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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Ffolliots of Redmarley, by L. Allen Harker
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Ffolliots of Redmarley
+
+
+Author: L. Allen Harker
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 17, 2007  [eBook #22999]
+[This file last updated on July 1, 2008]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
+
+by
+
+L. ALLEN HARKER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MURRAY
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MABEL VIOLET JEANS.
+
+  For that dread "move" you saw me through,
+  For all the things you found to do.
+  For china washed and pictures hung--
+  And oh, those books, the hours among!
+  For merry heart that goes all day,
+  For jest that turns work into play,
+  For all the dust and dusters shared,
+  For that dear self you never spared:
+  And most of all, that all of it
+  Was light with laughter, spiced with wit--
+  Take, dear, my love, and with it take
+  The little book you helped to make.
+
+
+
+
+First Edition  . . . . . . .  July, 1913
+Cheaper Edition  . . . . . .  September, 1919
+Reprinted  . . . . . . . . .  January, 1925
+
+
+
+
+THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ELOQUENT
+
+"Father, what d'you think we'd better call him?" Mrs Gallup asked, when
+the baby was a week old; "have you thought of a name?"
+
+"I've _fixed_ on a name," her husband replied, triumphantly.  "The
+child shall be called Eloquent."
+
+"Eloquent," Mrs Gallup repeated, dubiously.  "That's a queer name,
+isn't it?  'Tisn't a name at all, not really."
+
+"It's going to be my son's name, anyhow," Mr Gallup retorted,
+positively.  "I've thought the matter out, most careful I've considered
+it, and that's the name my son's got to be called . . .  Eloquent
+Gallup he'll be, and a very good name too."
+
+"But why Eloquent?" Mrs Gallup persisted.  "How d'you know as he'll
+_be_ eloquent? an' if he isn't, that name'll make him a laughing-stock.
+Suppose he was to grow up one of them say-nothing-to-nobody sort of
+chaps, always looking down his nose, and afraid to say 'Bo' to a goose:
+what's he to _do_ with such a name?"
+
+"There's no fear my son will grow up a-say-nothing-to-nobody sort of
+chap," said Mr Gallup, boastfully.  "I'll take care of that.  Now you
+listen to me, mother.  You know the proverb 'Give a dog a bad name'----"
+
+"I never said it was a bad name," Mrs Gallup pleaded.
+
+"I should think you didn't--but look here, if it's true of a bad name,
+mustn't it be equally true of a good one?  Why, it's argument, it's
+logic, that is.  Call a boy Eloquent and ten to one he'll _be_
+eloquent, don't you see?"
+
+"But what d'you want him to be eloquent for?" Mrs Gallup enquired
+almost tearfully.  "What good will it do him--precious lamb?"
+
+"There's others to be thought of as well as 'im," Mr Gallup remarked,
+mysteriously.
+
+"Who?  More children?" asked Mrs Gallup.  "I don't see as he'd need to
+be eloquent just to mind his little brother or sister."
+
+"Ellen Gallup, you listen to me.  That babe lying there on your knee
+with a red face all puckered up is going to sway the multitude."  Mrs
+Gallup gasped, and clutched her baby closer.  "He's going to be one of
+those whose voice shall ring clarion-like"--here Mr Gallup
+unconsciously raised his own, and the baby stirred uneasily--"over"--he
+paused for a simile--he had been going to say "land and sea," but it
+didn't finish the sentence to his liking, "far and wide," he concluded,
+rather lamely.
+
+Mrs Gallup made no remark, so he continued: "Eloquent Gallup shall be a
+politician.  Some day he'll stand for parlyment, _and he'll get in_,
+and when he's there he'll speak up and he'll speak out for the rights
+of his fellow men, and he'll proclaim their wrongs."
+
+And there and then, as if in vindication of his father's belief in him,
+the baby began to roar so lustily that further converse was impossible.
+
+A week later, the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup.  Abel was a
+concession to his mother's qualms.  It was his father's name, and by
+her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should
+Eloquent prove a misnomer.
+
+"After all," she reflected, "if the poor chap shouldn't have the gift
+of the gab, Abel's a good everyday workin' name, and he can drop the E
+if it suits 'im.  'Tain't always them as has most to say does most,
+that's certain; and why his father's so set on him being one of those
+chaps forever standing on platforms and haranguing passes me.  I never
+see no good come of an election yet, an' I've seen plenty of harm: what
+with drinkin' and quarrellin', and standin' for hours at street corners
+argifying.  Politics is all very well in their place, but let it be a
+small place, says I, and let 'em keep there."
+
+Abel Gallup was fifty years old and his wife over forty when they
+married; staid, home-loving people both.  Abel's business was that of
+"a General Outfitter," and "The Golden Anchor" that was hung over the
+entrance to the shop presided over the fortunes of a sound, going
+concern.  Only ready-made clothes were sold, only ready money was
+accepted.  They were well-to-do, and living simply above their shop in
+the main street of Marlehouse were able to save largely.
+
+Abel Gallup, however, was not merely a keen man of business and
+successful tradesman.  He was, in addition, an idealist and a dreamer
+of dreams; but so shrewd and level-headed was he, that he kept the two
+things quite apart.  His business was never neglected, and he returned
+to it all the fresher, inasmuch as in his off times his mind was
+ardently concerned with other things.
+
+He was a self-educated, self-made man, who had started as shop-boy and
+risen to be proprietor.  He had always been interested in politics, and
+in their study had found the relaxation that others sought in art,
+music, literature, or less intellectual pursuits.  He was proud of his
+liking for politics, counting it for much righteousness that he should
+be able to find such joy in what he considered so useful and important
+a matter.  In fact, he had a habit of saying, "Seek ye first the
+Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be
+added unto you," with the comfortable reflection that such temporal
+prosperity as had been added to him was probably a reward for his
+abstention from all frivolous pleasures.  He had no particular desire
+to rise in the world, himself.  When he married, comparatively late in
+life, it was a woman of his own class, a comely, sensible,
+"comfortable" woman, who would order his house well, and see to it that
+there was "no waste."
+
+She did all this; but she did infinitely more.  She gave him a son, and
+in that son all his hopes and dreams, his secret humilities and
+unconscious vanities, his political devotions and antipathies were all
+brought together and focussed in one great determination that this son
+of his should have all that he had been denied; that in this son every
+one of his own inarticulate aspirations should find a voice.
+
+He was a Congregationalist and a prominent member of this sect, the
+chief dissenting body in Marlehouse.  He read little poetry and no
+fiction, but he was widely read in and thoroughly conversant with all
+the political events and controversies of both his own generation and
+of the one before it.  A political meeting was to him what a
+public-house is to the habitual drunkard; he could not pass it.  He
+never spoke in public himself, but he longed to do so with a longing
+that was intense as it was hopeless.  He knew his limitations, and was
+quite conscious that his English was not that of the platform.
+
+Little Eloquent could never remember when he first began to hear the
+names that were afterwards to be the most familiar household words to
+him.  Two names, two personalities ever stood out in memory as an
+integral part of his child-life--those of William Ewart Gladstone and
+John Bright.
+
+These were his father's idols.
+
+They glowed, fixed planets in the political firmament, stable,
+unquenchable, a lamp to the feet of the faithful.  Each shining with a
+steady radiance that the divergence in their views on many points could
+neither confuse nor obscure.
+
+The square, dogged, fighting face of the man of peace; the serene,
+scholarly, aquiline features of the great Liberal leader were familiar
+to the little boy as the face of his own father.
+
+That John Bright died when Eloquent was about six made no difference in
+his influence.  There were two likenesses of him in the sitting-room,
+and under one of these the words were inscribed: "Be just and fear
+not"; and Eloquent, who was brought up to look upon justice as the
+first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such
+fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none
+of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested
+in the portraits of the great commoner.  But he found comfort in the
+reflection that "Dada," mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild
+and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very
+clean-looking little tradesman, with trim white whiskers, a bald head,
+and a round, rosy face, wherein shrewd, blue eyes twinkled cheerfully.
+
+No, dada bore not the slightest resemblance either to Mr Gladstone or
+Mr Bright, and yet, Eloquent reflected, "what a man he was!"  Dada was
+the chief factor in Eloquent's little world--law-giver, lover, and
+friend.
+
+It is probable that his childhood would have been more normal and less
+politically precocious had his mother lived.  But she died when he was
+four years old, a fortnight after the birth of a little sister who
+lived but a few hours.
+
+Abel Gallup's sister came to keep house for them, and luckily, she,
+like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of
+her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct.  Now his wife
+had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments.  Politics,
+especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child,
+were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered
+that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be
+remote almost to invisibility.
+
+With her death all this was altered.  Abel Gallup was very lonely, and
+turned to his little son for comfort.  The child was biddable, loving,
+and gentle, and "to please his dada" had ever been held before him as
+his highest honour and duty.
+
+Before he could read he could repeat long portions from the various
+speeches his father particularly admired; he learned by heart easily
+and had a retentive memory, and his father had only to say over a
+sentence two or three times when the child was word perfect.  It gave
+Abel Gallup the most exquisite delight to stand his little son between
+his knees and hear the stirring, sonorous sentences rolled out in the
+high, child voice; and even in those early days he used to impress upon
+Eloquent that when he was grown-up he "would have to speak different to
+dada."
+
+And little Eloquent, not realising that his father referred merely to
+accent and general grammar, would puzzle for hours wondering how such
+men as Mr Gladstone or John Bright would express their common wants.
+In what lofty terms, for instance, would Mr Gladstone inform his aunt,
+if he had an aunt, that his collar was frayed at the back and was
+scratching his neck.  This, Eloquent felt, was quite a likely
+contingency, "seeing as he wore 'em so high."  And how, he wondered,
+would Mr John Bright intimate delicately to the authorities who ruled
+his home that he hoped there would be pork for dinner on Sunday and
+plenty of crackling.  He felt certain that Mr Bright would be
+sympathetic in the matter of crackling; he didn't know why, but he was
+sure of it.  Equally convinced was he that the great statesman would
+express his desire in impressive and rhetorical language.  He repeated
+"bits" from the speeches that he knew, to see if he could fasten on a
+chance phrase here and there that could be introduced into the common
+conversations of life; but they never did fit, and he was fain to
+express his small wants in the plain language of the folk about him.
+
+Another name floated vague and nebulous among the impressions of very
+early childhood: that of one Herbert Spencer; and this was curious, for
+Abel Gallup was what he would himself have described as "a sincere
+Believer."  Nevertheless, he was immensely attracted by the
+philosopher's _Study of Sociology_, and little Eloquent was made to
+learn and repeat many long bits from that dispassionate work.  There
+was no portrait of Mr Herbert Spencer hanging upon the walls; he was
+not a living force, a real presence, like Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright; he
+spake not with the words of "a great soul greatly stirred"; yet there
+was something in his polished and logical sentences that gave Eloquent
+a doubtless quite erroneous sense of his personality, and of a certain
+aloofness in his attitude.  He never called into council the "bits"
+from Mr Herbert Spencer in order to find majestic language in which to
+express the ordinary wants of life.
+
+Eloquent was taken to his first political meeting when he was six years
+old, and he fell asleep before he had been there half an hour.  His
+father put his arm round the child, rested the heavy little head
+against his shoulder and let him sleep in peace.  Not even the cheering
+woke him, and his father carried him home, still sleeping.  Perhaps
+Abel believed that in some mysterious manner the child absorbed the
+opinions of the speakers through the pores.  He was not in the least
+annoyed with the little boy for falling asleep, nor did his tender
+years prevent a repetition of the experiment a few months later.  This
+time Eloquent kept awake for nearly an hour.  He was dreadfully bored,
+but at the same time felt very elated and important.  He was the only
+little boy in the hall.
+
+Abel Gallup was never tired of impressing upon Eloquent that "the
+people had the power, and the people had the votes to send you to
+parlyment or keep you out.  Don't you be misled, my boy, by them as
+would wish you to try to please the gentry by and bye.  The gentry's
+few and the people's many.  I don't say a word against the gentry,
+mind, they're all right in their proper place, and very pleasant they
+be, some of them, but when the time comes for you to stand, just you
+remember that even hereabout there's hundreds of little houses for one
+manshun, and in every one of those little houses there's a vote, and
+you can have it if you go the right way about.  When you're _in_,
+Eloquent, then you can hob-a-nob with the gentry if it so pleases you;
+but _till_ you're in, remember it's the working man as can make or mar
+you."
+
+Eloquent's aunt, Miss Gallup, had for many years "kept" the post-office
+and general shop in the village of Redmarley; but when her brother
+asked her to come and look after his home and his motherless child, she
+did not hesitate.  She resigned her position of post-mistress, sold the
+good-will of her shop, and went to live in Marlehouse at "The Sign of
+the Golden Anchor."
+
+She did not lose her interest in Redmarley, however; she had many
+friends there, and it was one of the treats of little Eloquent's
+childhood to drive there with his aunt "in a shay," to spend the
+afternoon in the woods, and have tea afterwards either with the
+housekeeper at the "Manshun" or in one of the cottages in the village.
+
+In those days, only one old gentleman lived at the "Manshun."  He "kept
+himself very much to himself," so aunt said, and Eloquent never saw him
+except from an upper window in the Golden Anchor, when he happened to
+drive through Marlehouse.
+
+Neither did the little boy ever see much of the interior of the
+"Manshun" itself, except the housekeeper's room, which was down a
+passage just inside the back entrance.
+
+It was during these visits to the housekeeper at Redmarley that it
+first dawned upon Eloquent that there could be two opinions as to the
+absolute righteousness of the Liberal Cause.  Moreover, he found out
+that his aunt's political views were not on all fours with those of his
+father.  This last discovery was quite a shock to him, and there was
+worse in store.  For while he sat in solemn silence devouring bread and
+jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard
+her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as "that there Gladstone," and
+the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as
+"a snake in the grass."
+
+"It's curious, Miss Gallup," the butler said, thoughtfully, "that your
+brother should be that side in politics, and him so well-to-do and all.
+If he'd been in the boot trade now, I could have understood it--there's
+something in the smell of leather that breeds Radicals like a bad drain
+breeds fever; but clothes now, and lining and neck-ties and hosiery,
+you'd think they'd have a softening effect on a man.  Dissenter, too,
+he is, isn't he?"
+
+"My brother's altogether out of the common run," Miss Gallup remarked,
+rather huffily.  She might deplore his politics herself--when she was
+some distance away from him--but no one else should presume to find
+fault.  "He may be mistaken in his views--I think he is mistaken--but
+that don't alter the fact that he's a very successful man: a solid man,
+well thought of in Marlehouse, I can tell you."
+
+"Dada says," Eloquent broke in, "that he's successful _because_ of his
+views."
+
+"Well, to be sure," exclaimed the housekeeper in astonishment, "who'd
+have thought the child could understand."
+
+"The child," groaned Miss Gallup, "hears nothing but politics all day
+long--it turns me cold sometimes, it does really."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ONE OF THEM
+
+When Eloquent was six years old his visits to the "Manshun" at
+Redmarley ceased.
+
+Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Mr Hilary, reigned in his stead.
+The butler and the housekeeper, handsomely pensioned, left the village.
+The staff of servants was much reduced, and at first Mr Hilary Ffolliot
+only came down to Redmarley for two or three days at a time.  Then he
+married and came to live there altogether.
+
+Eloquent had liked going to Redmarley.  The place attracted him, and
+the people were kind, even if they were wrong-headed as to politics.
+One day he asked his aunt when they would go again.
+
+"I don't fancy we shall go much now," she replied; "most of my friends
+have left.  It's all different now up at the 'Manshun,' with a young
+missus and a new housekeeper; though they seem pleased enough about it
+in the village; a well-spoken, nice-looking young lady they says she
+is, but I shan't go there no more.  They don't know me and I don't know
+them, and there we'll have to leave it."
+
+And there it was left.
+
+Redmarley would probably have faded altogether from Eloquent's mind,
+but for something that occurred to give it a new interest in his eyes.
+
+The summer that he was seven, he was sent to the Grammar School.  He
+came home every day directly after morning lessons, for he was as yet
+considered too small to take part in the games which were at that time
+but slightly supervised.
+
+One day he returned to find a victoria and pair standing at the shop
+door, coachman on the box, footman standing on the pavement.  This was
+unusual.  Such an equipage must, he felt, belong to some member of the
+dangerously seductive "upper classes" his dada warned him against so
+often.  The class that some day would _want_ him.  The class he was to
+keep at arm's length till he was safely "in."
+
+The shop door was open, and Eloquent looked in.  Dada, himself, was
+serving a customer; moreover, he was looking particularly brisk and
+pleased.
+
+Eloquent crept into the shop cautiously.  None noticed him.  The four
+shopmen were serving other customers, and they all happened to be at
+the counter on the right-hand side.
+
+It was a long shop with two counters that stretched its entire length,
+and was rather dark and close as a rule, but to-day there was bright
+sunshine outside.  It shone through the big plate-glass windows, the
+glass door stood open, and somehow the shop looked gay.  Dada had the
+left-hand counter all to himself.
+
+Eloquent had never before seen anyone in the least like this customer,
+who, with slender hands, sat turning over little ready-made suits,
+boy's suits, and feeling the stuff to see if it were strong; she had
+taken off one of her long white gloves, and it lay beside the suits.
+
+Eloquent gazed and gazed, and edged up the side of the counter towards
+her.  Had he possessed eyes for anybody else he would have observed
+that the four assistants were staring also, and that his father, even,
+seemed very much absorbed by this particular purchaser.
+
+And, after all, why?
+
+She was just a tall, quite young woman, very simply dressed in white.
+
+But she was beautiful.
+
+Not pretty; beautiful in a large, luminous, quite intelligible way.
+
+It was all there, the gracious sovereignty of feature, colouring, above
+all, expression--that governs men.
+
+Little Eloquent knew it and came edging up the shop, drawn irresistibly
+as by some powerful magnetic force.
+
+The young shopmen knew it, and neglected their patrons as much as they
+dared to stare at her.
+
+Mr Gallup knew it, and stood rubbing his hands and thoroughly enjoying
+the good moment.
+
+Those other customers knew it, and although the inattention of the
+young shopmen annoyed them, they sat well sideways in their chairs that
+they, too, might take a peep at the lady without rudely turning round.
+
+The only person in the shop who appeared to know nothing about it was
+the lady herself.  She bent her lovely head over the little suits and
+pondered, murmuring:
+
+"I do wish I knew which they'd like best, a Norfolk jacket, or a jacket
+and waistcoat.  Can you remember which you liked best?" she asked,
+suddenly lifting large, earnest eyes to Mr Gallup's flushed and
+cheerful countenance.
+
+"Really, madam," said Mr Gallup, rather taken aback at the very
+personal turn the subject had taken, "I shouldn't think it matters in
+the least.  Both are equally suitable."
+
+At that moment, the lady caught sight of Eloquent edging, edging up the
+side of the counter, ever nearer to this astonishing vision.
+
+"Here's somebody who can tell us," she exclaimed.  "I'll explain to
+him. . . .  I'm buying suits for three little boys--Sunday suits, for
+church and Sunday school, you know--I want them plain and serviceable
+so that by and bye they won't look funny for school--_you_ know; well,
+would they like coats and waistcoats, or a Norfolk--which do you think?"
+
+"Coats and waistcoats," said Eloquent promptly, his eyes still glued to
+her face.
+
+"Why?" asked the lady.
+
+"Because you can take off your coat, and _then_ you're in your
+shirt-sleeves."
+
+"But aren't you in your shirt-sleeves when you take off a Norfolk?"
+
+"No," said Eloquent, "_then_ you're in your shirt."
+
+The lady laughed.  Mr Gallup laughed.  The assistants, who had not
+heard, for Eloquent spoke very low, sniggered sympathetically, and the
+other customers frowned.
+
+"That settles it," said the lady, "and I'm very much obliged to you.
+I'll have the three little grey suits with coats and waistcoats.  Poor
+little chaps, their mother died just a fortnight ago, and they've
+nothing tidy."
+
+"My mother's dead," Eloquent announced abruptly.
+
+The lady's eyes had been so soft, her face so tender and full of pity
+as she said, "poor little chaps," he felt a sudden spasm of jealousy.
+He wanted her to look at him like that.
+
+He did not see his father's start, nor the momentary pained contraction
+of his cheerful features.
+
+Eloquent's eyes were fixed on the lady's face, and sure enough he got
+what he wanted.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she said simply, and she looked it; she had turned her
+kind eyes full upon him, eyes wide apart and grey and limpid.
+
+He edged still nearer to her; so near that he stood upon her white
+dress with his dusty little boots, and still he stared unblinkingly.
+
+The young lady looked puzzled.  Why did the child regard her so
+fixedly?  She suddenly awoke to the fact that everyone in the shop was
+looking at her.  Even Mr Gallup, on the other side of the counter,
+seemed suddenly stricken by inertia, and instead of putting up the
+little suits in paper, was staring at the pair of them.
+
+Then Eloquent was moved to explain.
+
+"I've never seen anybody look like you before," he said gravely, "and I
+like watching you."
+
+"Thank you," said the lady, and she patted his cheek.
+
+She laughed.
+
+Mr Gallup laughed, and came back to the affairs of the Golden Anchor,
+busying himself in tying up her parcel, while he explained that
+Eloquent was his only child.
+
+Eloquent did not laugh, for she was going away.
+
+Dada carried the parcel to the shop door and gave it to the footman.
+He put it in the carriage, and held out a thin silken cloak for the
+lady, which she put on.  He covered her knees with a linen dust rug,
+and smiling and bowing she drove away.
+
+Eloquent turned back into the shop with his father.
+
+It seemed to have got very dark and gloomy again.
+
+"Dada," he asked, "who is that lady?"
+
+"That," said Mr Gallup, loudly and with no little pride, "is Mrs
+Ffolliot of Redmarley, the bride."
+
+The customers were all listening, the four assistants were all
+listening.
+
+Mr Gallup held out his hand to Eloquent, and together they went through
+the shop and upstairs into the sitting-room, that looked out upon the
+market-place.
+
+"Dada, is she one of the Classes?" Eloquent inquired, nervously.
+
+"I believe you, my boy," Mr Gallup responded jocosely, "very much so,
+she is; a regular out and outer."
+
+His father went away chuckling, but Eloquent was much depressed.
+
+He went and stood over against one of the portraits of John Bright and
+looked at him for help.
+
+"Be just and fear not," said that statesman.
+
+"All very well," thought Eloquent, "she didn't pat _your_ cheek."
+
+He went and sought counsel of Mr Gladstone, a youngish Mr Gladstone in
+the Free Trade Hall, Manchester: "At last, my friends, I have come
+amongst you . . . unmuzzled," said the legend underneath his portrait.
+
+But Eloquent felt that this was just what he was not.  He felt very
+muzzled indeed.  All sorts of vague thoughts went surging through his
+brain that could find no expression in words.
+
+"I do believe," he said desperately, "if she was to give the
+whisperingest little call, I'd be obliged to go . . . and so would
+you," he continued, shaking his head at Mr Gladstone, "you'd do just
+the same."
+
+He felt that, in some inexplicable, subtly mysterious fashion, there
+was a kind of affinity between Mr Gladstone and Mrs Ffolliot.
+
+Mr Gladstone would understand, and not be too hard upon him.
+
+In the years that followed, he saw Mrs Ffolliot from time to time from
+the window or in the street, but never again did he come so close to
+her as to touch her.
+
+Never did he see her, however, without that strange thrill of
+enthusiastic admiration; that dumb, inarticulate sense of having seen
+something entirely satisfying and delightful; satisfying for the moment
+only: he paid dearly for his brief joy in after hours of curious
+depression and an aching sense of emptiness and loss.  She was so far
+away.
+
+Sometimes she was driving with her husband, and little Eloquent
+wondered after they had passed what manner of man it could be who had
+the right to sit by her whenever he liked.  He never had time to notice
+Mr Ffolliot, till one day he saw him in the carriage alone, and
+scrutinised him sternly.  Long afterwards he read how some admirer of
+Lord Hartington had said that what he liked most about him was his
+"You-be-damnedness."  The phrase, Eloquent felt, exactly described Mr
+Ffolliot; aloof, detached, a fastidious, fine gentleman to his finger
+tips, entirely careless as to what the common people thought of him;
+not willingly conscious, unless rudely reminded of their existence,
+that there were any common people: such, Eloquent felt sure, was Mr
+Ffolliot's mental attitude, and he hated him.
+
+Mr Ffolliot wore a monocle, and just at that time a new figure loomed
+large on the little boy's political horizon--a figure held up before
+him not for admiration, but reprobation--as a turncoat, an apostate, a
+real and menacing danger to the Cause dada had most at heart; the
+well-known effigy of Mr Joseph Chamberlain.  He always appeared with
+monocle and orchid.  In his expression, judged by the illustrated
+papers, there was something of that same "you-be-damnedness" he
+disliked so much in Mr Ffolliot.  Eloquent lumped them together in his
+mind, and hated Mr Ffolliot as ardently as he worshipped his wife; and
+to no one at all did he ever say a word about either of them.
+
+He rose rapidly in the school, and when he was nine years old had
+reached a form with boys much older than himself, boys old enough to
+write essays; and Eloquent wrote essays too; essays which were cruder
+and quainter than those of his companions.  One day the subject
+given--rather an abstruse theme for boys to tackle--was Beauty.
+Eloquent wrote as follows:
+
+"Beauty is tall and has a pleasant sounding voice, and you want to come
+as near as you can.  You want to look at her all the time because you
+don't see it often.  Beauty is most pretty to look at and you don't
+seem to see anyone else when it's there.  She smells nice, a wafty
+smell like tobacco plants not pipes in the evening.  When beauty looks
+at you you feel glad and funny and she smiles at you and looks with her
+eyes.  She is different to aunts and people's wives.  Taller and quite
+a different shape.  Beauty is different.--E. A. Gallup, class IIIb."
+
+
+He was twelve years old when they left Marlehouse.  His father had
+bought a larger business in a busy commercial town, where there was a
+grammar school famous throughout the Midlands.
+
+There Eloquent was educated until he was seventeen, when he, too, went
+into the outfitting business.  He attended lectures and the science
+school in his free time, and belonged to two or three debating clubs.
+He was in great request at the smaller political gatherings as a
+speaker, and with constant practice bade fair to justify his name.
