THE CONCERT.
Never did there rise a brighter morning than the one on which the
amateur concert was to take place. And Westerbury was in a ferment of
excitement; carriages were rolling about, bringing the county people
into the town; and fine dresses, every colour of the rainbow, crowded
the streets.
Three parts of the audience walked to the concert, nothing loth, gentle
and simple, to exhibit their attire in the blazing sunlight. It was
certainly suspiciously bright that morning, had people been at leisure
to notice it.
The Guildhall was filled to overflowing, when three ladies came in,
struggling for a place. One was a middle-aged lady, quiet looking, and
rather dowdy; the other was an elegant girl of seventeen, with clear
brown eyes and a pointed chin; the third was Lucy Arkell.
There was not a seat to be found. The elder lady looked annoyed; but
there was nothing for it but to stand with the mass. And they were
standing when they caught--at least Lucy did--the roving eye of Travice
Arkell.
Now, it happened that the four senior pupils of the college school--not
the private pupils of Mr. Wilberforce, but the king's scholars--were
being made of much account at this concert; and, by accident, or design,
a side sofa, near to the orchestra--one of the best places--was assigned
to them. Travice Arkell suddenly darted from his seat on it, and began
to elbow his way down the room, for every avenue was choked. He reached
Lucy at last.
"How late you are, Lucy! But I can get you a seat--a capital one, too.
Will you allow me to pilot you to a sofa?" he courteously added to had
the two ladies with her.
The elder lady turned at the address, and saw a tall, slender young man,
with a pale, refined face. The college cap under his arm betrayed that
he belonged to the collegiate school; otherwise, she had thought him too
old for a king's scholar.
"You are very kind. In a few moments. But we ought to wait until this
song that they are beginning is over."
It was not a song, but a duet--and a duet that had given no end of
trouble to the executive management--for none of the ladies had been
found suitable to undertake the first part in it. It required a
remarkably clear, high, bell-like voice, to do it justice; and the
cathedral organist, privately wishing the concert far enough--for he had
never been so much pestered in all his life as since he undertook the
arrangements--proposed Henry Arkell. And Mrs. Lewis, who took the second
part, was fain to accept him: albeit, the boy was no favourite of hers.
"How singularly beautiful!" murmured the elder lady to Travice Arkell,
as the clear voice burst forth.
"Yes, he has an excellent voice. The worst of him is, he is timid. He
will out-grow that."
"I did not allude to the voice; I spoke of the boy himself. I never saw
a more beautiful face. Who is he?"
Travice smiled. "It is Henry Arkell, Lucy's brother, and my cousin."
"Ah! I knew his mother once. Mrs. St. John was telling me her history
last night. Anne, my dear, you have heard me speak of Lucy Cheveley:
that is her son, and it is the same face. Then you," she continued,
"must be Mr. Travice Arkell? Hush!"
For the duet was in full force just then, and Mrs. Lewis's rich
contralto voice was telling well.
"Who is she?" asked Travice of Lucy in a whisper.
"Mrs. James. She's the governess," came the answer.
When the duet was over, Travice Arkell held out his arm to Mrs. James.
"If you will do me the honour of taking it, the getting through the
crowd may be easier for you," he said. But Mrs. James drew back, as she
thanked him, and motioned him towards the younger lady with her. So
Travice took the younger lady; not being quite certain, but suspecting
who she was; and Mrs. James and Lucy followed as they best could.
And his reward was a whole host of daggers darted at him--if looks can
dart them. The two ladies were complete strangers to the aristocracy of
the grounds; and seeing Peter Arkell's daughter in their wake, the
supposition that they belonged in some way to that renowned tutor, but
obscure man, was not unnatural. Mrs. Lewis, who had come down to her
sofa then, and Mrs. Aultane, who sat with her, were especially
indignant. How dared that class of people thrust themselves at the top
of the room amidst them?
"Travice," said Mrs. Arkell, bending forward from one of the cross
benches, and pulling his sleeve as he passed on, "you are making
yourself too absurd!"
"Am I! I am very sorry."
But he did not look sorry; on the contrary, he looked highly amused; and
he bent his head now and again to say a word of encouragement to the
fair girl on his arm, touching the difficulties of their progress. On,
he bore, to the sofa he had quitted, and ordered the three seniors he
had left on it to move off. In school or out, they did not disobey him;
and they moved off accordingly. He seated the two ladies and Lucy on it,
and stood near the arm himself; never once more sitting down throughout
the concert. But he stayed with them the whole of the time, talking as
occasion offered.
