CHAPTER XV.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

Was it a delusion that had grown up in the girl's mind, and now held

full possession of it--that she was in a world with which she had no

sympathy, that she should never be able to find a home there, that

the influences of it were gradually and surely stealing from her her

husband's love and confidence? Or was this longing to get away

from the people and the circumstances that surrounded her but the

unconscious promptings of an incipient jealousy? She did not question

her own mind closely on these points. She only vaguely knew that she

was miserable, and that she could not tell her husband of the weight

that pressed on her heart.

Here, too, as they drove along to have tea with a certain Lady

Leveret, who was one of Lavender's especial patrons, and to whom he

had introduced Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, Sheila felt that

she was a stranger, an interloper, a "third wheel to the cart." She

scarcely spoke a word. She looked at the sea, but she had almost

grown to regard that great plain of smooth water as a melancholy and

monotonous thing--not the bright and boisterous sea of her youth, with

its winding channels, its secret bays and rocks, its salt winds and

rushing waves. She was disappointed with the perpetual wall of white

cliff, where she had expected to see something of the black and rugged

shore of the North. She had as yet made no acquaintance with the

sea-life of the place: she did not know where the curers lived;

whether they gave the fishermen credit and cheated them; whether the

people about here made any use of the back of the dog-fish, or could,

in hard seasons, cook any of the wild-fowl; what the ling and the cod

and the skate fetched; where the wives and daughters sat and spun

and carded their wool; whether they knew how to make a good dish of

cockles boiled in milk. She smiled to herself when she thought of

asking Mrs. Lorraine about any such things; but she still cherished

some vague hope that before she left Brighton she would have some

little chance of getting near to the sea and learning a little of the

sea-life down in the South.

And as they drove along the King's road on this afternoon she suddenly

called out, "Look, Frank!"

On the steps of the Old Ship Hotel stood a small man with a brown

face, a brown beard and a beaver hat, who was calmly smoking a wooden

pipe, and looking at an old woman selling oranges in front of him.

"It is Mr. Ingram," said Sheila.

"Which is Mr. Ingram?" asked Mrs. Lorraine with considerable interest,

for she had often heard Lavender speak of his friend. "Not that little

man?"

"Yes," said Lavender coldly: he could have wished that Ingram had had

some little more regard for appearances in so public a place as the

main thoroughfare of Brighton.

"Won't you stop and speak to him?" said Sheila with great surprise.

"We are late already," said her husband. "But if you would rather go

back and speak to him than go on with us, you may."

Sheila said nothing more; and so they drove on to the end of the

Parade, where Lady Leveret held possession of a big white house with

pillars overlooking the broad street and the sea.

But next morning she said to him, "I suppose you will be riding with

Mrs. Lorraine this morning?"

"I suppose so."

"I should like to go and see Mr. Ingram, if he is still there," she

said.

"Ladies don't generally call at hotels and ask to see gentlemen; but

of course you don't care for that."

"I shall not go if you do not wish me."

"Oh, nonsense! You may as well go. What is the use of professing

to keep observances that you don't understand? And it will be some

amusement for you, for I dare say both of you will immediately go and

ask some old cab-driver to have luncheon with you, or buy a nosegay of

flowers for his horse."

The permission was not very gracious, but Sheila accepted it, and

very shortly after breakfast she changed her dress and went out. How

pleasant it was to know that she was going to see her old friend

to whom she could talk freely! The morning seemed to know of her

gladness, and to share in it, for there was a brisk southerly breeze

blowing fresh in from the sea, and the waves were leaping white in the

sunlight. There was no more sluggishness in the air or the gray sky or

the leaden plain of the sea. Sheila knew that the blood was mantling

in her cheeks; that her heart was full of joy; that her whole frame

so tingled with life and spirit that, had she been in Borva, she would

have challenged her deer-hound to a race, and fled down the side of

the hill with him to the small bay of white sand below the house. She

did not pause for a minute when she reached the hotel. She went up the

steps, opened the door and entered the square hall. There was an odor

of tobacco in the place, and several gentlemen standing about rather

confused her, for she had to glance at them in looking for a waiter.

Another minute would probably have found her a trifle embarrassed, but

that, just at this crisis, she saw Ingram himself come out of a room

with a cigarette in his hand. He threw away the cigarette, and came

forward to her with amazement in his eyes.

"Where is Mr. Lavender? Has he gone into the smoking-room for me?" he

asked.

"He is not here," said Sheila. "I have come for you by myself."

For a moment, too, Ingram felt the eyes of the men on him, but

directly he said with a fine air of carelessness, "Well, that is very

good of you. Shall we go out for a stroll until your husband comes?"

So he opened the door and followed her outside into the fresh air and

the roar of the waves.

"Well, Sheila," he said, "this is very good of you, really: where is

Mr. Lavender?"

"He generally rides with Mrs. Lorraine in the morning."

"And what do you do?"

"I sit at the window."

"Don't you go boating?"

"No, I have not been in a boat. They do not care for it. And yesterday

it was a letter to papa I was writing, and I could tell him nothing

about the people here or the fishing."

"But you could not in any case, Sheila. I suppose you would like to

know what they pay for their lines, and how they dye their wool, and

so on; but you would find the fishermen here don't live in that way at

all. They are all civilized, you know. They buy their clothing in the

shops. They never eat any sort of sea-weed, or dye with it, either.

However, I will tell you all about it by and by. At present I suppose

you are returning to your hotel."

A quick look of pain and disappointment passed over her face as she

turned to him for a moment with something of entreaty in her eyes.

"I came to see you," she said. "But perhaps you have an engagement. I

do not wish to take up any of your time: if you please I will go back

alone to--"

"Now, Sheila," he said with a smile, and with the old friendly look

she knew so well, "you must not talk like that to me. I won't have it.

You know I came down to Brighton because you asked me to come; and my

time is altogether at your service."

"And you have no engagement just now?" said Sheila with her face

brightening.

"No."

"And you will take me down to the shore to see the boats and the nets?

Or could we go out and run along the coast for a few miles? It is a

very good wind."

"Oh, I should be very glad," said Ingram slowly. "I should be

delighted. But, you see, wouldn't your husband think it--wouldn't he,

you know--wouldn't it seem just a little odd to him if you were to go

away like that?"

"He is to go riding with Mrs. Lorraine," said Sheila quite simply. "He

does not want me."

"Of course you told him you were coming to see--you were going to call

at the Old Ship?"

"Yes. And I am sure he would not be surprised if I did not return for

a long time."

"Are you quite sure, Sheila?"

"Yes, I am quite sure."

"Very well. Now I shall tell you what I am going to do with you. I

shall first go and bribe some mercenary boatman to let us have one

of those small sailing boats committed to our own exclusive charge.

I shall constitute you skipper and pilot of the craft, and hold you

responsible for my safety. I shall smoke a pipe to prepare me for

whatever may befall."

"Oh no," said Sheila. "You must work very hard, and I will see if you

remember all that I taught you in the Lewis. And if we can have some

long lines, we might get some fish. Will they pay more than thirty

shillings for their long lines in this country?"

"I don't know," said Ingram. "I believe most of the fishermen here

live upon the shillings they get from passers-by after a little

conversation about the weather and their hard lot in life; so that one

doesn't talk to them more than one can help."

"But why do they need the money? Are there no fish?"

"I don't know that, either. I suppose there is some good fishing in

the winter, and sometimes in the summer they get some big shoals of

mackerel."

"It was a letter I had last week from the sister of one of the men of

the Nighean-dubh, and she will tell me that they have been very lucky

all through the last season, and it was near six thousand ling they

got."

"But I suppose they are hopelessly in debt to some curer or other up

about Habost?"

"Oh no, not at all. It is their own boat: it is not hired to them. And

it is a very good boat whatever."

That unlucky "whatever" had slipped out inadvertently: the moment she

had uttered it she blushed and looked timidly toward her companion,

fearing that he had noticed it. He had not. How could she have made

such a blunder? she asked herself. She had been most particular about

the avoidance of this word, even in the Lewis. The girl did not know

that from the moment she had left the steps of the Old Ship in company

with that good friend of hers she had unconsciously fallen into much

of her old pronunciation and her old habit of speech; while Ingram,

much more familiar with the Sheila of Borvabost and Loch Roag than

with the Sheila of Netting Hill and Kensington Gardens, did not

perceive the difference, but was mightily pleased to hear her talk in

any fashion whatsoever.

By fair means or foul, Ingram managed to secure a pretty little

sailing vessel which lay at anchor out near the New Pier, and when the

pecuniary negotiations were over Sheila was invited to walk down

over the loose stones of the beach and take command of the craft. The

boatman was still very doubtful. When he had pulled them out to the

boat, however, and put them on board, he speedily perceived that this

handsome young lady not only knew everything that had to be done in

the way of getting the small vessel ready, but had a very smart and

business-like way of doing it. It was very obvious that her companion

did not know half as much about the matter as she did; but he was

obedient and watchful, and presently they were ready to start. The man

put off in his boat to shore again much relieved in mind, but not a

little puzzled to understand where the young lady had picked up not

merely her knowledge of boats, but the ready way in which she put her

delicate hands to hard work, and the prompt and effectual fashion in

which she accomplished it.

"Shall I belay away the jib or reef the upper hatchways?" Ingram

called out to Sheila when they had fairly got under way.

She did not answer for a moment: she was still watching with a

critical eye the manner in which the boat answered to her wishes; and

then, when everything promised well and she was quite satisfied, she

said, "If you will take my place for a moment and keep a good lookout,

I will put on my gloves."

She surrendered the tiller and the mainsail sheets into his care, and,

with another glance ahead, pulled out her gloves.

"You did not use to fear the salt water or the sun on your hands,

Sheila," said her companion.

"I do not now," she said, "but Frank would be displeased to see my

hands brown. He has himself such pretty hands."

What Ingram thought about Frank Lavender's delicate hands he was not

going to say to his wife; and indeed he was called upon at this moment

to let Sheila resume her post, which she did with an air of great

satisfaction and content.

And so they ran lightly through the curling and dashing water on this

brilliant day, caring little indeed for the great town that lay away

to leeward, with its shining terraces surmounted by a faint cloud of

smoke. Here all the roar of carriages and people was unheard: the only

sound that accompanied their talk was the splashing of the waves at

the prow and the hissing and gurgling of the water along the boat. The

south wind blew fresh and sweet around them, filling the broad white

sails and fluttering the small pennon up there in the blue. It seemed

strange to Sheila that she should be so much alone with so great a

town close by--that under the boom she could catch a glimpse of the

noisy Parade without hearing any of its noise. And there, away to

windward, there was no more trace of city life--only the great

blue sea, with its waves flowing on toward them from out of the far

horizon, and with here and there a pale ship just appearing on the

line where the sky and ocean met.

"Well, Sheila, how do you like being on the sea again?" said Ingram,

getting out his pipe.

"Oh, very well. But you must not smoke, Mr. Ingram: you must attend to

the boat."

"Don't you feel at home in her yet?" he asked.

"I am not afraid of her," said Sheila, regarding the lines of the

small craft with the eye of a shipbuilder, "but she is very narrow in

the beam, and she carries too much sail for so small a thing I suppose

they have not any squalls on this coast, where you have no hills and

no narrows to go through."

"It doesn't remind you of Lewis, does it?" he said, filling his pipe

all the same.

"A little--out there it does," she said, turning to the broad plain of

the sea, "but it is not much that is in this country that is like the

Lewis: sometimes I think I shall be a stranger when I go back to the

Lewis, and the people will scarcely know me, and everything will be

changed."