+
+He occasionally went to Marlehouse, generally on political business,
+but never to Redmarley.  Nevertheless, stray items of Redmarley news
+reached him through his aunt, who still kept up her friendship with
+some of the village folk there.
+
+From her he learned that there were a lot of young Ffolliots; that they
+were wild and "mishtiful," unmanageable and generally troublesome; that
+Mrs Ffolliot was still immensely popular and her husband hardly known
+after all these years; that, owing, it was supposed, to their
+increasing family, they did not entertain much, and that the "Manshun"
+itself looked much as it had always looked.
+
+Eloquent made no comment on these revelations, but he treasured them in
+his heart.  Some day he intended to go back to Redmarley.  He never
+forgot Mrs Ffolliot, or the impression she had made upon him the first
+time he saw her.
+
+When Eloquent was four-and-twenty Abel Gallup died.  He then learned
+that his father was a much wealthier man than anyone had supposed.
+Miss Gallup was left an annuity of a hundred a year.  The rest of the
+very considerable property (some seventy thousand pounds) was left to
+Eloquent, but with the proviso that until he was elected a member of
+Parliament he could not touch more than three hundred a year, though he
+was to be allowed two thousand pounds for his election expenses
+whenever, and as often as he chose to stand, until he was elected; as
+long as the money lasted.  Once he was in Parliament the property was
+his absolutely, to dispose of as he thought fit.
+
+It was proof of Abel Gallup's entire trust in his son, that there was
+not one word in the will that in any way whatsoever expressed even a
+hope as to the legatee's political convictions.
+
+Miss Gallup went back to Redmarley.  Eloquent sold the outfitting
+business, and went to London to study parliamentary business from the
+stranger's gallery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ANOTHER OF THEM
+
+A young man was walking through Redmarley woods towards Redmarley
+village, and from time to time he gazed sorrowfully at his boots.  There
+had been a lot of rain that winter, and now on this, the third Sunday in
+December, the pathway was covered with mud, which, when it was not
+sticky, was extremely slippery.
+
+The young man walked rather slowly, twirling a smart cane as he went, and
+presently he burst into speech--more accurately--a speech.
+
+"What, gentlemen," he demanded, loudly and rhetorically, "but no--I will
+not call you gentlemen; here to-night, I note it with pride and gladness,
+there are but few who can claim that courtesy title.  I who speak, and
+most of you who do me the honour to listen, can lay claim to no prouder
+appellation than that of MEN.  What then, fellow-men, I ask you, what
+_is_ the House of Lords?  What purpose does it serve except to delay all
+beneficent legislation, to waste the country's time and to nullify the
+best efforts. . . .  Confound . . ."
+
+He slipped, he staggered, his hat went one way, his stick another, and he
+sat down violently and with a splash in a particularly large puddle.  And
+at that instant he was suddenly beset by a dog--a curiously long-legged
+fox-terrier--who came bouncing round him with short rushes and sharp
+barks.  He had reached a part of the woods where the paths cross.  Fir
+trees were very thick just there, and footsteps made hardly any sound in
+the soft mud.
+
+A tall girl came quickly round the corner, calling "Parker!" and pulled
+up short as she beheld the stranger seated ingloriously in the puddle.
+But it was only for a moment; she hastened towards him, rebuking the dog
+as she came: "Be quiet, Parker, how rude of you, come off now, come to
+heel"--then, as he of the puddle, apparently paralysed by his undignified
+position, made no effort to arise, on reaching him she held out her
+hands, saying; "I wouldn't _sit_ there if I were you, it's so awfully
+wet.  Shall I pull you up?  Dig your heels in, that's it.  I say, you are
+in a mess!"
+
+He was.
+
+The leggy fox-terrier ceased to bark.  Instead, he thrust an inquisitive
+nose into the stranger's bowler hat and sniffed dubiously.
+
+The girl was strong and had pulled with a will.
+
+"I am much obliged to you," the young man remarked stiffly, at the same
+time regarding his rescuer with a suspicious and inimical eye, to see if
+she were laughing at him.
+
+She did nothing of the kind.  Her candid gaze merely expressed dismay,
+subtly mingled with commiseration.  "I don't see how we're to clean you,"
+she said; "only scraping would do it--a trowel's best, but, then, I don't
+suppose you've got one about you."
+
+The young man tried to look down his back, always a difficult feat.
+
+"You're simply covered with mud from head to foot," she continued.  "The
+only thing I can think of for you to do is to come to the stables, and
+I'll get Heaven to clean you . . . unless, perhaps," she added,
+doubtfully, "you were coming to the house."
+
+"If you will kindly direct me to the village," he said, "I have to pay a
+call there, and no doubt my friends will assist me to remove some of this
+mud."
+
+"But you can't go calling like that," she expostulated; "you'd far better
+come to the stables first.  Heaven's so used to us, he'd clean you up in
+no time; besides, by far the quickest way to the village is down our
+drive.  There's no right-of-way through these woods; didn't you see the
+boards?"
+
+"Whenever," he spoke with deliberate emphasis, "I see a board to the
+effect that trespassers will be prosecuted, I make a point of walking
+over that land as a protest."
+
+"Dear me," she said.  "It must take you sadly out of your way sometimes.
+Where have you come from to-day?"
+
+"From Marlehouse."
+
+"Then you'd have saved yourself at least a mile and a half, and your
+trousers all that mud, if you'd stuck to the road; it's ever such a long
+way round to come by the woods."
+
+"I prefer the woods."
+
+There was such superior finality in his tone, that the girl was
+apparently crushed.  She started to walk, he followed; she waited for
+him, and they tramped along side by side in silence; he, covertly taking
+stock of his companion; she, gazing straight ahead as though for the
+moment she had forgotten his existence.
+
+A tall girl, evidently between sixteen and seventeen, for her hair was
+not "done up," but tied together at the back with a large bow, whence it
+streamed long and thick and wavy to her waist: abundant light brown hair,
+with just enough red in it to give it life and warmth.
+
+His appraising eye took in the fact at once that all her clothes were
+old, shabby, and exceedingly well cut.  Her hat was a shapeless soft felt
+with no trimming, save a rather ragged cord, and she wore it turned down
+all round.  It had once been brown, but was now a mixture of soft faded
+tints like certain lichens growing on a roof.  Her covert coat, rather
+too big, and quite nondescript in colour, washed by the rains of many
+winters, revealed in flowing lines the dim grace of the broad, yet
+slender shoulders beneath.
+
+Her exceedingly short skirt was almost as weather-beaten as the coat, but
+it swung evenly with every step and there was no sagging at the back.
+
+Last of all, his eyes dropped to her boots: wide welted, heavy brown
+boots; regular country boots; but here again was the charm of graceful
+line, and he knew instinctively that the feet they encased were slender
+and shapely and unspoiled.
+
+He raised his eyes again to the serenely unconscious profile presented to
+his view: a very finished profile with nothing smudgy or uncertain about
+it.  The little nose was high-bridged and decided, the red lips full and
+shut closely together, the upper short and deeply cleft in the centre.
+
+He was just thinking that, in spite of his muddy hat, he would rather
+like her to look at him again, when she turned her large gaze upon him
+with the question:
+
+"Were you preaching just before you fell down?"
+
+He flushed hotly.  "Certainly not--did it sound like . . . that?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't sure.  I thought if you were a curate trying a sermon
+you'd have said 'brethren,' but 'fellow men' would do, you know; and then
+I heard something about the 'house of the Lord,' and I was sure you must
+be a sucking parson; but when I came up I wasn't so sure.  What were you
+saying over, if it wasn't a sermon?"
+
+"It was stupid of me . . . but I do a good deal of public speaking, and I
+never dreamt anyone was within miles . . ."
+
+"Oh, a speech, was it?  Where are you going to speak it?"
+
+"I shall probably address a meeting in Marlehouse to-morrow night."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I've been asked to do so."
+
+"Will it be in the paper on Saturday?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+"How grand; do tell me your name, then I can look for your speech.  I'd
+love to read it and see if you begin with the bit I heard about fellow
+men and the house of the Lord."
+
+"The House of Lords," he corrected.
+
+"Oh," said the girl.  "Them!  It's them you're against.  I was afraid you
+objected to churches."
+
+"I don't care much for churches, either," he observed, gloomily.  "Do
+you?"
+
+"I've really never thought about it," she confessed.  "One's supposed to
+like them . . . they're good things, surely?"
+
+"Institutions must be judged by their actual utility; their adaptability
+to present needs.  Traditional benefits can no longer be accepted as a
+reason for the support of any particular cause."
+
+"I think," she said, "that the mud on your clothes is drying.  It will
+probably brush off quite nicely."
+
+Had he ever read _Alice in Wonderland_ he might have remembered what
+preceded the Caucus Race.  But he never had, so he merely thought that
+she was singularly frivolous and irrelevant.
+
+"You haven't told me your name," she continued, "so that I can look for
+that speech.  We're nearly home, and I'll hand you over to Heaven so that
+he can make you tidy for your call."
+
+"My name is E. A. Gallup," he replied, shortly.
+
+"Up or op?" she asked.
+
+"Up," he replied, wishing to heaven it weren't.
+
+"Mine's M. B. Ffolliot, two 'fs' and two 'ls'.  We live here, you know."
+
+"I guessed you were a Miss Ffolliot.  In fact, I may say I knew it."
+
+"Everyone knows us about here," she said sadly.  "That's the worst of it.
+You can never get out of anything you've done."
+
+E. A. Gallup looked surprised, but as she was again gazing into space she
+did not observe him.
+
+"Whenever hay's trampled, or pheasants startled, or gates left open, or
+pigs chased, or turkeys furious, they always say, 'It's them varmints of
+young Ffolliots.'"
+
+"Do you know," he said, and his grave face suddenly broke into a most
+boyish grin, "I believe even I have heard something of the kind."
+
+"If you live anywhere within six miles of Redmarley you'll hear little
+else, and it isn't always us . . . though it is generally.  This stupid
+gate's locked.  We'll have to get over.  It's easiest to do it like this."
+
+"This" was to go back a few paces, run forward, put her hands on the top
+and vault the gate as a boy vaults a "gym" horse.  E. A. Gallup did not
+attempt to follow suit.  He climbed over, clumsily enough, dropping his
+stick on the wrong side.  When he had recovered it, he raised his muddy
+hat with a sweep.  "I see we are in a road of some sort, perhaps you will
+kindly direct me to the village, and I will not trouble . . . er . . . Mr
+Heaven----"
+
+"But much the nearest way to the village is down our front drive.  And we
+pass the stables to go to it."
+
+"I couldn't think of intruding in your drive.  Have the goodness to
+direct me."
+
+"But the woods are ours just as much as the drive; where's the
+difference?  In fact, we'd _rather_ have people walk in the drive because
+of the pheasants."
+
+"There _is_ a difference, though it may not be apparent to you . . . if I
+follow this road, do I come to the village?"
+
+"Don't be silly," she said shortly.  "If you prefer to be all over mud
+there's no more to be said, but I can't direct you any more than I've
+done.  If you want to get to the village you must go down our drive,
+unless you go wandering another mile and a half out of your way.  It's
+quite a short drive; only you must come by the stables to get to it.
+_Are_ you coming?"
+
+"I'm afraid I seem ungrateful," he began.
+
+"You do rather," she interrupted.
+
+"I assure you I am not.  I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot see why
+I should trouble . . ."
+
+"Oh, Heaven's used to it; _he_ wouldn't mind, but it's evident you would,
+so come along.  It will be dark before long, and I'll get into no end of
+a row if I'm out alone, and father meets me when I get in.  Not a soul
+will see you, please hurry."
+
+She led him across a deserted stableyard, and round the back of the house
+through a wide-walked formal garden, where Christmas roses shone star
+white in the herbacious border, where yew trees were clipped into
+fantastic shapes, and tall grey statues looked like ghosts in the
+gathering dusk, till they reached the sweep of gravelled drive in front
+of the house.  Wide lawns sloped steeply to the banks of the Marle, which
+flowed through the grounds.  The red December sun was reflected in a
+myriad flames in the many mullioned windows of the Manor.  As the girl
+had promised, not a soul was in sight, and it was very still.
+
+"There, Mr Gallup," she announced, cheerfully, "follow the drive and
+you'll find the village outside the gates.  Good-bye!  I must go in by
+the side door with these boots."  And before he could do more than lift
+his hat while he murmured inarticulate thanks, she had walked swiftly
+away and vanished round the angle of the house.
+
+For a moment he stood quite still, looking at the beautiful old Jacobean
+manor-house so warmly red in the sunset.  Then he, too, turned and walked
+quickly down the winding drive, and as he went he murmured softly: "So
+that's what they're like . . . curious anomaly . . . curious anomaly."
+
+The girl entered the house by the side door, changed her muddy boots and
+hung up her coat and hat in a little room devoted to boot boxes and pegs,
+and ran upstairs to the schoolroom.  Her elder brother, Grantly, who
+lounged smoking in the deep window-seat, swung his feet to the floor with
+a plump, and sat facing her as she came in, saying sternly:
+
+"Mary, who on earth was that man you were with?  Where did you pick him
+up?"
+
+Mary laughed.  "I literally picked him up from the very wettest part of
+the wood, where all the firs are, you know.  He was sitting mournfully in
+a young pond, apparently quite incapable of getting up by himself, and
+very much afraid of Parker, who was barking furiously."
+
+"Showed his sense; but what was that chap doing there, and who is he?"
+
+"He was trespassing, of course; makes a point of it, he says, but he'd
+evidently lost his way, so I put him right.  I thought if he and the
+pater met there'd be words.  He isn't at all a meek young man, and talks
+like that _Course of Reading_ Miss Glover loves so."
+
+"If he talked so much, he must have told you something about himself."
+
+"Not much; his name is E. A. Gallup, and he was going to pay a call in
+Redmarley."
+
+"What's he like?  I only saw his back, and deucedly disreputable it was.
+He looked as if he had been rolling drunk."
+
+Mary laughed again.  "I shouldn't think _he_ ever got drunk," she said;
+"he's far too solemn.  In appearance, he's rather like a very respectable
+young milkman, fresh-coloured, you know, and sort of blunt everywhere,
+but he speaks--if you can imagine a cross between a very superior curate
+and the pater--that's what he speaks like, except that there's just an
+echo of an accent--not bad, you know, but there."
+
+Grantly took the pipe out of his mouth and pulled the lobe of his ear
+meditatively.
+
+"Gallup," he repeated.  "Gallup, I've heard something about that name
+quite lately.  Surely, if you walked with him right from the Forty Firs
+and talked all the time, you must have found out something more?"
+
+"He's going to make a speech at Marlehouse to-morrow night; he was
+spouting away like anything just before he fell down.  That's what made
+Parker bark so."
+
+"I've got it," cried Grantly.  "He's the Liberal candidate, that's what
+he is.  He's standing against poor old Brooke of Medenham, and they say
+he'll get in, too--young brute."
+
+"Is he a Labour member?"
+
+"No, Liberal, they couldn't run a Labour member at Marlehouse; not enough
+cash in the constituency . . . tell you who he is, son of old Gallup that
+kept the ready-made clothes shop in the market-place--'Golden Anchor' or
+something, they called it.  Mother used to buy suits there for the kids
+in the village for Easter, jolly decent suits they were, too."
+
+"And does he keep on the 'Golden Anchor'?"
+
+"I don't think so, but I don't know.  Jolly good cheek marching through
+our woods, as if they belonged to him.  Wish I'd met him."
+
+"My dear chap, we're the last people in the world who can say anything to
+people for marching through other people's property, you especially.
+Why, nine-tenths of the bad rows, ever since any of us could walk, have
+been about that sort of thing."
+
+"Good old Mary, that Radical chap's converted you.  What else did he say?
+Come on; get it off your chest."
+
+At that moment, the door was opened by an elderly man-servant, who
+announced: "The master wishes to speak to you, Miss Mary."
+
+"Oh, Botticelli!  Cimabue!  Burne Jones!" Mary ejaculated.  "The pater
+must have been looking out of the window, too.  What _bad_ luck."
+
+"I wouldn't mention having _touched_ the chap in your interview with the
+pater," Grantly called after her.
+
+
+As Eloquent neared the Manor gates--those great gates famous throughout
+the country for the gryphons on their posts and their wonderful
+fairy-like iron tracery--a little boy came out from amongst the tall
+chestnuts in the avenue.  His face was dirty and his sailor-suit much the
+worse for wear, but his outstanding, high-bridged little nose and broad,
+confident smile proclaimed him one of the family.  He stood right in the
+stranger's path, exclaiming:
+
+"Hullo! had a scrap with the keeper?"
+
+His tone proclaimed a purely friendly curiosity.  "Certainly not,"
+Eloquent answered, coldly.  "I had the misfortune to slip and fall."
+
+"Why ever didn't they clean you up a bit at the house?" the little boy
+asked.
+
+"Your sister was kind enough to suggest it----"
+
+"Which sister?"
+
+"Miss----" he hardly liked to say "M. B.," and paused.
+
+"Big or little?  There's only two."
+
+"Rather big, I should say."
+
+"Oh, that's Mary--did she bump into you?"
+
+Eloquent looked hopelessly puzzled, and the boy hastened to add:
+
+"She's a bit of a gawk, you know, and awfully strong.  I thought she
+might have charged into you and knocked you over . . . she wouldn't mean
+to do it . . ."
+
+"I must be going," said Eloquent, "good-evening," and he hastened on his
+way.
+
+"Sorry you couldn't stop to tea," the small boy called after him
+hospitably.  "I'm Ger, so you'll know me again when you see me."
+
+The child stood for a minute looking after the stranger in the hope that
+he would turn his head, and nod or wave to him in friendly farewell, but
+he did neither.  Ger gave a little sigh, and trotted up the drive towards
+home.
+
+Outside the gates Eloquent paused and looked back at them.  Brought from
+Verona generations ago, they were a perfect example of a perfect period.
+Richly decorative, various in design, light and flowing in form, the
+delicate curves broke into actual leafage, sweeping and free as nature's
+own.  The Ffolliots were proud of their gates.
+
+He gazed at them admiringly, and then, like Ger, he sighed.
+
+"Why," he muttered, "why should they have had all this always?  I wonder
+if it's the constant passing through gates like this that helps to make
+them what they are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+REFLECTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT
+
+Eloquent found that M. B. Ffolliot had not deceived him as to the
+nearness of the village.  A few yards to the left, over the bridge, and
+the long, irregular street lay in front of him; the river on one side;
+the houses, various in size and shape, but alike in one respect, that
+the most modern of them was over two hundred years old.  He knew that
+his aunt's house was at the very end of the street and furthest from
+the bridge, and that Redmarley village was nearly a mile in length.
+Yet he did not hurry.  He walked very slowly in the middle of the muddy
+road, resolved to marshal and tabulate his impressions as was his
+orderly wont.
+
+But in this instance his impressions refused to conform to either
+process, and remained mutinously chaotic.
+
+He found that, in thinking of Mary, he unconsciously called her "that
+girl," whereas such maidens as he hitherto had encountered were always
+"young ladies."  He didn't know many "young ladies," but those he did
+know he there and then called into review and compared with Mary
+Ffolliot.
+
+They were all of them much better dressed, he was certain of that.  But
+he was equally assured that not one of them would have forborne to
+laugh at his plight, as he sat abject and ridiculous in the very
+largest puddle in Redmarley woods.
+
+She had not laughed.
+
+And would any one of these well-dressed young ladies (Eloquent took
+into account that it was Sunday) have held out helping hands to a total
+stranger with such absolute simplicity, so entirely as a matter of
+course? not as a young woman to a young man, but as one fellow-creature
+to another who had, literally, in this instance, fallen upon evil times.
+
+How tall she was, and how strong.
+
+Again (he blushed at the recollection) he seemed to feel the clasp of
+those muscular young hands in the worn tan-coloured gloves, gloves
+loose at the wrists, that did not button but were drawn on.  He had
+noticed her leather gloves as she held out her hands to him, and knew
+that in the language of the trade they were "rather costly to start
+with, but lasted for ever."
+
+They did not stock goods of that class in the particular branch of the
+outfitting trade that he knew best.  People wouldn't pay the price.
+And he found himself saying over and over again, "wouldn't pay the
+price," and it was of the girl he was thinking, not of her gloves.
+
+How eager she had been that he should come and be brushed; "I've no
+objection," Eloquent reflected, "to being under an obligation to her,
+but I'm hanged if I'd be beholden to Ffolliot for anything."  Somehow
+it gave him infinite satisfaction to think of Mary's father in that
+familiar fashion.  He, to put up boards about trespassers in the woods!
+
+Who was he?
+
+Eloquent ignored the fact that they were the same boards that had been
+there in old Mr Ffolliot's time, and badly needed repainting.
+
+That little boy, too, who first appeared to suspect him of poaching,
+and then expressed sorrow that he would not stay to tea.  What an
+extraordinary family they seemed to be!
+
+The girl had actually owned to being constantly suspected of all sorts
+of damage, and not always wrongfully either.  He was devoured by
+curiosity as to what forms her lawlessness could take.
+
+"A bit of a gawk" her young brother had called her.  How dared he?
+
+"Goddess," thought Eloquent, was much more appropriate than gawk.  He
+had no very clear conception of a goddess, but vaguely pictured a woman
+fair and simple and superb and young--not quite so young as Mary
+Ffolliot.  It was only during the last year or two that he had read any
+poetry, and he was never quite sure whether he liked it or not.  It was
+upsetting stuff he considered, vaguely disquieting and suggestive.  Yet
+there were times when it came in useful.  It said things for a chap
+that he couldn't say for himself.  It expressed the inexpressible . . .
+in words.  It synthesised and formulated fantastic and illusive
+experiences.
+
+His youthful facility in learning "bits" of prose by heart had not
+deserted him, and he found verse even easier to remember; in fact,
+sometimes certain stanzas would recur with irritating persistency when
+he didn't want them at all; and in thinking of this, to him, new type
+of girl, there flowed into his mind the lines:
+
+  "Walking in maiden wise,
+  Modest and kind and fair,
+  The freshness of spring in her eyes
+  And the fulness of spring in her hair."
+
+
+Gawk, indeed! that little boy ought to have his head smacked.
+
+And having come to a definite condition at last, he found he had
+reached his aunt's house.  The lamp was lit in the parlour and the
+blind was down, for it was already quite dark.  He had taken
+twenty-five minutes to walk from Mr Ffolliot's gates to his aunt's
+house.
+
+Miss Gallup, plump, ruddy, and garrulous, very like her brother Abel
+with her round pink face and twinkling eyes, was greatly delighted to
+see him.
+
+"You've come to your old aunt first thing, Eloquent," she cried
+triumphantly, "which is no more than I expected, though none the less
+gratifying, and you nearly a member and all.  How things do come to
+pass, to be sure.  I wish as your poor father had lived to see this
+day, and you going into parlyment with the best of 'em."
+
+"Don't say 'going in,' aunt," Eloquent expostulated.  "It's quite on
+the cards that they won't elect me.  Personally, I think they would
+have done better to put up a stronger candidate.  Marlehouse is always
+looked upon as a safe Tory seat; you know Mr Brooke has been member for
+a long time, and was unopposed at the last election."
+
+"An' never opens his mouth in London from one year's end to the other,
+sits and sleeps, so I've heard, and leaves the rest to do all the
+talking and bills and that.  My dear boy, don't tell me!  Marlehouse
+folk's got too much sense to give the go-by to one as can talk and was
+born amongst 'em, and they all know you."
+
+"But, Aunt Susan, I thought you were ever such a Tory.  What has become
+of all your political convictions, if you want me to get in?"
+
+Miss Gallup laughed.  "Precious little chance; I had of _'aving_ any
+convictions all the years I kept house for your dear father; an' a
+pretty aunt I'd be if I could go against you now.  Politics is all very
+well, but flesh and blood's a deal more, an' a woman wouldn't be half a
+woman if she didn't stand by her own.  It don't seem to matter much
+which side's in.  There'll be plenty to find fault with 'em whichever
+it is, and anyway from all I can hear just now you're on the winnin'
+side, so 'vote for Gallup,' says I, an' get someone as'll speak up for
+you--and not sit mumchance for all the world like a stuckey image night
+after night.  Your bag come by the carrier all right yesterday.  And
+now you must want your tea after that long walk--but, good gracious me,
+boy, have you met with an accident, or what, that you're all over with
+mud like that?  You aren't hurted, are you?"
+
+Eloquent again explained his mishap, but he said nothing about Mary
+Ffolliot.  His aunt took him to the back-door and brushed him
+vigorously, then they both sat down to tea in her exceedingly cosy
+sitting-room.
+
+"Do you like being back here again after all these years, Aunt Susan?"
+asked Eloquent.  "I suppose everything has changed very much since you
+lived here before."
+
+"Not so much as you'd think; and then the _place_ is the same, and as
+one grows older that counts for a lot.  When one's young, one's all for
+change and gallivantin', but once you're up in years 'tis the old
+things you cares for most; 'an when I heard as the house I was born in
+was empty I just had to come back.  Redmarley village don't change,
+because no one can build.  Mr Ffolliot sees to that; not one rood of
+land will he sell, and the old houses looks just the same as when I was
+a little girl.  Your father he left Redmarley when he was fourteen, and
+went 'prentice to the 'Golden Anchor,' an' he never cared for the
+village like me.  I hardly knew him when I was young, he being twelve
+years older than me, and him coming home but seldom."
+
+"It must make a good deal of difference having a family at . . . the
+Manor," said Eloquent, with studied carelessness.  He had nearly said
+"the Manshun," after the fashion of the villagers.
+
+"Of course it do.  There's changes there, if you like."
+
+"I suppose you sometimes see . . . the young people?"
+
+"See them?  I should just think we do, _and_ hear them and hear _about_
+them from morning to night.  There never was more mixable children than
+the young Ffolliots."
+
+"How many are there?"  Eloquent tried to keep his voice cool and
+uninterested, but he felt as he used to feel when he was a child in
+"hiding games," when some one told him he was "getting warm."
+
+"Well, there's Mr Grantly, he's the eldest; he's going to be an officer
+in the army like his grandpa; he's gone apprentice to some shop."
+
+"What?" asked Eloquent, in astonishment.
+
+"I thought it a bit queer myself, but Miss Mary herself did say it.
+'Grantly's gone to the shop,' she said, 'to learn to be a soldier'; and
+I said, 'Well, the gentry's got more sense than I thought for, if they
+gives 'em a trade as well.'  And Miss Mary she said again, he'd gone to
+a shop right enough, and went off laughing."