But, oh! that false morning brightness! Before the concert was over, the
rain was coming down with fury, pelting, as the college boys chose to
phrase it, cats and dogs. Very few had given orders for their carriages
to be there; and they could only wait in hopes they would come, or send
messengers after them. What, perhaps, rendered it more inconvenient was,
that the concert was over a full half-hour earlier than had been
expected.
The impatient company began to congregate in the lower hall; its folding
doors of egress and its large windows looking to the street. Some one
had been considerate enough to have a fire lighted at the upper end; and
most inviting it was, now the day had turned to damp. The head master,
who had despatched one of the boys to order his close carriage to be
brought immediately, gave the fire a vigorous poke, and turned round to
look about him. He was a little man, with silver-rimmed spectacles.
Two causes were exciting some commotion in the minds of the lesser
satellites of the grounds. The one was the presuming behaviour of those
people with Lucy Arkell, and the unjustifiable folly of Travice; the
other was the remarkable absence of the Dean of Westerbury and his
family from the concert. It, the absence, was put down to the dean's
having at the last moment refused to patronize it, in consequence of its
growing unpopularity; and Mrs. St. John's absence was attributed to the
same cause. People knew later that the dean and Mrs. Beauclerc had
remained at home in consequence of the death of a relative; but that is
of no consequence to us.
"The dean is given to veering round," remarked Mrs. Aultane in an under
tone to the head master. "Those good-natured men generally are."
The master cleared his throat, as a substitute for a reply. It was not
his place to speak against the dean. And, indeed, he had no cause. He
walked to the window nearest him, and looked out at the carriages and
flies as they came tardily up.
Travice Arkell seemed determined to offend. He was securing chairs for
those ladies now near the fire; and Mrs. Lewis put her glass to her eye,
and surveyed them from head to foot. Her wild brother, Benjamin Carr,
could not have done it more insolently.
"Who is that lady, Arkell?" demanded the master, of Travice, when he got
the opportunity.
"It is a Mrs. James, sir."
"Oh. A friend of yours?"
"No, sir. I never saw her until to-day."
Mrs. Aultane bent her head. "Mrs. James? Who _is_ Mrs. James? And the
other one, too? I should be glad to know, Mr. Travice Arkell."
"I can't tell you much about them, Mrs. Aultane," returned Travice,
suppressing the laugh of mischief in his eye. "I saw them for the first
time in the concert-room."
"They came with your relative, Peter Arkell's daughter."
"Exactly so. That is, she came with them."
"Some people from the country, I suppose," concluded Mrs. Aultane, with
as much hauteur as she thought it safe to put into her tone. "It is easy
to be seen they have no style about them."
Travice laughed and went across the room. He was speaking to the ladies
in question, when a gentleman of three or four-and-twenty came up and
tapped him on the back.
"Won't you speak to me? It _is_ Travice Arkell, I see, though he has
shot up into a man."
One moment's indecision, and Travice took the hand in his. "Anderson!
Can it be?"
"It can, and is. _Captain_ Anderson, if you please, sir, now."
"No!"
"It's true. I have been lucky, and have got my company early."
"But what brings you here? I did not know you were in Westerbury."
"I arrived only this morning. Hearing of your concert when I got here, I
thought I'd look in; but it was half over then, and I barely got inside
the room. You don't mean to say that you are in the school still?"
Travice laughed, and held out the betraying cap. "It is a shame. I am
too big for it. I have only a month or two longer to stay."
"But you must have been in beyond your time."
"I know I have."
"And who is senior?"
"Need you ask, looking at my size. This is Lucy; have you forgotten
her?"
Captain Anderson turned. He had been educated in the college school, a
private pupil of the head master's. Travice Arkell was only a junior in
it when Anderson left; but Anderson had been intimate at the houses of
both the Arkells.
"Miss Lucy sprung up to this! You were the prettiest little child when I
left. And your sisters, Travice? I should like to see them."
Lucy laughed and blushed. Captain Anderson began talking to Mrs. James,
and to the young lady who sat between her and Lucy.
"I can't stop," he presently said. "I see the master there. And
that--yes, that must be Mr. and Mrs. Prattleton. There! the master is
scanning me through his spectacles, wondering whether it's me or
somebody else. I'll come back to you, Arkell."