He looked at her for a second or two. Then he laid down his pipe,

which had not been lit, and said to her gravely, "I want you to tell

me, Sheila, why you have got into a habit lately of talking about many

things, and especially about your home in the North, in that sad way.

You did not do that when you came to London first; and yet it was then

that you might have been struck and shocked by the difference. You had

no home-sickness for a long time--But is it home-sickness, Sheila?"

How was she to tell him? For an instant she was on the point of giving

him all her confidence; and then, somehow or other, it occurred to her

that she would be wronging her husband in seeking such sympathy from a

friend as she had been expecting, and expecting in vain, from him.

"Perhaps it is home-sickness," she said in a low voice, while she

pretended to be busy tightening up the mainsail sheet. "I should like

to see Borva again."

"But you don't want to live there all your life?" he said. "You know

that would be unreasonable, Sheila, even if your husband could manage

it; and I don't suppose he can. Surely your papa does not expect you

to go and live in Lewis always?"

"Oh, no," she said eagerly. "You must not think my papa wishes

anything like that. It will be much less than that he was thinking of

when he used to speak to Mr. Lavender about it. And I do not wish

to live in the Lewis always: I have no dislike to London--none at

all--only that--that--" And here she paused.

"Come, Sheila," he said in the old paternal way to which she had been

accustomed to yield up all her own wishes in the old days of their

friendship, "I want you to be frank with me, and tell me what is the

matter. I know there is something wrong: I have seen it for some time

back. Now, you know I took the responsibility of your marriage on

my shoulders, and I am responsible to you, and to your papa and to

myself, for your comfort and happiness. Do you understand?"

She still hesitated, grateful in her in-most heart, but still doubtful

as to what she should do.

"You look on me as an intermeddler," he said with a smile.

"No, no," she said: "you have always been our best friend."

"But I have intermeddled none the less. Don't you remember when I told

you I was prepared to accept the consequences?"

It seemed so long a time since then!

"And once having begun to intermeddle, I can't stop, don't you see?

Now, Sheila, you'll be a good little girl and do what I tell you.

You'll take the boat a long way out: we'll put her head round, take

down the sails, and let her tumble about and drift for a time, till

you tell me all about your troubles, and then we'll see what can be

done."

She obeyed in silence, with her face grown grave enough in

anticipation of the coming disclosures. She knew that the first plunge

into them would be keenly painful to her, but there was a feeling at

her heart that, this penance over, a great relief would be at hand.

She trusted this man as she would have trusted her own father. She

knew that there was nothing on earth he would not attempt if he

fancied it would help her. And she knew, too, that having experienced

so much of his great unselfishness and kindness and thoughtfulness,

she was ready to obey him implicitly in anything that he could assure

her was right for her to do.

How far away seemed the white cliffs now, and the faint green downs

above them! Brighton, lying farther to the west, had become dim

and yellow, and over it a cloud of smoke lay thick and brown in the

sunlight. A mere streak showed the line of the King's road and all its

carriages and people; the beach beneath could just be made out by the

white dots of the bathing-machines; the brown fishing-boats seemed to

be close in shore; the two piers were fore-shortened into small dusky

masses marking the beginning of the sea. And then from these distant

and faintly-defined objects out here to the side of the small

white-and-pink boat, that lay lightly in the lapping water, stretched

that great and moving network of waves, with here and there a sharp

gleam of white foam curling over amid the dark blue-green.

Ingram took his seat by Sheila's side, so that he should not have

to look in her downcast face; and then, with some little preliminary

nervousness and hesitation, the girl told her story. She told it to

sympathetic ears, and yet Ingram, having partly guessed how matters

stood, and anxious, perhaps, to know whether much of her trouble

might not be merely the result of fancies which could be reasoned and

explained away, was careful to avoid anything like corroboration. He

let her talk in her own simple and artless way; and the girl spoke to

him, after a little while, with an earnestness which showed how deeply

she felt her position. At the very outset she told him that her love

for her husband had never altered for a moment--that all the prayer

and desire of her heart was that they two might be to each other

as she had at one time hoped they would be, when he got to know her

better. She went over all the story of her coming to London, of her

first experiences there, of the conviction that grew upon her that her

husband was somehow disappointed with her, and only anxious now that

she should conform to the ways and habits of the people with whom

he associated. She spoke of her efforts to obey his wishes, and how

heartsick she was with her failures, and of the dissatisfaction which

he showed. She spoke of the people to whom he devoted his life, of

the way in which he passed his time, and of the impossibility of her

showing him, so long as he thus remained apart from her, the love she

had in her heart for him, and the longing for sympathy which that love

involved. And then she came to the question of Mrs. Lorraine; and

here it seemed to Ingram she was trying at once to put her husband's

conduct in the most favorable light, and to blame herself for her

unreasonableness. Mrs. Lorraine was a pleasant companion to him, she

could talk cleverly and brightly, she was pretty, and she knew a large

number of his friends. Sheila was anxious to show that it was the most

natural thing in the world that her husband, finding her so out of

communion with his ordinary surroundings, should make an especial

friend of this graceful and fascinating woman. And if at times it

hurt her to be left alone--But here the girl broke down somewhat, and

Ingram pretended not to know that she was crying.

These were strange things to be told to a man, and they were difficult

to answer. But out of these revelations--which rather took the form of

a cry than of any distinct statement--he formed a notion of Sheila's

position sufficiently exact; and the more he looked at it the more

alarmed and pained he grew, for he knew more of her than her husband

did. He knew the latent force of character that underlay all her

submissive gentleness. He knew the keen sense of pride her Highland

birth had given her; and he feared what might happen if this sensitive

and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some--possibly

unintentional--wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving

girl--who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or

limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to

be gentle and obedient--was to be cast aside and have her tenderest

feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous,

shallow-brained woman of fashion, who was not fit to be Sheila's

waiting-maid. Ingram had never seen Mrs. Lorraine, but he had formed

his own opinion of her. The opinion, based upon nothing, was wholly

wrong, but it served to increase, if that were possible, his sympathy

with Sheila, and his resolve to interfere on her behalf at whatever

cost.

"Sheila," he said, gravely putting his hand on her shoulder as if she

were still the little girl who used to run wild with him about the

Borva rocks, "you are a good woman."

He added to himself that Lavender knew little of the value of the wife

he had got, but he dared not say that to Sheila, who would suffer no

imputation against her husband to be uttered in her presence, however

true it might be, or however much she had cause to know it to be true.

"And, after all," he said in a lighter voice, "I think I can do

something to mend all this. I will say for Frank Lavender that he is a

thoroughly good fellow at heart, and that when you appeal to him, and

put things fairly before him, and show him what he ought to do, there

is not a more honorable and straightforward man in the world. He has

been forgetful, Sheila. He has been led away by these people, you

know, and has not been aware of what you were suffering. When I put

the matter before him, you will see it will be all right; and I hope

to persuade him to give up this constant idling and take to his work,

and have something to live for. I wish you and I together could get

him to go away from London altogether--get him to take to serious

landscape painting on some wild coast--the Galway coast, for example."

"Why not the Lewis?" said Sheila, her heart turning to the North as

naturally as the needle.

"Or the Lewis. And I should like you and him to live away from hotels

and luxuries, and all such things; and he would work all day, and you

would do the cooking in some small cottage you could rent, you know."

"You make me so happy in thinking of that," she said, with her eyes

growing wet again.

"And why should he not do so? There is nothing romantic or idyllic

about it, but a good, wholesome, plain sort of life, that is likely to

make an honest painter of him, and bring both of you some well-earned

money. And you might have a boat like this."

"We are drifting too far in," said Sheila, suddenly rising. "Shall we

go back now?"

"By all means," he said; and so the small boat was put under canvas

again, and was soon making way through the breezy water.

"Well, all this seems simple enough, doesn't it?" said Ingram.

"Yes," said the girl, with her face full of hope.

"And then, of course, when you are quite comfortable together, and

making heaps of money, you can turn round and abuse me, and say I made

all the mischief to begin with."

"Did we do so before when you were very kind to us?" she said in a low

voice.

"Oh, but that was different. To interfere on behalf of two young folks

who are in love with each other is dangerous, but to interfere between

two people who are married--that is a certain quarrel. I wonder what

you will say when you are scolding me, Sheila, and bidding me get out

of the house? I have never heard you scold. Is it Gaelic or English

you prefer?"

"I prefer whichever can say the nicest things to my very good friends,

and tell them how grateful I am for their kindness to me."

"Ah, well, we'll see."

When they got back to shore it was half-past one.

"You will come and have some luncheon with us?" said Sheila when they

had gone up the steps and into the King's road.

"Will that lady be there?"

"Mrs. Lorraine? Yes."

"Then I'll come some other time."

"But why not now?" said Sheila. "It is not necessary that you will see

us only to speak about those things we have been talking over?"

"Oh no, not at all. If you and Mr. Lavender were by yourselves, I

should come at once."

"And are you afraid of Mrs. Lorraine?" said Sheila with a smile. "She

is a very nice lady, indeed: you have no cause to dislike her."

"But I don't want to meet her, Sheila, that is all," he said; and

she knew well, by the precision of his manner, that there was no use

trying to persuade him further.

He walked along to the hotel with her, meeting a considerable stream

of fashionably-dressed folks on the way; and neither he nor she seemed

to remember that his costume--a blue pilot-jacket, not a little worn

and soiled with the salt water, and a beaver hat that had seen a

good deal of rough weather in the Highlands--was a good deal more

comfortable than elegant. He said to her, as he left her at the hotel,

"Would you mind telling Lavender I shall drop in at half-past three,

and that I expect to see him in the coffee-room? I sha'n't keep him

five minutes."

She looked at him for a moment, and he saw that she knew what this

appointment meant, for her eyes were full of gladness and gratitude.

He went away pleased at heart that she put so much trust in him. And

in this case he should be able to reward that confidence, for Lavender

was really a good sort of fellow, and would at once be sorry for the

wrong he had unintentionally done, and be only too anxious to set it

right. He ought to leave Brighton at once, and London too. He ought to

go away into the country or by the seaside, and begin working hard,

to earn money and self-respect at the same time; and then, in this

friendly solitude, he would get to know something about Sheila's

character, and begin to perceive how much more valuable were these

genuine qualities of heart and mind than any social graces such as

might lighten up a dull drawing-room. Had Lavender yet learnt to

know the worth of an honest woman's perfect love and unquestioning

devotion? Let these things be put before him, and he would go and do

the right thing, as he had many a time done before, in obedience to

the lecturing of his friend.

Ingram called at half-past three, and went into the coffee-room. There

was no one in the long, large room, and he sat down at one of the

small tables by the windows, from which a bit of lawn, the King's road

and the sea beyond were visible. He had scarcely taken his seat when

Lavender came in.

"Hallo, Ingram! how are you?" he said in his freest and friendliest

way. "Won't you come up stairs? Have you had lunch? Why did you go to

the Ship?"

"I always go to the Ship," he said. "No, thank you, I won't go up

stairs."

"You are a most unsociable sort of brute?" said Lavender frankly.

"Will you take a glass of sherry?"

"No, thank you."

"Will you have a game of billiards?"

"No, thank you. You don't mean to say you would play billiards on such

a day as this?"

"It _is_ a fine day, isn't it?" said Lavender, turning carelessly to

look at the sunlit road and the blue sea. "By the way, Sheila tells

me you and she were out sailing this morning. It must have been very

pleasant, especially for her, for she is mad about such things. What a

curious girl she is, to be sure! Don't you think so?"