+
+"But that's impossible," said Eloquent.  "He must have gone either to
+Sandhurst or Woolwich; there's nowhere else he could go."
+
+"She never mentioned neither of those names.  'Shop,' she said . . .
+you needn't look at me like that, Eloquent . . . I'm positive."
+
+"You were telling me how many children there were," Eloquent remarked
+pacifically, "Grantly, the eldest son, and then . . . ?"
+
+"I'm getting warm," his mind kept saying.
+
+"Then Miss Mary, just a year younger, very like her mother she is . . .
+in looks, but she hasn't got the gumption of Mrs Ffolliot.  That'll
+come, perhaps . . . later.  A bit of a tomboy she's bin, but she's
+settling down."
+
+"I suppose she is nearly grown up?"
+
+"Between seventeen and eighteen, she'll be, but not done up her hair
+yet--that's Mr Ffolliot's doin's; he's full of fads as an egg's full o'
+meat.  Then there's the twins, Uz and Buz they calls 'em.  They're at
+Rugby School, they are, but they'll be home for the holidays almost
+directly.  I can't say I'm partial to scripture names myself, and only
+last time he was here I asked Mr Grantly what they called them that
+for, when there was so many prettier names in our language, and he
+said, quite solemn like, 'Uz his first-born and Buz his brother, that's
+why, you see.'  And I said, 'but they're twins, sir'; and he said, 'but
+Uz was born five minutes before Buz, so it's quite correct,' and went
+off laughing.  They're always laughing at something, those children."
+
+"Then are there just the four?' asked Eloquent, who knew perfectly well
+there were more.
+
+"Oh, bless you, no; there's Master Ger; now I call him the pick of the
+bunch, the most conformable little chap and full of sense: he'll talk
+to you like one of yourselves; he's everybody's friend, is Master Ger.
+Miss Kitten's the youngest, and a nice handful she is.  She and Master
+Ger does everything together, and they do say as she's the only one as
+don't care two pins for her papa; nothing cows her, she'd sauce the
+king himself if she got the chance."
+
+"From what you say, I gather that they seem to do pretty much as they
+like," Eloquent remarked primly.
+
+"Outside they do, but in the house they say those poor children's
+hushed up something dreadful.  Mr Ffolliot's a regular old Betty, he
+never ought to have had one child, let alone six.  He's always reading
+and writing and studying and sitting with his nose in a book, and then
+he complains of nerves.  I'd nerve him if I was his wife--but she's all
+for peace, poor lady, and I suppose she makes the best of a bad job."
+
+"Is she unhappy?" Eloquent demanded, with real solicitude.
+
+"If she is, she don't show it, anyhow.  She goes her way, and he goes
+his, and her way's crowded with the children, and there it is."
+
+"Are you thinking of going to church, Aunt Susan?"
+
+Miss Gallup looked surprised.
+
+"Well, no, not if you don't want to come.  I generally go, but I'm more
+than willing to stop with you."
+
+"But I'd like to go," Eloquent asserted, and got very red in the face
+as he did so.  "I don't think I've ever been in the church here."
+
+"Well, there's no chapel as you could go to if you was ever so minded.
+Old Mr Molyneux mayn't be so active as some, but there's never been no
+dissent since he was vicar, and that's forty years last Michaelmas."
+
+"What about my father?" Eloquent suggested.
+
+"Your dear father got his dissenting opinions and his politics in
+Marlehouse, not here."
+
+"Then I'm afraid I shan't get many votes from this village," said
+Eloquent, but he said it cheerfully, as though he didn't care.
+
+"That's for you to see to," Miss Gallup said significantly; "there's no
+tellin' what a persuasive tongue mayn't do."
+
+As Eloquent walked through the darkness with his aunt, he heard her
+cheerful voice go rippling on as in a dream.  He had no idea what she
+talked about, his whole mind was concentrated in the question: "Will
+she be there?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE IMPRESSIONS ARE INTENSIFIED
+
+The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high."  It boasted an
+organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses.
+"The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and
+saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered.
+Very rarely was there a week-day service.  The villagers would have
+regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet,
+notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from
+sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it
+during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been
+shut.
+
+The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the
+fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time
+when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying
+villages that now had churches of their own.  Therefore, it was never
+full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going
+to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but
+sparsely attended.
+
+Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cushion and red footstools and
+everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the
+left.
+
+On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the
+chancel steps belonging to the Manor House.  In the one, there were
+three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.
+
+Eloquent began to wish he had not come.
+
+People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their
+several fashions.  The organist started the voluntary, and the choir
+came in.
+
+The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow
+a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."
+
+As if he didn't know!
+
+Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the
+ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.
+
+She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive
+relief, much more Sundayish.  In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this
+dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other
+young ladies of his acquaintance.  Not that she in the least resembled
+them.  Not a bit.  Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's
+eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the
+outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat
+and skirt, it was uncommonly well made.  She wore blue fox furs, too,
+hat and stole and muff all matching, and her hair was tied twice with
+dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.
+
+Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed.  Behind her followed a youth
+ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller.  He
+walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square
+shoulders.  His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of
+an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory.  There was no
+fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about _his_ clothes.  He was,
+Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top
+of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and
+well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.
+
+"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent.  "He's never seen the wrong side of a
+counter in his life."
+
+"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the
+congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.
+
+Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair
+shone burnished and bright in the lamplight.  Just before the psalms
+she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her
+profile for the space of three seconds.
+
+When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the
+steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.
+
+"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot
+began in a voice of thunder.  The congregation lifted startled heads,
+and looked considerably surprised.  Grantly was nervous.  He read very
+fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands;
+and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.
+
+Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and
+a beating.  He longed passionately to stand up at that brass bird and
+read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular.
+He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that
+size.
+
+"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth
+the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of
+bribes. . . ."
+
+How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the
+present day, thought Eloquent. . . .  The "knut" had somewhat subdued
+his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the
+words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley
+with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."  Two more verses,
+and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but
+supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.
+
+Eloquent registered a vow.
+
+The vicar himself read the second lesson, and the meditations of the
+assembled worshippers were undisturbed.
+
+The vicar always preached for exactly ten minutes.  He took an
+old-fashioned hour-glass up into the pulpit with him, and when it ran
+out he concluded his discourse.  Redmarley folk highly approved this
+ritual.  When stray parsons came to preach, especially if they were
+dignitaries of the church, a body could never tell what they might be
+at, and the suspense was wearing.  Why, the Dean of Garchester had been
+known to keep on for half an hour.
+
+The Redmarley worshippers rarely slept.  It wasn't worth while.
+Instead, they kept a wary eye upon the hour-glass.  They trusted to
+their vicar's honour, and he rarely failed them.  As the last grains of
+sand ran out he turned to the east, and most people were back home and
+sitting down to supper by eight o'clock.
+
+Miss Gallup never hurried out of church.  She thought it unseemly.
+Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his
+place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle.  Mary
+looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him
+with friendly recognition.
+
+The "knut" had gone on ahead.
+
+Eloquent gave no answering smile.  For one thing, he had never for one
+moment expected her to take the slightest notice of him, and the fact
+that she had done so raised a perfect tumult of unexpected and
+inexplicable emotion.
+
+The hot blood rushed to his face, and there was a singing in his ears.
+He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form,
+and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in
+the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated
+whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want to stop here all night?"
+
+"Mr Grantly read very nice, didn't he?"
+
+Miss Gallup remarked complacently, as they were walking home.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Aunt Susan, I thought he read very badly: he
+bellowed so, and was absolutely wanting in expression."
+
+"Poor young gentleman," Miss Gallup said tolerantly.  "Last time he
+read, back in summer it was, he did read so soft like, no one could
+hear a word he said, and I know they all went on at him something
+dreadful, so this time I suppose he thought as they _should_ hear him."
+
+"Do you think," Eloquent asked diffidently, "that Mr Molyneux would
+like me to read the lessons some Sunday when I'm down here?"
+
+Miss Gallup stopped short.
+
+"Well, now," she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was
+just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you--you'd
+snap my head off, you being chapel and all."
+
+Eloquent longed to say that he was not so wrapped up in chapel as all
+that, but long habits of self-restraint stood him in good stead.  Where
+possible votes were concerned it did not do to speak the thought of the
+moment, so he merely remarked indifferently that he'd be "pleased to be
+of any assistance."
+
+"Of course," Miss Gallup continued, as she walked on, "there's no
+knowing whether, with the election coming on and all, the vicar might
+think it quite suitable, though he's generally glad to get any one to
+read as will."
+
+"Surely," Eloquent said severely, "he does not carry his political
+views into his religious life, to the extent of boycotting those who do
+not agree with him."
+
+"It's his church," Miss Gallup rejoined stoutly; "no one can read in it
+without 'tis his wish."
+
+"My dear aunt, you surely don't imagine that I want to read the lessons
+at Redmarley except as a matter of kindness . . . assistance to Mr
+Molyneux.  What other reason can I have?"
+
+"Well," said Miss Gallup, shrewdly, "it might be that you wanted to
+show how well you could do it . . ." she paused.
+
+Eloquent blushed in the darkness.
+
+"And with an election coming on, you never know what motives folks
+has," she continued.  "But it's my belief Mr Molyneux'd be pleased as
+Punch.  He's all for friendliness, he is.  I know who wouldn't be
+pleased, though----"
+
+"Who is that?" asked Eloquent, as his aunt had stopped, evidently
+waiting to be questioned.
+
+"Why, Mr Ffolliot; he don't take much part in politics, but he thinks
+Redmarley belongs to him, and he'd be mighty astonished if you was to
+get up and read in the parish church, and him not been told anything
+about it."
+
+"I shall certainly call on Mr Molyneux tomorrow," said Eloquent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SQUIRE
+
+Hilary Ffolliot, squire of Redmarley in the county of Garsetshire, did
+not appreciate the blessings heaped upon him by providence in the shape
+of so numerous a family, and from their very earliest years manifested
+a strong determination that no child of his should be spoilt through
+any injudicious slackening of discipline.
+
+His rules and regulations were as the sands of the sea for number, and
+as they all tended in the same direction, namely, to the effacement of
+his lively and ubiquitous offspring, it is hardly surprising that such
+a large and healthy family found it difficult, not to say impossible,
+to attain to his ideal of the whole duty of children.  And although a
+desire not to transgress his code regarding silence and decorum in such
+parts of the house as were within ear-shot of his study was strong in
+the children, knowing how swift and sure was the retribution overtaking
+such offenders--yet, however willing the spirit, the flesh was weak,
+and succumbed to temptations to jump whole flights of stairs, to slide
+down bannisters, arriving with a sounding thump at the bottom, and
+occasionally to bang the schoolroom door in the faces of the pursuing
+brethren.
+
+Thus it was that strangers ringing the front-door bell at the Manor
+House were, on being admitted, faced by large cards on the opposite
+wall bearing such devices as, "Be sure you shut the door quietly," "Do
+not speak loudly," "Go round to the back if possible."  And it is told
+of one timid guest, that on reading the aforesaid directions (which, by
+the way, were only supposed to apply to the children) he incontinently
+fled before the astonished butler could stop him; and, as directed,
+meekly rang the back-door bell, some five minutes afterwards.
+
+Mr Ffolliot suffered from nerves.  He was by temperament quite unfitted
+to be either a country squire or the father of a large family.  Above
+all, was he singularly unable to bear with equanimity the strain upon
+his income such a large family entailed.  He liked his comforts about
+him, he was by nature of a contemplative and aesthetically studious
+turn, and saw no good reason why his learned leisure should suffer
+interruption, or his delicate susceptibilities be ruffled by such
+incongruities as the loud voices and inharmonious movements of a set of
+thoughtless children.
+
+The village was small and well-to-do, his duties as a landowner sat
+lightly upon him, and he was very awe-inspiring, didactic, and distant
+in his dealings with the surrounding neighbours.  He had a fine taste
+in old prints and old port, and every spring his health necessitated a
+somewhat lengthened stay in an "oasis" which he had "discovered," so he
+said, in the south of France, where he communed with nature, and
+manifested a nice appreciation of the artistic efforts of his host's
+most excellent cook.
+
+In fact, the matter of intercourse with outsiders was largely left to
+the discretion of his wife; and whoever had much to do with Mrs
+Ffolliot (and most people wanted as much as they could get) spent a
+good deal of time in the society of the children.  And to the
+children--what was she not to those children?
+
+For them "mother" signified everything that was kind, and gay, and
+gracious, and above all, understanding.  Other people might be stupid,
+and attaint with evil intention accidents, which while certainly
+unfortunate in their results, were wholly unpremeditated, but mother
+always gave the offender the benefit of the doubt, and not infrequently
+by her charms of person and persuasive arts of conversation, so
+effectually turned away the wrath of the injured one (generally a
+farmer), that no hint of the escapade reached Mr Ffolliot's ears.
+
+For the fact is that being somewhat tightly kept at home, the young
+Ffolliots were more than something of a nuisance when they went abroad;
+and as several of them generally were abroad, in their train did
+mischief and destruction follow.
+
+For three hundred years there had been Ffolliots at Redmarley; of the
+last three owners two were married and childless, and the one
+immediately preceding Mr Hilary Ffolliot was a bachelor.  But the fact
+that the Manor had not for over a hundred years descended from father
+to son, in no way affected the love each reigning Ffolliot felt for it.
+
+There was something about Redmarley that seized the imagination and the
+affection of the dwellers there.  The little grey stone village that
+lay so lovingly along the banks of the Marle was so enduring, so
+valorous in its sturdy indifference to time; in the way its gabled
+cottages under their overhanging eaves faced summer sun and winter
+rains, and instead of crumbling away seemed but to stand the firmer and
+more dignified in their cheery eld.
+
+The Ffolliots were good landlords.  No leaking roofs or defective walls
+were complained of at Redmarley.  Never was Ffolliot yet who had not
+realised the unique quality of the village, and done his best to
+maintain it.  It never grew, rarely was a house to let, and the jerry
+builder was an unknown evil.  It was a healthy village, too, set high
+in the clean Cotswold air.  Big farms surrounded it, the nearest
+railway line was three miles off, and the nearest station almost seven.
+
+Of course there was poverty and a good deal of rheumatism among the
+older inhabitants, but on the whole the periodic outbursts of
+industrial discontent and unrest that convulsed other parts of England
+seemed to pass Redmarley by.
+
+Had the Manor stood empty or the vicar been a poor man with a large
+family, doubtless things would have been uncomfortable enough to stir
+the villagers out of their habitual philosophic acceptance of the "rich
+man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" as an inevitable and
+immutable law.  But they couldn't actively dislike either squire or
+parson, and although the agricultural labourer is slow of speech he is
+not lacking in shrewdness, and those at Redmarley realised that things
+would be much worse than they were if Squire and Parson were suddenly
+eliminated.
+
+Hilary Ffolliot liked the rôle of landed proprietor in the abstract.
+He would not have let the Manor and lived elsewhere for the world.  He
+went regularly to church on Sunday morning, though it bored him
+extremely, because, like Major Pendennis, he thought that "when a
+gentleman is _sur ses terres_ he must give an example to the country
+people."  Had he been starving he would not have sold a single rood of
+Redmarley land to assuage his hunger.  Similarly he would himself have
+done without a great many things rather than let any of his people go
+hungry.  But it was only because they were _his_ people, part of the
+state and circumstance of Redmarley.  He didn't care for them a bit as
+individuals.  Any intercourse with the peasantry was irksome to him.
+Dialect afflicted him.  He had nothing to say to them, and they were
+stricken dumb in his awe-inspiring presence.  He was well content to
+have few personal dealings with those, who, in his own mind, he thought
+of as his "retainers."  He left everything of that sort to his wife.
+
+It was the same with the children.  He looked upon them as a concession
+to Marjory's liking for that sort of thing: and by "that sort of thing"
+he meant his wife's enthusiastic interest in her fellow-creatures.
+
+To be sure he was pleased that there should be no question as to a
+direct heir . . . but . . . six of them was really rather a nuisance.
+Children were like peasantry, inclined to be awkward and uncouth, crude
+in thought and word and deed; apt to be sticky unless fresh from the
+hands of nurse; in summer nearly always hot, frequently dirty, and
+certainly always noisy, with, moreover, a distinct leaning towards low
+company and a plainly manifest discomfort in his own.
+
+He was proud of them because they were Ffolliots, and because they were
+tall and straight and handsome (how wisely he had chosen their
+mother!), and he supposed that some day, when they became more
+civilised, he would be able to take some pleasure in their society.
+Even the two eldest, Grantly and Mary, wearied him.  He could never
+seem to find any topic of mutual interest, except Redmarley itself, and
+then they always introduced irrelevant matter relating to the
+inhabitants that he had no desire to hear.
+
+Had Marjory, his wife, grown plain and anxious during her twenty years
+of married life, it is probable she would have bored him too.  But she
+kept her hold upon him because she was not only the most beautiful
+woman he knew, but she satisfied his artistic sensibilities all round.
+She was full of individuality and quick-witted decision.  Long ago she
+had made up her mind that it was quite impossible to alter him, but she
+was equally assured as to her perfect right to differ from him in every
+possible way.  He quite fell in with this view of the situation; so
+long as he was allowed unchallenged to be as stiff and stand-off and
+unapproachable as he pleased, he was well content that she should be
+extraordinarily sympathetic, gracious, and gay.  It pleased him that
+the "retainers" should adore her and come to her in their troubles and
+difficulties; that she should be constantly surrounded by her children;
+that she should be in great request at every social gathering in the
+county.
+
+Did it happen that his need of her clashed with the children's, and
+that just then she considered theirs was the stronger claim, he was
+annoyed; but apart from that he approved of her devotion to them.
+Somebody must look after the children; and it was not in his line.
+
+So many things were not in his line.
+
+One day, early in their married life, with unusual want of tact,
+Marjory had asked him what his line was.
+
+The question surprised and distressed him, it was so difficult to
+answer.  However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and
+raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently
+beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is my _métier_ at present."
+And Marjory, who had spent a long, hot morning in superintending the
+removal of books, busts, and pictures to the room that, for the future,
+was to be his study, the room that till then had been her drawing-room,
+felt an unregenerate desire to slap him with the hand he had just
+kissed.
+
+Mr Ffolliot believed that he could best develop the ultimate highest
+that was in him if his surroundings were entirely harmonious.
+Therefore had he selected the sunniest, largest room on the entrance
+floor for his own study.  It had a lovely view of the river.
+
+The oak wainscotting and shelves were removed there piece by piece from
+the old library at the back, which faced north and had rather an
+uninteresting outlook towards the woods.  This rather gloomy chamber he
+caused to be newly panelled with wood enamelled white, and presented it
+to his wife for her own use with a "God bless you, my darling, I hope
+you may have many happy hours here."
+
+Her drawing-room was the only room in Redmarley that Marjory Ffolliot
+thoroughly disliked, and she never sat there if she could help it.
+
+On that Sunday afternoon when Eloquent thought fit to visit his aunt,
+Mr Ffolliot had left his writing-table and was standing in one of the
+great windows that he might look out and, with the delicate
+appreciation of the connoisseur, savour the crimson beauties of the
+winter sunset.
+
+As he gazed he mentally applauded the pageant of colour provided for
+his enjoyment, and then he perceived two figures standing not fifty
+yards from his window.
+
+One he recognised at once as his daughter, and for a moment he included
+her in his beatitude at the prospect presented to his view.  Yes; Mary
+was undoubtedly pleasing to the eye, she was growing very like his
+wife, and for that resemblance, like the Ancient Mariner, "he blessed
+her unaware."
+
+But when he became fully cognisant of the other figure, his feeling
+wholly changed.  He screwed his eyeglass firmly into his eye and glared
+at the couple.
+
+Who on earth was this muddy, rather plebeian-looking person with whom
+Mary was conversing on apparently friendly and familiar terms?  He
+suddenly realised with an irritated sense of rapidly approaching
+complications that Mary was nearly grown up.
+
+In another minute the young man was walking down the drive alone, and
+his daughter had vanished.
+
+He gave her time to take off her boots, then he sent for her.
+
+He sat down at his writing-table and awaited her, feeling intensely
+annoyed.
+
+How dared that mud-bespattered young man speak to her?
+
+How could Mary be so wanting in dignity as to reply?
+
+What was Marjory about to allow it?
+
+Those children had far too much latitude.
+
+He was in that frame of mind which, during the middle ages, resulted in
+the immurement of such disturbing daughters in the topmost turrets of
+their fathers' castles.
+
+Mary came in, shut the door softly, and waited just inside it to say
+nervously:
+
+"You sent for me, father?"
+
+"Come here," said Mr Ffolliot.
+
+Mary crossed the big room and stood at the other side of the knee-hole
+table facing him.
+
+"I sent for you," Mr Ffolliot began slowly, and paused.  Angry as he
+was, he found a moment in which to feel satisfaction at her pure
+colouring . . . "to make enquiries" he continued, "as to your late
+companion.  Who is that exceedingly muddy person with whom you were
+talking in the front drive a few minutes ago?"
+
+Yes; her colouring was certainly admirable.  A good healthy blush
+sweeping over the white forehead till it reached the pretty growth of
+hair round the temples and dying away as rapidly as it had arisen, was
+quite a forgivable weakness in a young girl.
+
+"I believe," said Mary cautiously, "that he is Mr Gallup, the new
+Liberal candidate."
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"No, father.  He told me his name, but it was Grantly who thought he
+was that one."
+
+"And may I ask what reason Mr Gallup had for imparting his name to
+you--did no one introduce him?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+"Well, how did the man come to speak to you?" Mr Ffolliot demanded,
+irritably.  "You must see that the matter requires explanation."
+
+"He was lost," Mary said mournfully, "and so I showed him the way."
+
+"Lost," Mr Ffolliot repeated scornfully; "lost in Redmarley!"
+
+"No, father, in the wood."
+
+"And what was he doing in our woods, pray?"
+
+"He had tried to come by a short-cut and got muddled and he fell down,
+and I couldn't pass by without speaking, could I . . . he might have
+broken his leg or something."
+
+"What were you doing in the woods alone?  I have told you repeatedly
+that I will not have you scouring the country by yourself.  You have
+plenty of brothers, let one of them accompany you."
+
+"I wasn't exactly alone," Mary pleaded; "Parker was with me."
+
+"Mary," Mr Ffolliot said solemnly, "has it ever occurred to you that
+you are very nearly eighteen years old?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"Well, that being the case, don't you think that decorum in your
+conduct, more dignity and formality in your manner are a concession you
+owe to your family.  You know as well as I do that a young girl in your
+position does not converse haphazard with any stranger that she happens
+to find prone in the woods.  It's not done, Mary, and what is more, _I_
+will not have it.  This impertinent young counter-jumper probably was
+only too ready to seize upon any excuse to address you.  You should
+have given him the information he asked and walked on."
+
+"But we were going the same way," Mary objected; "it seemed so snobby
+to walk on, besides . . ." again that glorious blush, "he didn't speak
+to me first, I spoke to him."
+
+Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "Remember," he said solemnly, "that should you see
+him again you do not know that young man. . . ."
+
+Silence on the part of Mary.  Deep thought on the brow of Mr Ffolliot.
+
+"To-morrow," he said at last, "you may do up your hair."
+
+"Oh, father, mayn't I do it up to-night before church.  I should love
+to, do let me."
+
+"No, my child, to-morrow is more suitable."
+
+Mary did not ask why.  None of the children except the Kitten ever
+questioned any of Mr Ffolliot's decisions . . . to him.
+
+"Have you done with me, father?" Mary asked.  "I think it must be
+tea-time."
+
+"Yes, Mary, you may go, but remember, nothing of this sort must ever
+occur again; it has distressed and annoyed me."
+
+"I'm sorry, father, I didn't think . . ."
+
+"You never do," said Mr Ffolliot, "that is what I complain of."
+
+Thus it came about that Mr Ffolliot was himself directly responsible
+for the friendly smile which greeted Eloquent as Mary passed him in the
+aisle of Redmarley church that evening.
+
+She had not been allowed to put up her hair that evening.  She was not
+a grown-up lady yet.
+
+Therefore would she grin at whomsoever she pleased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE KITTEN
+
+The Kitten was born on a Whitsunday morning about eight o'clock.  Mr
+Ffolliot went himself to announce the news to Ger, who was sitting in
+his high chair eating bread and milk at nursery breakfast.  Ger was all
+alone with Thirza, the under-nurse, and he was thunderstruck to see his
+father at such an unusual hour, above all, in such an unusual place as
+his nursery.
+
+"Ger," said Mr Ffolliot, quite genially for him, "you've got a new
+little sister."
+
+Ger regarded his father solemnly with large, mournful eyes, then said
+aggrievedly, "Well, _I_ can't help it."
+
+Mr Ffolliot laughed.  "You don't seem overjoyed," he remarked.
+
+"Are you sorry, father?" Ger asked anxiously.
+
+"Sorry," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "of course not; why should you think I'm
+sorry?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Ger, "it makes another of us."
+
+Mr Ffolliot ignored this remark.  He moved towards the door.  At the
+door he paused; "You may," he said graciously, "go and see your little
+sister in an hour or two; mother said so."
+
+As the door was closed behind him, Thirza sat down again with a sort of
+gasp.  "Whatever did you mean, my dear, talking to Squire like that?"
+she demanded shrilly.
+
+"Like what?" asked Ger.
+
+"Sayin' as it wasn't your fault, and seemin' so down about it all.
+Why, you ought to be glad there's a dear little new baby, and you such
+an affectionate child an' all."
+
+"It makes another of us," Ger persisted, and Thirza gave him up as an
+enigma.
+
+In due time he went to the dressing-room off the big spare bedroom, and
+there sat the kind, comfortable lady he knew as "mother's nurse" (Ger
+had not seen her as often as the others, but still she came from time
+to time "just to see how they were all getting on," and he liked her).
+There she sat on a small rocking-chair with a bundle on her knee.
+
+"Come, my darling, and see your little sister," she cried cheerfully.
+
+Ger advanced.  She opened the head flannel and displayed a small, dark
+head, and a red, puckered countenance.
+
+"When will she be able to see?" asked Ger.
+
+As if in answer the baby opened a pair of large dark eyes and stared
+fixedly at the round, earnest face bent above her.