He went forward, and was beset at once. People were beginning to
recognise him. Anderson, the private pupil, had been popular in the
grounds. Mrs. Aultane on one side, Mrs. Lewis on the other, took
forcible possession of him, ere he had been a minute with the head
master and his wife. It was hard to believe that the former somewhat
sickly, fair-haired private pupil, who had been coddled by Mrs.
Wilberforce with bark and flannel and beaten-up eggs, could be this fine
soldierly man.
"Those ladies don't belong to you, do they?" cried Mrs. Aultane,
beginning to fear she had made some mistake in her treatment of the
ladies in question, if they did belong to Anderson.
"Ladies! what ladies?"
"Those to whom Travice Arkell is talking. He has been with them all
day."
"They don't belong to me. What of them?"
"Nothing. Only these inferior people, strangers, have no right to push
themselves amidst us, taking up the best places. We are obliged to draw
a line, you know, in this manufacturing town; and none but strangers,
ignorant of our distinctions, would dare to break it."
Captain Anderson laughed; he could not quite understand. "I don't think
they are inferior," he said, indicating the two ladies. "Anything but
that, although they may belong to manufacturers, and not be in your set.
The younger one is charming; so is Lucy Arkell."
Mrs. Aultane vouchsafed no reply. It was rank heresy. The college boys
were making a noise and commotion at the other end of the hall, and the
master called out sharply--
"Arkell, keep those boys in order."
Travice sauntered towards them, gave his commands for silence, and
returned to the place from whence he came. Henry Arkell came into the
hall from the upper room, and there was a lull in the proceedings. The
carriages came up but slowly.
"Don't you think we might walk home, Mrs. James?" inquired the younger
lady. "I do not care to stay here longer to be stared at. I never saw
people stare so in my life."
She said it with reason. Many were staring, and not in a lady-like
manner, but with assuming manner and eye-glass to eye.
"They look just as though they thought we had no right to be here, Mrs.
James."
"Possibly, my dear. It may be the Westerbury custom to stare at
strangers. But I cannot allow you to walk home; you have thin shoes on.
Mrs. St. John is certain to send your carriage, or hers."
"You did well, Harry," cried Travice Arkell, laying his hand on the
young boy's shoulders. "Many a fair dame would give her price for your
voice."
"And for something else belonging to you," added Mrs. James, taking the
boy's hand and holding him before her as she gazed. "It is the very
face; the very same face that your mother's was at your age."
"Did you know mamma then? Then, you must be a friend of hers," was Henry
Arkell's eager answer.
"No, I never was her friend--in that sense. I was a governess in a
branch of the Cheveley family, and Miss Lucy Cheveley and her father the
colonel used to visit there. She had a charming voice, too; just as you
have. Ah, dear me! speaking to you and your sister here, her children,
it serves to remind me how time has flown."
"I am reminded of that, when I look at Captain Anderson here," said
Travice Arkell, with a laugh. "Only the other day he was a schoolboy."
"If you want to be reminded of that, you need only look at yourself,"
retorted Anderson. "You have shot up into a maypole."
"Will you see me to the carriage, Travice, if you are not too much
engaged?" cried out a voice which Travice knew well.
It was his mother's. She had seen the approach of her carriage from the
windows of the upper hall, and was going down to it. Travice turned in
obedience to the summons; and Captain Anderson sprang forward to renew
his former friendship.
"You might set down Lucy on your way," said Travice, as they were
stepping in. "I don't know how she'll get home through this pouring
rain."
"And how would our dresses get on?" returned Mrs. Arkell, in hot
displeasure. "Lucy, it seems, could contrive to get to the concert, and
she must contrive to get from it. You can come in, Travice; you take up
no room."
"Thank you, I'd not run the chance of damaging your dresses for all the
money they cost."
As he returned to the hall, the boys, gathered round the door, were
making a great noise, and Mr. Wilberforce spoke in displeasure.
"_Can't_ you keep those boys in order, Mr. Arkell?"
Travice dealt out a very significant nod, one bespeaking punishment for
the morrow, and the boys subsided into silence.
"Please, sir, your carriage is coming up the street," said Cockburn,
junior, a little fellow of ten, to the head master, rather gratified
possibly to be enabled to say it. "Somebody else's is coming too."