"I don't know what you mean by curious," said Ingram coldly.

"Well, you know, strange--odd--unlike other people in her ways and her

fancies. Did I tell you about my aunt taking her to see some friends

of hers at Norwood? No? Well, Sheila had got out of the house somehow

(I suppose their talking did not interest her), and when they went in

search of her they found her in the cemetery crying like a child."

"What about?"

"Why," said Lavender with a smile, "merely because so many people had

died. She had never seen anything like that before: you know the small

church-yards up in Lewis, with their inscriptions in Norwegian and

Danish and German. I suppose the first sight of all the white stones

at Norwood was too much for her."

"Well, I don't see much of a joke in that," said Ingram.

"Who said there was any joke in it?" cried Lavender impatiently.

"I never knew such a cantankerous fellow as you are. You are always

fancying I am finding fault with Sheila; and I never do anything of

the kind. She is a very good girl indeed. I have every reason to be

satisfied with the way our marriage has turned out."

"_Has she_?"

The words were not important, but there was something in the tone in

which they were spoken that suddenly checked Frank Lavender's careless

flow of speech. He looked at Ingram for a moment with some surprise,

and then he said, "What do you mean?"

"Well, I will tell you what I mean," said Ingram slowly. "It is an

awkward thing for a man to interfere between husband and wife, I

am aware--he gets something else than thanks for his pains

ordinarily--but sometimes it has to be done, thanks or kicks. Now,

you know, Lavender, I had a good deal to do with helping forward

your marriage in the North; and I don't remind you of that to claim

anything in the way of consideration, but to explain why I think I am

called on to speak to you now."

Lavender was at once a little frightened and a little irritated. He

half guessed what might be coming from the slow and precise manner

in which Ingram talked. That form of speech had vexed him many a time

before, for he would rather have had any amount of wild contention

and bandying about of reproaches than the calm, unimpassioned and

sententious setting forth of his shortcomings to which this sallow

little man was perhaps too much addicted.

"I suppose Sheila has been complaining to you, then?" said Lavender

hotly.

"You may suppose what absurdities you like," said Ingram quietly; "but

it would be a good deal better if you would listen to me patiently,

and deal in a common-sense fashion with what I have got to say. It

is nothing very desperate. Nothing has happened that is not of easy

remedy, while the remedy would leave you and her in a much better

position, both as regards your own estimation of yourselves and the

opinion of your friends."

"You are a little roundabout, Ingram," said Lavender, "and ornate. But

I suppose all lectures begin so. Go on."

Ingram laughed: "If I am too formal, it is because I don't want to

make mischief by any exaggeration. Look here! A long time before you

were married I warned you that Sheila had very keen and sensitive

notions about the duties that people ought to perform, about the

dignity of labor, about the proper occupations of a man, and so forth.

These notions you may regard as romantic and absurd, if you like, but

you might as well try to change the color of her eyes as attempt to

alter any of her beliefs in that direction."

"And she thinks that I am idle and indolent because I don't care what

a washerwoman pays for her candles?" said Lavender with impetuous

contempt. "Well, be it so. She is welcome to her opinion. But if she

is grieved at heart because I can't make hobnailed boots, it seems

to me that she might as well come and complain to myself, instead of

going and detailing her wrongs to a third person, and calling for his

sympathy in the character of an injured wife."

For an instant the dark eyes of the man opposite him blazed with a

quick fire, for a sneer at Sheila was worse than an insult to himself;

but he kept quite calm, and said, "That, unfortunately, is not what is

troubling her."

Lavender rose abruptly, took a turn up and down the empty room, and

said, "If there is anything the matter, I prefer to hear it from

herself. It is not respectful to me that she should call in a third

person to humor her whims and fancies."

"Whims and fancies!" said Ingram, with that dark light returning to

his eyes. "Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that,

while you are living on the charity of a woman you despise, and

dawdling about the skirts of a woman who laughs at you, you are

breaking the heart of a girl who has not her equal in England? Whims

and fancies! Good God, I wonder how she ever could have--"

He stopped, but the mischief was done. These were not prudent words

to come from a man who wished to step in as a mediator between husband

and wife; but Ingram's blaze of wrath, kindled by what he considered

the insufferable insolence of Lavender in thus speaking of Sheila, had

swept all notions of prudence before it. Lavender, indeed, was much

cooler than he was, and said, with an affectation of carelessness, "I

am sorry you should vex yourself so much about Sheila. One would think

you had had the ambition yourself, at some time or other, to play the

part of husband to her; and doubtless then you would have made sure

that all her idle fancies were gratified. As it is, I was about to

relieve you from the trouble of further explanation by saying that I

am quite competent to manage my own affairs, and that if Sheila has

any complaint to make she must make it to me."

Ingram rose, and was silent for a moment.

"Lavender," he said, "it does not matter much whether you and I

quarrel--I was prepared for that, in any case--but I ask you to give

Sheila a chance of telling you what I had intended to tell you."

"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort. I never invite confidences.

When she wishes to tell me anything she knows I am ready to listen.

But I am quite satisfied with the position of affairs as they are at

present."

"God help you, then!" said his friend, and went away, scarcely daring

to confess to himself how dark the future looked.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

ENGLISH COURT FESTIVITIES

Americans have an impression that the English think it a considerable

distinction to be presented at court. But the ceremony of presentation

has entirely ceased to have any social significance in England. Any

young gentleman who imagines that the door of English society will

be thrown open to him on the publication of his appearance at a

drawing-room had better save the expense of a dress and carriage and

stay at home. If a lady be ambitious of a social success, the money

which a robe will cost might be expended to equal advantage anywhere

else in London. However, a lady's dress may be worn again, and men may

hire a court-suit for the day at a very small cost. Your tailor, if

you get a good deal of him, will patch you up something tolerable for

very little; so that sartorial expenses are comparatively light. One

can get for the afternoon a two-horse brougham, with a coachman and

footman, for a sum less than ten dollars. Still, going to court costs

something, and its only possible advantage is that the spectacle is a

fine and an interesting one. One has therefore to consider whether the

sight is worth the fee.

A presentation at court is of quite as little advantage to an

Englishman as to a foreigner coming to England. Almost anybody can be

presented, and of those who are precluded from presentation, a great

many occupy higher positions than many of those who have the privilege

of going to court. Any graduate of a university, any clergyman, any

officer in the army, is entitled to go. A merchant, an attorney, even

a barrister, cannot; and yet in England a barrister, or, for

that matter, a successful merchant, is apt to be a person of more

consequence than a curate or a poor soldier. The court has scarcely

any social significance in England. I once asked a young barrister if

presentation would help him in the least in making his way in society.

He said, "Not a bit."

In England the position of everybody is so well fixed that people

cannot well change it by wishing it to be changed. Thus, for a poor

East London curate to go to court would simply make him ridiculous.

The parsons in the West End do present themselves, but there is

no part of the British empire where clergymen are of such slight

consequence as in the West End of London. The clergymen, as they file

in along with the gayly-accoutred young guards-men, have a meek and

gentle air which makes one feel that they had better have stayed away.

They do not look half defiant enough. No person who is not already

in such a position as to need no pushing could becomingly make his

appearance at court. I remember in Shropshire to have heard a family

who went down to London to be presented made the target for the

ridicule of the whole neighborhood.

On a visit to London some years ago the writer was presented in the

diplomatic circle, went to several of the drawing-rooms and levees at

Buckingham and St. James's Palaces, and was invited to the court balls

and concerts. Invitations to the court festivities are given only

to those persons presented in the diplomatic circle. It must be

understood that there is at every court in Europe a select and elegant

and exclusive entrance, by which the diplomatists come in. Along with

them enter also the ministers of state and the household officers of

the Crown. The general circle, as it is called, includes everybody

else. Another entrance and staircase are provided for it, and in that

way all of British society, from a duke to a half-pay captain, gains

admittance to the sovereign. When one is in the inside of Buckingham

or St. James's Palace the same distinction exists. The room in which

the members of the royal family receive the public is occupied during

the entire ceremony by the diplomatic circle. Other persons, after

bowing to the queen, pass into an antechamber.

Though I say it is of but small social advantage to an Englishman to

be presented, yet undoubtedly the greatest people in the empire

attend court, and are to be seen at the ceremonials and festivities

at Buckingham and St. James's Palaces. At present the queen holds

drawing-rooms and levees at Buckingham Palace, and the prince of Wales

at St. James's Palace. The latter are attended only by gentlemen,

and, though not so grand as the queen's, are pleasanter. Trousers are

allowed, instead of the knee-breeches and stockings which must be worn

at all court ceremonials where there are ladies. At two o'clock--for

the prince is very punctual--the doors of the reception-room are

thrown open, and the diplomatists begin to file in. First come the

ambassadors. It must be remembered that there is a wide difference

between an ambassador and an envoy or minister plenipotentiary. The

original difference was that the ambassador was supposed, by a sort of

transubstantiation, to represent the person of his sovereign. He had

a right at any time to demand an audience with the king. An envoy must

see the foreign secretary. This, of course, has ceased to have any

practical significance in countries which have constitutions; and no

doubt a minister can at any time demand an interview of the sovereign.

It is still true, however, that an ambassador is accredited to

the king, while an envoy is accredited to the foreign secretary.

Practically, the difference is that an ambassador represents a bigger

country, has better pay, lives in a finer house, and gives more

parties and grander dinners. An ambassador has precedence of everybody

in the country in which he resides, except the royal family.

There are five countries which send ambassadors to England--Russia,

France, Germany, Austria and Turkey. These ambassadors enter the

reception-room at the prince's levee in the order of seniority of

residence. The Turkish ambassador, Musurus, who had been twenty

years in London, came first on the occasions I speak of, the

others following, I forget in what order. They were all persons of

distinguished appearance. One, in particular, was singularly wise and

dignified-looking, with an aspect which was either bland or severe,

one could scarcely say which. Another resembled strikingly the

typical diplomatist of romance, having a manner suave and infinitely

deferential, but oh! so under-handed and insidious and diabolical! The

duc de Broglie was the French ambassador in London at the time of my

visit, and of all the corps his person and countenance possessed much

the most distinction. His was a distinction of spirit and intellect:

the distinction of the other continental "swells" was usually one of

stomach and whiskers.

Behind each ambassador march the secretaries of the embassy. After the

ambassadors come the ministers. The whole diplomatic corps moves from

an anteroom into an apartment in which the prince of Wales awaits

them. The prince and several of his brothers, his cousins, the duke

of Cambridge and the prince of Teck, stand up in a row like an

old-fashioned spelling class. Next to the prince, on his right, stands

Viscount Sidney, the lord chamberlain, who calls off each detachment

as it approaches--"Austrian ambassador," "the Spanish minister," "the

United States minister," etc. The prince shakes hands with the head

of the embassy or mission, and bows to the secretaries. When the

diplomatists, cabinet ministers and household officers have all made

their bow, it is the turn of British society. The diplomatic

circle, and such as have the _entree_ to it, remain in the room: the

Englishmen pass out. The lord chamberlain in a loud voice calls off

the name of each person as he appears, so that each comer is, as it

were, labeled and ticketed. The observer learns quite as much as

if the lord chamberlain was the verger and was showing off his

collection.

