papa and me to come to the church on the

morning."

"Why more fitting, mamma?"

"Well, my dear; it will."

"Dear mamma;--why,--why?"

"Of course, my dear, I am very glad that you are going to get such a

lift."

"My lift is marrying the man I love."

"That of course is all right. I have nothing on earth to say against

it. And I will say that through it all you have behaved as a young

woman should. I don't think you meant to throw yourself at him."

"Mamma!"

"But as it has turned up, you have to go one way and me another."

"No!"

"But it must be so. The Squire of Bragton is the Squire, and his wife

must act accordingly. Of course you'll be visiting at Rufford and

Hampton Wick, and all the places. I know very well who I am, and what

I came from. I'm not a bit ashamed of myself, but I'm not going to

stick myself up with my betters."

"Then mamma, I shall come and be married from here."

"It's too late for that now, my dear."

"No;--it is not." And then a couple of tears began to roll down from

her eyes. "I won't be married without your coming in to see me the

night before, and being with me in the morning when I dress. Haven't

I been a good child to you, mamma?" Then the step-mother began to cry

also. "Haven't I, mamma?"

"Yes, my dear," whimpered the poor woman.

"And won't you be my mamma to the last;--won't you?" And she threw

her arms round her step-mother's neck and kissed her. "I won't go one

way, and you another. He doesn't wish it. It is quite different from

that. I don't care a straw for Hampton Wick and Rufford; but I will

never be separated from you and the girls and papa. Say you will

come, mamma. I will not let you go till you say you will come." Of

course she had her own way, and Mrs. Masters had to feel with a sore

heart that she also must go out Ushanting. She knew, that in spite of

her domestic powers, she would be stricken dumb in the drawing-room

at Bragton and was unhappy.

Mary had another scheme in which she was less fortunate. She took it

into her head that Larry Twentyman might possibly be induced to come

to her wedding. She had heard how he had ridden and gained honour for

himself on the day that the hounds killed their fox at Norrington,

and thought that perhaps her own message to him had induced him so

far to return to his old habits. And now she longed to ask him, for

her sake, to be happy once again. If any girl ever loved the man

she was going to marry with all her heart, this girl loved Reginald

Morton. He had been to her, when her love was hopeless, so completely

the master of her heart that she could not realise the possibility

of affection for another. But yet she was pervaded by a tenderness

of feeling in regard to Larry which was love also,--though love

altogether of another kind. She thought of him daily. His future

well-being was one of the cares of her life. That her husband might

be able to call him a friend was among her prayers. Had anybody

spoken ill of him in her presence she would have resented it hotly.

Had she been told that another girl had consented to be his wife,

she would have thought that girl to be happy in her destiny. When

she heard that he was leading a wretched, moping, aimless life for

her sake, her heart was sad within her. It was necessary to the

completion of her happiness that Larry should recover his tone of

mind and be her friend. "Reg," she said, leaning on his arm out in

the park, "I want you to do me a favour."

"Watch and chain?"

"Don't be an idiot. You know I've got a watch and chain."

"Some girls like two. To have the wooden bridge pulled down and a

stone one built."

"If any one touched a morsel of that sacred timber he should be

banished from Bragton for ever. I want you to ask Mr. Twentyman to

come to our wedding."

"Who's to do it? Who's to bell the cat?"

"You."

"I would sooner fight a Saracen, or ride such a horse as killed that

poor major. Joking apart, I don't see how it is to be done. Why do

you wish it?"

"Because I am so fond of him."

"Oh;--indeed!"

"If you're a goose, I'll hit you. I am fond of him. Next to you and

my own people, and Lady Ushant, I like him best in all the world."

"What a pity you couldn't have put him up a little higher."

"I used to think so too;--only I couldn't. If anybody loved you as he

did me,--offered you everything he had in the world,--thought that

you were the best in the world,--would have given his life for you,

would not you be grateful?"

"I don't know that I need wish to ask such a person to my wedding."

"Yes, you would, if in that way you could build a bridge to bring him

back to happiness. And, Reg, though you used to despise him--"

"I never despised him."

"A little I think--before you knew him. But he is not despicable."

"Not at all, my dear."

"He is honest and good, and has a real heart of his own."

"I am afraid he has parted with that."

"You know what I mean, and if you won't be serious I shall think

there is no seriousness in you. I want you to tell me how it can be

done."