The windows became alive with heads. But the "somebody else's" proved to
be of no interest, for it did not belong to any of the concert goers,
and it went on past the Guildhall. Of course all the attention was then
concentrated on the master's. It was a sober, old fashioned, rather
shabby brown chariot; and it came up the street at a sober pace. The
master, full of congratulation that the imprisonment was over, looked at
it complacently. What then was his surprise to see another carriage dash
before it, just as it was about to draw up, and usurp the place it had
been confidingly driving to. A dashing vision of grandeur; an elegant
yellow equipage bright as gold; its hammer-cloth gold also; its servants
displaying breeches of gold plush, with powdered hair and gold-headed
canes.
"Why, whose is it?" exclaimed the discomfited master, almost forgetting
in his surprise the eclipse his own chariot had received.
"Whose can it be?" repeated the gazers in puzzled wonder. The livery was
that of the St. John family; the colour was theirs; and, now that they
looked closely, the arms were the St. Johns'. But the St. Johns' panels
did not display a coronet! And there was not a single head throughout
the hall, but turned itself in curiosity to await the announcement of
the servant. He came in with his powder and his cane, and the college
boys made way for him.
"The Lady Anne St. John's carriage."
She, Lady Anne, the fair girl of seventeen, looked at Travice Arkell,
appearing to expect his arm as a matter of course. Travice gave it. Mrs.
James tucked Lucy's arm within her own, in an old-fashioned manner, and
followed them out.
They stepped into the carriage. Lady Anne waiting in her stately
courtesy for Lucy to take the precedence; she followed; Mrs. James went
last. And Travice Arkell lifted his trencher as they drove away.
The head master, smoothing his ruffled plumes, came out next, and
Travice returned to the hall. Mrs. Aultane, feeling fit to faint,
pounced upon him.
"Did _you_ know that it was Lady Anne St. John?"
"Not at first," he answered, suppressing his laughter as he best could,
for the whole thing had been a rich joke to him. "I guessed it: because
I heard Mrs. St. John tell Mrs. Peter Arkell yesterday that Lady Anne
was coming."
"And you couldn't open your mouth to say it! You could let us treat her
as if--as if--she were a nobody!" gasped Mrs. Aultane. "If you were not
so big, Travice Arkell, I could box your ears."
The next to come down from the upper hall was a group, of whom the most
notable was Marmaduke Carr. A hale, upright man still, with a healthy
red upon his cheeks: a few more years, and he would count fourscore.
With him, linked arm in arm, was a mean little chap, looking really
nearly as old as Marmaduke: it was Squire Carr. His eldest son,
Valentine, was near him, a mean-looking man also, but well-dressed, with
a red nose in his button-hole. Mrs. Lewis, the squire's daughter, came
forward and joined them, putting her arm within her husband's, a big man
with a very ugly face; and the squire's younger children, the second
family, women grown now, followed. Old Marmaduke Carr--he was always
open-handed--had treated every one of these younger children, six of
them, and all girls, to the concert, for he knew the squire's meanness;
and he was taking the whole party home to a sumptuous dinner. All the
family were there except one, Benjamin, the second son. The Reverend Mr.
Prattleton and his wife were of the group; the two families were on
intimate terms; and if you choose to listen to what they are saying, you
may hear a word about Benjamin.
The rain was coming down fiercely as ever, so there was nothing for it
but to wait until some of the flies came back again. Mr. Prattleton, the
squire, and Marmaduke Carr sought the embrasure of a window, where they
could talk at will, and watch the approach of any vehicle that could be
seized upon. Squire Carr was a widower still; he had never married a
third wife. It may be, that the persistent rejection of Mildred Arkell
in the days long gone by, had put him out of conceit of asking anybody
else. Certain it was, he had not done it.
"And where is he now?" asked Mr. Prattleton of the squire, pursuing a
conversation which had reference to Benjamin.
"Coming home," growled the squire; "so he writes us word. I thought how
long this American fever would last."
"I never clearly understood what it was he went to do there," observed
the clergyman.
"Nor I," said Squire Carr, drawing down the thin lips of his
discontented mouth. "All I know is, it has cost me two hundred pounds,
for he took a heap of things out there on speculation, which I have
since paid for. He wrote word home that the things were a dead loss;
that he sold them to a rogue who never paid him for them. That's six
months ago."
"Then how has he lived since?" asked Mr. Prattleton.
"Heaven knows. I don't."
"Perhaps he has lived as he lived at Homberg, John," put in old
Marmaduke, who had a trick of saying home truths to the squire, by no
means palatable. "You know how he lived _there_, for two seasons."