One may often guess the rank or importance of the courtier by the

manner of his reception. If he shakes hands with the prince, you may

know he is somebody--if he shakes hands with all five or six of the

princes, you may know he is a very great person. But if he gives the

princes a wide berth, bows hastily and glances furtively at them, and

runs by skittishly, then you may know that he is some half-pay colonel

or insignificant civil servant. Something, too, may be inferred from

the length of time the lord chamberlain takes to decipher the name

of the comer on the slip of paper which is handed him. If he scans

it long and hard, and holds it a good way from him and says "Major

Te--e--e--bosh--bow," then in a loud voice, "Major Tebow," you will

be safe in thinking that Major Tebow is not one of the greatest of

warriors or largest of landed proprietors.

The ceremony lasts an hour and a half or two hours, and during the

whole of it the talk and hand-shaking among the diplomatists go on

very pleasantly. There is a great deal of _esprit de corps_ among

them, and perfect equality. Attachés, secretaries and ministers walk

about through the room and exchange greetings. The ambassadors are

rather statelier: these do not mix themselves with the crowd of

diplomatists, but stand up apart, all five in a row, leaning against

the wall, chatting easily, looking quite like another row of princes,

a sort of after-glow of the royalties.

At all other court entertainments ladies are present. Of course

there are a great many very pretty ones, and their brilliant toilets

increase the magnificence of the spectacle. The queen's levees are

very much longer than those of the prince of Wales. Then, at all

ceremonials where there are ladies, men are compelled to wear, as

I have said, silk stockings and knee-breeches, slippers and

shoe-buckles. One can support this costume in tolerable comfort in a

warm room, but in getting from the carriage to the door it is often

like walking knee-deep in a tub of cold water. A cold hall or a

draught from an open door will give very unpleasant sensations. In

many of the large rooms of the palaces huge fireplaces, with great

logs of wood, roar behind tall brass fenders. Once in front of one of

these, the courtier who isn't a Scotchman feels as if he would never

care to go away. Fortunately, most of these ceremonials are in summer,

but the first of them come in February, and London is often cool well

up into June.

The ceremony of a presentation to the queen is quite the same as that

at a prince of Wales's levee. The spelling-class of royal ladies stand

up in a rigid row. On the queen's right is the lord chamberlain, who

reads off the names. Next to the queen, on her left, is Alexandra,

then the queen's daughters and the Princess Mary of Cambridge. Next

to them stand the princes, and the whole is a phalanx which stretches

entirely across the room. Behind this line, drawn up in battle array,

stand three or four ranks of court ladies.

The act of presentation is very easy and simple. Formerly--indeed,

until within a few years--it must have been a very perilous and

important feat. The courtier (the term is used inaccurately, but there

is no noun to describe a person who goes to court for a single time)

was compelled to walk up a long room, and to back, bowing, out of the

queen's presence. For ladies who had trails to manage the ordeal must

have been a trying one. Now it has been made quite easy. There is

but one point in which a presentation to the queen differs from that

already described at the prince of Wales's levee. You may turn your

back to the prince, but after bowing to the queen you step off into

the crowd, still facing her. There (if you have had the good luck to

be presented in the diplomatic circle) you may stand and watch a most

interesting pageant. To the young royalties, perhaps, it is not very

amusing, though they evidently have their little joke afterward over

anything unusual that occurs. It is natural enough that they should,

of course, and the fatigue which they sustain entitles them to all the

amusement they can get out of what must be to them a very monotonous

and familiar spectacle. There is plenty in it to occupy and interest

the man who sees it for the first or second time. You do not have to

ask "Who is this?" and "Who is that?" The lord chamberlain announces

each person as he or she appears. You hear the most heroic and

romantic names in English history as some insignificant boy or wizened

old woman appears to represent them. They are not all, by any means,

insignificant boys and wizened old women. Many of the ladies are

handsome enough to be well worth looking at, whether their names be

Percy or Stanhope or Brown or Smith. The young slips of girls who come

to be presented for the first time, frightened and pale or flushed,

one admires and feels a sense of instinctive loyalty to.

The name of each is called out loudly by the lord chamberlain: "The

duchess of Fincastle," "The countess of Dorchester," "Lady Arabella

Darling on her marriage," etc. The ladies bow very low, and those to

whom the queen gives her hand to kiss nearly or quite touch their knee

to the carpet. No act of homage to the queen ever seems exaggerated,

her behavior being so modest and the sympathy with her so wide and

sincere; but ladies very nearly kneel in shaking hands with any member

of the royal family, not only at court, but elsewhere. It is not so

strange-looking, the kneeling to a royal lady, but to see a stately

mother or some soft maiden rendering such an act of homage to a chit

of a boy or a gross young gentleman impresses one unpleasantly. The

curtsy of a lady to a prince or princess is something between kneeling

and that queer genuflection one meets in the English agricultural

districts: the props of the boys and girls seem momentarily to be

knocked away, and they suddenly catch themselves in descending. It

astonished me, I remember, at a court party, to see one patrician

young woman--"divinely tall" I should describe her if her decided chin

and the evidently Roman turn of her nose and of her character had not

put divinity out of the question--shake hands with a not very imposing

young prince, and bend her regal knees into this curious and sudden

little cramp. I saw her, this adventurous maid, some days afterward in

a hansom cab (shade of her grandmother, think of it!), directing with

her imperious parasol the cabby to this and that shop. It struck me

she should have been a Roman damsel, and have driven a chariot with

three steeds abreast.

The levees and the drawing-rooms may be called the court ceremonials.

There are besides the court festivities, the balls and concerts

at Buckingham Palace. There are four or five of these given in a

season--two balls and two concerts. The balls are the larger and less

select, but much the more amusing. The ball-room of the palace is a

large rectangular apartment. At one end is the orchestra--at the other

a raised dais on which the royalties sit. On each side, running the

length of the hall, are three tiers of benches, which are for ladies

and such gentlemen as can get a seat. The tiers on the left of the

dais are for diplomatists. English society has the tiers upon the

other side. By ten the ball-room is usually filled with people waiting

for the appearance of the royalties. The band strikes up, and the line

of princes and princesses advances down the long hall leading to the

ball-room. The queen and Prince Albert used formerly to preside at

these balls. The queen does not come now: the prince and princess of

Wales take her place.

First enters a line of gentlemen bearing long sticks. Behind them come

the princesses, bowing on each hand. The princess of Wales advances

first, with a naïve, faltering, hesitating step, a strange and quite

delicious blending of timidity and child-like confidence in her

manner. Then come, walking by twos, some daughters of the queen. Then

approaches the princess of Teck (Mary of Cambridge), a large and very

jolly-looking person, with vast good-nature and a profuse smile, which

she seems to throw all over everybody. A German duchess or two

follow her. The curtsies of these German princesses are indeed quite

wonderful. After entering the hall one of them will espy (such, I

suppose, is the fiction) some persons to whom she wishes to bow, and

she then proceeds to execute a performance of some minutes' duration.

Before curtsying, she stops and seems to "shy," and looks at the

ladies as a frightened horse examines intently the object which alarms

him: she then sinks slowly backward almost to the ground, and recovers

herself with the same slowness. It would seem that such a genuflection

must be, of necessity, ridiculous. But it is not so in the least: it

is quite successful, and rather pleasing. After the ladies come the

prince of Wales and his suite. The royalties then all go upon the

stage, and after music the ball begins.

There are two sets of dancers. The princes and princesses open the

ball with the diplomatists and some of the highest nobility on the

space just in front of the dais. The rest of the hall is occupied by

the other dancers, who later in the evening find their way into the

diplomatic set. The dancing in the quadrilles and Lancers is of a

rather stately and ceremonious sort. In waltz or galop the English

always dance the same step, the _deux temps_, and the aim of the

dancing couple is to go as much like a spinning-top as possible.

They make occasional efforts to introduce puzzling novelties like the

_trois temps_, the Boston dip, etc., but, I am glad to say, without

any success. The result is, that once having learned to dance in

England, you are safe.

The great hall during the waltz is a brilliant spectacle. There are

many beautiful women, the toilets are dazzling, and all the men are

"flaming in purple and gold." There is every variety of magnificent

dress. Officers of a Russian body-guard are gold from head to foot.

Hungarians wear purple and fur-trimmed robes of dark crimson of

the utmost splendor. The young men of the Guards' clubs in gold and

scarlet coats, and in spurred boots which reach above their knees,

clank through the halls. Scotch lords sit about, and exhibit legs of

which they are justly proud. Here, with swinging gait, wanders the

queen's piper, a sort of poet-laureate of the bagpipes, arrayed in

plaid and carrying upon his arm the soft, enchanting instrument to the

music of which, no doubt, the queen herself dances. The music of the

orchestra is perfect, and he must be a dull man who does not feel the

festivity, the buoyancy and the elation of the scene.

Besides the ball-room, many handsome apartments are thrown open,

through which people promenade; and if you will but push aside the

curtains there are balconies where one can look down, by moonlight, on

the lakes and fountains of the gardens, "the watery ways of palaces."

I do not think the balconies are much occupied: they are a trifle too

romantic for British mammas. But there is plenty of flirting in

the halls and alcoves. One room I remember very pleasantly, the

refreshment-room, which was kept open during the evening till

supper-time. There one could get sandwiches, cold coffee, champagne,

sherry, etc., without having to hurry or be greedy in the least. I

can't say so much for the supper, though by waiting a little one could

always get something. The princes went first, then the diplomatists,

and then everybody else. The jostling was such that when young ladies

asked for a plate of soup you wished they had wanted ham and chicken.

A young American, I think, would very much dislike to go up to a table

and eat a solitary supper with ladies looking on, and young and pretty

ones, too. But I have seen a young guardsman, with an enormous helmet

and boots as big as himself, stand up at the table and "solitary and

alone" work his jaws with such effect as to shake and set trembling

the whole of his paraphernalia. Behind him pressed other hungry

courtiers, whom his gigantic helmet shut out from even the possibility

of supper, and who revenged themselves by sarcastic congratulations

aside upon the length and heartiness of his meal.

"Concert" is an expression which to a hungry man has a strong

suggestion of tea and maccaroons. But a court concert gives you such a

supper as only a night's dancing is ordinarily supposed to entitle

you to. The concerts are given in the ball-room of the palace, and are

much more select than the balls. The royalties occupy very slight gilt

chairs placed just before the orchestra. There they sit with grace and

an appearance of comfort through the whole of it, while happier

and humbler mortals may walk about and whisper, or seek the

refreshment-room, or look at the pictures. They have very good music,

the best singers are provided, and some pretty familiar songs, like

"Home, sweet home," are sung.

Before the royalties lead the way to supper they step forward to the

bar which divides the orchestra from the audience and say a few civil

things to each of the prominent artists, who in their turn bow and

look very much delighted. I wonder that singers who are almost queens

when they come to American cities, who have here any amount of praise

and attention entirely free from patronage, and who even in European

capitals may have excellent society, should be willing to put

themselves in such a position. While the social status of musical

artists has not been raised relatively in the last quarter of a

century, and while that of the theatrical profession has been indeed,

in London at least, relatively lowered, reason is gradually curing the

old societies of Europe of many of their savage and silly notions.

The cord stretched between the guests and the performers used to be a

feature of musical entertainments at private houses. Grisi went

once to sing at a concert given by the duke of Wellington at his

country-seat. The old man asked her when she would dine. "Oh, when

you do," she said. He saw her mistake and did not correct it; so it

happened that she dined at the same table with the guests, and the

incident, it is said, excited considerable horror among people of the

old sort. Think how barbarous, how savage, how utterly uncivilized, is

such an instinct! Women, of course, persecute each other, but it seems

inconceivable that a man and a gentleman could have entertained such a

sentiment.