Then he was serious, and tried to explain to her that he could not

very well do what she wanted. "He is your friend you know rather than

mine;--but if you like to write to him you can do so."

This seemed to her to be very difficult, and, as she thought more of

it, almost impossible. A written letter remains, and may be taken as

evidence of so much more than it means. But a word sometimes may be

spoken which, if it be well spoken,--if assurance of its truth be

given by the tone and by the eye of the speaker,--shall do so much

more than any letter, and shall yet only remain with the hearer as

the remembrance of the scent of a flower remains! Nevertheless she

did at last write the letter, and brought it to her husband. "Is it

necessary that I should see it?" he asked.

"Not absolutely necessary."

"Then send it without."

"But I should like you to see what I have said. You know about

things, and if it is too much or too little, you can tell me." Then

he read her letter, which ran as follows.

DEAR MR. TWENTYMAN,

Perhaps you have heard that we are to be married on

Thursday, May 6th. I do so wish that you would come. It

would make me so much happier on that day. We shall be

very quiet; and if you would come to the house at eleven

you could go across the park with them all to the church.

I am to be taken in a carriage because of my finery. Then

there will be a little breakfast. Papa and mamma and Dolly

and Kate would be so glad;--and so would Mr. Morton.

But none of them will be half so glad as your old, old,

affectionate friend

MARY MASTERS.

"If that don't fetch him," said Reginald, "he is a poorer creature

than I take him to be."

"But I may send it?"

"Certainly you may send it." And so the letter was sent across to

Chowton Farm.

But the letter did not "fetch" him; nor am I prepared to agree with

Mr. Morton that he was a poor creature for not being "fetched." There

are things which the heart of a man should bear without whimpering,

but which it cannot bear in public with that appearance of stoical

indifference which the manliness of a man is supposed to require.

Were he to go, should he be jovial before the wedding party or should

he be sober and saturnine? Should he appear to have forgotten his

love, or should he go about lovelorn among the wedding guests? It was

impossible,--at any rate impossible as yet,--that he should fall into

that state of almost brotherly regard which it was so natural that

she should desire. But as he had determined to forgive her, he went

across that afternoon to the house and was the bearer of his own

answer. He asked Mrs. Hopkins who came to the door whether she were

alone, and was then shown into an empty room where he waited for

her. She came to him as quickly as she could, leaving Lady Ushant in

the middle of the page she was reading, and feeling as she tripped

downstairs that the colour was rushing to her face. "You will come,

Larry," she said.

"No, Miss Masters."

"Let me be Mary till I am Mrs. Morton," she said, trying to smile. "I

was always Mary." And then she burst into tears. "Why,--why won't you

come?"

"I should only stalk about like a ghost. I couldn't be merry as a man

should be at a wedding. I don't see how a man is to do such a thing."

She looked up into his face imploring him,--not to come, for that she

felt now to be impossible,--but imploring him to express in some way

forgiveness of the sin she had committed against him. "But I shall

think of you and shall wish you well."

"And after that we shall be friends?"

"By and bye,--if he pleases."

"He will please;--he does please. Of course he saw what I wrote to

you. And now, Larry, if I have ever treated you badly, say that you

pardon me."

"If I had known it--" he said.

"How could I tell you,--till he had spoken? And yet I knew it myself!

It has been so,--oh,--ever so long! What could I do? You will say

that you will forgive me."

"Yes;--I will say that."

"And you will not go away from Chowton?"

"Oh, no! They tell me I ought to stay here, and I suppose I shall

stay. I thought I'd just come over and say a word. I'm going away

to-morrow for a month. There is a fellow has got some fishing in

Ireland. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Larry."

"And I thought perhaps you'd take this now." Then he brought out

from his pocket a little ruby ring which he had carried often in his

pocket to the attorney's house, thinking that perhaps then might

come the happy hour in which he could get her to accept it. But the

hour had never come as yet, and the ring had remained in the little

drawer beneath his looking-glass. It need hardly be said that she now

accepted the gift.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CONCLUSION.