"I don't know what he's doing, and I don't care," repeated the squire to
Mr. Prattleton, completely ignoring Marmaduke's interruption. "I have
tried to throw him off, but he won't be thrown off. He is coming home
now, in the hope that I will put him into a farm; I know he is, though
he has not said so. Pity but the ship would go cruizing round the world
and never come back again."
"You did put him into a farm once."
"I put him into one twice, and had to take them on my own hands again,
to save the land from being ruined," returned Squire Carr, wrathfully.
"He----"
"But you know, John, Ben always said that the fault was partly yours,"
again put in old Marmaduke; "you would not allow proper money to be
spent upon the land."
"It's not true. Ben said it, you say?--tush! it's not much that Ben
sticks at. When he ought to have been over the farm in the early
morning, he was in bed, tired out with his doings of the night. He was
never home before daylight; gambling, drinking; evil knows what his
nights would be spent in. The fact is, Ben Carr was born with an
antipathy to work, and so long as he can beg or borrow a living without
it, he won't do any."
"It is a pity but he had been put to some regular profession," said the
minor canon.
"I put him to fifty things, and he came back from all," said the squire,
tartly.
"He was never put regularly to anything, John," dissented Marmaduke.
"You sent him to one thing--'Go and try whether you like it, Ben,' said
you; Ben tried it for a week or two, and came back and said he didn't
like it. Then you put him to another--'Try that, Ben,' said you; and Ben
came back as before. The fact is, he ought to have been fixed at some
one thing off hand, and my brother, the old squire, used to say it; not
have had the choice of leaving it given him over and over again. 'You
keep to that, Mr. Ben, or you starve,' would have been my dealings with
him."
John Carr cast his thoughts back, and there was a sneer upon his thin
lips; old Marmaduke had not dealt so successfully with his own son that
he need boast. But John did not say it; for many years the name of
Robert Carr had dropped out of their intercourse. Had he been dead--and,
indeed, for all they heard of Robert, he might be dead--his name could
not have been more completely sunk in silence. Marmaduke Carr never
spoke of him, and the squire did not choose to speak: he had his
reasons.
"It was the premium you stuck at, John. We can't put young men out
without one, when they get to the age Ben was. _There_ was another
folly!--keeping the boy at home till he was twenty years of age, doing
nothing except just idling about the land. But it's your affair, not
mine; and Ben has certainly gone on a wrong tack this many a year now. I
should have discarded him long ago, had he been my son."
"I should have felt tempted to do the same," observed the clergyman.
"Benjamin has entailed so much trouble on you."
"And he'll entail more yet," was the consolatory prediction of old
Marmaduke.
The squire made no reply. He had his arm on the window-frame supporting
his chin, and looking dreamily out. His thoughts were with Benjamin. Why
had he not yet discarded this scapegrace son--he, the hard man? Simply
because there was a remote corner in his heart where Benjamin was
cherished--cherished beyond all his other children. Petty, mean, hard as
John Carr was, he had passionately loved his first wife; and Benjamin,
in features, was her very image. His eldest son, Valentine, resembled
him, the squire; Mrs. Lewis was like nobody but herself; his other
children were by a different mother. He only cared for Benjamin. He did
not care for Valentine, he did not care for the daughters, but he loved
Benjamin; and the result was, that though Ben Carr brought home grief
continually, and had done things for which Valentine, had _he_ done
them, would never have been pardoned, the squire, after a little holding
out, was certain to take him into favour again, and give him another
chance.
"When does George go out?" asked the squire of Mr. Prattleton, alluding
to that gentleman's half-brother, who was nearly twenty years younger
than himself.
"Immediately. And very fortunate we have been in getting him so good a
thing. I hope the climate will agree with him."
"Grandpapa," said young Lewis, running up to the squire, "here are two
flies coming down the street now. Shall I rush out and secure them
first?"
"Ask Mr. Carr, my boy. He may like to stay longer, and give a chance to
the rain to abate."
Mr. Carr, old Marmaduke, laughed. He knew John Carr of old, and his
stingy nature. He would not order the flies to be retained lest the
payment of them should fall to him.
"Go and secure them both, boy," said old Marmaduke; "and there's a
shilling for your own trouble."
Young Lewis galloped out, spinning the shilling in his hand. "Don't I
hope old Marmaduke will leave all his money to me!" quoth he, mentally.
To say the truth, the whole family of the Carrs indulged golden dreams
of this money more frequently than they need have done--apart from the
squire, who was the most sanguine dreamer of all.