Of course, a supper at a concert is just the same as at a ball, only

there are fewer people and more leisure. The prince of Wales, and to

a less degree the other royalties, move among the throng and make

a point of speaking to any one to whom they wish to be civil. "The

Prince," as he is commonly called, takes advantage of the suppers

at balls and parties to make himself agreeable. The rule is, let

me remind the reader, to wait until the prince addresses you before

speaking, and to wait also for him, when in conversation, to turn

away: it would be considered very rude to terminate the interview

yourself. A subject in talking with the prince is always expected

to call him "Sir." The queen is addressed as "Ma'am." It is not

understood in this country that to call a man "sir" is a confession

of your inferiority to him. But it is so in England, and the fact

illustrates the strong hold these absurd and uncomfortable egotisms

have upon the British mind. No gentleman in England says "sir"

to another, unless it be a very young person to an old one. [1] A

subordinate in an office might "sir" a superior, but he would not

"sir" a man of the same rank as his superior with whom he had no

connection. "Sir" is the term applied by any Englishman of whatever

rank to a member of the royal family. Our committees, when princes

visit America, usually address them in notes as "Your Royal Highness."

But "Your Royal Highness" is not a vocative: it can be used only

in the third person. However, the princes are then in America, and

perhaps we are under no obligation to know everything of their ways at

home. Should the reader ever meet a prince in that prince's country,

I should advise him to do just as other people do there. He will

probably question, and not unreasonably, if he should accept the

implied inferiority; but the best of all principles for extempore

action is to do what seems the usual thing, unless we have previously

decided from mature consideration to do the unusual thing. It is not

the prince's fault that he is a prince: he means to be civil to you,

and you can do no good by making him and yourself uncomfortable.

Indeed, a truculent person does not succeed in asserting his equality.

The prince has been so long in that kind of life that he probably has

thought through the mistake under which the republican stranger is

laboring, and considers him a goose. Moreover, an American may reflect

that he will probably have very little in life to do with princes, and

that his interview with a prince has been an "experience." It would be

about as foolish to assert one's dignity with the Mammoth Cave or the

Matterhorn.

Besides these balls and concerts there are yet the queen's and prince

of Wales's breakfasts or garden-parties, which come off about 3

P.M. These are the most exclusive and unattainable of all the court

entertainments. There are two or three of these in a season, and out

of all London society only a couple of hundred are invited. There are

certain persons who are always invited, and others who are eligible

and are invited occasionally. A large part of the diplomatic corps

are always present. Each ambassador or minister, with one or two

secretaries of legation, is invariably among the guests; but a queen's

breakfast is the highest point which a secretary of legation can

touch. No secretary ever dines with the queen: the minister himself

only goes once a year, and he "not without shedding of blood."

The dress worn by gentlemen at these breakfasts is a curious one, and

anything but pretty: it consists of a dress-coat and light trousers.

The dress which our diplomatic representatives are now compelled to

wear at the other court ceremonies and festivities needs a word of

mention. Our people in America are somewhat conceited, somewhat

prone to be confident, upon questions of which they know very little.

Congress, at a distance of many thousand miles from courts, thought

itself competent to decide what sort of court dress an American

diplomatist should wear. An able though crotchety man brought forward

a measure, and, once proposed, it was certain to go through,

because to oppose its passage would have been to be aristocratic

and un-American. Mr. Sumner's bill required Americans to go in the

"ordinary dress of an American citizen." There was no attempt to

indicate what that should be. Up to that time our diplomatists had

worn the uniform used by the non-military diplomatists of other

countries. This consists of a blue coat with more or less gold upon

it, white breeches, silk stockings, sword and chapeau.

An attempt or two had been made before by the State Department to

interfere with the trappings of its servants abroad. Marcy issued

a circular requesting American diplomatists to go to court without

uniform. This afforded James Buchanan an opportunity of making one of

the best speeches attributed to him. The circular of Mr. Marcy threw

consternation into the breasts of certain ancient functionaries of

the European courts, for shortly after its appearance the lord high

fiddlestick in waiting called upon Mr. Buchanan, who was then the

United States minister in London, and said that a certain very

distinguished person had heard of the recent wish which the American

government had expressed with regard to the costume of its agents,

and that while she would be happy to see Mr. Buchanan in any dress in

which he might choose to present himself, she yet hoped he would so

far consult her wishes as to consent to carry a sword. "Tell that very

distinguished personage," said Mr. Buchanan, "that not only will I

wear a sword, as she requests, but, should occasion require it, will

hold myself ready to draw it in her defence." This strikes me as in

just that tone of respectful exaggeration and playful acquiescence

which a gentleman in this country may very becomingly take toward

the whole question. Neither Mr. Buchanan nor any one else, I believe,

heeded the request of the Department, and Mr. Marcy himself, it is

said, subsequently repudiated it.

But what was only a request of the State Department in Mr. Marcy's

time is now a law. I had good opportunities to observe how very

uncomfortable our poor diplomatists were made by this piece

of legislation. Its object was, of course, to give them a very

unpretending and subdued appearance. The result is, that with the

exception of Bengalese nabobs, the son of the mikado of Japan, and the

khan of Khiva, the American legations are the most noticeable people

at any court ceremony or festivity in Europe. When everybody else

is flaming in purple and gold the ordinary diplomatic uniform is

exceedingly simple and modest; but the Yankee diplomats are the most

scrutinized and conspicuous persons to be seen. One of the secretaries

said to me: "I am afraid to wander off by myself among these ladies:

they inspect me as the maids of honor in the palace of Brobdingnag did

Gulliver. I feel toward Columbia as a cruel mother who won't dress

me like these other little boys." It would require more than ordinary

courage to attempt to dance in this rig. I should think that our

representatives would huddle together in the most unconspicuous

portion of a room, and never leave it. Said the secretary above

quoted: "I always feel here that I am of some use to my chief: I

am one more pair of legs with which to divide the gaze of British

society."

The dress in which our diplomats attend court at present is a plain

dress-coat and vest, with knee-breeches, black silk stockings,

slippers, etc. It is difficult to see in what sense this is the

"ordinary dress of an American citizen." The dress is not so ugly as

it would seem to be; indeed, with the help of a white vest and

liberal watch-chain, it might be made quite becoming were it not so

excessively conspicuous. An English cabinet minister at a party given

in his own house usually wears it, and all persons invited to the

Empress Eugenie's private parties came got up in that manner. But

in London it was not till recently that American diplomatists were

allowed to go to court even thus attired. Everywhere else in Europe

the legations were admitted in evening dress, the concession of

knee-breeches not having been required. But at Buckingham Palace there

are two or three very old men who were courtiers when Queen Victoria

was a baby, and who still control the court etiquette. These aged

functionaries, who can very well remember Waterloo, and whose fathers

remembered the American Revolution, put down their foot, and would

admit no Americans without the proper garments. The consequence was,

that our legation was compelled to stay at home. This state of things

continued until Reverdy Johnson came out, who arranged what was called

"the Breeches Protocol." Owing to the unreasonable state of the public

mind during his term of office, this was the only measure which that

good and able man succeeded in accomplishing. The compromise which Mr.

Johnson's good-humor and the friendly impulse of the British public

toward us at that time wrung from these ancient chamberlains and

gold-sticks (for you may say what you will, public opinion is

irresistible), was to allow the minister and the two secretaries of

legation to appear in the breeches above described. Americans who are

presented at court, and who get invitations to the festivities, are

all required to wear a court dress. Of what good compelling the poor

diplomatists to make scarecrows of themselves may be I do not know.

Mr. Sumner's proposition was just one of those absurdities to which

men are liable who have considerable conscience and no sense of humor.

Senators and Congressmen fell in with it because they feared to be

un-American, and because it is not their wont to be very dignified or

(in matters of this sort) very scrupulous.

[Footnote 1: The rule, more correctly stated, is, that "sir" is never

used except to indicate a difference of age or position so great as to

forbid familiarity or to be incompatible with social equality. It

may be employed by the elder in addressing the younger, and by the

superior in addressing the inferior, as well as _vice versa_. Hence

the saying, in English society, that only princes and servants are

spoken to as "sir."]

RAMBLES AMONG THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

An Arab vessel from Bombay, touching at Singapore on her way to

Bangkok, afforded us an opportunity we had been longing for to visit

the most splendid of Oriental cities.

Dining at the house of the Malayan rajah, we chanced to meet the

_nárcodah_ (supercargo), who was also the owner, of the Futtel Barrie.

He was a handsome, courtly, and intelligent Arab, glad always to

mingle with Europeans; and in response to our inquiry whether he

had room for passengers, he proffered us a free ticket to and from

Bangkok, with the use of his own cabin. We must be on board the next

day at noon, he said, and it was already verging toward sunset; so

we had small time for preparation. But with the migratory habits of

Oriental tourists it was easy to throw together a few indispensables;

and we were set down on the Barrie's quarterdeck, portmanteaus,

sketch-books, specimen-baskets and all, before the anchor was weighed.

The monsoon was favorable, and seven days' sail brought us to the

river's mouth, and a pull thence of thirty miles in the nárcodah's

boat to the "city of kings."

Siam is verily the queen of the tropics in regard to the abundance,

variety and unequaled lusciousness of her fruits. Here are found those

of China, greatly enriched in tint and flavor by being transplanted to

this warmer climate; and those of Western Asia, in this fruitful soil

far more productive than in the sterile regions of Persia and Arabia;

while numberless varieties from the Malayan and Indian archipelagoes,

united with the host of those indigenous to the country, complete a

list of some two hundred or more species of edible fruits. In this

clime of perennial freshness trees bear nearly the year round, and so

productive is the soil that the annual produce is almost incredible.

The tax on orchards alone yields to the Crown a revenue of some five

millions of dollars per annum, as I was informed by the late "second

king" of Siam. It is not unusual to find on a single branch the bud

and blossom, together with fruit in several different stages. Thus, at

the merest trifle of expense a table may be supplied during the entire

year with forty or fifty specimens of fresh, ripe fruit. Among these

are many varieties of oranges and pineapples, pumeloes, shaddocks,

pawpaws, guavas, bananas, plantains, durians, jack-fruit, melons,

grapes, mangoes, cocoa-nuts, pomegranates, soursaps, linchies,

custard-apples, breadfruit, cassew-nuts, plums, tamarinds,

mangosteens, rambustans, and scores of others for which we have no

names in our language. Tropical fruits are generally juicy, sweet with

a slight admixture of acid, luscious, and peculiarly agreeable in a

warm climate; and when partaken of with temperance and due regard

to quality they are highly promotive of health. For this reason

Booddhists regard the destruction of a fruit tree as quite an act of

sacrilege, and their sacred books pronounce a heavy malediction on

those who wantonly commit so great a crime. One who has tasted the

fruits of the tropics only at a distance from the soil that produces

them can form no conception of the real flavor of plums and grapes

that never felt the frosty atmosphere of our northern clime; of

oranges plucked ripe from the fragrant stem and eaten fresh while the

morning dew still glitters on their golden-tinted cheeks; of the rare,

rosy pomegranate juice, luscious as nectar.

After eating the fruits of all climes, I place the mangosteen at the

head of the list as absolutely perfect in flavor and fragrance. The

fruit is spherical in form, about the size of a small orange, of

a rich crimson-purple hue without, and filled with a succulent,

half-transparent pulp that melts in the mouth. There are three species

of the mangosteen tree, but of only one, the _Garania mangostina_, is

the fruit edible. The others are valuable for timber, and the bark

for the manufacture of a dye that resists the attacks of every sort of

insect.