The Senator for Mickewa,--whose name we have taken for a book which

might perhaps have been better called "The Chronicle of a Winter at

Dillsborough"--did not stay long in London after the unfortunate

close of his lecture. He was a man not very pervious to criticism,

nor afraid of it, but he did not like the treatment he had received

at St. James's Hall, nor the remarks which his lecture produced in

the newspapers. He was angry because people were unreasonable with

him, which was surely unreasonable in him who accused Englishmen

generally of want of reason. One ought to take it as a matter of

course that a bull should use his horns, and a wolf his teeth. The

Senator read everything that was said of him, and then wrote numerous

letters to the different journals which had condemned him. Had any

one accused him of an untruth? Or had his inaccuracies been glaring?

Had he not always expressed his readiness to acknowledge his own

mistake if convicted of ignorance? But when he was told that he had

persistently trodden upon all the corns of his English cousins, he

declared that corns were evil things which should be abolished, and

that with corns such as these there was no mode of abolition so

efficacious as treading on them.

"I am sorry that you should have encountered anything so unpleasant,"

Lord Drummond said to him when he went to bid adieu to his friend at

the Foreign Office.

"And I am sorry too, my Lord;--for your sake rather than my own. A

man is in a bad case who cannot endure to hear of his faults."

"Perhaps you take our national sins a little too much for granted."

"I don't think so, my Lord. If you knew me to be wrong you would

not be so sore with me. Nevertheless I am under deep obligation for

kind-hearted hospitality. If an American can make up his mind to

crack up everything he sees here, there is no part of the world in

which he can get along better." He had already written a long letter

home to his friend Mr. Josiah Scroome, and had impartially sent to

that gentleman not only his own lecture, but also a large collection

of the criticisms made on it. A few weeks afterwards he took his

departure, and when we last heard of him was thundering in the Senate

against certain practices on the part of his own country which he

thought to be unjust to other nations. Don Quixote was not more just

than the Senator, or more philanthropic,--nor perhaps more apt to

wage war against the windmills.

Having in this our last chapter given the place of honour to the

Senator, we must now say a parting word as to those countrymen of our

own who have figured in our pages. Lord Rufford married Miss Penge

of course, and used the lady's fortune in buying the property of Sir

John Purefoy. We may probably be safe in saying that the acquisition

added very little to his happiness. What difference can it make to a

man whether he has forty or fifty thousand pounds a year,--or at any

rate to such a man? Perhaps Miss Penge herself was an acquisition. He

did not hunt so often or shoot so much, and was seen in church once

at least on every Sunday. In a very short time his friends perceived

that a very great change had come over him. He was growing fat, and

soon disliked the trouble of getting up early to go to a distant

meet;--and, before a year or two had passed away, it had become an

understood thing that in country houses he was not one of the men who

went down at night into the smoking-room in a short dressing-coat

and a picturesque cap. Miss Penge had done all this. He had had his

period of pleasure, and no doubt the change was desirable;--but he

sometimes thought with regret of the promise Arabella Trefoil had

made him, that she would never interfere with his gratification.

At Dillsborough everything during the summer after the Squire's

marriage fell back into its usual routine. The greatest change made

there was in the residence of the attorney, who with his family went

over to live at Hoppet Hall, giving up his old house to a young man

from Norrington, who had become his partner, but keeping the old

office for his business. Mrs. Masters did, I think, like the honour

and glory of the big house, but she would never admit that she did.

And when she was constrained once or twice in the year to give a

dinner to her step-daughter's husband and Lady Ushant, that, I think,

was really a period of discomfort to her. When at Bragton she could

at any rate be quiet, and Mary's caressing care almost made the place

pleasant to her.

Mr. Runciman prospers at the Bush, though he has entirely lost his

best customer, Lord Rufford. But the U. R. U. is still strong, in

spite of the philosophers, and in the hunting season the boxes of the

Bush Inn are full of horses. The club goes on without much change,

Mr. Masters being very regular in his attendance, undeterred by the

grandeur of his new household. And Larry is always there,--with

increased spirit, for he has dined two or three times lately at

Hampton Wick, having met young Hampton at the Squire's house at

Bragton. On this point Fred Botsey was for a time very jealous;--but

he found that Larry's popularity was not to be shaken, and now is

very keen in pushing an intimacy with the owner of Chowton Farm.

Perhaps the most stirring event in the neighbourhood has been the

retirement of Captain Glomax from the post of Master. When the season

was over he made an application to Lord Rufford respecting certain

stable and kennel expenses, which that nobleman snubbed very bluntly.