They were going out, to stow themselves in the two flies as they best
could, when Marmaduke's eye fell on Travice Arkell. The old man caught
his hand.
"Will you come home and dine with us, Travice? Five o'clock, sharp!"
"Thank you, sir--I shall be very glad," replied Travice, who liked good
dinners as well as most schoolboys, and Mr. Carr's style of dinner, when
he did entertain, was renowned.
"If you don't want these flies to be taken by somebody else, you had
better come!" cried out young Lewis, putting his wet head in at the
entrance door. "Mamma, I am stopping another for you."
Travice Arkell for once imitated the junior college boys, and splashed
recklessly through the puddles of the streets, as fast as his legs would
carry him, on his way to the Palmery, for he wanted to see Frederick St.
John: he had just time. His nearest road led him past Peter Arkell's,
and he spared a minute to look in.
"So you have got home safely, Lucy?"
"As if I could get home anything but safely, coming as I did!" returned
Lucy, in merriment. "Such a commotion it caused when the carriage dashed
up! The elm-trees became alive with rooks'-heads, not to speak of the
windows. You should have seen the footman and his cane marshalling me to
the door! But oh, Travice! when I got inside, the gilt was taken off the
gingerbread!"
"How so?"
"You know how badly papa sees now without his spectacles. He did not
happen to have them on, and he took it to be the old beadle of St.
James the Less, with his laced hat and staff. He said he could not think
what he wanted."
Travice laughed, laughed merrily, with Lucy. He stayed a minute, and
then splashed on to the Palmery.
Frederick St. John was sitting up, but he had been really ill in the
morning. Mrs. James and Lady Anne were giving him and Mrs. St. John the
details of the concert. It was not surprising that no one had known Lady
Anne. She had paid a long visit to Westerbury several years before, when
she was a little girl; but growing girls alter, and her face was not
recognised again. She had come for a long visit now, bringing, as
before, her carriage and three or four servants--for she was an orphan,
and had her own establishment.
"I say, Arkell, I'm glad you are come. Anne is trying to enlighten us
about the grand doings this morning, and she can't do it at all. She
protests that Mr. Wilberforce sang the comic song."
Lady Anne eagerly turned to Travice. "That little gentleman in silver
spectacles, who was looking so impatiently for his carriage--who told
you once or twice to pay attention to the college boys--was it not Mr.
Wilberforce?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Well, did he _not_ sing the comic song? I'm sure, if not, it was some
one very like him."
Travice enjoyed the mistake. "It was little Poyns, the lay-clerk, who
sang the comic song," he said, looking at Mrs. St. John and Frederick.
"When Poyns gets himself up in black, as he did to-day, he looks exactly
like a clergyman; and his size and spectacles do bear a resemblance to
Mr. Wilberforce. But it was not Mr. Wilberforce, Lady Anne."
"Arkell," cried St. John, from his place on the sofa by the fire, Mrs.
St. John being opposite to him, and the others dispersed as they chose
about the small square room, glittering with costly furniture, "who was
it came in unexpectedly and surprised you? Anne thinks it was one of the
old college fellows."
"It was Anderson. Don't you remember him? He has got his company now."
"Anderson! I should like to see him. I hope he'll come and see me.
Where's he stopping? I shall go out to-morrow."
"You'll do no such thing, Frederick," interposed Mrs. St. John.
"What a charming girl is Miss Lucy Arkell!" exclaimed Mrs. James to
Travice. "She puts me greatly in mind of her mother, and yet she is not
like her in the face. There is the same expression though, and she has
the same gentle, sweet, modest manners. I like Lucy Arkell."
"So do I," cried Mr. St. John. "If my heart were not bespoken, I'm sure
I should give it to her."
The words were uttered jestingly; nevertheless, Mrs. St. John glanced up
uneasily. Frederick saw it. _He_ knew in what direction his heart was
expected to be given, and he stole a glance involuntarily at Lady Anne;
but it passed from her immediately to rest upon his mother--a glance in
which there was incipient rebellion to the wishes of his family; and
Mrs. St. John had feared that it might be so, since the day when he had
said, in his off-hand way, that Anne St. John was not the wife for his
money.
Mrs. St. John's pulses were beating a shade quicker. There might be
truth in his present careless assertion, that his heart was bespoken.
END OF VOL. I.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Mildred Arkell, (Vol 1 of 3), by Ellen Wood