+
+"See, bless you!" mother's nurse exclaimed, "see! why, she isn't a
+kitten.  She can see right enough.  Look how she's taking you in.  She
+has stared about from the minute she was born, as if she'd been here
+before and was looking round to see that things were all the same.
+She's the living image of Squire."
+
+"I think she's rather like a kitten," Ger persisted, "but I'm glad she
+can see.  I think she likes me rather."
+
+And that was how the Kitten got her name.
+
+She was not a Grantly.  She was all Ffolliot, and she was the only one
+of the children absolutely fearless in the presence of her father.
+
+Small and dark and delicately made, with quick-sighted falcon-coloured
+eyes that nothing escaped.  Unlike her big, healthy brethren, she was
+never in the slightest degree shy or clumsy, and she cared not a single
+groat for anyone or anything in the whole wide world so long as she got
+her own way.  And this, being a member of the Ffolliot family, she did
+not get nearly as often as she would have liked.  But she understood
+her father as did none of the others, and she could "get round him" in
+a fashion that filled those others with astonished admiration.
+
+She also considerably astonished Mr Ffolliot, for from the very first
+she was familiar, and familiarity on the part of his children he
+neither encouraged nor desired.  Moreover, she was ubiquitous and
+elusive.  No army of nurses could restrain the Kitten in her
+peregrinations.  She could speak distinctly, run, and run fast, when
+she was little over a year old, and she possessed a singularly
+enquiring mind.  She was demonstrative but not affectionate; she was
+enchanting, and stony-hearted was the creature who could resist her.
+She liked an audience, and she loved to "tell" things.  To this end she
+would sit on your knee and lay one small but determined hand upon your
+cheek to turn your face towards her, so that she could make sure you
+were attending.  She kept the small hand there, soft and light, a
+fairy-like caress, unless your attention wandered.  If this happened, a
+sharp little pinch quickly diverted your thoughts into the proper
+channel.  As she pinched you, the Kitten dropped her eyes so that you
+noticed how long and black were her eyelashes.  Then, having punished
+you, she raised her eyes to yours with so seraphic an expression that
+you thought of "large-eyed cherubim" and entirely forgot that she had
+pinched you at all, unless next day as you looked in the glass you
+happened to notice a little blue mark on your cheek.  The Kitten could
+pinch hard.
+
+She was Ger's greatest joy and his unceasing anxiety.  From the very
+first he had constituted himself her guide, philosopher . . . and
+slave.  Yet the dictatorial little lady found out very early in the
+day, that in certain things she had to conform to her indulgent
+brother's standards, the family standards; and though she might be all
+Ffolliot in certain matters, the Grantly ethics were too strong for
+her.  That Ger should love her, that he should be always kind and
+protective and unselfish she took as a matter of course; but she wanted
+him to admire her too, and ready as he was to oblige her in most
+things, she found that here he was strangely firm.  If she told tales
+or complained of people, or persisted in tiresome teasing when asked
+politely to desist, Ger withdrew the light of his countenance, and the
+Kitten was uncomfortable.
+
+To tell tales, or complain, or try to get another into trouble for any
+reason whatsoever was forbidden.  The others had each in their turn
+accepted this doctrine as they accepted day and night, the sun and moon
+and stars.  The Kitten had to be taught these things, and Ger it was
+who saw to it that she learned them.
+
+There was a law in the family that if any member of it, after enduring
+for a space a certain line of conduct from another, said, "_Please_
+stop it," that person had to stop, or nemesis, by no means
+leaden-footed, overtook the offender.  It took quite a long time to get
+it into the Kitten's head that it was a law.
+
+She had an extraordinarily loud and piercing cry when she was angry--a
+cry that penetrated to the sacred study itself, no matter where she
+might be in the house.
+
+One day when she was about three years old she was so naughty, so
+disobedient, so entirely unmanageable at nursery tea, that Nana, the
+long-suffering, fairly lost her temper.  The Kitten placed the final
+stone on a pillar of wrongdoing by drawing patterns on the tablecloth
+with a long line of golden syrup dropped from a blob she had secured on
+her small finger, and Nana gave the chubby hand belonging to the finger
+a good hard smack.  The Kitten opened her mouth and gave vent to a yell
+almost demoniacal in its volume and intensity.
+
+Mr Ffolliot, reading the _Quarterly Review_ in dignified seclusion,
+heard it in his study, was convinced that his youngest child was being
+tortured by the others, and hastened hot-foot to the nursery.
+
+Ger had his fingers in his ears.  Nana, flushed and angry, stirred her
+tea pretending that she didn't hear; Thirza murmured pacific and wholly
+useless nothings.  At her father's sudden and wholly unexpected
+appearance, accompanied as it was by the swift uprising of both the
+nurses, the Kitten stopped her clamorous vociferation, and with bunches
+of tears still hanging on her lashes smiled radiantly at the Squire,
+announcing with a wave of her sticky little hand.
+
+"'At's fahver."
+
+"What," Mr Ffolliot demanded angrily, "what in heaven's name has been
+done to that child to make her shriek like that?  What happened?"
+
+"Miss Kitten, sir," Nana said slowly, "has not been very good at tea
+this afternoon."
+
+"But what made her shriek like that?" Mr Ffolliot continued--"a more
+alarming cry I never heard."
+
+"She smacked me," said the Kitten, glowering at Nana, "she 'urted me";
+and at that moment she met Ger's eyes.
+
+The Kitten turned very red.
+
+"Who smacked you?" asked Mr Ffolliot unwisely.
+
+Ger stared at the Kitten, and the Kitten wriggled in her chair.
+
+"Say what _you_ did," muttered Ger, still holding his small sister in
+compelling gaze.
+
+Nana smiled.  She had started with Grantly, and knew the family.
+
+"Fahver," said the Kitten in her most seductive tones, "take me," and
+she held out her arms.
+
+Mr Ffolliot succumbed.  He went round to his youngest daughter and
+lifted her out of her high chair, only to put her down with exceeding
+haste a moment later.
+
+"The child is all over some horrible sticky substance," he cried,
+irritably.
+
+"'At was it," said the Kitten.
+
+Mr Ffolliot fled to wash his hands and change his coat.  Nana and
+Thirza sat down again.  Ger shook his head at his small sister.  "You
+_are_ a rotter," he said, sadly.
+
+The Kitten began to cry again, but this time she cried quite softly,
+and Nana, in spite of the libations of golden syrup, took her upon her
+knee to comfort her.
+
+Every evening the children went down to the hall to play with their
+mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than
+usually festive.  Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed
+over him--in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly
+knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world.
+
+One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr
+Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall.  Fusby had just taken the tray,
+the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten
+sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest
+of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging."  Uz and Buz,
+by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large
+palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot
+missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth.
+
+When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been
+swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten
+scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her
+grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned
+her Grannie's face towards her.
+
+"Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "that
+Ganpie had been killed or Ger?"
+
+Mrs Grantly shuddered--"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she
+exclaimed.
+
+"But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted.  "You're all saying
+'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'--which one would you
+rather?"
+
+But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten
+was clearly disappointed.
+
+That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you,
+God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm
+sure Grannie's very much obliged too."
+
+At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands
+tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds
+about her--a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she
+had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.
+
+She was fond of adding a sort of P.S. to her regular prayers, and
+enjoyed its effect upon her mother, who made a point of, herself,
+attending the orisons of her two youngest children.  One evening when
+Mrs Ffolliot had been reading her a rather pathetic story of a
+motherless child, the Kitten added this petition, "Please, God, take
+care of all the little girls wiv no mummies."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot was touched and related the story afterwards to Uz and
+Buz, who grinned sceptically.
+
+Next night, when the Kitten had been very naughty, and Mrs Ffolliot had
+punished her, she repeated her prayers with the greatest unction, and
+when she reached the usual postscript, fixed her eyes sternly on her
+mother's face as she prayed fervently, "And please, dear God, take
+great care of the poor little girls what _have_ got mummies."
+
+A mystically minded friend of Mrs Ffolliot's had talked a good deal of
+guardian angels to Ger and the Kitten.  Ger welcomed the belief with
+enthusiasm.  It appealed at once to his friendly nature, and the
+thought of an angel, "a dear and great angel," all for himself,
+specially concerned about him, and there always, though invisible save
+to the eye of faith, was a most pleasing conception.
+
+Not that it would have pleased Ger unless he had been assured that
+everyone else had one too.  And he forthwith constructed a theory that
+when people got tired of doing nothing in heaven they came back again
+and looked after folks down here.
+
+His views of the angel's actual attributes would much have astonished
+his mother's friend had he expressed them.  But Ger said nothing, and
+quietly constructed an angel after his own heart, who was in point of
+fact an angelic sort of soldier servant, never in the way, but always
+there and helpful if wanted.
+
+He could not conceive of any servant who was not also a friend, and
+having received much kindness from soldiers in the ranks he fixed upon
+that type as the most agreeable for a guardian angel.  And although he
+greatly admired the two framed pictures of angels the lady had given
+them to hang in the nursery--Guercino's Angel and Carpaccio's "Tobias
+and the angels"--his own particular angel was quite differently clad,
+and was called "Spinks" after a horse gunner he had dearly loved, who
+was now in India.
+
+The Kitten, far less impressionable, and extremely cautious, was
+pleased with the idea when it was first mooted, and discussed the
+question exhaustively with Ger, deciding that her angel had large wings
+like the one with the child in the picture.
+
+"Does it stay with me in the night-nursery all night?" she enquired.
+
+"'He,' not 'it,'" Ger corrected; "but perhaps yours is a 'she.'"
+
+"I won't have a she," the Kitten said decidedly, for even at four years
+old she had already learnt that her own sex had small patience with her
+vagaries.
+
+"You'll have to have what's sent you," Ger said solemnly.
+
+"I won't have a lady angel, so there," said the Kitten, "I'll have a
+man angel."
+
+"I daresay they'll let you," Ger said soothingly.  "A great, big, kind
+man with wings like you said."
+
+"Has yours got wings?" the Kitten demanded.
+
+"I don't think so," said Ger, "he's not that sort; but," he added
+proudly, "he's got spurs."
+
+"Will it stay in the nursery _all_ night?" the Kitten asked again
+rather nervously.
+
+"Of course that's what he's for, to take care of you, so that you'll
+feel quite safe and happy."
+
+"Oh," said the Kitten, and her voice betrayed the fact that she found
+this statement far from reassuring.
+
+She said nothing to her mother, and Mrs Ffolliot heard her say her
+prayers as usual, kissed her, blessed her, and tucked her in.  No
+sooner, however, had Mrs Ffolliot gone down the passage than the most
+vigorous yells brought her back to the night-nursery, while both Nana
+and Thirza hastened there also.
+
+The Kitten was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and apparently more
+indignant than frightened.
+
+"Take it away," she exclaimed; "open the window and let it out."
+
+"Let what out?" asked the bewildered Mrs Ffolliot.
+
+"The angel," sobbed the Kitten, "I don't want it, I heard its wings
+rustling and it disturbed me dreffully--I don't want it, open the
+window wide."
+
+"The window is open at the top," said Mrs Ffolliot; "but why do you
+want to get rid of an angel?  Surely that's a lovely thing to have in
+the room."
+
+"No," said the Kitten firmly, "I don't like it, and I don't want it.  I
+don't want no angel I haven't seen.  I don't like people in my room
+when I go to sleep."
+
+Nana and Thirza had melted away, only too thankful not to be called
+upon to arbitrate in the angel question.  Mrs Ffolliot and her small
+daughter stared at each other in the flickering firelight.
+
+"I'm sure," said Mrs Ffolliot, trying hard to steady her voice, "that
+no self-respecting angel would stay for a minute with a little girl
+that didn't want him.  You may be certain of that."
+
+"A she might," the Kitten suggested suspiciously.
+
+"No angel would," Mrs  Ffolliot said decidedly.
+
+"Do you think," the Kitten asked anxiously, "that there's enough room
+at the top for it to squeege froo?  I can't _bear_ those wings
+rustling."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot switched on the light.  "You can see for yourself."
+
+"Thank you, mummy dear, I'll be much happier by myself, really," and
+the Kitten lay down quite contentedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+GENTLEMAN GER
+
+It was the 22nd of December, the younger Ffolliots were gathered in the
+schoolroom, and Ger was in disgrace.
+
+The twins were back from school, and that afternoon they had unbent
+sufficiently to take part in a representation of "Sherlock Holmes" in
+the hall.  The whole family, with the exception of the Kitten, had seen
+the play in the Artillery Theatre at Woolwich during their last visit
+to grandfather.
+
+It is a play that not only admits of, but necessitates, varied and loud
+noises.
+
+Everything ought to have gone without a hitch, for earlier in the
+afternoon Mr Ffolliot had departed in the carriage to take the chair at
+a lecture in Marlehouse; and a little later Grantly had driven his
+mother to the station in the dogcart to meet a guest.
+
+Unfortunately the lecture on Carpaccio at the Literary Institute was of
+unusually short duration, and Mr Ffolliot returned tired and rather
+cross, just as Ger was enacting the hansom cab accident at the foot of
+the staircase, by beating a deafening tattoo on the Kitten's bath with
+a hair-brush.
+
+The twins and the Kitten (who had proved a wrapt and appreciative
+audience) melted away with Boojum-like stealth the moment the hall door
+was opened; but Ger, absorbed in the entrancing din he was making,
+noticed nothing, and his father had to shake him by the shoulders
+before he would stop.
+
+"I suppose," Ger remarked thoughtfully, "that we must look upon father
+as a cross."
+
+"He certainly _is_ jolly cross," Uz murmured.  "He should hear the row
+we kick up at school when we've won a match, and nobody says a
+syllable."
+
+"But I mean," Ger persisted, wriggling about on his seat as though the
+problem tormented him, "that if father were as nice as mother we'd be
+too happy, and it wouldn't be good for us; like the people in Fairy
+stories, you know, when they're too well off, misfortunes come."
+
+"I don't think," Buz said dryly, "that we have any cause to dread
+misfortunes on that score.  But cheer up, Ger, it'll soon be time for
+the pater to go abroad, and then nobody will get jawed for six long
+weeks."
+
+"I shouldn't mind the jawings so much or the punishments," said Ger,
+after a minute's pause, "if it wasn't for mother.  She minds so, she
+never seems to get used to it.  I'm glad she was out this
+afternoon--though we did want her to see the play--but whatever will
+she say when I can't go down to meet Reggie with the rest of you?  And
+what'll _he_ think?"
+
+Ger's voice broke.  Punishment had followed hard on the heels of the
+crime, and banishment to the schoolroom for the rest of the evening was
+Ger's lot.  Had Mr Ffolliot belonged to a previous generation he would
+probably, when angry, have whacked his sons and whacked them hard.
+They would infinitely have preferred it.  But his fastidious taste
+revolted from the idea of corporal punishment, and his ingenuity in
+devising peculiarly disagreeable penalties in expiation of their
+various offences, was the cause of much tribulation to his indignant
+offspring.
+
+"Here _is_ mother!" cried Buz, "and she's got Reggie.  Come down and
+see him you others, but for heaven's sake, come quietly."
+
+The Reggie in question was a young Sapper just then stationed at
+Chatham, and a "very favourite cousin."
+
+The Ffolliot children were in the somewhat unusual position of having
+no uncles and aunts, and no cousins of their own, for the sad reason
+that both their parents were "onlies."  Therefore did they right this
+omission on the part of providence in their own fashion, by adopting as
+uncles, aunts, and cousins all pleasant guests.
+
+Reggie wasn't even a second cousin; but his people being mostly in
+India, he had for many years spent nearly all his holidays, and later
+on his leave, at Redmarley, and he was very popular with the whole
+family.  Even Mr Ffolliot unbent to a dignified urbanity in his
+presence.  He approved of Reggie, who had passed seventh into Woolwich
+and first into the Sappers, and Grantly always thanked his lucky stars
+that he was destined for Field Artillery, and was not expected to
+follow in Reggie's footsteps in the matter of marks.
+
+Ger worshipped Reggie, and it was with a heart full of bitterness, and
+eyes charged with hot tears that blurred the firelight into long bands
+of crimson, that he leant against the schoolroom table, alone, while
+the others all trooped off on tiptoe into the hall to give rapturous
+though whispered greeting to their guest.
+
+Reggie did not whisper though; the warning cards had no sort of effect
+upon him, and the forlorn little figure drooping against the table
+sprang erect and shook the big drops from his cheeks as he heard his
+cousin's jolly voice "Where's my friend Ger?"--a murmured
+explanation--then, "O _bad_ luck!  I'll go to him--No don't come with
+me--not for two minutes."
+
+How Ger blessed him for that forethought!  To be found in disgrace was
+bad enough; but to be seen in tears, and by his whole family! . . .
+
+Hastily scraping his cheeks with a corner of his dilapidated Norfolk
+jacket--if you have ever tried to do this you'll know that it is more
+or less of a test of suppleness--he went slowly to the door, and in
+another minute was lifted high into the air and shaken violently by a
+slight, rather plain young man, who bore with the utmost meekness a
+passionate embrace highly detrimental to his immaculate collar: and the
+best of it all was, that he was quite unconscious of the fact that Ger
+had not met him with the others, nor seemed aware of anything unusual
+beyond the pleasantness of once more sitting in the big slippery
+leather-covered arm-chair beside the schoolroom fire, while the rest of
+the family, having given him exactly the two minutes' start he had
+demanded, came flocking back to sit all over him and shout their news
+in an excited chorus.
+
+Next morning, while his father was out in the village, Ger ensconced
+himself in one of the deep-seated windows of the study, as a quiet
+haven wherein he might wrestle in solitude with the perfect and
+pluperfect of the verb _esse_, which he had promised his mother he
+would repeat to her that morning.
+
+Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward
+that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs
+Ffolliot) every morning.  Ger could not read.  It was extraordinary how
+difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that
+seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered,
+appeared capable of giving so much pleasure.
+
+It puzzled Ger extremely.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of
+the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so
+pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations
+were ever vaguely associated with the scent of violets.  The reason for
+this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as
+possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly
+all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her
+waistband.
+
+It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's
+training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using
+the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being
+quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing
+table, the promise would be faithfully kept.  Besides, like all true
+book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his books, and provided
+the children treated them with due care and respect, had no objection
+to their taking them out of the shelves and reading them.
+
+For a long time there was no sound in the room but an occasional
+whispered, "_fui, fuisti, fuit_."  Presently Grantly and Mary came in
+to discuss a fancy-dress dance to which they were bidden that evening
+at a neighbour's; then, in rushed Reggie in coat and hat with a newly
+arrived parcel in his hand.  Ger had seen the railway van come up the
+drive, but as he had promised his mother not to move until he had
+mastered his verb, he did not make his presence known to anyone.
+
+Reggie went over to Mr Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a shilling lying on
+the table seized it and fled from the room.  Three minutes later Ger
+saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot
+returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the "perfect and
+pluperfect and future perfect," went slowly upstairs to his mother to
+repeat it.
+
+All went on peacefully and quietly in the schoolroom for the next half
+hour, when suddenly Grantly and Mary whirled into the room in a state
+of such excited indignation as took their mother quite five minutes to
+discover what all the fuss was about.  When at last they had been
+induced to tell their story separately, and not in a chorus almost
+oratorio-like in its confusion, Mrs Ffolliot discovered to her dismay
+that they were accused of meddling with a shilling which their father
+had placed on the book-club collecting card, ready for the collector
+when she should call.
+
+When she _did_ call the shilling was gone, and as Grantly and Mary were
+known to have been in the study, the squire came to the conclusion that
+one of them must have knocked against his table and brushed it off, and
+he gave it out that "unless they found it, and thus repaired the
+mischief and annoyance their carelessness had caused, he would not
+allow them to go to the dance that evening!"
+
+He never suspected that any member of his family would take the
+shilling, but he was ready to believe all things of their clumsiness.
+In vain did Grantly and Mary protest that they had never been near his
+desk; the squire might have been Sherlock Holmes himself, so certain
+was he as to the exactitude of his deductions.
+
+"The card has been pushed from where it was originally placed to the
+extreme edge of the table; the shilling must have been knocked off, and
+had doubtless rolled under some article of furniture; let them see to
+it that it was found; they might hunt there and then if they liked, as
+he would not require the room for half an hour."
+
+The consciousness of their innocence in no way sustained Grantly and
+Mary under the appalling prospect of losing the party.  They had of
+course hunted frantically everywhere, but naturally had found no trace
+of the shilling.
+
+Ger sat quite still during the recital of their wrong's, his face
+growing paler and paler, and his honest grey eyes wider and wider in
+the horror of his knowledge.  For he knew who had taken the shilling,
+and he knew also that it was his plain duty to right his innocent
+brother and sister.  But at what a cost!  He could not tell of Reggie,
+and yet it was so unlike Reggie for it was . . . even to himself Ger
+hardly liked to confess what it was--and he had gone off in such a
+hurry!  To Ger, a shilling seemed a very large sum, his own greatest
+wealth, amassed after many weeks of hoarding, had once reached five
+pence halfpenny, nearly all in farthings; and he even found himself
+conjecturing the sort of monetary difficulty into which Reggie had
+fallen, and from which a shilling might extricate him.  He knew there
+were such things as "debts," and that the army was "very expensive,"
+for he had heard his grandfather say so.  Like many extremely upright
+people Ger was gentle in his judgments of others.  Himself of the most
+crystalline honesty, he could yet conceive of circumstances wherein a
+like probity might be hard for somebody else: at all costs poor Reggie
+must be screened, but it was equally clear to him that his brother and
+sister must not lose the pleasure long looked-forward-to as the opening
+joy of the holidays.
+
+Now there was about Ger a certain loyalty and considerateness in his
+dealings with others, that had earned for him the _sobriquet_ of
+"Gentleman Ger."  He was very proud of the title, and his mother, whom
+he adored, had done all in her power to foster the feeling of _noblesse
+oblige_; so Ger felt that here and now a circumstance had arisen which
+would try what stuff he was made of.  The excited talk raged round him
+like a storm, but after the first he heard none of it.  He slipped
+quietly off his chair, and unnoticed by the group round his mother,
+left the room and crept down the back staircase.  All doubt and
+questioning was at an end.  His duty seemed quite clear to him: he
+would take the blame of that shilling, Mary and Grantly would go to
+their party, and Reggie . . .  Reggie would not be back till quite
+late, when he, too, was going to the fancy-dress dance.  Reggie need
+never know anything about it.
+
+By this time he had reached the study door, and stood with his hand
+upon the handle.  And as he waited, screwing his courage to the
+sticking point, there came into his mind the words of a psalm that he
+had learned by heart only last Sunday to repeat to his mother.  He
+learned it more easily than usual because he liked it; when she read it
+to him he found he could remember it, and now, just as a dark room is
+transiently illumined by the falling together of the fire in sudden
+flame, there came into Ger's mind the words, "He that sweareth to his
+own hurt and changeth not."  He turned the handle and went in.
+
+The squire was sitting in his big armchair in front of the fire reading
+_Marius the Epicurean_, and trying to compose his nerves, which still
+vibrated unpleasantly after all the fuss about the shilling.  He had
+even quoted to himself somewhat testily something about "fugitive
+things not good to treasure"; but whether he referred to the nimbly
+disappearing shilling, or to the protestations of Grantly and Mary, was
+not clear.  He generally solaced himself with Pater when perturbed, and
+he had nearly persuaded himself that he was once more nearly attuned to
+"perfect tone, fresh and serenely disposed of the Roman Gentleman,"
+when Ger opened the door, and walked over towards him without shutting
+it--an unpardonable offence at any time.
+
+"Gervais," exclaimed the squire, and his tone was the reverse of
+serene, "Why are you not in the schoolroom?  What on earth do you want?"
+
+Ger went back and shut the door carefully and quietly, and once more
+crossed the room till he stood directly in front of his father.  The
+squire noted with a little pang of compunction how pale the child was.
+"What is it?" he said more gently.
+
+"Father, I've come about that shilling.  I took it."
+
+"_You_ took it," exclaimed the squire in amazement.  "Why?"
+
+Here was a poser.  Ger was so absolutely unused to lying that he was
+quite unprepared for any such question as this, so he was silent.
+
+"Why did you take it?" angrily reiterated his father.  "And what have
+you done with it?  Answer at once.  You know perfectly well that it is
+a most shocking breach of good manners to ignore a question in this
+fashion."
+
+"I took it," repeated Ger stupidly, his large grey eyes looking into
+space beyond his father.
+
+"So I hear," said the squire, growing more and more annoyed.  "But why
+did you take it?  and where have you put it?"
+
+"I can't tell you, father," said Ger firmly, and this time he met his
+father's eyes unflinchingly.  To himself he said, "I won't tell more'n
+_one_ lie for mother's sake."
+
+The squire was dumfoundered by this obstinacy.  It was unheard
+of--absolutely without parallel in his domestic annals--that one of his
+children should actually flout him! yes! actually flout him with such
+an answer as this.
+
+"Go and stand over there in that corner," he thundered, "and you shan't
+move until you can answer my questions, if you stand there for the rest
+of the day.  If you children have nothing else, I am determined that
+you shall have good manners."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was nearly five o'clock, and Ger still stood in the same corner of
+the study watching the last streak of red fade from the chill January
+sky.  There was no sound in the room save only the soft "plop" of a
+cinder as it fell on to the tiled hearth.  The fire had burned low, and
+he was very cold.  Never in all his life had he gone without his dinner
+before, and although he was no longer hungry, everything seemed, as he
+said afterwards, "funny and misty."
+
+The squire had fulfilled his threat.  After sending the culprit away to
+wash his tear-stained face and hands, and to procure a clean
+handkerchief, he bade him return to stand in the same corner till he
+should arrive at a proper sense of the respect due to a parent.  He had
+locked the door upon Ger when he went to lunch, and forbade any member
+of the family, including his wife, to hold any sort of communication
+with the culprit.  Parker the fox-terrier, however, did not obey the
+squire, and remained in the study with Ger regardless of the fact that
+the servants' dinner bell had rung, which was also the signal for his
+own.  And to Parker Ger confided the whole story, and very puzzled and
+unhappy it made him, for he ran between Ger and the door snuffing and
+whining till the squire came back and turned him out, when he remained
+upon the mat outside uneasily barking at intervals.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot was almost beside herself with grief and consternation.
+It was such an inexplicable piece of obstinacy on Ger's part, and he
+was not usually obstinate.