Next to the mangosteen I should name the custard-apple (_Anona

squamosa_), a rich and delicate fruit of the form and dimensions of a

medium-sized quince, but made up of lesser cones, each with its apex

directed toward the centre, and each containing a smooth black seed.

The pulp is pure white, about the consistency of a baked custard, and

in flavor very like strawberries and cream.

The delicious soursap is very similar to the custard-apple, but of

larger size and slightly acid in taste. The bearded, rosy rambustan

(_Nephelium lappaceum_) looks like a mammoth strawberry, but when

the outer hairy covering has been removed a semi-transparent pulp is

revealed, in taste so similar to our best Malaga grapes that a blind

man would be unable to distinguish them.

Pineapples are good and abundant all over South-eastern Asia, but are

in their perfection at Singapore and Malacca, weighing frequently

four pounds or more. Passing, one warm afternoon, along the Singapore

bazaar, I noticed a Chinese fruit-dealer who had among other

delicacies outspread before him the largest and finest pineapples I

had ever seen. As I inquired the price, the Celestial, after a long

harangue on the extraordinary excellence of his wares, and the trouble

he had taken to obtain them, expressed a hope that he should not

be considered extortionate in selling them so very high, the price

demanded for a whole four-pound pineapple, peeled, sliced, and

ready for eating, being the equivalent of half a cent! The ordinary,

medium-sized fruit could be purchased, he knew, at one-fifth of that

sum, and his conscience, no doubt, was chiding him for extortion.

One of the most singular-looking fruits is the jack-fruit (_Artocarpus

integrifolia_), growing in all its immensity of thirty or forty pounds

weight directly out of the largest branches or on the stem of the huge

tree. Externally, it has a rough, pale-green coat: internally, it has

a luscious, golden-hued pulp, in which are embedded a dozen or more

smooth, oval seeds about the size of large chestnuts, which they

strikingly resemble in flavor.

The mango (_Mangifera Indica_) is a drupe of the plum kind, four or

five inches long, and three at least in diameter. Greenish-colored

outside, and not very inviting, you are most agreeably surprised at

the rare, rich flavor of the bright yellow pulp that adheres like the

clinging peach to a large flat seed.

The gamboge tree (_Stalagmitis Cambogioides_) grows luxuriantly in

Siam, and also in Ceylon. It has small narrow, pointed leaves, a

yellow flower, and an oblong, golden-colored fruit. Even the stem has

a yellow bark, like the gamboge it produces. The drug is obtained

by wounding the bark of the tree, and also from the leaves and young

shoots. The natives say that they have sold it to white foreigners

for hundreds of years past; and we know it was introduced into Europe

early in the seventeenth century.

The plantain (_Musa paradisaica_) is one of the best gifts of

Providence to the teeming multitudes of tropical lands, living, as

many of them do, without stated homes, and gathering food and drink

as they find them on the roadside and in the jungle. Under a friendly

palm the simple peasants find needed shelter from the sun by day and

the dews by night, while a bunch of plantains or bananas plucked fresh

from the tree will furnish an abundant meal, and the water of a green

cocoa-nut all the drink they desire. The plantain tree grows to about

twenty feet in height, its round, soft stem being composed of the

elongated foot-stalks of the leaves, and its cone of a nodding

flower-spike or cluster of purple blossoms that are very graceful and

beautiful. Like the palms, this tree has no branches, but its smooth,

glossy leaves are from six to eight feet in length and two or more in

breadth. At the root of a leaf a double row of fruit comes out half

around the stalk; the stem then elongates a few inches, and another

leaf is deflected, revealing another double row; and so on, till there

come to be some thirty rows containing about two hundred plantains,

weighing in all sixty or seventy pounds. This mammoth bunch is the

sole product of the tree for the time: after the fruit is plucked the

stalk is cut down, and another shoots up from the same root; and it

is thus constantly renewed for many successive years. The incalculable

blessing of such a tree in regions where the intolerable heat renders

all labor oppressive may be conceived from the estimate of Humboldt,

who reckons the surface of ground needed to the production of four

thousand pounds of ripe plantains to suffice for the raising of only

thirty-three pounds of wheat or ninety-nine pounds of potatoes. What

would induce the indolent East Indian to make the exchange of crops?

The cassew-nut (_Anacardium occidentale_) is remarkable as the only

known fruit of which the seed grows on the outside. A full-grown tree

is twenty feet high, with graceful form and widespread branches. The

leaves are oval, and the beautiful crimson flowers grow in clusters.

The fruit is pear-shaped, of a purplish color outside and bright

yellow within; and the seed, which is in the form of a crescent, looks

just as if it had been stuck on the bur end, instead of growing there.

When roasted the kernels are not unlike a very fine chestnut.

The guava (_Psidium pomiferum_), of which the noted Indian jelly

is made, is about the size and shape of our sugar pears--pale,

yellowish-green externally, and revealing, when opened, a soft,

rose-colored pulp studded with tiny seeds. Both taste and odor are

very peculiar, and are seldom liked by foreigners till after long use.

The tamarind tree (_Tamarindus Indicus_), a huge growth, with trunk a

hundred feet tall and fifteen or more in circumference, has branches

extending widely, and a dense foliage of bright green composite

leaves, very nearly resembling those of the sensitive plant. The

flowers, growing in clusters, are exquisite, of a rich golden tint

veined with red; while the fruit hangs pendent, like bean-pods strung

all over the branches of the mammoth tree. The diminutive leaves,

blossoms and fruit are so singularly opposed to the stately growth

as to appear almost ludicrous, yet the _tout ensemble_ is "a thing of

beauty" never to be forgotten.

It remained for us, on our return to Singapore, to see the spice

plantations, with the beautiful clove and nutmeg trees, about which

every new-comer goes into ecstasies. Mr. Princeps' estate, one of

the largest and finest on the island, occupies two hundred and fifty

acres, including three picturesque hills--Mount Sophia, Mount Emily

and Mount Caroline, each surmounted by a pretty bungalow--and from

these avenues radiate, intersecting every portion of the plantation.

Here were planted some five thousand nutmeg trees, and perhaps a

thousand of the clove, besides coffee trees, palms, etc. The nutmeg

is an evergreen of great beauty, conical in shape, and from twenty

to twenty-five feet in height, the branches thickly decorated with

polished, deep-green foliage rising from the ground to the summit.

Almost hidden among these emerald leaves grows the pear-shaped

fruit. As it ripens the yellow external tegument opens, revealing the

dark-red mace, that is closely enwrapped about a thin black shell.

This, in turn, encloses a fragrant kernel, the nutmeg of commerce.

Both leaf and blossom are marked by the same aromatic perfume that

distinguishes the fruit.

The clove tree, though somewhat smaller than the nutmeg, is quite

similar in appearance, and, if possible, even more graceful and

beautiful. The leaves are shaped like a lance, the blossoms pure white

and deliciously fragrant, and they cluster thickly on every branch and

twig almost to the summit of the tree. The cloves--"spice nails," as

they are often called--are not a fruit, but undeveloped buds, the stem

being the calyx, and the head the folded petals. Their dark color, as

we see them, is due to the smoking process through which they pass

in curing. The clove is a native of the Moluccas, and has been

transplanted to many parts of the East Indies; but nowhere, not even

in its picturesque Faderland, does it thrive better than in Singapore,

Pulo Penang and other islands of the Malayan Archipelago.

One singular-looking fruit that I saw in China I must not forget to

mention--the flat peach, called by the Chinese _ping taou_, or "peach

cake." It has the appearance of having been flattened by pressure at

the head and stalk, being something less than three-fourths of an

inch through the centre from eye to stem, and consisting wholly of the

stone and skin; while the sides, which swell around the centre, are

only an eighth of an inch in thickness. Its transverse diameter is

about two and a half inches.

The camphor tree (_Laurus camphora_) grows abundantly in China and

Japan, producing a very large proportion of the gum that supplies

the markets of Europe and our own country, as well as the trunks and

chests so universally esteemed as protectives against the ravages of

moths and the still more destructive white ant of the tropics. This

tree grows to the height of twenty feet, with a circumference of about

eighteen, and has luxuriant branches from seven to nine feet in girth.

In obtaining the gum, freshly-gathered branches are cut in small

pieces, and steeped in water for several days, after which they are

boiled, the liquid being constantly stirred until the gum, in the form

of a white jelly, begins to appear, when the whole is poured into

a glazed vessel, and becomes concreted in cooling. It is afterward

purified by means of sublimation, the gum attaching itself to a

conical cover placed over the boiling liquid while at its greatest

heat. There is another species of camphor tree (_Dryobalanops

camphora_) growing in Borneo; and a single tree is found on the island

of Sumatra, a very giant in dimensions, even amid the huge growth

of those dense forests. The gum yielded by this species is found

occupying portions of about a foot or a foot and a half in the heart

of the tree. The Malays and Bugis make a deep incision in the trunk

about fifteen inches from the ground with a _b'ling_ or Malayan axe,

in order to ascertain whether the gum is there; and when it is found

the tree is felled and the impregnated portion carefully extracted.

The same tree, while young, yields a liquid oily matter that has

nearly the same properties as the camphor, and is supposed to be the

first stage of its formation. Some eight China catties (eleven pounds)

of this oil may be obtained from a medium-sized tree, which, after

having been cut off for the purpose of abstracting the oil, will, if

left standing for a few years, produce abundantly an inferior article

of camphor.

In British India we saw whole fields of the opium poppy, stately,

beautiful plants four or five feet high, the stem of a sea-green

color, round, erect and smooth, and the gay blooms of ripe crimson

hue. The plant is an annual, the seed being sown in autumn and the

crop gathered in August. After the flowers have fallen circular

incisions are made close around the capsules of the plant, and from

these wounds exudes a white, milky juice, that is afterward concreted

by the heat of the sun into dark-brown masses. These constitute the

opium of commerce in its crude state; but to prepare it for smoking

the Chinese take it through quite a complicated process, boiling,

purifying and condensing till it assumes the appearance of a thick

gelatinous paste of a purplish-black color.