Thereupon the Captain intimated to the Committee that unless some

advances were made he should go. The Committee refused, and thereupon

the captain went;--not altogether to the dissatisfaction of the

farmers, with whom an itinerant Master is seldom altogether popular.

Then for a time there was great gloom in the U. R. U. What hunting

man or woman does not know the gloom which comes over a hunting

county when one Master goes before another is ready to step in his

shoes? There had been a hope, a still growing hope, that Lord Rufford

would come forward at any such pinch; but since Miss Penge had come

to the front that hope had altogether vanished. There was a word said

at Rufford on the subject, but Miss Penge,--or Lady Rufford as she

was then,--at once put her foot on the project and extinguished it.

Then, when despair was imminent, old Mr. Hampton gave way, and young

Hampton came forward, acknowledged on all sides as the man for the

place. A Master always does appear at last; though for a time it

appears that the kingdom must come to an end because no one will

consent to sit on the throne.

Perhaps the most loudly triumphant man in Dillsborough was Mr.

Mainwaring, the parson, when he heard of the discomfiture of Senator

Gotobed. He could hardly restrain his joy, and confided first to

Dr. Nupper and then to Mr. Runciman his opinion, that of all the

blackguards that had ever put their foot in Dillsborough, that vile

Yankee was the worst. Mr. Gotobed was no more a Yankee than was the

parson himself;--but of any distinction among the citizens of the

United States, Mr. Mainwaring knew very little.

A word or two more must be said of our dear friend Larry

Twentyman;--for in finishing this little story we must own that he

has in truth been our hero. He went away on his fishing expedition,

and when he came back the girl of his heart had become Mrs. Morton.

Hunting had long been over then, but the great hunting difficulty

was in course of solution, and Larry took his part in the matter.

When there was a suggestion as to a committee of three,--than which

nothing for hunting purposes can be much worse,--there was a question

whether he should not be one of them. This nearly killed both the

Botseys. The evil thing was prevented by the timely pressure put

on old Mr. Hampton; but the excitement did our friend Larry much

good. "Bicycle" and the other mare were at once summered with the

greatest care, and it is generally understood that young Hampton

means to depend upon Larry very much in regard to the Rufford side

of the country. Larry has bought Goarly's two fields, Goarly having

altogether vanished from those parts, and is supposed to have

Dillsborough Wood altogether in his charge. He is frequently to be

seen at Hoppet Hall, calling there every Saturday to take down the

attorney to the Dillsborough club,--as was his habit of old; but it

would perhaps be premature to say that there are very valid grounds

for the hopes which Mrs. Masters already entertains in reference to

Kate. Kate is still too young and childish to justify any prediction

in that quarter.

What further need be said as to Reginald and his happy bride? Very

little;--except that in the course of her bridal tour she did

gradually find words to give him a true and accurate account of all

her own feelings from the time at which he first asked her to walk

with him across the bridge over the Dill and look at the old place.

They had both passed their childish years there, but could have but

little thought that they were destined then to love and grow old

together. "I was longing, longing, longing to come," she said.

"And why didn't you come?"

"How little you know about girls! Of course I had to go with the one

I--I--I--; well with the one I did not love down to the very soles of

his feet." And then there was the journey with the parrot. "I rather

liked the bird. I don't know that you said very much, but I think you

would have said less if there had been no bird."

"In fact I have been a fool all along."

"You weren't a fool when you took me out through the orchard and

caught me when I jumped over the wall. Do you remember when you asked

me, all of a sudden, whether I should like to be your wife? You

weren't a fool then."

"But you knew what was coming."

"Not a bit of it. I knew it wasn't coming. I had quite made up my

mind about that. I was as sure of it;--oh, as sure of it as I am that

I've got you now. And then it came;--like a great thunderclap."

"A thunderclap, Mary!"

"Well;--yes. I wasn't quite sure at first. You might have been

laughing at me;--mightn't you?"

"Just the kind of joke for me!"

"How was I to understand it all in a moment? And you made me repeat

all those words. I believed it then, or I shouldn't have said them.

I knew that must be serious." And so she deified him, and sat at his

feet looking up into his eyes, and fooled him for a while into the

most perfect happiness that a man ever knows in this world. But she

was not altogether happy herself till she had got Larry to come to

her at the house at Bragton and swear to her that he would be her

friend.