+
+Grantly and Mary, while relieved that they would still have the
+opportunity of wearing the dresses which had been the object of so much
+thought, were really concerned about Ger; it seemed so senseless of
+him, "why couldn't he say why he wanted the beastly shilling and have
+done with it?"
+
+The squire himself was very seriously disturbed.  He had stormed and
+raged, he had argued, he had even spoken very kindly and eloquently on
+the subject of dishonesty, and the necessity there was for full
+confession before forgiveness could be obtained (this last appeal
+sorely trying Ger's fortitude), but all to no avail.  As the needle
+points ever to the north, so all the squire's exhortations ended with
+the same question, to be met with the same answer, growing fainter in
+tone as the hours wore on, but no less firm in substance.  "I can't
+tell you, father."
+
+Mr Ffolliot could no longer bear the little white-faced figure standing
+so silently in the corner of the room.  He went forth and walked about
+the garden.  He really was a much tried man just then.  Only last night
+Buz, lying in wait for Reggie as he came to bed, had concealed himself
+in an angle of the staircase, and when his cousin, as he thought,
+reached his hiding-place, pounced out upon him, blowing out his lighted
+candle, and exclaiming in a sepulchral voice, "Out, out, damned
+candle!" (Buz was doing _Macbeth_ at school and had a genius for inept,
+and generally inaccurate quotation)--then flew up the dark staircase
+two steps at a time fully expecting hot pursuit, but none came.  Dead
+silence, followed by explosive bursts of smothered laughter from Reggie
+and Grantly who had followed the squire upstairs.  It did not comfort
+Mr Ffolliot at the present moment to reflect that Buz had had to write
+out the whole scene in which the "germ," as his father called it, of
+his misquotation occurred.  At present his mind was full of Ger, and
+ever and anon like the refrain of a song, there thrust into his
+thoughts a sentence he had been reading when the little boy had
+interrupted him that morning, "and towards such a full and complete
+life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and
+effective auxiliary must be, in a word, insight."  "Could it be
+possible?" he asked himself, "that he was in some way lacking in this
+quality?"
+
+He turned somewhat hastily and went back into the house.  Once more Ger
+heard the key turn in the lock, and his father came in, followed by
+Fusby, bearing tea upon a tray.
+
+The front door banged, and Ger's heart positively hammered against his
+ribs, for no one but Reggie ever dared to bang the Manor House front
+door.  In another minute he had come in, and was standing on the
+hearth-rug beside Mr Ffolliot, bringing with him a savour of frosty
+freshness into the warm, still room.
+
+"I got through sooner than I expected," said Reggie, in his big cheery
+voice, "and caught the two twenty-five, so I walked out.  I've been to
+the stables to tell Heaven he needn't drive in for me after all.  O
+tea!  That's good,--where's Aunt Marjory?  By the way, uncle, I owe you
+a shilling.  A parcel came for me just as I was starting, and there was
+a shilling to pay on it.  I had no change and was in a tearing hurry,
+so I took one I saw lying on your desk--hope it was all right."
+
+There was a little soft thud in the far corner of the room, as Ger fell
+forward on his face, worn out by his long watch, and the rapture of
+this immense relief.
+
+When things grew clear again the room was full of light and he was
+lying in his mother's arms.  Reggie was kneeling beside him trying to
+force something in a spoon between his lips, something that smelt, so
+Ger said, "like a shop in Woolwich" and tasted very queer and hot.
+
+"Lap it up, old chap," whispered Reggie, and Ger wondered why he seemed
+to have lost his voice.  "There now, that's all right.  You'll be as
+fit as possible directly," and Reggie scrambled up from his knees and
+bolted from the room.
+
+Ger sat up and looked at his father who was standing beside him.  The
+lamp shone full on the squire's face, and he, too, like Reggie, seemed
+to have got a cold in his eyes; but in spite of this peculiarity, there
+was that in their expression which told Ger that everything was all
+right again, and that in this instance absolution without confession
+had been fully and freely granted.
+
+So Ger, from the safe shelter of his mother's arms, explained, "I
+couldn't tell more'n one lie because of mother, you know, and I thought
+he wanted it for debts or something.  Is those sangwidges anchovy or
+jam, do you think?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE DANCE
+
+Reggie Peel was not quite sure whether he liked Mary with her hair up
+or not.  The putting up of the hair necessitated a readjustment of his
+whole conception of her, and . . . he was very conservative.
+
+With Mary the tom-boy child, with Mary the long-legged flapper and good
+chum, he was affectionately at his ease.  He had petted and tormented
+her by turns, ever since as a boy of ten he had first seen her, a baby
+a year old, in his Aunt Marjory's arms.  Throughout her turbulent but
+very cheerful childhood he had been her firm, if patronising, friend.
+Then as she developed into what Ger had described to Eloquent as "a bit
+of a gawk," he became more than ever her friend and champion.  "Uncle
+Hilary was so beastly down on Mary;" and Mary, though she did knock
+things over and say quite extraordinarily stupid things on occasion,
+was "such a good old sort."
+
+He had never considered the question of her appearance till this
+Christmas.  He supposed she was good-looking--all the Ffolliots were
+good-looking--but it really didn't matter much one way or another.  She
+was part of Redmarley, and Redmarley as a whole counted for a good deal
+in Reginald Peel's life.  He, too, had fallen under its mysterious
+charm.  The manor-house mothered him, and the little Cotswold village
+cradled him in kindly keeping arms.  His own mother had died when he
+was seven, his father married again a couple of years later; but, as Mr
+Peel was in the Indian Forest Department, and Reggie's young stepmother
+a faithful and devoted wife, he saw little of either of them, except on
+their somewhat infrequent leaves when they paid so many visits and had
+to see so many people, that he never really got to know either them or
+his half-brother and sister.
+
+The love of Redmarley had grown with his growth till it became part of
+him; so far he had looked upon Mary as merely one of the many pleasant
+circumstances that went to the making of Redmarley.  Now, somehow, she
+seemed to have detached herself from the general design and to have
+taken the centre of the picture.  He was not sure that he approved of
+such prominence.
+
+She startled him that first evening when, with the others, she met him
+in the hall.  She was unexpected, she was different, and he hated that
+anything at Redmarley should be different.
+
+"Mary's grown up since yesterday," Uz remarked ironically, "she's like
+you when you first managed to pull your moustache."
+
+Of course Reggie suitably chastised Uz for his cheek, but all the same
+there was a difference.
+
+To be sure she still wore her skirts well above her ankles, but
+nowadays quite elderly ladies wore short skirts, so that in no way
+accentuated her youth; and after all was she so very young?
+
+Mary would be eighteen on Valentine's day.
+
+Arrayed in Elizabethan doublet and hose for Lady Campion's dance,
+Reggie stood before his looking-glass and grinned at himself
+sardonically.
+
+"Ugly devil," he called himself, and then wondered how Mary would look
+as Phyllida the ideal milkmaid.
+
+Ugly he might be, but his type was not unsuited to the period he had
+chosen.  A smallish head, wide across the brows, well-shaped and
+poised, with straight, smooth hair that grew far back on the temples
+and would recede even further as the years went on; humorous bright
+grey eyes, not large, but set wide apart under slightly marked
+eyebrows; a pugnacious, rather sharply-pointed nose with a ripple in
+it.  Reggie declared that his nose had really meant well, but changed
+its mind half way down.  His mouth under the fair moustache was not in
+the least beautiful, but it was trustworthy, neither weak nor sensual,
+and the chin was square and dogged.  His face looked long with the
+pointed beard he had stuck on with such care, and above the wide white
+ruff, might well have belonged to some gentleman adventurer who
+followed the fortunes of Raleigh or Drake.  For in spite of its
+insignificant irregularity of feature there was alert resolve in its
+expression; a curious light-hearted fixity of purpose that was
+arresting.
+
+Reggie had never been popular or distinguished at Wellington; yet those
+masters who knew most about boys always prophecied that "he would make
+his mark."
+
+It was the same at the "Shop"; although he never rose above a corporal,
+there were those among the instructors who foretold great things of his
+future.  His pass-out place was a surprise to everyone, himself most of
+all.  He was reserved and did not make friends easily; he got on quite
+pleasantly with such men as he was thrown with; but he was not a
+_persona grata_ in his profession.  He got through such a thundering
+lot of work with such apparent ease.
+
+"A decent chap, but a terrible beggar to swat," was the general verdict
+upon Reginald Peel.
+
+To Mrs Ffolliot and the children he showed a side of his character that
+was rigidly concealed from outsiders, the truth being that as a little
+boy he had been very hungry for affection.  The Redmarley folk loved
+him, and his very sincere affection for them was leavened by such
+passionate gratitude as they never dreamed of.
+
+His face grew very gentle as he gazed unseeingly into the glass.  He
+was thinking of loyal little Ger.
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter.  He blew out the
+candles on his dressing-table and fled.
+
+Few gongs or dinner bells were sounded at the Manor House.  Mr Ffolliot
+disliked loud noises.  As he ran down the wide shallow staircase into
+the hall he saw that Mary was standing in the very centre of it, while
+her father slowly revolved round her in appreciative criticism, quoting
+the while:--
+
+  "The ladies of St James's!
+  They're painted to the eyes;
+  Their white it stays for ever,
+  Their red it never dies;
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+  Her colour comes and goes;
+  It trembles to a lily,--
+  It warms to a rose--"
+
+
+This was strictly true, for Mary flushed and paled under her father's
+gaze, standing there tall and slender in russet gown and white bodice,
+a milking stool under her arm.  She wore "buckled shoon" and a white
+sunbonnet, and was as fair a maid as a man could see between
+Christmases.
+
+She was surprised that her father should express his approval thus
+graciously, but she was not uplifted.  It was Mr Ffolliot's way.  He
+had been detestable all day, and now he was going to be charming.  His
+compliments counted for little with Mary.  Yesterday he had told her
+she moved like a Flanders mare, and hurt her feelings very much.  Her
+dress was made in the house and cost about half the price of her shoes
+and stockings, but Mary was not greatly concerned about her dress.  She
+wanted to go to the dance, to dance all night and see other people.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot, looking tired and pale, was sitting with Ger on an oak
+settle by the hearth.  Ger had been allowed to stay up till dinner time
+to see his family dressed.  The twins were sitting on the floor in
+front of the fire.  Reggie paused on the staircase four steps up, and
+behind him came Grantly in smock frock (borrowed from the oldest
+labourer in Redmarley) and neat gaiters as the typical Georgian
+"farmer's boy" to match Mary's milk-maid.
+
+"Aren't you coming, Aunt Marjory?" Reggie asked.  "I thought you were
+to appear as one of the Ladies of St James's as a foil for Mary."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot shook her head.  "I did think of it, but I've got a bad
+headache.  Mary doesn't really need me as a chaperon, it's only a boy
+and girl dance; besides, you and Grantly can look after her."
+
+Mr Ffolliot went and sat down on the settle beside his wife.  "You're
+much better at home," he said tenderly, "you'd only get tired out
+sitting up so late."
+
+Grantly and Mary exchanged glances.  They knew well enough that Mrs
+Ffolliot had decided at the last moment that she had better stay at
+home to look after the twins, who were certain, if left to their own
+devices, to get into mischief during her absence.
+
+"That rumpus with Ger upset her awfully," Mary whispered to Reggie as
+they went into dinner, "and she won't risk anything fresh.  It is a
+shame, for she'd have loved it, and she always looks so ripping."
+
+The three young people left directly after dinner.  Grantly stopped the
+carriage at an old Ephraim Teakle's cottage in the village, and they
+all went in to let him have a look at them, for it was his smock, a
+marvel of elaborate stitching, that Grantly was wearing.
+
+Ephraim was eighty-seven years old and usually went to bed very early,
+but to-night he sat up a full hour to see "them childer," as he called
+the Ffolliots.  He was very deaf, but had the excellent sight of a
+generation that had never learned to read.  He stood up as the young
+people came in, and joined in the chorus of "laws," of "did you evers,"
+indulged in by his granddaughter and her family.
+
+"'Er wouldn' go far seekin' sarvice at mop, not Miss Mary wouldn't," he
+said; "an' as for you, Master Grantly, you be the very moral of me when
+I did work for Farmer Gayner over to Winson.  Maids did look just like
+that when I wer a young chap--pretty as pins, they was."
+
+But Mrs Rouse, his granddaughter, thought "Mr Peel did look far an'
+away the best, something out o' the common 'e were, like what a body
+sees in the theatre over to Marlehouse . . . but there, I suppose 'tis
+dressin' up for the likes o' Master Grantly, an' I must say
+laundry-maid, she done up grandfather's smock something beautiful."
+
+Abinghall, Sir George Campion's place, was just outside Marlehouse
+town.  The house, large and square and comfortable, was built by the
+first baronet early in the nineteenth century.  The Campions always did
+things well, and "the boy and girl dance" had grown very considerably
+since its first inception.  Indeed, had Mrs Ffolliot realised what
+proportions it had assumed since she received the friendly informal
+invitation some five weeks before, she would have risked the
+recklessness of the twins, and made a point of chaperoning Mary herself.
+
+For the last three generations the Campions had been strong Liberals,
+therefore it was quite natural that with an election due in a fortnight
+there should be bidden to the dance many who were not included in Lady
+Campion's rather exclusive visiting list.
+
+It is extraordinary how levelling an election is, especially at
+Christmas time, when peace and goodwill are acknowledged to be the
+prevailing and suitable sentiments.
+
+Even the large drawing-room at Abinghall wouldn't hold the dancers, so
+a floor and a huge tent had been imported from London, and joined to
+the house by a covered way.  A famous Viennese band played on a stage
+at one end, and around the sides were raised red baize seats for those
+who wanted to watch the dancing.  Lady Campion received her guests at
+the door of the large drawing-room; she caught Mary by the arm and held
+her to whisper rapidly, "I don't know half the people, Mary, do help
+me, and if you see anyone looking neglected, say a kind word, and get
+partners, like a dear.  I depended on your mother, and now she has
+failed me."
+
+Naturally the Liberal candidate was bidden to the dance, and Eloquent
+arrayed in the likeness of one of Cromwell's soldiers, a dress he had
+worn in a pageant last summer, was standing exactly opposite the
+entrance to the tent, when at the second dance on the programme
+Phyllida and the Farmer's Boy came in, and with the greatest good-will
+in the world proceeded to Boston with all the latest and dreadful
+variations of that singularly unbeautiful dance.  Grantly had imported
+the very newest thing from Woolwich, Mary was an apt pupil, and the two
+of them made a point always of dancing the first dance together
+wherever they were.  They were singularly well-matched, and tonight
+their height, their quaint dress, their remarkable good looks and
+their, to Marlehouse eyes, extraordinary evolutions, made them
+immediately conspicuous.
+
+Eloquent, stiff, solemn, and uncomfortable in his wide-leaved hat and
+flapping collar, watched the smock-frock and russet gown as they bobbed
+and glided, and twirled and crouched in the mazes of that mysterious
+dance, and the moment they stopped, shouldered his way through the
+usual throng of pierrots, flower-girls, Juliets, Carmens, Sikhs, and
+Chinamen to Lady Campion, who was standing in the entrance quite near
+the milk-maid who was already surrounded by would-be partners.
+
+"Lady Campion, will you present me to Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent asked in
+a stand-and-deliver sort of voice, the result of the tremendous effort
+it had been to approach her at all.
+
+She looked rather surprised, but long apprenticeship to politics had
+taught her that you must bear all things for the sake of your party, so
+she smiled graciously on the stiff, rosy-faced Cromwellian, and duly
+made the presentation.
+
+"May I," Eloquent asked, with quite awful solemnity, "have the pleasure
+of a dance?"
+
+"I've got twelve or fourteen and an extra, but I can't promise to dance
+any one of them if other people are sitting out, because I've promised
+Lady Campion to help see to people.  I'll give you one if you'll
+promise to dance it with someone else--if necessary----"
+
+Eloquent looked blue.  "Isn't that rather hard?" he asked meekly.
+
+"Everyone's in the same box," Mary said shortly, "and you, of all
+people, ought simply to dance till your feet drop off.  Let me see your
+card--What? no dances at all down?  Oh, that's absurd--come with me."
+And before poor Eloquent could protest he found himself being whisked
+from one young lady to another, and his card was full all except
+twelve, fourteen, and the second extra--which he rigidly reserved.
+
+"There," said Mary, smiling upon him graciously, "that's well over.
+I've been most careful; you are dancing with just about an equal number
+of Liberal and Tory young ladies, and you ought to take at least five
+mamas into supper; don't forget; look pleased and eager, and be careful
+what you say to the pretty girl in pink, she's a niece of our present
+member."
+
+Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White
+King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table
+(he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose
+name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just
+displayed on the bandstand.
+
+He really worked hard.  He danced carefully and laboriously--he had had
+lessons during his last year in London--and entirely without any
+pleasure.  So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very
+letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager."  His
+round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather
+prim gravity.  The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should
+have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young
+ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall
+milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at
+him in kindly approval.  He noticed that she danced several times with
+the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very
+good friends.
+
+At last number twelve showed on the bandstand.  Eloquent was not very
+clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went
+to her to claim it.  It came just before the supper dances.
+
+"Yes, this is our dance," said Mary, "shall we one-step for a change?"
+
+"It seems to me," said Eloquent mournfully, "that one does nothing but
+change all the time.  Now this is a waltz, how can you one-step to a
+waltz?"
+
+"Poor man," Mary remarked pityingly.  "It _is_ muddling if you're not
+used to it.  Let us waltz then, that will be a change."
+
+Once round the room they went, and Eloquent felt that never before had
+he realised the true delight of dancing.  He was very careful, very
+accurate, and his partner set herself to imitate exactly his archaic
+style of dancing, so that they were a model of deportment to the whole
+room.  But it was only for a brief space that this poetry of motion was
+vouchsafed to him.
+
+Mary stopped.
+
+"Do you see," she asked, "that old lady near the band.  She has been
+sitting there quite alone all the evening and she must be dying for
+something to eat.  Don't you think you'd better take her to have some
+refreshment?"
+
+"No," said Eloquent decidedly, "not just now.  I've been dancing with
+all sorts of people with whom I didn't in the least desire to dance
+solely because you said I ought, and now I'm dancing with you and I'm
+not going to give it up.  May we go on again?"
+
+Again they waltzed solemnly round.  Again Eloquent felt the thrill that
+always accompanies a perfect achievement.  Again Mary stopped.
+
+"That old lady is really very much on my conscience," she said; "if you
+won't take her in to have some supper, I must get Reggie, he'd do it."
+
+"But why now?" Eloquent pleaded.  "If, as you say, she has sat there
+all night, a few minutes more or less can make no difference--why
+should we spoil our dance by worrying about her?  Do you know her?"
+
+"I don't think I know her," Mary said vaguely, "but I have an idea she
+has something to do with coal.  She's probably one of your
+constituents, and I think it's rather unkind of you to be so
+uninterested; besides, what does it matter whether one knows her or
+not, she's here to enjoy herself, it's our business to see that she
+does it. . . ."
+
+"Why our business?"  In a flash Eloquent saw he had made a mistake.
+Mary looked genuinely surprised this time.
+
+"Why, don't you think in any sort of gathering it's everybody's
+business . . . if you see anyone lonely . . . left out . . . one
+tries. . . ."
+
+"I've been lonely and left out at dozens of parties in London, where I
+didn't know a soul, and I never discovered that anyone was in the least
+concerned about me.  At all events no one ever tried to ameliorate my
+lot."
+
+"But you're a man, you know. . . ."
+
+"A man can feel just as out of it as a woman.  It's worse for him in
+fact, for it's nobody's business to look after him."
+
+Eloquent spoke bitterly.
+
+"But surely since you, yourself, have suffered, you ought to be the
+more sympathetic with that stout lady----"
+
+"I will go, since you wish it; but I don't know her and she may think
+it impertinent. . . ."
+
+"I'll come too," said Mary.  "_I_ don't know her but I can introduce
+you . . . we'll both go."
+
+The lady in question was stout and rubicund, with smooth,
+tightly-braided brown hair, worn very flat and close to the head, and
+bright observant black eyes.  She wore a high black satin dress, and
+had apparently been poured into it, so tight was it, so absolutely
+moulded to her form.  A double gold chain was arranged over her ample
+bosom, and many bracelets decorated her fat wrists.  She was quite
+alone on the raised red seat.  For the last two hours Mary had noticed
+her sitting there, and that no one, apparently, ever spoke to, or came
+to sit by her.
+
+There she remained placidly watching the dancers, her plump ungloved
+hands folded in her lap.  She appeared rather cold for she wore no
+wrap, and what with draughts and the breeze created by the dancers, the
+tent was a chilly place to sit in.
+
+Mary mounted the red baize step and sat down beside the solitary one.
+
+"Don't you think it's time you had something to eat?" she shouted . . .
+they were _so_ near the band, which at that moment was braying the
+waltz song from the "Quaker Girl."  The old lady beamed, but shook her
+head:
+
+"I'm very well where I am, my dear, I can see nicely and I'm glad I
+came."
+
+"But you can come back," Mary persisted.  "This gentleman"--indicating
+Eloquent--"will take you to have some supper, and then he'll bring you
+back again just here if you like. . . .  May I introduce Mr Gallup?
+Mrs . . . I fear I don't know your name. . . ."
+
+Eloquent stood below bowing stiffly, and offered his arm.  The lady
+stood up, chuckled, winked cheerfully at Mary, and stepped down on to
+the floor.
+
+"Well, since you _are_ so obliging," she said, and took the proffered
+arm.  "You don't know me, Mr Gallup," she continued, "but you will do
+before the election's over.  Don't look so down in the mouth, I shan't
+keep you long, just a snack's all I want, and to stamp my feet a bit,
+which they're uncommonly cold, and then you can go back to the sweet
+pretty thing that fetched you to do the civil--oh, I saw it all! what a
+pity she's the other side, isn't it? what a canvasser she'd make with
+that smile . . . well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a
+Radical before this _and_ changed her politics, so don't you lose
+heart . . . soup, yes, I'd fancy some soup . . . well, what a sight to
+be sure . . . and how do you feel things are going in the
+constituency? . . ."
+
+But Eloquent had no need to answer.  His charge kept up a continual
+flow of conversation, only punctuated by mouthfuls of food.  When at
+last he took her back to the seat near the band, Mary had gone to
+supper and was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, Mr Gallup," said the lady, "though you
+wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been forced.  Now let an old woman
+give you a bit of advice. . . .  _Look_ willin' whether you are or not."
+
+Poor Eloquent felt very much as though she had boxed his ears.  A few
+minutes later he saw that the Elizabethan gentleman and Mary were
+seated on either side of his recent partner and were apparently well
+amused.
+
+How did they do it?
+
+And presently when Reggie Peel and Mary passed him in the Boston he
+heard Peel say, "Quite the most amusing person here to-night.  I shall
+sit out the next two dances with her, I'm tired."
+
+"I was tired too, that's why . . ." they went out of earshot, and he
+never caught the end of the sentence.
+
+Eloquent danced no more with Mary, nor did he sit out at all with the
+indomitable old lady, who, bright-eyed and vigilant, still watched from
+her post near the band.  The end was really near, and he stood against
+the wall gloomily regarding Mary as she flew about in the arms--very
+closely in the arms as ruled by the new dancing--of a young barrister.
+He was staying with the Campions and had, all the previous week, been
+helping heartily in the Liberal cause.  He had come down from London
+especially to do so, but during Christmas week there was a truce on
+both sides, and he remained to enjoy himself.
+
+Just then Eloquent hated him.  He hated all these people who seemed to
+find it so easy to be amusing and amused.  Yet he stayed till the very
+last dance watching Phyllida, the milkmaid, with intense disapproval,
+as, her sun-bonnet hanging round her neck, she tore through the Post
+Horn Gallop with that detestable barrister.  He decided that the
+manners of the upper classes, if easy and pleasant, were certainly much
+too free.
+
+It was a fine clear night and he walked to his rooms in Marlehouse.  He
+felt that he had not been a social success.  He was much more at home
+on the platform than in the ball-room, yet he was shrewd enough to see
+that his lack of adaptability stood in his way politically.
+
+How could he learn these things?
+
+And as if in answer to his question, there suddenly sounded in his ears
+the fat chuckling voice of the black satin lady:
+
+"Well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a Radical before
+this, _and_ changed her politics, so don't you lose heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"THE GANPIES"
+
+"Father's mother," living alone far away in the Forest of Dean, rarely
+came to Redmarley, and the children never went to visit her.  A frail
+old lady to whom one was never presented save tidily clad and fresh
+from the hands of nurse for a few moments, with injunctions still
+ringing in one's ears as to the necessity for a quiet and decorous
+demeanour.
+
+This was grandmother, a shadow rather than a reality.
+
+The Ganpies were something very different.  The name, an abbreviation
+for grandparents, was invented by Grantly when he was two years old,
+and long usage had turned it into a term of endearment.  People who
+knew them well could never think of General and Mrs Grantly apart, each
+was the complement of the other; and for the Ffolliot children they
+represented a dual fount of fun and laughter, understanding and
+affection.  They were the medium through which one beheld the
+never-ending pageant unrolled before the entrancéd eyes of such happy
+children as happened to "belong" gloriously to one "commanding the R.A.
+Woolwich."  And intercourse with the Ganpies was largely leavened by
+concrete joys in the shape of presents, pantomimes, tips, and all
+things dear to the heart of youth all the world over.
+
+Such were the Ganpies.  Nothing shadowy about them.  They were a
+glorious reality; beloved, familiar, frequent.
+
+They were still comparatively young people when their daughter married,
+and Mrs Grantly was a grandmother at forty-one.  They would have liked
+a large family themselves, but seeing that Providence had only seen fit
+to bestow on them one child, they looked upon the six grandchildren as
+an attempt to make amends.
+
+Mrs Grantly's one quarrel with Marjory Ffolliot was on the score of
+what she called her "niggardliness and greed," in refusing to hand over
+entirely one of the six to their grandparents.
+
+It is true that the large house on the edge of Woolwich Common was
+seldom without one or two of the Ffolliot children.  Mr Ffolliot was
+most accommodating, and was more then ready to accept the General's
+constant invitations to his offspring; but in spite of these
+concessions Mrs Grantly was never wholly satisfied, and it was
+something of a grievance with her that Marjory was so firm in her
+refusal to "give away" any one of the six.