The habit of opium-smoking is unquestionably the direst curse under

which vast, populous China groans. One who has never visited an opium

shop can have no conception of the fatal fascination that holds its

victims fast bound--mind, heart, soul and conscience, all absolutely

dead to every impulse but the insatiable, ever-increasing thirst for

the damning poison. I entered one of these dens but once, but I

can never forget the terrible sights and sounds of that "place of

torment." The apartment was spacious, and might have been pleasant

but for its foul odors and still fouler scenes of unutterable woe--the

footprints of sin trodden deep in the furrows of those haggard faces

and emaciated forms. On all four sides of the room were couches

placed thickly against the walls, and others were scattered over

the apartment wherever there was room for them. On each of these lay

extended the wreck of what was once a man. Some few were old--all were

hollow-eyed, with sunken cheeks and cadaverous countenances; many were

clothed in rags, having probably smoked away their last dollar;

while others were offering to pawn their only decent garment for an

additional dose of the deadly drug. A decrepit old man raised

himself as we entered, drew a long sigh, and then with a half-uttered

imprecation on his own folly proceeded to refill his pipe. This he did

by scraping off, with a five-inch steel needle, some opium from the

lid of a tiny shell box, rolling the paste into a pill, and then,

after heating it in the blaze of a lamp, depositing it within the

small aperture of his pipe. Several short whiffs followed; then the

smoker would remove the pipe from his mouth and lie back motionless;

then replace the pipe, and with fast-glazing eyes blow the smoke

slowly through his pallid nostrils. As the narcotic effects of the

opium began to work he fell back on the couch in a state of silly

stupefaction that was alike pitiable and disgusting. Another smoker,

a mere youth, lay with face buried in his hands, and as he lifted his

head there was a look of despair such as I have seldom seen. Though so

young, he was a complete wreck, with hollow eyes, sunken chest and a

nervous twitching in every muscle. I spoke to him, and learned that

six months before he had lost his whole patrimony by gambling, and

came hither to quaff forgetfulness from these Lethean cups; hoping, he

said, to find death as well as oblivion. By far the larger proportion

of the smokers were so entirely under the influence of the stupefying

poison as to preclude any attempt at conversation, and we passed

out from this moral pest-house sick at heart as we thought of these

infatuated victims of self-indulgence and their starving families at

home. This baneful habit, once formed, is seldom given up, and

from three to five years' indulgence will utterly wreck the firmest

constitution, the frame becoming daily more emaciated, the eyes more

sunken and the countenance more cadaverous, till the brain ceases to

perform its functions, and death places its seal on the wasted life.

On "Araby's plains" I saw for the first time the beautiful wild palm,

the "lighthouse of the desert," always an object of intense desire to

the weary traveler as he traverses those sterile regions, for as it

looms up in the distance, sometimes in groups, but more generally

standing in solitary grandeur near a tiny bubbling spring, its waving

plumes tell him not only of shelter and needed rest, but of water also

to bathe his tired limbs and quench the burning thirst that oppresses

him almost to death. Should the friendly tree prove a date-palm, he

will find food also--a dainty repast of ripe, golden fruit, wholesome

and nourishing--ready prepared to his hand. But, after all, to a

traveler over those sterile regions water is the grand desideratum,

and this he is sure to find in the vicinity of the wild palm. The

Bedouins, who consider it beneath their dignity to sow or reap, gather

the date where they can find it growing wild; but the Arabs of the

plains cultivate the tree with great care and skill, thus improving

the size and flavor of the fruit, and producing some twenty or more

varieties. In some they have succeeded in doing away with the

seed altogether; and the seedless dates, being very large and

delicately-flavored, bring always the highest price in the market.

Date-honey is made by expressing the juice of the fresh fruit, and

the luxury of fresh dates may be enjoyed through the entire year

by keeping them in tight vessels, covered over with this honey.

Date-flour, made by exposing the ripe fruit to the heat of the sun

until sufficiently dry to be ground into fine powder, furnishes the

ordinary sustenance of the Arabs in their frequent journeys across the

deserts. This is food in its most condensed form, easily carried and

needing no cooking. It is simply moistened with a little water, and so

eaten. But the value of the date tree is by no means confined to the

fruit. An agreeable beverage, known as palm wine, is drawn from the

trunk by tapping; the trunks of the old trees make excellent timber;

the leaves are used for hats and baskets; and the fibrous part, when

stripped out, makes twine and ropes. Even the stones are of use--the

fresh ones for planting, and the dried are turned to account--in Egypt

for cattle-feed, in China for the manufacture of Indian ink, and in

Spain for making the tooth-powder known as "ivory black." The date is

indigenous to both Asia and Africa: it was introduced into Spain by

the Moors, and some few trees are still found even in the south

of France. But the most extensive forests are those of the Barbary

states, where they are sometimes miles in length. When growing thus in

groves the palms are very beautiful, their towering crests waving in

unison as they seem to form an immense natural temple, about which

vines and creepers wreath their graceful tendrils, while birds of

varied plumage sing their matin and vesper songs, plucking meanwhile

the golden fruit that grows in clusters at the very summit of the

tree. The Arabs' mode of gathering this fruit is odd enough. The

trunk, sixty feet high, has not, it must be remembered, a single

branch to hold on by or furnish a foothold; and, besides, the whole

stem is rough with thick scales or horny protuberances, not very

pleasant to the touch of fingers or palms. So a strong rope is passed

across the climber's back and under his armpits, and then, after being

passed around the tree, the two ends are knotted firmly together. The

rope is next placed over one of the notches left by the footstalk of

an old leaf, while the man slips the portion that is under his armpits

toward the middle of his back, so as to allow the lower part of the

shoulder-blades to rest upon it. Then with hands and knees he firmly

grasps the trunk, and raises himself a few inches higher; when, still

holding fast by knees and feet and one hand, he with the other slips

the rope a little higher up the tree, letting it rest on another of

these horny protuberances, and so on till the summit is gained. When

the fruit is reached it is easily plucked with one hand, while the

gatherer maintains his position with the other, and the clusters are

thrown down into a large cloth held at the corners by four persons.

The far-famed banian or Indian fig (_Ficus Indica_) is perhaps the

grandest of tropical trees--the most beautiful of Nature's products,

even in that fertile soil kissed ever by the sun's rays, where she

sports with such profusion and variety, clothing the earth in gorgeous

flowers, variegated mosses and feathery ferns, till it seems to

groan beneath the manifold treasures of beauty and fragrance lavished

thereon. This noble tree grows wild in many Eastern countries and

islands, and sometimes attains to a size and an extent that are

marvelous to contemplate. Shoots are everywhere thrown out toward the

ground from the horizontal branches, increasing in size as they tend

downward, till at last they strike into the ground and become stems.

From these shoot new branches, which in their turn extend and form

roots and new stems, till at length a solitary tree becomes the parent

of an extensive grove, appropriately characterized by the bard as

"a pillared shade high overarched." And as they are thus continually

increasing, seeming meanwhile almost exempt from the general law of

decay, a tiny sapling borne to the spot in an infant's hand may come

in time to cover thousands of feet of soil. Such a specimen is the

noted Cubber Burr, growing on a picturesque little island in the river

Nerbudda, near Baroach, in the province of Guzerat. This wonderful

tree, named after a venerated Hindoo saint, occupies a space that

exceeds two thousand feet in circumference. The principal stems number

three or four hundred, and the smaller ones more than three thousand,

though some have been destroyed by high floods, that have carried away

not only portions of the giant tree, but of the banks of the island

itself. The beauty and magnitude of the Cubber Burr are famous all

over the East. Indian armies have encamped beneath its sheltering

branches, and Hindoo festivals, to which thousands of votaries

repair, are often held under its leafy shadow. I was told that

_seven thousand_ people could find ample shelter under its widespread

branches; and we often knew of English gentlemen forming hunting or

shooting excursions to the island, and encamping for weeks together

beneath this delightful pavilion. Their only hosts were frolicsome

monkeys and whole colonies of doves, peacocks, wood-pigeons and

singing birds, that find a permanent abode among the thick foliage,

and plentiful sustenance from the small, scarlet-colored figs that

hang pendent from every branch. The banian tree may be regarded as a

natural temple in Oriental regions, and the Hindoos especially look

upon it with profound veneration. Tiny, fancifully-adorned temples

and pagodas are erected beneath its shadowy boughs, where are pleasant

walks and long vistas of umbrageous canopy, effectually shielded from

the fierce rays of the tropical sun. Many Brahmins spend their entire

lives within these quiet retreats, and all ranks and classes seek

them for rest and recreation. The banian is styled also "the tree

of councils," from the prevalent custom of assembling legislators,

magistrates and savants under its protecting canopy to deliberate on

civil affairs; while all around, ensconced in every niche, are the

tutelary gods and goddesses that make up the Hindoo mythology. It

is indeed a quaint, weird spot, full of the witchery of romance and

legendary lore; and though years have passed since I last sat under

the Cubber Burr's sheltering boughs with a merry party of picnicking

maidens, now grown to womanhood, imagination still loves to roam among

its shadows, and build fairy castles within the mazy windings of the

hoary banian of Nerbudda's isle.

FANNIE R. FEUDGE.

A LOTOS OF THE NILE.

It was nine o'clock on a night of clear July starlight. The heat

of the day had been intense, and all the guests of The Willows were

assembled on the lawn, intent upon the effort of keeping cool, if such

a thing were at all possible. A hopeless effort it seemed, however,

for the heavy foliage of the trees hung quite motionless, and the

fans which were plied unceasingly made the only possible approach to

a breeze. Everything was so still that the voice of the river was

distinctly audible as it fretted and surged along its rocky bed,

distant at least a mile. The scene was full of the dim, mysterious

look which makes summer starlight so fascinating. White dresses,

shadowy faces, suggestive outlines of form and head, now and then the

glimmer of an ornament: after one had looked long enough it was even

possible to tell who was who, but at first the voices were the only

clue to recognition. Behind the group rose the house, with light

streaming from its lace-draped windows, the pictures and globe-like

lamps of the deserted drawing-room making a charming effect.

Everybody had been silent for some time--that is, for half a

minute, which seems a long time under such circumstances--when Mrs.

Lancaster's voice broke the stillness. "Oh for a whiff of mountain-air

or a sea-breeze!" she said. "I came to spend two weeks with you, dear

Mrs. Brantley, and I have spent a month--who ever _did_ leave The

Willows when they meant to do so?--but I really must be thinking of

taking flight. Suppose we get up a party for the White Sulphur?--it

is always so tiresome to go away by one's self. Who will join it?

Eleanor, will you?"

"I am not going to the White Sulphur this year," answered Eleanor

Milbourne.

"Not going to the White Sulphur!" repeated Mrs. Lancaster in a tone of

surprise. Then she laughed. "How stupid I am!" she said. "Of course

I might have known that the temptation to break the pledge of total

abstinence from flirtation would be too great in that paradise of

flirtation. Besides, Mr. Brent's yacht is homeward bound, is it not?"

"I am not aware that there is any connection between Mr. Brent's yacht

and my decision about the White Sulphur," answered Miss Milbourne

haughtily. Then she turned to the person next her, a recumbent figure

lying at full length on the grass. "I don't know anything of which

one grows so weary as of watering-place life when one has seen much of

it," she said. "Its pettiness, its routine, its vapidity, its gossip,

all oppress one like a hideous nightmare. I don't think I shall ever

go to a watering-place again."

"Take care!" said the recumbent. "Don't make an abstinence pledge of

that kind: you will only be tempted to break it, for what will you do

with yourself in summer?"

"I should like to travel. I am possessed with an intense desire to see

the world and the wonders thereof."

"With a yacht such a desire would be easily gratified."

"But I have no yacht," said she with a sharp chord in her voice. It

was an expressive voice at all times, and doubly expressive in this

dim, mysterious starlight.

"Mr. Brent has, however, and I am sure he will be happy to place it at

your service."

"You are very kind to answer for Mr. Brent."

"I answer for him because I judge him by myself. If I had a fleet it

should be subject to your command."

"You are very generous," said she; and now there was a little ripple

as of pleasure in her tone.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lancaster was calling over the roll of the company

like an orderly sergeant, intent upon beating up recruits for the

White Sulphur. "Major Clare!" she said at last: "where is Major

Clare?" Then, when the gentleman who had just offered Miss Milbourne

his airy fleet responded lazily, "Here!" she added, "_You_ will go,

will you not?"

"I regret to say that it is impossible," he answered. "I have danced

my last _galop_ at the White Sulphur. This time next month I shall

probably be _en route_ for Egypt."

"For Egypt!" she repeated; and a chorus of voices instantly echoed the

exclamation. "For Egypt! Nonsense! You are jesting."