+
+Casual observers would have said that Mrs Grantly was by far the
+stronger character of the two, but people who knew General Grantly
+well, realised that his daughter had her full share of his quiet
+strength and determination.  Mrs Ffolliot, like her father, was
+easy-going, gentle, and tolerant; it was only when you came "up
+against" either of them that you realised the solid rock beneath the
+soft exterior.
+
+Now there was nothing hidden about Mrs Grantly.  She appeared exactly
+what she was.  Everything about her was definite and decided, though
+she was various and unexpected as our British weather.  She was an
+extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic
+courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of
+impulsiveness and caution.  In very truth a delightful bundle of
+paradox.  Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration
+for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness
+quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband.  But the
+snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift
+at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily.  She spoke
+her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she
+had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks were
+generally illuminating.
+
+The villagers at Redmarley adored her, for, from her very first visit
+she made her presence felt.
+
+It had long been the custom at Redmarley for the ladies in the village
+and neighbourhood to meet once a week during the earlier winter months
+to make garments for presentation to the poor at Christmas, and the
+first meeting since the Manor House possessed a mistress took place
+there under Mrs Ffolliot's somewhat timid presidency.  It coincided
+with Mrs Grantly's first visit since her daughter's marriage, and she
+expressed her willingness to help.
+
+At Mrs Ffolliot's suggestion it had already been arranged that a blouse
+instead of a flannel petticoat should this year be given to the younger
+women.  The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they
+were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according
+to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful
+ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material.  For years
+donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination.  She
+chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what
+style, and who should receive them when made.
+
+On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her
+brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses
+which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out.  Miss Tibbits undid the
+parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round
+the dining-room table.
+
+Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was
+an expressive countenance.
+
+"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own
+family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor
+should be dressed in dusters?"
+
+The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material
+which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by
+drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."
+
+"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to
+consider utility, not ornament."
+
+Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material,
+gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so
+that it fell draped about her.
+
+"Look at me!" she exclaimed.  "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff
+like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"
+
+And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the
+downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had
+selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.
+
+The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into
+helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in
+yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit
+abashed.
+
+"Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried.  "Can you conceive any
+self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made
+of _this_?"
+
+"A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?"
+
+"Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted.  "Now you
+are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make
+supposed to give any pleasure to the poor creatures or not."
+
+"I should say so most assuredly," the vicar replied, his eyes twinkling
+with fun.  "What other purpose could you have?"
+
+Miss Tibbits cleared her throat.  "I have always understood," she said
+primly, "that the sewing club was instituted to make useful garments
+for deserving persons, who were, perhaps, so much occupied by family
+cares that they had little time available for needle-work."
+
+"That is," said the vicar solemnly, "the laudable object of the sewing
+club."
+
+"But I don't suppose," Mrs Grantly remarked briskly, still standing
+draped in the obnoxious material, "that there is any bye-law to the
+effect that the garments should be of an odious and humiliating
+description."
+
+"Of course not," the ladies chorussed, smiling.  They were beginning,
+all but Miss Tibbits, who was furious, to enjoy Mrs Grantly.
+
+"Then let us," Mrs Grantly's voice suddenly became soft and seductive,
+and she flung the folds of material from her, "give them something
+pretty.  They don't have much, poor things, and it's just as easy to
+make them pretty as ugly.  Ladies, I've been to a good many sewing
+meetings in my life, and I always fight for the same thing, a present
+should be just a little bit different--don't you think--not hard and
+hideous and ordinary. . . ."
+
+"That material is bought and paid for," Miss Tibbits interrupted, "it
+must be used."
+
+"It shall be used," cried Mrs Grantly, "I'll buy it, and I'll make it
+into dusters for which purpose it was obviously intended, and every
+woman in Redmarley shall have two for Christmas as an extra.  A good
+strong duster never comes amiss."
+
+"Perhaps," Miss Tibbits said coldly, "you will undertake to procure the
+material."
+
+"Certainly," said Mrs Grantly, "but I'll buy it in blouse lengths, and
+every one different.  Why should a whole village wear the same thing as
+though it was a reformatory?"
+
+It appeared that the vicar had called with his list of the "deserving
+poor."  In five minutes Mrs Grantly had detached each person, and made
+a note of her age and circumstances.  She had only been in the village
+a week, and she already knew every soul in it.
+
+She whirled off the vicar in a gale of enthusiasm, nobody else got a
+word in edgewise.  Finally she departed with him into the hall, and saw
+him out at the front door, and her last whispered words were
+characteristic:
+
+"You've let that Tibbits woman bully you for twenty years, now I'm
+going to bully you for a bit instead, and between us we'll give those
+poor dears a bit of cheer this Christmas."
+
+From that moment the vicar was Mrs Grantly's slave.
+
+Nobody knew how the affair leaked out, but the whole thing was known in
+the village before a week had passed, with the result that fifteen
+women visited the vicar, one after the other, and after much
+circumlocution intimated that "If so be as 'e would be so kind, they'd
+be glad if 'e'd 'int to the ladies as they 'adn't nearly wore out last
+Christmas petticoat, and, if it were true wot they'd 'eard as they was
+talkin' of givin' summat different, might Mrs Mustoe, Gegg, Uzzel, or
+Radway, etc., have anything they did choose to make as warn't a
+petticoat."
+
+There was a slump in petticoats.
+
+In despair he went to Mrs Grantly, and she undertook to see the matter
+through.
+
+"It's absurd," Mrs Grantly remarked to her daughter, "in a little place
+like this where one knows all the people, and exactly what they're
+like, to make things all the same size.  Fancy me trying to get into a
+blouse that would fit that skinny Miss Tibbits!  A little common sense
+is what's needed in this sewing society, and, Marjory, my dear, I'm
+going to do my best to supply it."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Throughout the years that followed, Mrs Grantly continued to supply
+common sense to the inhabitants of Redmarley.  She found places for
+young servants, both in her own household and those of her friends,
+till gradually there were many links between the village and "'Orse and
+Field and Garrison."
+
+More than one Redmarley damsel married a gunner "on the strength."  Had
+the intending bridegroom been anything else, Mrs Grantly would herself
+have forbidden the banns!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHRISTMAS AT REDMARLEY
+
+That year Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, and on the Saturday afternoon
+Eloquent drove out from Marlehouse to Redmarley to spend the week-end
+with his aunt.  She was out when he arrived, and he went straight to
+the vicarage, asked for the vicar, and was shown into the study, where
+Mr Molyneaux sat smoking by the fire in a deep-seated high-backed chair.
+
+Even as he entered the room, Eloquent was conscious of the pleasurable
+thrill that things beautiful and harmonious never failed to evoke.  The
+windows faced west; the red sun, just sinking behind Redmarley Woods,
+shone in on and was reflected from walls covered from floor to ceiling
+with books; books bound for the most part in mellow brown and yellow
+calf, that seemed to give forth an amber light as from sun-warmed
+turning beeches.
+
+The vicar had discarded his clerical coat, and wore a shabby grey-green
+Norfolk jacket frayed at the cuffs; nevertheless, Eloquent sincerely
+admired him as he rose to give courteous greeting to his guest.
+
+The old vicar was stout and bald, and the grey hair that fringed his
+head was decidedly rumpled.  A long face, with high, narrow forehead
+and pointed beard, cheeks heavy and creased, straight nose, with
+strongly marked, sensitive nostrils.  The mouth, full-lipped and
+shutting firmly under the grey moustache, cut straight across the upper
+lip; the eyes, rather prominent blue eyes, had once been bold and
+merry, and were still keen.  A fine old face, deeply lined and
+sorrowful, bearing upon it the impress of great possibilities that had
+remained--possibilities.  He was somehow in keeping with his room, this
+warm, untidy, comfortable room that smelt of tobacco and old leather,
+where there was such a curious jumble of things artistic and sporting:
+a few pictures and bas-reliefs, nearly all of the pre-Renaissance
+Italian School, a big stuffed trout in a glass case, a fox's brush and
+mask, an old faded cricket cap; and over the carved mantelshelf, the
+portrait of a Georgian beauty in powder and patches, whose oval face,
+heavy-lidded eyes, and straight features were not unlike the vicar's
+own.
+
+There was in the vicar's manner the welcoming quality that puts the
+shyest person at his ease.  He was secretly much surprised that young
+Gallup should call upon him; but no hint of this appeared in his
+manner, and Eloquent found no difficulty in stating the object of his
+visit with business-like directness.
+
+"I came to ask you," he remarked with his usual stiff solemnity, "if
+you would care for me to read the lessons at morning service
+to-morrow. . . .  I do not read badly. . . .  I have studied elocution."
+
+The humorous lines round the old vicar's eyes deepened, but he answered
+with equal gravity, "That is very good of you, and I gratefully accept
+your kind offer.  General Grantly has promised to read the first
+lesson, but I shall be glad if you will read the second.  Will you do
+both at the afternoon service?  There's no evensong on Christmas Day."
+
+This was rather more than Eloquent had bargained for, but . . . she
+might come to the afternoon service as well.  "I shall be most happy,"
+he said meekly, "to do anything I can to assist."
+
+The vicar rang for tea, but Eloquent arose hastily, saying he had
+promised to have tea with his aunt.  He had no desire to prolong the
+interview with this urbane old gentleman now that its object was
+achieved.  Mr Molyneux saw him to the front door and watched him for a
+moment as he bustled down the drive.  "So that," he said to himself, as
+he went back to the warm study, "is our future member . . . for
+everyone says he will get in.  Why does he want to read the lessons, I
+wonder?  It will certainly do him no good with his dissenting
+constituents, and it is they who will get him in--what can his object
+be?"
+
+The Ffolliot family formed quite a procession as they marched up the
+aisle on Christmas morning.  General and Mrs Grantly were there;
+Reggie, Mr and Mrs Ffolliot, and the six young Ffolliots.  They
+overflowed into the seat behind, and the Kitten, whom nothing ever awed
+or subdued, was heard to remark that since she couldn't sit with
+Willets, the keeper, who always had "such instasting things in his
+pottets," she'd sit "between the Ganpies."  Reggie, Mary, and her four
+brothers filled the second seat: Mary sat at the far end, and Ger
+nearest the aisle, that he might gaze entrancedly at his grandfather
+while he read the lesson.  Reggie came next to Ger, and Grantly
+separated Uz and Buz, so that Eloquent only caught an occasional
+glimpse of Mary's extremely flat back between the heads of other
+worshippers.
+
+"Oh come, all ye faithful!" the choir sang lustily as it started in
+procession round the church, and the faithful responded vigorously.
+The Kitten pranced on her hassock, and always started the new verse
+before everyone else in the clearest of pure trebles.  The Ffolliot
+boys shouted, and for once Mr Ffolliot forebore to frown on them.  No
+woman with a houseful of children can remain quite unmoved on Christmas
+morning during that singularly jubilant invocation, and Mrs Grantly and
+Margery Ffolliot ceased to sing, for their eyes were full of tears.  Mr
+Ffolliot fixed his monocle more firmly, and bent forward to look at the
+Kitten, and to catch her little pipe above the shouts of her brothers
+behind.
+
+The Kitten sang words of her own composition during the Psalms, her
+grandparents both singing loudly themselves in their efforts not to
+hear her, for the Kitten's improvisations were enough to upset the
+gravity of a bench of bishops.
+
+The General read the first lesson in a brisk and business-like
+monotone, and when he had finished his grandsons applauded noiselessly
+under the book-board.
+
+The Kitten was very much to the fore during "Praise him and magnify him
+for ever," and then came the second lesson.
+
+Eloquent walked up the aisle and took his stand at the lectern with the
+utmost unconcern.  Shy and awkward he might be in ordinary social
+intercourse, but whenever it was a matter of standing up before his
+fellow-creatures and haranguing them, his self-consciousness dropped
+from him like a discarded garment, and he instantly acquired a mental
+poise and serene self-confidence wholly lacking at other times.
+
+The second lesson on Christmas morning contains the plainest possible
+statement of a few great facts, and Eloquent proclaimed them in a
+singularly melodious voice with just exactly the emphatic simplicity
+they demanded.
+
+The perfect sincerity of great literature is always impressive.  All
+over the church heads were turned in the direction of the lectern, and
+when the short lesson ended the Kitten demanded in a quite audible
+voice, "Why did he stop so soon for?"
+
+Eloquent looked at Mary as he passed down the aisle to his place,
+half-hoping she might meet his glance with the frank confident smile he
+found so disturbing and delicious.  But her eyes were bent upon her
+prayer-book and she appeared quite unconscious that someone had just
+been reading the Bible exceptionally well.
+
+He felt chilled and disappointed.  "It is quite possible," he reflected
+bitterly, "that in this out-of-the-way old church they don't know good
+reading from bad."
+
+There is no sermon at Redmarley on Christmas morning, and people who
+have been at the early service get out soon after twelve o'clock.
+Eloquent waited in the churchyard and watched the young Ffolliots and
+Reggie Peel come out.  Mary saw him and nodded cheerfully, but she did
+not, as he felt might have been expected, come up to him and exclaim,
+"How beautifully you read!"
+
+No one did.
+
+Such of the congregation as had already been to early service hurried
+home to look after the dinner; or, as in the case of the young
+Ffolliots, to deposit prayer-books and take violent exercise until
+lunch time.
+
+In the afternoon Eloquent read the lessons to a very meagre assembly.
+The Manor House seats were empty and his enthusiastic desire to be of
+assistance to the vicar cooled considerably.  His aunt during dinner
+announced with the utmost frankness that wild horses would not drag her
+to church "of an afternoon"; she "liked her forty winks peaceable."
+She, however, further informed him that "he read very nice"; but as she
+had said the same thing of Grantly Ffolliot's performance, her nephew
+could not feel uplifted by her praise.
+
+The vicar poured a little balm on his wounded spirit by hastening after
+him as he walked slowly and gloomily homewards, to thank him with warm
+urbanity for his kind help, but he made no remark upon his reading.
+They parted at the vicarage gate, and Eloquent pursued his way alone.
+
+He felt restless and curiously disappointed.  Everything was exactly as
+it had been before, and somehow he had expected it to be different.
+
+So far he had encountered no special desire on the part of the "upper
+classes" to cultivate him.  He was quite shrewd enough to perceive that
+those he had met--the Campions at Marlehouse and the few who had
+offered him hospitality in London--had done so purely on political
+grounds.
+
+Only one, so far, had shown any kindness to him, the shy, wistfully
+self-conscious young man, hungry for sympathy and comprehension.  Only
+one, Mary Ffolliot, had seemed to recognise in him other possibilities
+than those of party: but had she?
+
+Anyway, here was he in the same village with her not a mile away, and
+yet a gulf stretched between them apparently impassable as a river in
+flood to a boatless man who could not swim.
+
+That evening Miss Gallup decided that her nephew did not possess much
+general conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MISS ELSMARIA BUTTERMISH
+
+The twins were not in the least alike, either in disposition or
+appearance, but they were inseparable.  They were known to their large
+circle of friends and still more numerous censors as "Uz" and "Buz,"
+but their real names were Lionel and Hilary, a fact they rigidly
+suppressed at all times.
+
+Buz was tall for his age, slender and fair, with regular, Grantly
+features, and eyes like his mother's.  Uz was short and chubby,
+tirelessly mischievous, and of an optimistic cheerfulness that neither
+misfortune nor misunderstanding could diminish.  Buz was the reading
+Ffolliot, imaginative, and easily swayed by what he read; and his was
+the fertile brain that created and suggested all manner of wrong-doing
+to his twin.  Just then the mania of both was for impersonation.  "To
+dress up," and if possible to mislead their fellow-creatures as to
+their identity, was their chief aim in life.  Here, the "prettiness"
+that in his proper person Buz deplored and abhorred came in useful.  He
+made a charming girl, his histrionic power was considerable, and on
+both accounts he was much in demand at school theatricals; moreover,
+his voice had not yet broken, and when he desired to do so he could
+speak with lady-like softness and precision.
+
+"Who's the chap that read the second lesson?" he asked Ger, who proudly
+walked between the twins on their way from church.  Ger adored the
+twins.
+
+"He's the muddy young man who came last Sunday," Ger answered promptly.
+Proud to be able to afford information, he continued, "His aunt's our
+nice Miss Gallup, and he's going to get in at the Election, nurse says."
+
+"Oh, is he?" cried Uz, whose political views were the result of strong
+conviction unbiassed by reflection.  "We'll see about that."
+
+"I feel," Buz murmured dreamily, "that it is my duty to find out that
+young man's views on Female Suffrage.  The women in this district
+appear to me sadly indifferent as to this important question.  It's
+doubtful if any of them will tackle him.  Now I'm well up in it just
+now, owing to that rotten debate last term."
+
+"When that long-winded woman jawed for nearly an hour, d'you mean?"
+asked Uz "Exactly.  I never dreamt she would come in useful, but you
+never know."
+
+"Shall you call?" Uz gurgled delightedly.  "Where'll you get the
+clothes?  Mary's would be too big, besides everyone about here knows
+'em, they're so old, and she'd never lend you anything decent.'
+
+"I shouldn't ask her if I really wanted them; but in this instance I
+scorn the mouldy garments of Sister Mary."
+
+"Whose'll you get?" Uz asked curiously.
+
+"My son," Buz rejoined, "I shall be like the king's daughter in the
+Psalms.  Never you fear for my appearance.  As our dear French prose
+book would remark: 'The grandmother of the young man so attractive has
+a maid French, of the heart excellent, and of the habits most chic.'"
+
+"You mean Adèle will lend them?"
+
+"You bet.  She says I speak her tongue to the marvel, is it not?"
+
+
+On Boxing-Day Eloquent called upon as many of the vote-possessing
+inhabitants of Redmarley as could be got in before his aunt's early
+dinner.  He found but few at home, for on that morning there is always
+a meet in the market-place at Marlehouse, and the male portion of the
+inhabitants is sporting both by inclination and tradition.  He found
+the wives, however, and on the whole they were gracious to him.  His
+visit pleased, for the then member, Mr Brooke, had not been near
+Redmarley for years, and left the whole constituency to his agent, who
+was nearly as slack as the member for Marlehouse himself.
+
+Eloquent, who had by no means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage,
+was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as
+breathed its name.  His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith
+led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him
+pause.  He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the
+anti-suffrage party.  As his old father was wont to remark cautiously,
+"You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly
+discovered his whereabouts.
+
+He ate his cold turkey with an excellent appetite, feeling that he had
+spent a useful if arduous morning.  The give-and-take of ordinary
+conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this
+occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite
+talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable
+impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for
+his success in the Election.  His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas
+Day had filled her with forebodings.
+
+In the afternoon he devoted himself to his correspondence.  His aunt
+gave up the parlour to him and went out to see her friends, while he
+sat in stately solitude at a table covered with papers plainly
+parliamentary in kind.
+
+For about an hour he worked on undisturbed.  Presently he heard the
+front gate creak, and looking up beheld a bicycle, a lady's bicycle,
+propped against the garden wall.  Someone rapped loudly at the front
+door, and whoever it was had hard knuckles, for there was no knocker.
+
+Presently Em'ly-Alice, Miss Gallup's little maid, appeared holding a
+card between her finger and thumb, and announced--"A young lady come to
+see you, please, sir."
+
+For one mad moment Eloquent thought it might perhaps be Mary with some
+message for his aunt, but the card disillusioned him.  It was a very
+shiny card, and on it was written in ink in round, very distinct
+writing--
+
+"Miss Elsmaria Buttermish."
+
+He had barely time to take this in before Miss Buttermish herself
+appeared.
+
+"I'm glad to have found you at home, Mr Gallup," she announced easily;
+"I come on behalf of our beloved leaders to obtain a clear statement of
+your views as to 'Votes for Women,' for on those views a great deal
+depends.  Kindly state them as clearly and concisely as you can."
+
+Miss Buttermish drew up a chair to the table, sat down and produced a
+note-book and pencil; while Eloquent, speechless with astonishment and
+dismay, stood on the other side of it holding the shiny visiting-card
+in his hand.
+
+Miss Buttermish tapped with her pencil on the table and regarded him
+enquiringly.
+
+Apparently quite young, she was also distinctly pleasing to the eye.
+She wore an exceedingly well cut, heavily braided black coat and skirt,
+the latter of the tightest and skimpiest type of a skimpy period.  Her
+hat was of the extinguisher order, entirely concealing her hair, except
+that just in the front a few soft curls were vaguely visible upon her
+forehead.  A very handsome elderly-looking black fox stole threw up the
+whiteness of her rounded chin in strong relief, and her eyes looked
+large and mysterious through the meshes of her most becoming veil.
+Eloquent was conscious of a certain familiarity in her appearance.  He
+was certain that he had seen her before somewhere, and couldn't recall
+either time or place.
+
+"I'm waiting, Mr Gallup," she remarked pleasantly.  "You must have made
+up your mind one way or other upon this important question, and it will
+save both my time and your own if you state your views--may I say, as
+briefly as possible."
+
+Eloquent gasped . . . "I fear," he said, "that I have by no means made
+up my mind with any sort of finality--it is such a large
+question. . . .  I have not yet had time to go into it as thoroughly as
+I could wish. . . .  There is so much to be said on both sides."
+
+"There," Miss Buttermish interrupted, "you are mistaken; there is
+_nothing_ to be said for the '_antis_.'  Their arguments are
+positively . . . footling."
+
+"I cannot," Eloquent said stiffly, "agree with you."
+
+"Sit down, Mr Gallup," Miss Buttermish said kindly, at the same time
+getting up and seating herself afresh on a corner of the sofa.  "We've
+got to thresh this matter out, and you've got to make up your mind
+whether you are for or against us.  You are young, and I think that you
+hardly realise the forces that will be arrayed against _you_ if you
+join hands with Mr Asquith on this question."
+
+Miss Buttermish sat up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa,
+and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather
+like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess.  The
+allusion to his youth rankled.  He did not sit down, but stood where he
+was, staring darkly at his guest.  After a very perceptible pause he
+said:
+
+"It is impossible for me to give you a definite opinion . . ."
+
+"It's not an _opinion_ I want," Miss Buttermish interrupted scornfully,
+"it's a definite guarantee.  Otherwise, young man, you may make up your
+mind to incessant interruption and . . . to various other annoyances
+which I need not enumerate.  We don't care a bent pin whether you are a
+Liberal or a Tory or a red-hot Socialist, so long as you are sound on
+the Suffrage question.  If you are in favour of 'Votes for Women,' then
+we'll help you; if not . . . I advise you to put up your shutters."
+
+Eloquent flushed angrily and, strangely enough, so did Miss Buttermish
+at the same moment.  In fact, no sooner had she spoken the last
+sentence than she looked extremely hot and uncomfortable.
+
+"I see no use," he said coldly, "in prolonging this interview.  I
+cannot give you the guarantee you wish for.  It is not my custom to
+make up my mind upon any question of political importance without
+considerable research and much thought.  Intimidation would never turn
+me from my course if, after such investigation, I should decide against
+your cause.  Nor would any annoyance your party may inflict upon me
+now, affect my support of your cause should I, ultimately, come to
+believe in its justice."
+
+Miss Buttermish rose.  "Mr Gallup," she said solemnly, "there is at
+present a very wide-spread discontent among us.  Till we get the vote
+we shall manifest that discontent, and I warn you that the lives of
+members of Parliament and candidates who are not avowedly on our side
+will be made"--here Miss Buttermish swallowed  hastily . . . "most
+unpleasant.  Those that are not for us are against us, and . . . we are
+very much up against them.  I am sorry we should part in anger . . ."
+
+"Pardon me," Eloquent interrupted, "there is no anger on my side.  I
+respect your opinions even though as yet I may not wholly share them."
+
+Miss Buttermish shook her head.  "I'm really sorry for you," she
+murmured; "you are young, and you little know what you are letting
+yourself in for."
+
+Eloquent opened the parlour door for her with stiff politeness, and she
+passed out with bent head and shoulders that trembled under the heavy
+fur.  Surely this militant young person was not going to cry!
+
+He followed her in some anxiety down to the garden gate, held it open
+for her to pass through, which she did in absolute silence, and he
+waited to watch her mount her bicycle.
+
+This she did in a very curious fashion.  She started to run with it,
+leapt lightly on one pedal, and then, to Eloquent's amazement, essayed
+to throw her other leg over like a boy.
+
+The lady's skirt was tight, the Redmarley roads were extremely muddy,
+the unexpected jerk caused the bicycle to skid, and lady and bicycle
+came down sideways with considerable violence.
+
+"Damn!" exclaimed Miss Buttermish.
+
+"Oh, those modern girls!" thought the shocked Eloquent as he ran
+forward to assist.  He pulled the bicycle off Miss Buttermish, and
+stood it against the wall.  She sat up, her hat very much on one side.
+
+"Do you know," she said rather huskily, "I do believe I've broken my
+confounded arm."
+
+She held out her left hand to Eloquent, who pulled her to her feet.
+Her right arm hung helpless, and even through her bespattered veil he
+could see that she was very white.
+
+"Pray come in and rest for a little," he said concernedly, "and we can
+see what has happened."
+
+"I'm sure it's broken, I heard the beastly thing snap----" the girl
+stumbled blindly, Eloquent caught her in his arms, and saw that she had
+fainted from pain.
+
+He carried her into the house and laid her on the horsehair sofa, put a
+cushion under her arm, and seizing the large scissors that his orderly
+aunt kept hanging on a hook at the side of the fire, cut her jacket
+carefully along the seam from wrist to shoulder.  She wore a very
+mannish, coloured flannel shirt.  This sleeve, too, he cut, and
+disclosed a thin arm, extremely brown nearly to the elbow, and very
+fair and white above, but the elbow was distorted and discoloured; a
+bad break, Eloquent decided, with mischief at the joint as well
+probably.  He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head.
+It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him.  With
+his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened
+her heavy furs.  Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the
+while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria."  She looked
+pathetically young and helpless lying there.  Eloquent forgot her
+militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain.  As he
+knelt down by the sofa to sponge her face he started so violently that
+he upset a great deal of the water he had brought.
+
+It was already growing dark, but even in the dim light as he looked
+closely at Miss Buttermish without her hat, her likeness to Mary
+Ffolliot was striking.  She wore her hair cropped close.  "Could she
+have been in prison?" thought Eloquent, remembering how light she was
+when he carried her in.
+
+With hands that trembled somewhat he pushed the wet curly hair back
+from the forehead so like Mary's.  There were the same wide brow, the
+same white eyelids with the sweeping arch and thick dark lashes, the
+delicate high-bridged nose and well-cut, kindly mouth; the same pure
+oval in the line of cheek and chin.
+
+Certainly an extraordinary resemblance.  She must at least be a cousin;
+and, in spite of his sincere commiseration of the young lady's
+suffering, he felt a jubilant thrill in the reflection that this
+accident must bring him into further contact with the Ffolliots.
+
+There was no brandy in the house, for both he and his aunt were total
+abstainers, so he fetched a glass of water and held it to the young
+lady's lips as she opened her eyes.  She drank eagerly, looked
+searchingly at him, then she glanced down at her bare arm and the cut
+sleeve.  The colour flooded her face, and with real horror in her voice
+she exclaimed, "You've never gone and _cut_ that jacket!"
+
+"I had to.  Your arm ought to be set at once, and goodness knows where
+the doctor may be to-day.  You'd best be taken to Marlehouse Infirmary,
+I think; it's a bad break."
+
+"But it's her best coat, quite new," Miss Buttermish persisted
+fretfully, "quite new; you'd no business to go and cut it.  I promised
+to take such care of it."
+
+"I'm very sorry," Eloquent replied meekly; "but it really was necessary
+that your arm should be seen to at once, and I dared not jerk it about."
+
+"Can it be mended, do you think, so that it won't show?"  There was
+real concern in her voice.
+
+"I'm sure of it," he answered, much astonished at this fuss about a
+coat at such a moment; "I cut it carefully along the seam."
+
+"I say," exclaimed Miss Buttermish, "I must get out of this"--and she
+prepared to swing her feet off the sofa--rather big feet, he noted, in
+stout golfing shoes.  Forcibly he held her legs down.
+
+"Please don't," he implored.  "You must not jar that arm any more than
+can be helped.  Shall I go up to the Manor House and get them to send a
+conveyance for you?--you really mustn't think of walking, and I don't
+know where else we could get one to-day."
+
+Miss Buttermish closed her eyes and frowned heavily.  Then in a faint
+voice--
+
+"How do you know I'm from the Manor House?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, you're very like . . . the family."
+
+"_All_ of them?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"You are very like certain members of the family I have seen," he said
+cautiously.  "May I go?  I'll send the servant to sit with you----"
+
+Miss Buttermish clutched at him violently with her left hand,
+exclaiming, "No, no--don't send anybody yet; I must get out of this
+beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . .  Look here, you're a very
+decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you--will you play the game when you
+go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes?  The
+blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll
+just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . .  Oh,
+confound . . .  I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot
+you . . . but if you _could_ not mention it . . ."
+
+Her head fell back and she nearly fainted again from pain.  Eloquent
+divested her of her skirt, and with it the last remnant of Miss
+Buttermish disappeared--a slim slip of a boy in running shorts, with
+bare knees, and a gym-belt lay prone on the sofa, very pale and
+shivering.
+
+In absolute silence Eloquent folded the skirt and the coat, and laying
+hat and furs on the top, placed them in a neat heap on a chair in the
+corner.
+
+He went to his bedroom, fetched the eiderdown off his own bed and
+covered the boy with it.  As he was tucking in the eiderdown at the
+side Buz put out a cold left hand and held him by the coat sleeve,
+saying curiously--"Are you in an awful bait? are you going to be really
+stuffy about it?"
+
+Eloquent looked straight into the quizzical grey eyes that held his.
+The boy's voice belied the eyes, for it was anxious.
+
+"Of course not," he said quite seriously, "I'm only too sorry your
+trick should have had such a disastrous conclusion.  Who shall I ask
+for up at the house, and what shall I do with the things?"
+
+"Oh take them with you--could you?  Give 'em to Fusby, and tell him to
+put them in their rooms--the furs are granny's.  He'll do it and never
+say a word; decent old chap, Fusby.  I say, I'm awfully sorry to be
+such a nuisance.  I'm certain I could walk home if you'll let me."
+
+"That you certainly must not do, I'll go at once.  Here's the
+hand-bell.  I'll tell the maid that she is to come if you ring.  I
+expect my aunt will be in directly--I'll be as quick as I can--cheer
+up."
+
+Eloquent bustled about putting the remains of Miss Buttermish tidily
+into his suit-case while the grey eyes followed his movements with
+amused interest.
+
+"I'm most awfully obliged," said Buz in a very low voice; "I do feel
+such an ass lying here."
+
+There was a murmur of voices in the passage.  The front door was closed
+with quiet decorum and the little sitting-room grew darker.  Two big
+tears rolled over and Buz sniffed helplessly, for his handkerchief was
+in the pocket of the jacket lately worn with such gay impudence by Miss
+Elsmaria Buttermish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE THIN END
+
+Eloquent rode the bicycle left outside by Miss Buttermish, rode
+carefully, bearing the suit-case in his left hand.  The village was
+quite deserted and he reached the great gates of the Manor House
+unchallenged.  The gates stood open and he entered the dark shadowy
+drive without having encountered a living soul.  Lights gleamed from
+the lower windows of the house, but the porch was in darkness.  He rang
+loudly, and Fusby, the old manservant, switched on the light as he
+opened the door and revealed a square, oak-panelled room and the
+warning cards.  The inner door leading to the hall was closed, but the
+sound of cheerful voices reached Eloquent.
+
+Fusby stood expectant, and in spite of his imperturbable and almost
+benedictory manner he looked mildly surprised.
+
+"Is Mrs Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked rather breathlessly.
+
+"She is, sir," Fusby answered, but in a tone that subtly conveyed the
+unspoken "to some people," fixing his eyes the while on the suitcase.
+
+"Do you think she could speak to me here?" Eloquent continued humbly.
+
+"I think not, sir; the mistress at present is dispensing tea to the
+fam'ly.  She does not as a rule see people at the door.  Can I take a
+message?"
+
+"I fear I must disturb her," said Eloquent, conscious all the time that
+Fusby's mild gaze was concentrated on the suit-case.  "One of her
+sons"--for the life of him he couldn't remember the boy's ridiculous
+name--"has broken his arm."
+
+"Master Buz, sir?" asked Fusby, quite unmoved by the intelligence;
+"it's generally 'im."
+
+"Yes, Master Buz, and he asked me to give you this. . . .  It's some
+things of his.  I'll send for the suit-case--put it out of the way
+somewhere--he was dressed up . . . these are the clothes----"
+
+"He will 'ave 'is frolic," Fusby murmured indulgently; "a very
+light-'earted young gentleman he is--step this way, please, sir."
+
+Fusby opened a door behind him, and announced in the voice of one
+issuing an edict, "Mr Gallup."
+
+There seemed to Eloquent crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered
+about a round table near the fire.  He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the
+very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the
+hearthrug warming his coat tails.  Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea
+into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of
+Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire
+from Mrs Ffolliot.  These four were clear to him as he came into the
+hall.  There was a fire of logs in the open fireplace and a good many
+lights, and Eloquent, coming out of the soft darkness of that winter
+afternoon, felt dazzled and intolerably hot.
+
+The four people he saw first suddenly seemed to recede to an
+immeasurable distance, and he became conscious of others whom he could
+not focus.  His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he was
+conscious that at his entrance dead silence had fallen upon the group
+by the fire.  Then Mrs Ffolliot rose and held out a kind fair hand to
+him, and said something that he could not hear.  Somehow he reached the
+succouring hand and clung to it like a drowning man, mumbling the
+while, "Sorry to intrude upon you, but one of your sons"--again the
+name eluded him--"has broken his arm, and he's in my aunt's cottage."
+
+"Look at Ganpie's tea!" exclaimed a shrill clear voice, and the Kitten
+diverted attention from Eloquent to the General, who was calmly pouring
+the tea from his newly filled cup upon the bear-skin hearthrug, as he
+gazed fixedly at this bringer of ill-tidings.
+
+Eloquent could never remember clearly what happened between the dual
+announcement of the accident and the spilling of the General's tea,
+till the moment when he found himself sitting on the settle beside Mrs
+Grantly with a cup of tea of his own, which Mary had poured out.
+Everyone else seemed to have melted away, Mrs Ffolliot to telephone to
+the doctor, the General to order his motor, the Kitten and Ger to the
+nursery, and the rest of the party to the four winds.
+
+But he, Mrs Grantly, and Mary were still sitting at the fire, and Mary
+had asked him if he took sugar.
+
+"Two lumps," he said.
+
+"So do I," said Mary, and it seemed a most wonderful coincidence of
+kindred tastes.
+
+In thinking it over afterwards it struck him that the whole family took
+the accident very coolly.  There was no fuss, very little exclamation;
+and to Eloquent, sitting as a guest in that old hall where, as a small
+boy, he had sometimes peeped wonderingly, there came a curious feeling
+that either he had dreamt of this moment or that it had all happened
+aeons of ages ago, and that if it was a dream then Mary was in a dream
+too, that he had always wanted her, been conscious of her, only then
+she was an immense way off; vaguely beautiful and desirable, but set in
+a luminous haze of impossibilities, remote, apart as a star.
+
+Now she was friendly and approachable, only a few yards away, looking
+across at him with frank kind eyes and the firelight shining on her
+bright hair.
+
+The time seemed all too short till Mrs Ffolliot, dressed for driving,
+in a long fur coat, came back to tell them that the doctor was at a
+case five miles off, at a house where there was no telephone, and that
+she had arranged to take Buz into the Marlehouse Infirmary to have the
+arm set there, and, if necessary, he must stay there till he could be
+moved. . . .
+
+"Could they drive Mr Gallup back?"
+
+So there was nothing for it but to accompany the General and Mrs
+Ffolliot.
+
+Mr Ffolliot did not appear at all.
+
+General Grantly went outside with the chauffeur, and Eloquent again
+experienced the queer dream-like sense of doing again something he had
+done already as he followed Mrs Ffolliot into the motor.  He had never
+lost his awestruck admiration for her, and it never occurred to him to
+sit down at her side.  He was about to put down one of the little seats
+and sit on that, when she said, "Oh, please, sit here, Mr Gallup," and
+he sank into the seat beside her, confused and tremulous.  Mary and Mrs
+Grantly had come into the porch with them, and stood there now calling
+out all sorts of messages and questions.  The inner door stood open,
+and the hall shone bright behind them.
+
+The motor purred and slid swiftly down the drive.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot switched off the light behind her head, and Eloquent
+became conscious of a soft pervading scent of violets.  The twenty
+years that lay between her first visit to his father's shop and this
+wonderful new nearness seemed to him but as one short link in a chain
+of inevitable circumstances.  Like a picture thrown on a screen he saw
+the little boy standing at her knee, the giggling shop assistants, and
+his father flushed and triumphant.  And he knew that through all the
+years he had always been sure that such a moment as this would come,
+when he would sit beside her as an equal and a friend. . . .  And here
+he was, sitting with her in her father's motor, sharing the same fur
+rug.  What was she saying?
+
+Something kind about the trouble he had taken . . . and the motor
+stopped at his aunt's gate.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Uz was in the midst of a large bite of plum-cake when Eloquent
+announced his errand.  Uz hastily took another bite, and just as the
+Kitten drew attention to her grandfather's tea he quietly opened the
+door of the hall, shut it after him softly, did the same by the front
+door, and hatless, coatless, and in his pumps--for his boots were
+exceedingly dirty, and Nana had caught him and turned him back to
+change before tea--he started down the drive at a good swinging run.
+His wind was excellent, and he reached Miss Gallup's gate in about five
+minutes.  Only once had he stopped, when the piece of cake he was
+carrying broke off short and dropped in the mud; he peered about for it
+during some four seconds, then gave it up and ran on.
+
+The lamp was lit in Miss Gallup's sitting-room, but the blind was not
+pulled down.  He looked in at the window and saw his brother lying on
+the sofa under the eiderdown, opened the front door--no one ever locks
+a door in Redmarley unless they go out, and then the key is always
+under the scraper--and walked in.
+
+"Hullo," said Buz; "isn't this rotten?"
+
+"Little man's just come, so I did a bunk.  I didn't wait to hear his
+revelations about the lovely suffragette----"
+
+"I don't believe he'll tell," Buz said; "he's not a bad little chap, he
+wasn't a bit shirty, helped me out of those beastly clothes and never
+said a word; took them with him too, so's they shouldn't be found here.
+I say, by the way, tell Adèle to get the jacket mended and I'll pay it
+whenever I can get any money.  I'm frightfully sorry about that--he cut
+the sleeve right up to get my arm out.  Who got the togs?"
+
+"I don't know, he hadn't 'em when he came in----"
+
+"Gave 'em to Fusby, I expect; he'll see they're properly
+distributed----"
+
+"What happened, did you have a lark?"
+
+"He rose like anything," Buz chuckled delightedly.  "Chuck us your
+handkerchief, old chap, mine's in that coat--I'm only sorry for one
+thing."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I told him if he wouldn't declare for Votes for Women he'd better put
+up his shutters, and I know he thought I meant to rub it in about his
+father's shop--I didn't, it would have been beastly; but I'm certain he
+thought so by the way he flushed up.  He's a game little beggar, he
+wouldn't give in, or palaver or promise. . . .  Hullo, here's two more
+of the family----"
+
+The two more were Reggie Peel and Grantly.  The Ffolliots were not
+demonstrative, but they always shared good-luck or ill, therefore
+Reggie and Grantly made a bee-line for Miss Gallup's cottage whenever
+they understood what had happened.  They knew nothing of Miss
+Buttermish, and neither of the younger boys enlightened them.
+
+Miss Gallup returned to find her parlour full of Ffolliots; and just
+after her came her nephew, accompanied by General Grantly and Mrs
+Ffolliot, who bore Buz away in the motor to Marlehouse wrapped in a
+blanket and with the broken arm in a sling.
+
+When they had all gone--the motor towards Marlehouse, the three others
+to the Manor--Eloquent stood at the open gate for a minute or two and
+then went out, shutting it after him very softly, so that neither the
+three walking up the road, nor his aunt waiting at her open door,
+should hear.  Then he, too, set off in the direction of Marlehouse.  He
+had no intention whatever of walking there, but he could not face his
+aunt just then, nor bear the torrent of questions and comments that he
+knew would submerge him.
+
+The last hour had been for him an epoch-making, a profound experience,
+and he wanted, as his aunt would have said, "to squeege his orange dry."
+
+A course of action intensely irritating to Miss Gallup, who awaited his
+return, after seeing the Ffolliots off, with the utmost impatience.
+
+"Wherever could he have got to?"
+
+Em'ly-Alice, however, was longing to be questioned, and Miss Gallup
+indulged her.
+
+"How did the poor young gentleman break his arm?"
+
+"Fell off 'is bike, 'e did, and it must 'ave bin but a minute or two
+after the young lady'd gone----
+
+"Young lady!  What young lady?" Miss Gallup demanded sternly.
+
+"A young lady as come to see Mr Gallup.  Miss Buttermish was 'er name;
+I remember it most pertikler, because I thought what a funny name."
+
+"Buttermish, Buttermish," Miss Gallup repeated; "where did she come
+from?"
+
+"That I can't tell you, Miss; I was in the kitchen polishing the teapot
+for your tea when there comes a knock at the door, and when I opens it,
+there stood the young lady.  'Can I see Mr Gallup?' she says, and
+knowing he was in the parlour I as't her in.  She didn't stop long and
+no sooner was she gone than I hears Mr Gallup runnin' upstairs an' in
+and out, and presently 'e called out, 'Master Ffolliot's broken 'is
+arm,' and went off in ever such an 'urry.  I see 'im run down the
+garden, and 'e 'ad 'is portmanteau in 'is 'and----"
+
+"Nonsense," Miss Gallup said crossly; "what would he be doing with a
+portmanteau?"
+
+"That I can't say, mum, but 'e 'ad it, and when 'e'd gone I took the
+lamp in to the poor young gentleman wot was lyin' all 'uddled up on the
+sofa--'e said 'thank you' in a muffled voice that mournful, and I made
+up the fire and waited a minute but 'e didn't say no more, so I come
+away, an' in a few minutes the 'ouse seemed chock-full o' people.
+Where they come from passes me----"
+
+"Well, get tea now, as quick as you can.  I can't think where Mr Gallup
+can have got to."
+
+Miss Gallup lit a candle and went straight upstairs to her nephew's
+room.  His clothes were still in the drawers as she, herself, had
+arranged them--but the suit-case, the smart new leather suit-case, with
+E. A. G. in large black letters upon its lid, was gone.
+
+Miss Gallup sank heavily on a chair.  What could it mean?
+
+She immediately connected the advent of the strange young lady and the
+disappearance of her nephew's suit-case.
+
+She took off her bonnet and cloak and did not put them away, but left
+them lying on her bed; a sure sign of perturbation with Miss Gallup,
+who was the tidiest of mortals.
+
+She sought Em'ly-Alice in the bright little kitchen.  "What was the
+young lady like?" she asked.
+
+"Oh a superior young person, Miss, all in black."
+
+"Young, was she?" Miss Gallup remarked suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, Miss, quite young, I should say--about my own age; I couldn't see
+'er face very well, but she did talk like the gentry, very soft and
+distinct."
+
+"Did Mr Gallup seem pleased to see her?"
+
+"That I couldn't say, Miss, I'm sure.  I left 'em together and come out
+and shut the door."
+
+Miss Gallup went back to the parlour shaking her head.
+
+"There's a lot of them will be after him now 'e's stood for
+Parliament," she reflected grimly; "but I did _not_ think they'd have
+the face to track him to his aunt's house.  She's hanging about the
+lanes for him now I'll warrant.  Miss Buttermish indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ELECTION
+
+Eloquent had taken a small furnished house in Marlehouse, and was
+installed there with a housekeeper and manservant for the fortnight
+preceding the election.  The Moonstone, chief, and in fact only, hotel
+in the town, was "blue," and although the proprietor would have been
+glad enough to secure Eloquent's custom, it was felt better "for all
+parties" that he should make his headquarters elsewhere.  He worked
+hard and unceasingly, his agent was equally tireless, and it was only
+at the last that Mr Brooke's supporters awoke to the fact that if he
+was to represent Marlehouse again no stone should be left unturned.
+But it was too late: Mr Brooke, elderly, amiable, and lethargic, was
+quite incapable of either directing or controlling his more ardent
+supporters, and their efforts on his behalf were singularly devoid of
+tact.  The Tory and Unionist ladies were grievous offenders in this
+respect.  They started a house-to-house canvass in the town, and those
+possessed of carriages or motors parcelled out the surrounding villages
+and "did" them, their methods being the reverse of conciliatory.
+Indeed, had Mr Brooke in the smallest degree realised how these zealous
+supporters were injuring his cause, his smiling optimism would have
+been sadly shaken.
+
+The day after the accident Eloquent called at Marlehouse Infirmary to
+ask for Buz, and was informed that the arm had been set successfully,
+that it was a bad break, but that the Rontgen rays had been used, and
+it was going on satisfactorily.
+
+He wondered if he ought to send flowers or fruit to the invalid, but a
+vivid recollection of the look in Buz's eyes as he watched him pack his
+suit-case decided him that any such manifestation of sympathy would be
+unsuitable.  He then, although he was so rushed that he could hardly
+overtake his engagements, hired a motor to drive out to the Manor
+House, and so hurried the chauffeur that they fell straightway into a
+police trap and were "warned."
+
+He asked for Mrs Ffolliot, and Fusby blandly informed him that she was
+in Marlehouse with Master Buz.
+
+"Is Miss Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked boldly.
+
+"Miss Ffolliot is out huntin' with the young gentlemen," Fusby remarked
+stiffly.
+
+So Eloquent was fain to get into his motor again, and quite forgot to
+look in on his aunt on the way back.
+
+The night before the election there was a Liberal meeting in the Town
+Hall, and a certain section of the Tory party, a youthful and
+irresponsible section it must be confessed, had arranged to attend the
+meeting, and if possible bring it to nought.  The ringleader in this
+scheme was a young man named Rabbich, whose people some years before
+had bought a large property in a village about four miles from
+Redmarley.
+
+Mr Rabbich, senr., was an extremely wealthy man with many irons in the
+fire, a man so busy that he found little time to look after either his
+property or his family, and though he, himself, was generally declared
+to be a "very decent sort" with no nonsense or "side" about him, and of
+a praiseworthy liberality in the matter of subscriptions, his wife and
+children did not find equal favour either in the eyes of the villagers
+or those of his neighbours.
+
+Mrs Rabbich was a foolish woman whose fetich was society with a big
+"S," and she idolised her only son, a rather vacuous youth who had just
+managed to scrape into Sandhurst.
+
+On the night before the election then, young Rabbich gave a dinner at
+the Moonstone to some twenty youths of his own age, and Grantly
+Ffolliot was of the party.  Grantly did not like young Rabbich, and as
+a rule steered clear of him in the hunting-field and elsewhere, though
+civil enough if actually brought into contact with him.  But though
+Grantly did not like young Rabbich, he dearly loved any form of "rag,"
+and as party feeling ran very high just then, the chance of disturbing
+the last Liberal meeting before the election was far too entrancing to
+be missed.  He obtained his father's permission to go to the dinner (Mr
+Ffolliot was never difficult when his sons asked for permission to go
+from home), told his mother he would be late, obtained the key of the
+side door from Fusby, and quite unintentionally left his family under
+the impression that he was dining at the Rabbich's.
+
+Mine host of the Moonstone provided an excellent dinner, and young
+Rabbich kept calling for more champagne, so that it was a very
+hilarious and somewhat unsteady party that presently, in a solid
+phalanx, got wedged in at the very back of the Town Hall, which was
+filled to overflowing.  Twenty noisy young men in evening clothes, and
+all together, made a fairly conspicuous feature in the meeting, and the
+crowd, which was almost wholly Liberal in its sympathies, guessed they
+were out for trouble.
+
+During the first couple of speeches, which were short and introductory,
+they were fairly quiet, only indulging in occasional derisive comments.
+When Eloquent arose to address the meeting he was greeted by such a
+storm of cheering from his supporters, as quite drowned the hisses and
+cat-calls of the "knuts" at the back of the hall.
+
+But when he started to speak, their interruptions were incessant,
+irrelevant, and in the case of young Rabbich, offensive.
+
+Eloquent, who was long-sighted, clearly perceived Grantly Ffolliot,
+flushed, with rumpled hair and gesticulating arms, in the group at the
+back of the hall.  Young Rabbich, whose father had made the greater
+part of his money in butter and bacon, kept urging Eloquent to "go back
+to the shop," inquired the present price of socks and pyjamas, and
+whether the clothes he wore just then were made in Germany?
+
+Eloquent saw Grantly Ffolliot frown and say something to his companion
+as young Rabbich continued his questions, and then quite suddenly the
+whole of that end of the hall was in a turmoil, and one by one the
+interrupters were hauled from their seats and forcibly ejected from the
+meeting, in spite of desperate resistance on their part.  After that,
+peace was restored, and Eloquent continued his speech amidst the
+greatest enthusiasm.
+
+His supporters cheered him to his house, and then departed to parade
+the town, while their band played "Hearts of Oak," the chosen war-song
+of the "Yallows."  Meanwhile the Rabbich party had returned to the
+Moonstone to compare their bruises and to get more drinks, and then
+they sallied forth again to join a "Blue" procession, headed by a band
+that played "Bonnie Dundee," which is the battle-cry of the Blues.
+
+The rival bands met, the rival processions met and locked, and there
+was a regular shindy.  Eloquent, very tired and rather depressed, as a
+man usually is on the eve of any great struggle, heard the distant
+tumult and the shouting, and thought he had better go out and see what
+was afoot.
+
+He had hardly got outside his own front door, which was in a
+little-frequented street not far from the police-station, when he saw
+two policemen on either side of a hatless, dishevelled, and unsteady
+youth, who held one of them affectionately by the arm while the other
+held him.
+
+Another glance and he perceived that the hatless one was Grantly
+Ffolliot.
+
+"Hullo!" cried Eloquent, "what's to do here?"
+
+"Gentleman very disorderly, sir, throwing stones at windows of your
+committee-room, fighting and brawling, and resisted violently--so we're
+taking him to the station."
+
+"He seems quiet enough now," Eloquent suggested.
+
+Grantly smiled at him sleepily.  "Good chaps, policemen," he murmured;
+"fine beefy chaps."
+
+"Look here," said Eloquent, "I'd much prefer you didn't charge him.
+His people are well known; it will only create ill-feeling.  I'll look
+after him if you leave him with me."
+
+The policemen looked at one another. . . .  "Of course," said the one
+to whom Grantly clung so lovingly, "we couldn't swear as it was him who
+threw the stones, though he was among them as did."
+
+"He's only a boy," Eloquent continued, "and he's drunk . . . it would
+be a pity to make a public example of him . . . just now--don't you
+think?--If you could oblige me in this . . .  I'm very anxious that the
+election should be fought with as little ill-feeling as possible."
+
+Something changed hands.
+
+"What about the other young gentlemen, sir?" asked the younger
+policeman.
+
+"With the other young gentlemen," Eloquent said ruthlessly, "you can
+deal exactly as you please, but if it can be managed don't charge any
+of them."
+
+With difficulty policeman number one detached himself from Grantly's
+embrace and handed him over to Eloquent.
+
+"Good-bye, old chap," Grantly called fondly as his late prop departed,
+"when I'm as heavy as you, you won't cop me so easy--eh, what?"
+
+Eloquent took the boy firmly by the arm and led him in.  His steps were
+uncertain and his speech was thick, but he was quite biddable, and
+brimming over with loving kindness for all the world.
+
+Eloquent took him into the sitting-room and placed him in a large
+arm-chair.  Grantly pushed his hair off his forehead and gazed about
+the room in rather bewildered fashion, at the round table strewn with
+papers, at the tray with a glass of milk and plate of sandwiches
+standing on the bare little sideboard, at his pale, fagged host, who
+stood on the hearthrug looking down at him.
+
+As he met Eloquent's stern gaze he smiled sweetly at him, and he was so
+like Mary when he smiled that Eloquent turned his eyes away in very
+shame.  It seemed sacrilege even to think of her in connection with
+anything so degraded and disgusting as Grantly's state appeared to him
+at that moment.  His Nonconformist conscience awoke and fairly shouted
+at him that he should have interfered to prevent the just retribution
+that had overtaken this miserable misguided boy . . . but he was her
+brother; he was the son of that gracious lady who was set as a fixed
+star in the firmament of his admirations; he could not hold back when
+there was a chance of saving him from this disgrace.  For to be charged
+with being "drunk and disorderly" in the Police Court appeared to
+Eloquent just then as the lowest depths of ignominy.