"No, I am not jesting," said Victor Clare, lifting himself on one

elbow: "I am in earnest. I received a letter from ----" (naming a

distinguished officer) "to-day, offering me a position if I would join

him in Cairo. I say nothing about what the position is, because my

mind is not yet made up to accept it; and even if it were, such things

should not be published on the house-tops. But if anybody here has a

fancy for joining the army of the khedive, I may be able to give him a

few important particulars."

Nobody responded. The gentlemen seemed to prefer enlisting under Mrs.

Lancaster's banner for the White Sulphur. The ladies shrugged their

shoulders and said the idea was dreadful, Victor Clare sank back in

the grass and addressed himself to Miss Milbourne.

"There is nothing else for me to do," he said in an argumentative

tone. "I only waste money on the impoverished acres of that old place

of mine. The house itself is falling down over my head. What remains,

then, but to go forth and tempt Fortune to do her best--or worst? At

least the profession of arms has been in all ages the calling of a

gentleman."

For a minute Eleanor Milbourne did not speak. She sat in the starlight

a graceful, shadowy figure, furling and unfurling her fan with a

slightly nervous motion. Perhaps she was uncertain what to answer.

But at last she spoke in a very low tone: "Yet you said you had not

decided."

"No, I have not decided. In truth, I have been rooted in idleness and

indifference so long that I scarcely feel as if I cared enough about

myself to take advantage of the offer. Then I cannot bring myself to

think of selling Claremont, though I know that a penniless man has no

right to the luxury of sentimental attachments. If I were in Egypt

it would not matter to me that some upstart speculator owned the old

place."

"I think it would," said Miss Milbourne.

"No, it would _not_" was the obstinate reply. "I should take care

to find a lotos as soon as I reached the Nile. Whoever eats of that

forgets his past life, you know. I have scant reason for wishing to

remember mine," he added a little bitterly.

"Memory is certainly more often a sting than a pleasure," said Miss

Milbourne. "It is strange," she added, "that we should both have

thought of obtaining forgetfulness through the same means. When Mr.

Brent asked me what he should bring me from Egypt, I said a lotos of

the Nile. If he fulfills his promise I will share it with you."

"I am not sure that I care to be indebted even for forgetfulness to

Mr. Brent," said Victor Clare ungratefully.

He was sorry the moment after for having spoken so curtly, and would

have made amends by promising to accept a dozen lotoses if she desired

to bestow so many upon him; but Miss Milbourne had already turned to

her neighbor on the other side and plunged into conversation. "Is it

not strange that Egypt should be waking from her sleep of centuries?"

she said; and--while the gentleman whom she addressed took up the

theme readily--Mrs. Lancaster rose and sauntered round the group to

where Victor Clare was lying.

"Come, Monsieur Indolence, and take a walk," she said. "I think the

policeman's motto is right--'Keep moving.' When one stops to think

about anything, even about the heat, it makes it worse."

Now, however comfortable a man may be, if he is bidden to rise by a

pretty woman who stands imperiously over him, the chances are that he

obeys. So it was with Clare. He most assuredly did not want to go

with Mrs. Lancaster, and quite as assuredly he _did_ want to stay just

where he was, with the hem of Eleanor Milbourne's dress touching him

and a pervading sense of her presence near, even when she encouraged

stupid people to expose their ignorance on the Egyptian question.

Yet he found himself walking away with the pretty widow before five

minutes had passed.

"I know you are not obliged to me," she said when they had gone some

distance. "But your divinity is talking commonplaces, or listening to

them, which amounts to the same thing; so I fancied you might spare me

ten minutes. I want to know if that was a mere assertion for effect a

minute ago, or if you are in earnest in thinking of going to Egypt?"

"I never talk for effect," said Victor with a hauteur that was spoilt

by a slight touch of petulance. "I always mean what I say, and I

certainly am in earnest in thinking of going to Egypt."

"May I ask why?"

"I am surprised that you should need to ask. One's friends usually

know one's affairs at least as well as one's self--sometimes much

better. Everybody who knows me knows that I am a poor man."

"Not so poor that you need go to Egypt in search of a fortune,

however," said she, stopping short and looking at him keenly.

"Confess," she added, "that you are about to expatriate yourself in

this absurd fashion because Eleanor Milbourne means to marry Marston

Brent."

"Your acuteness has carried you too far," said he laughing, but not

quite naturally. "Miss Milbourne's matrimonial choice is nothing to

me. I have thought of this step for some time. General ----'s letter

is a reply to my application forwarded months ago. Yet now that the

answer has come," he went on, "I scarcely care to grasp the advantage

it offers. Indifference has infected me like a poison. I feel more

inclined to rust out on the old place than to sound 'Boots and saddle'

again."

"But why rust out?" she asked impetuously. "Are there not careers

enough open to you?" Then, after a minute, "Are there not other women

in the world besides Eleanor Milbourne?"

"Perhaps so," a little doggedly. "There are other stars in the heavens

besides Venus, but who sees them when she is above the horizon?"

"How kind and complimentary you are!" said Mrs. Lancaster with a

slight tone of bitterness in her voice.

"Forgive me," said he after a minute. "I am a fool on this subject,

and, like a fool, I always say more than I mean. No doubt there are

other women in the world even more beautiful and more charming than

Eleanor Milbourne, but they are nothing to me."

"In other words, you are determined to believe that the grapes above

your reach, instead of being sour, are the sweetest in existence."

"At least I harm only myself by such an hallucination, if it is an

hallucination."

"But you may harm yourself more than you imagine," said she with a

nervous cadence, in her voice. "For the sake of a hopeless passion for

a woman who has no more heart than my fan you will sacrifice more than

you are aware of--more, perhaps, than you can ever regain."

She laid her hand--a pretty, white hand, gleaming with jewels--on his

arm at the last words, and it was fortunate, perhaps, that she could

not tell with what an effort he restrained himself from shaking it

impatiently off. A quick feeling of repulsion came over him like an

electric shock. Hitherto he had been somewhat flattered, somewhat

amused, and only occasionally a little bored, by the favor which the

beautiful and wealthy young widow had so openly accorded him; but now

in a second he felt that thrill of disgust which always comes to a

sensitive man when he sees a woman step beyond the pale of delicate

womanhood. If he had been one shade less of a gentleman, he would have

said something which Mrs. Lancaster could never have forgotten. As it

was, he had sufficient command of himself to speak carelessly. "I was

never quick at reading riddles," he said. "I am unable to imagine what

sacrifice I should make by indulging the 'hopeless passion' for Miss

Milbourne with which you are kind enough to credit me."

"With which I credit you?" she repeated eagerly. "Am I wrong, then? If

you can tell me _that_, Victor--"

But he interrupted her quickly: "You ought to know, Mrs. Lancaster,

that this is a thing which a sensible man only tells to one woman;

but, since you seem to take an interest in the subject, there is

nothing which I need hesitate to acknowledge in the fact that, however

hopeless my passion for Eleanor Milbourne may be, it is the very

essence of my life, and can only end with my life."

"We all think that when we are young and foolish, and very much in

love," said Mrs. Lancaster coolly--whatever stab his words gave the

kindly darkness hid--"but I think you are more than usually mad. If

she is not already engaged to Marston Brent, she will be as soon as he

returns. I know that her family confidently expect the match, and in

any case" (emphatically) "Eleanor Milbourne is the last woman in the

world whom a penniless man need hope to win."

"I know that as well as you do," said Clare. "I have no hope of

winning her, and I am going to Egypt next month."

He uttered the last words as if he meant them to end the subject, but

it is doubtful whether they would have done so if they had not at

that moment found themselves close upon the house, having paid little

attention to the path which they were following. As they emerged from

the shrubbery they were both a little surprised to see a carriage

standing in the full glow of the light from the open hall door.

"Who can have arrived?" said Mrs. Lancaster, not sorry, perhaps, for a

diversion. "I did not know that Mrs. Brantley was expecting any one."

"Who has come, Ellis?" Victor said carelessly to a young man who

emerged from the house as they approached.

"Marston Brent," was the answer. "It seems the Clytie made a very

quick trip, and came into port yesterday; so of course her owner has

come at once to report his safe arrival at head-quarters."

Mrs. Lancaster, whose hand was still on Clare's arm, felt the quick

start which he gave at this information, but she was a discreet woman,

and she said nothing until they were standing on the verandah steps

and he had bidden her good-night, saying that he must ride back to

Claremont.

"I understand why you will not remain," she said; "but do not make any

rash resolution about Egypt--above all, do not _commit_ yourself to

anything." Then she bent forward and touched his hand lightly. "Tell

me when you come again that you will join my party for the White

Sulphur," she said softly. "It will be the wisest thing you can do."

The result of this disinterested advice was, that as soon as he

reached home, after a lonely, starlit ride of six miles, Clare sat

down and wrote to General ----, accepting the position he had offered,

and promising to report in Cairo as soon as possible.

After this it was several days before the future Egyptian soldier was

seen again at The Willows. What went on in that gay abode during this

interval he neither knew nor sought to know. He endeavored to banish

all memory of the place and the people whom it contained from his

mind. They were nothing to him, he told himself. It was impossible to

say whether he shrank most from the pain of meeting Eleanor Milbourne

with her accepted lover by her side, or from the thrill of disgust

with which the mere thought of Mrs. Lancaster inspired him. He buried

himself in listless idleness at Claremont for some time: then ordered

his horse one day, rode to a neighboring town and made arrangements

for the sale of his property with much the same feeling as if he had

ordered the execution of his mother. It was when he returned weary and

depressed from this excursion that he found a note from Mrs. Brantley

awaiting him.

"DEAR MAJOR CLARE" (it ran), "why have you forsaken us? We have looked

for you, wished for you and talked of you for days, but you seem to

have determined that we shall learn the full meaning of the verb 'to

disappoint.' Will you not come over to dinner to-day? I think you have

played hermit quite long enough.

"Truly yours, L.M.B."

To say that Clare declined this invitation would be equivalent to

saying that a moth of its own accord kept at a safe distance from the

glowing flame which enticed it. As he read the note his heart gave a

leap. He began to wonder and ask himself why he had remained away so

long. Was it not the sheerest folly and absurdity? What was Eleanor

Milbourne to him that he should banish himself on her account from the

only pleasant house within a radius of twenty miles? A man should have

some self-respect, he thought. He should not let every inquisitive

fool see when and how and where a shaft has wounded him. Why should

he not go? A heartache or two additional would not matter in Egypt.

As for Mrs. Lancaster, he could certainly keep at a safe distance from

_her_, even if she had not gone to the White Sulphur, as he hoped to

heaven she had.

This devout hope was destined to disappointment. The first person whom

he saw when he entered the well-filled drawing-room of The Willows was

the pretty widow, in radiant looks and radiant spirits, not to

mention a radiant toilette of the lightest possible and most becoming

mourning. Despite his previous resolutions, Clare found himself

gravitating to her side as soon as his respects had been paid to Mrs.

Brantley--a fact which may serve as a small proof of the weakness

of man's resolve, and his general inability to fight against fate,

especially when it is embodied in a woman's bright eyes.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she asked after the first

salutations were over. "Have you been taking counsel with solitude on

the Egyptian question? Or have you decided like a sensible man to go

to the White Sulphur? Whatever has been the cause of your absence,

you have at least been charitable in furnishing us with a topic of

conversation. I scarcely know what we should have done without the

'Victor Clare disappearance,' as Mr. Ellis has called it, during the

last week."