+
+"Now what in the world," he asked presently, "am I to do with you?  You
+can't go home in that state."
+
+"Bed, my dear chap, bed's what I'm for, . . . so sleepy, can hardly
+hold up my head . . . any shake-down'll do----"
+
+Grantly's head fell back against the chair, and he closed his eyes in
+proof of his somnolence.
+
+"All right," said Eloquent, "you come with me."
+
+With some difficulty he got Grantly upstairs and into his own room.
+Before the meeting he had told the servants they need not sit up for
+him; his own was the only other bed made up in the house.  Grantly lay
+down upon it, muddy boots and all, and turned sideways with a sigh of
+satisfaction; but just before he settled off he opened his eyes and
+said warningly:
+
+"I say, if I was you I wouldn't go about with young Rabbich--he's a
+wrong 'un--you may take it from me, he really is--he'll do you no
+good--Don't you be seen about with him."
+
+"Thank you," Eloquent said dryly, "I will follow your advice."
+
+"That's right," Grantly murmured, "never be 'bove taking advice."
+
+And in another minute he was fast asleep.  Eloquent covered him with a
+railway rug, thinking grimly the while that it seemed to have become
+his mission in life to cover up prostrated Ffolliots.
+
+He went downstairs, made up the fire, and lay down on the hard sofa in
+his dining-room, and slept an intermittent feverish sleep, in which
+dreadful visions of Mary between two policemen, mingled with the
+declaration of the poll, which proclaimed Mr Brooke to have been
+elected member for Marlehouse by an enormous majority.
+
+At six o'clock he got up.  In half an hour his servants would be
+stirring, and Grantly must be got out of the house before they appeared.
+
+He went to the kitchen, got a little teapot and cups, and made some
+tea.  Then he went to rouse Grantly.
+
+This was difficult, as he couldn't raise his voice very much because of
+the servants, and Grantly was sleeping heavily.  At last, by a series
+of shakes and soft punches, he succeeded in making him open his eyes.
+Eloquent had already turned up the gas, and the room was full of light.
+
+There is a theory extant that a man shows his real character when he is
+suddenly aroused out of sleep.  That if he is naturally surly, he will
+be surly then; if he is of an amiable disposition, he is good-natured
+then.
+
+Grantly sat up with a start and swung his feet off the bed.  "Mr
+Gallup," he said very gently, "I can't exactly remember what I'm doing
+here, but I do apologise."
+
+"That's all right," Eloquent said awkwardly.  "I thought perhaps you'd
+like to get home before the servants were about, and it's six o'clock.
+Come and have a cup of tea."
+
+"May I wash my face?" Grantly asked meekly.
+
+This accomplished, he went downstairs and drank the cup of tea Eloquent
+had provided for him.  His host lent him a bicycle and speeded him on
+his way.  At the door Grantly paused to say in a mumbling voice: "I
+don't know, sir, why you've been so awfully decent to me, but will you
+remember this? that if ever I can do anything for you, it would be very
+generous of you to tell me--will you remember this?"
+
+"I will remember," said Eloquent.
+
+As Grantly rode away Eloquent was filled with self-reproach, for he had
+not said one word either of warning or rebuke, and he had been brought
+up to believe in the value of "the word in season."
+
+Grantly pedalled as hard as he could through the dark deserted roads,
+and though his head was racking and he felt, as he put it, "like
+nothing on earth," he covered the five miles between Marlehouse and
+Redmarley in under half an hour.  He went round to the side door and
+felt for the key, as he hoped to slip in without meeting any of the
+servants who were, he saw by stray lights, just astir.
+
+That key was nowhere to be found.
+
+He tried every pocket in his overcoat, his tail coat, his white
+waistcoat, his trousers, all in vain.  That key was gone; lost!
+
+There was nothing for it but to try Mary's window.  Parker slept in her
+room, but Parker would never bark at any member of the family.  All the
+bedroom windows at Redmarley were lattice, and Mary's, at the back of
+the house on the first floor, stood open about a foot.
+
+"Parker," Grantly called softly, "Parker, old chap, rouse her up and
+ask her to let me in."
+
+An old wistaria grew under the window with thick knotted stems.
+Grantly climbed up this, and although it was very dark he was aware of
+something dimly white at the window.  Parker, much longer in the leg
+than any well-bred fox-terrier has a right to be, was standing on his
+hind legs thrusting his head out in silent welcome.
+
+"Go and rouse her up, old chap," Grantly whispered.  "I want her to
+open the window wide enough for me to get through."
+
+All the windows at the Manor House, open or shut, had patent catches
+that it was impossible to undo from the outside.
+
+He heard Parker jump on Mary's bed and probably lick her face, then a
+sleepy "What is it, old dog, what's the matter?" and a soft movement as
+Mary raised herself on her elbow and switched on the light.
+
+"Mary," in a penetrating whisper, "let me in, I've lost that confounded
+key."
+
+In a moment Mary was over at the window, undid the catches, and Grantly
+scrambled through.
+
+"Grantly!" Mary exclaimed.  "What on earth is the matter?  You look
+awful."
+
+Grantly caught sight of himself in her long glass and agreed with her.
+
+He was covered with mud from head to foot, his overcoat was torn, his
+white tie was gone, his beautiful smooth hair, with the neat ripple at
+the temples, stood on end in ragged locks; in fact he was as unlike the
+"Knut" of ordinary life as he could well be.
+
+"Get into bed, Mary," he said, "you'll catch cold . . ."
+
+Mary, looking very tall in her straight white nightgown, turned slowly
+and got into bed.  "Now tell me," she said.
+
+Grantly went and sat at the end of her bed and Parker joined him,
+cuddling up against him and trying to lick his face.  It mattered
+nothing to Parker that he was ragged and dirty and disreputable;
+nothing that he might have committed any crime in the rogues' calendar.
+He was one of the family, he was home, he had evidently been in
+trouble, he needed comfort, therefore Parker made much of him.  Grantly
+felt this and was vaguely cheered.
+
+"Now," said Mary again, and switched off the light; "you can have the
+eiderdown if you're cold."
+
+"Well, if you must know," said Grantly, "we went to the Radical meeting
+and got chucked out."
+
+"Who went?  I thought you were dining with the Rabbiches."
+
+"Not _the_ Rabbiches, _a_ Rabbich, and an insufferable bounder at that;
+but he gave us a jolly good dinner, champagne flowed."
+
+"And you got drunk?  Oh, Grantly!"
+
+"Well, no; I shouldn't describe it thus crudely--like the Irishman, I
+prefer to say 'having drink taken.'"
+
+"Well, 'having drink taken'--then?"
+
+"After we were chucked out for interrupting (it _was_ a rag) we went
+back to the Moonstone."
+
+"To the Moonstone," Mary repeated; "why there?"
+
+"Because we dined there, my dear.  Young Rabbich gave the feast; it was
+all arranged beforehand.  We meant to spoil that meeting, but we began
+too soon, and they were too strong for us, and . . . he's an ass, and
+shouted out all sorts of things he shouldn't--we deserved what we got."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I'm not very clear what happened then, except that there was the most
+tremendous shindy in the street, and fur was flying like anything, and
+the next I know was two bobbies had got me, and your friend Gallup
+squared them and took me home and put me to bed . . . and here I am."
+
+"Mr Gallup," Mary repeated incredulously; "you've been to bed in his
+house?"
+
+"You've got it, my sister; lay on his bed just as I am . . . and he
+woke me at six and sent me home on his bicycle."
+
+"But why--why should he have interfered?  I should have thought he'd
+have been _glad_ for you to be taken up, interrupting his meeting and
+being on the other side . . . and everything."
+
+"Well, anyway, that's what he did, and whatever his motives may have
+been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered
+his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or
+exhortation . . .  I tell you he behaved like a gentleman.  What's to
+be done?"
+
+"Nothing," said Mary decidedly.  "You've played the fool, and by the
+mercy of Providence you've got off uncommonly cheap.  It would worry
+mother horribly if she knew, and as for father . . . well you know what
+_he_ thinks of people who can't carry their liquor like gentlemen, and
+grandfather too . . . and . . . oh, Grantly--father's not going South
+till the very end of January; he decided to-night that as the weather
+was so mild he'd wait till then.  So it would _never_ do if it was to
+come out, your life would be unbearable, all of our lives; he'd say it
+was the Grantly strain coming out--you know how he blames every bit of
+bad in us on mother's people."
+
+"I know," groaned Grantly, "I know."
+
+"Well, anyway," Mary said in quite a different tone, "there's one thing
+we've got to remember, and that is we must be uncommonly civil to that
+young man if we happen to meet him--he's put us under an obligation."
+
+"I know . . . I know, that's what I feel, and I shall never have an
+easy minute till I've done something for him . . . and I don't see
+anything I can do with the pater like he is and all.  Isn't it a
+_beastly_ state of things?"
+
+In the darkness Mary leant forward and stroked the tousled head bent
+down over Parker.
+
+"Poor old boy," she said softly, "poor old boy," and Parker licked
+something that tasted salt off the end of his nose.
+
+When Grantly left his sister's room Parker went with him.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Eloquent's housekeeper found the missing key under his bed, and he sent
+it out to the Manor House that morning, addressed to Grantly, in a
+sealed envelope by special messenger.
+
+In the evening the poll was declared in Marlehouse, and the Liberal
+candidate was elected by a majority of three hundred and forty-nine
+votes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+OF THINGS IN GENERAL
+
+The result of the election was no surprise to the defeated party.  The
+honest among them acknowledged that they deserved to be beaten, and
+they felt no personal rancour against Eloquent.
+
+If Marlehouse was unfortunate enough to be represented by a Radical,
+they preferred that the Radical should be a Marlehouse man and not some
+"carpet-bagger" imported from South Wales.  Eloquent's bearing, both
+during the contest and afterwards, was acknowledged to be modest and
+"suitable."  If he was lacking in geniality and address, he was, at all
+events, neither bumptious nor servile.  His lenity towards the youths
+who had done their best to break up his meeting and wreck his committee
+rooms had leaked out, and gained for him, if not friends, at least
+toleration among several leading Conservatives who had been his
+bitterest opponents.
+
+Mary, Grantly, and Buz Ffolliot all felt a sneaking satisfaction that
+he _had_ got in.  A satisfaction they in no wise dared to express, for
+Mr Ffolliot was really much upset at the result of the election;
+feeling it something of a personal insult that one so closely
+associated with a ready-made clothes' shop, a shop in his own nearest
+town, should represent him in Parliament.  Mr Ffolliot would have
+preferred the "carpet-bagger."
+
+Mary, who cared as little as she knew about politics, was pleased.
+Because Eloquent had been "decent" to Grantly, she was glad he had got
+what he wanted, though why he should ardently desire that particular
+thing she did not attempt to understand.  Grantly was sincerely
+grateful to Eloquent for getting him out of what would undoubtedly have
+been a most colossal row, had any hint of his conduct at Marlehouse on
+the eve of the election reached his father's ears.
+
+Neither Grantly nor Mary knew anything of the Miss Buttermish episode.
+For Buz, since the accident, was basking in the sympathy of his family,
+and had no intention of diverting the stream of favours that flowed
+over him by any revelations they might not wholly approve.  Buz,
+therefore, had his own reasons, unshared by anyone but Uz (who was
+silent as the grave in all that concerned his twin), for gratitude to
+Eloquent.  Grantly and Buz unconsciously shared a rather unwilling
+admiration for the little, common-looking man who could do a good turn
+and hold his tongue, evidently expecting neither recognition nor
+remembrance.  For Eloquent expected neither, and yet he could not
+forget the real earnestness of Grantly Ffolliot's parting words.
+
+Could such a foolish youth be trusted to mean what he said? or was it
+only the surface courtesy that seemed to come so easily to the
+"classes" Eloquent still regarded with mistrust and suspicion?
+
+He longed to test Grantly Ffolliot.
+
+An opportunity came sooner than he expected.  Parliament did not meet
+till the end of the month, and although he went to London a good deal
+on varied business, he kept on the little house in his native town,
+wrote liberal cheques for all the charities, opened a Baptist bazaar,
+and generally did his duty according to his lights and the instructions
+of his agent.
+
+In the third week of January he was asked to "kick off" at a "soccer"
+match to be held in Marlehouse.  This was rather an event, as two
+important teams from a distance were for some reason or other to play
+there.  The Marlehouse folk played "Rugger" as a rule, but this match
+was regarded in the light of a curiosity; people would come in from
+miles round, and hordes of mechanics would flock over from Garchester,
+the county town.  It was considered quite a big sporting event, and his
+agent informed Eloquent that a great honour had been done him.
+
+Eloquent appeared duly impressed and accepted the invitation.
+
+Then it occurred to him that never in his life had he seen a football
+match of any kind.
+
+Games were not compulsory at the Grammar School, and Eloquent had no
+natural inclination to play them.  When a little boy he had generally
+gone for a walk with his father or his aunt on a half-holiday.  As he
+grew older he either attended extra classes at the science school or
+read for himself notable books bearing upon the political history of
+the last fifty years.  Games had no place in his scheme of existence.
+His father, most certainly, had never played games and had no desire
+that Eloquent should do so; as for going to watch other people play
+them--such a proceeding would have been dismissed by the elder Mr
+Gallup as "foolhardy nonsense."  Serious-minded men had no time for
+such frivolity.
+
+Nevertheless it became increasingly evident to Eloquent that a large
+number of his constituents--whether they actually took part in what he
+persisted in calling "these pastimes" or not--were very keenly
+interested in watching others do so, and Eloquent was consumed by
+anxiety as to how he was to discover what it was he was expected to do.
+
+There were plenty of his political supporters who were not only able
+but would have been most willing to solve his difficulty, but he
+dreaded the inevitable confession of his ignorance.  They would be kind
+enough, he was sure of that, but would they make game of his ignorance
+afterwards?  Would they _talk_?
+
+He was pretty sure they would.
+
+Eloquent hated talk.  Grantly and Buz Ffolliot had each recognised and
+admired that quality in him, and it is possible that he had vaguely
+discerned a kindred reticence in these feather-brained boys.
+
+He distrusted all his political allies in Marlehouse in this matter of
+the kick-off.
+
+Why then should Grantly Ffolliot occur to him as a person able and
+likely to help him in this dilemma?
+
+He was pretty sure that Grantly played football.  Soldiers did these
+things, and Grantly was going to be a soldier.  A soldier, in
+Eloquent's mind, epitomised all that was useless, idle, luxurious, and
+destructive.  Mr Gallup and his friends had disapproved of the
+Transvaal War; our reverses did not affect them personally, for they
+had no friends at the front, and our long-deferred victories left them
+cold.  The flame of Eloquent's enthusiasm was fanned at school, only to
+be quenched at home by the wet blanket of his father's disapproval.
+Sturdy Miss Gallup snapped at them both, and knitted helmets and
+mittens and sent socks and handkerchiefs and cocoa to the Redmarley men
+in South Africa; and her brother gave her the socks and handkerchiefs
+out of stock, but under protest.
+
+Eloquent knew no soldiers, either officers or in the ranks.  He had
+been taught to look upon the private as almost always drawn from the
+less reputable of the working classes, and although he acknowledged
+that officers might, some of them, be hard-working and intelligent, he
+was inclined to regard them with suspicion.
+
+Suppose he did ask Grantly Ffolliot about this ridiculous kick-off, and
+Grantly went about making fun of him afterwards?
+
+"Then I shall know," he said to himself.  All the same it appeared to
+him that Grantly Ffolliot was the only possible person _to_ ask.
+
+It came about quite easily.  One morning he was coming down the steps
+of the bank in Marlehouse and saw Grantly on horseback waiting at the
+curb till someone should turn up to hold his horse while he went in.
+He had ridden in to cash a cheque for his mother.  The main street was
+very empty and no available loafer was to be seen.
+
+As Grantly caught sight of Eloquent descending the steps he smiled his
+charming smile.  "Hullo, I've never seen you since the election.
+Heartiest grats," the boy called cheerily.  Eloquent went up to him and
+held out his hand.  He looked up and down the street, no one was within
+earshot.  "I've a favour to ask you, Mr Ffolliot," he said in a low
+tone, "but you must promise to refuse at once if you have any
+objection."
+
+Grantly leant down to him, smiling more broadly than ever.  "That's
+awfully decent of you," he said, and he meant it.
+
+Again Eloquent cast an anxious look up and down the street.  "They've
+asked me to kick-off at the match on Saturday, and . . . you'll think
+me extraordinarily ignorant . . .  I've no idea what one does.  Can I
+learn in the time?"
+
+Eloquent's always rosy face was almost purple with the effort he had
+made.
+
+Grantly, on the contrary, appeared quite unmoved.  He fixed his eyes on
+his horse's left ear and said easily: "It's the simplest thing in the
+world.  All we want is a field and a ball, and we've got both at home.
+At least . . . not a soccer ball--but I don't think that matters.  When
+will you come?"
+
+"When may I come?"
+
+"Meet me this afternoon in the field next but one behind the church.
+There's never anyone there, and we'll fix it up."
+
+"All right," said Eloquent.  "Many thanks . . .  I suppose you think it
+very absurd?" he added nervously.
+
+This time Grantly did not look at Mafeking's left ear, he looked
+straight into Eloquent's uplifted eyes, saying slowly:
+
+"I don't see that I'm called upon to think anything about it.  You've
+done another kind thing in asking me.  Why should you think I don't see
+it?"
+
+And in spite of himself Eloquent mumbled, "I beg your pardon."
+
+"This afternoon then, at three-thirty sharp--good-day."
+
+A loafer hurried up at this moment and Grantly swung off his horse and
+ran up the steps into the bank.
+
+Eloquent looked after the graceful figure in the well-cut riding
+clothes and sighed--
+
+"If I'd been like himself he'd have asked me to hold his horse while he
+went in, but things being as they are, he wouldn't," he reflected
+bitterly.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Only one belonging to a large family knows how difficult it is to do
+anything by one's self.
+
+That afternoon it seemed to Grantly that each member of the Manor House
+party wanted him for something, and he offended every one of them by
+ungraciously refusing to accompany each one in turn.
+
+His mother and Mary were driving into Marlehouse and wanted him to come
+and hold the horse while they went into the different shops, but he
+excused himself on the score of his morning's errand, and Uz was told
+off for the duty, greatly to his disgust.  Reggie asked Grantly to ride
+with him, but Grantly complained of fatigue, and Reggie, who knew
+perfectly well that the excuse was invalid, called him a slacker and
+started forth huffily alone, mentally animadverting on the "edge"
+displayed by the new type of cadet.
+
+Nearly ten years' service gave Reggie the right to talk regretfully of
+the stern school he had been brought up in.
+
+Ger, on the previous day, had been sent to his grandparents at Woolwich
+"by command"; and the Kitten was going with Thirza to a children's
+party.  She was therefore made to lie down for an hour after lunch--so
+she was disposed of.  There remained only Buz, and Buz was on the prowl
+seeking someone to amuse him.  His arm was still in a sling and he
+expected sympathy.  He shadowed Grantly till nearly half-past three,
+when that gentleman appeared in the back passage clad in sweater and
+shorts, with a Rugger ball under his arm.
+
+"Hullo," cried Buz, "where are you off to?"
+
+"I'm going to practise drop-kicks . . . by myself," Grantly answered
+grumpily.
+
+"Why can't I come?  I could kick even if I can't use this beastly arm."
+
+"No, it's too cold for you to stand about."
+
+"Bosh; I can wrap myself in a railway rug if it comes to that."
+
+"It needn't come to that.  You go for a sharp walk or else take a book
+and amuse yourself.  I must be off."
+
+"Well you _are_ a selfish curmudgeon," Buz exclaimed in real
+astonishment.  "Why this sudden passion for solitude?"
+
+Grantly banged the door in Buz's face, regardless of the warning cards,
+and set off to run.  Buz opened the door and looked after him, noted
+the direction, nodded his head thrice and nipped upstairs to Grantly's
+room, where he abstracted his field-glasses from their case hanging on
+a peg behind the door.  He hung them round his neck by the short black
+strap, tied a sweater over his shoulders, and went out by the side door
+in quite a different direction from that taken by his brother.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Oblivious of the surgeon's strict injunctions that he was on no account
+to run or risk a fall of any kind, holding the glasses with his free
+hand so that they shouldn't drag on his neck, directly he was clear of
+the house he broke into the swinging steady trot that had won him the
+half-mile under fifteen in the last school sports; climbed two gates
+and jumped a ditch, finally arriving at the top of a small hill, the
+very highest point on the Manor property.  From this eminence he
+surveyed the country round, and speedily, without the aid of the
+field-glasses, discerned his brother kicking a football well into the
+centre of the field, while the Liberal member for Marlehouse ran after
+it and tried somewhat feebly to kick it back.
+
+"Well I'm jiggered!" Buz exclaimed in breathless astonishment; "so he
+knows him too.  Whatever are they playing at?"
+
+He fixed the field-glasses, watching intently, then dropped them and
+rubbed his eyes, took them up again and gazed fixedly, and so absorbed
+was he that he positively leapt into the air when he heard his father's
+voice close beside him asking mildly, "What are you watching so
+intently, Hilary?"
+
+The lovely winter afternoon had tempted Mr Ffolliot out.  Usually Mrs
+Ffolliot accompanied him on his rare walks, but this afternoon he only
+decided to go out after she had left for Marlehouse.  Like Buz, he
+sought the highest point of his estate, in his case that he might
+complacently survey its many acres.
+
+Buz dropped the glasses so that they hung by their strap and swung
+round, facing his father with his back to the distant figures with the
+football, seized the glasses again and gazed into the copse, exclaiming
+eagerly, "A fox, sir; perhaps you could see him if you're quick,"
+pulled the strap over his head, gave the glasses a dextrous twist,
+entirely destroying their focus, and handed them to his father, who
+fiddled about for some time before he could see anything at all.
+
+"A fox," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "in the copse.  We had better go and
+warn Willets to look out for his ducks and chickens."
+
+"I don't suppose he'll stay, sir, but perhaps it would be as well.
+Shall I take the glasses, father, they're rather heavy?"
+
+But Mr Ffolliot had got them focussed and was leisurely surveying the
+distant scene; gradually turning so that in another moment he would
+bear directly on the field where Grantly and Eloquent were now to be
+seen standing in earnest conversation.
+
+"There he is," shouted the mendacious Buz, seizing his father by the
+arm so violently that he almost knocked him down, "over there towards
+the house; don't you see him? a big dog fox with a splendid brush----"
+
+Imperceptibly Buz had propelled his father down the slope on the side
+farthest from his brother.
+
+"My dear Hilary," Mr Ffolliot exclaimed, straightening his hat, which
+had become disarranged in the violence of his son's impact, "one would
+think no one had ever seen a fox before; why be so excited about it?"
+
+"But didn't you see him, sir?" Buz persisted.  "There he goes close by
+the garden wall; oh, do look."
+
+Mr Ffolliot looked for all he was worth.  He twiddled the glasses and
+put them out of focus, but naturally he failed to behold the mythical
+fox which was the product of his offspring's fertile brain.
+
+They were at the bottom of the slope now, and Buz gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"I thought I saw two youths in the five-acre field," Mr Ffolliot
+remarked presently; "what were they doing?"
+
+"Practising footer, I fancy," Buz said easily, thankful that at last he
+could safely speak the truth.
+
+"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "it is extraordinary what a lot of time the
+working classes seem able to spend upon games nowadays.  Still, I'm
+always glad they should play rather than merely watch.  It is that
+watching and not doing that saps the moral as well as the physical
+strength of the nation."
+
+"It's Thursday, you see, father--early closing," Buz suggested.
+
+"Well, well, I'm glad they should have their game.  Shall we stroll
+round and have a look at them?"
+
+"Oh I wouldn't, if I were you, father, they'd stop directly.  These
+village chaps are always so shy.  It would spoil their afternoon."
+
+"Would it?" Mr Ffolliot asked dubiously; "would it?  I should have
+thought they would have found encouragement in the fact that their
+Squire took an interest in their sports."
+
+"I don't think so," Buz said decidedly; "they hate to be looked at when
+they're practising."
+
+"Very well, very well, if you think so," Mr Ffolliot said with
+surprising meekness; "we'll go and see Willets instead, and tell him
+about that fox."
+
+"I don't think I'd bother him, the fox is miles away by now."
+
+"Well, where shall we go?" Mr Ffolliot demanded testily; "I've come out
+to walk with you, and you do nothing but object to every direction I
+propose."
+
+"Let us," said Buz, praying for inspiration, "let us go straight on
+till we come to a cleaner bit."
+
+Mr Ffolliot looked ruefully at his boots.  "It is wet," he remarked,
+"mind you don't slip with that arm of yours."
+
+"Shall I take the glasses, father?" Buz asked politely.
+
+"Yes, do, though I'm not sure that I wholly approve of Grantly lending
+these expensive glasses to you younger ones.  I must speak to him about
+it."
+
+Buz sighed heavily.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Just once more did Eloquent see Mary before Parliament met.  It was in
+a shop in Marlehouse the day after he had received his lesson in
+kicking off, and he was buying ties.  Eloquent was critical about ties,
+he had by long apprenticeship penetrated to the true inwardness of
+their importance, and this afternoon he was very difficult to please.
+Many boxes were laid upon the counter before him, the counter was
+strewn with "neckwear," and yet he had only found one to his liking.
+While the assistant was away seeking others from distant shelves,
+Eloquent busied himself in arranging the scattered ties carefully in
+their proper boxes.  For him it was a perfectly natural thing to do,
+but he happened to look into the mirror that faced the counter, and in
+it he beheld Mary Ffolliot seated at the counter behind him, and she
+was watching him with fascinated interest.  Buz was with her and they
+were buying socks.  Eloquent's deft hands dropped to his sides and he
+turned furiously red.  For no one knew better than he that it is not
+usual for a customer to arrange goods in a shop.
+
+The young lady in the mirror had discreetly turned her head away, the
+assistant came back, Eloquent bought two ties without having the least
+idea what they were like, and then he heard a voice behind him saying,
+"How do you do, Mr Gallup--we've not seen you since the election to
+congratulate you," and Mary was standing at his side holding out her
+hand.
+
+He shook hands with Mary, he shook hands with Buz, he mumbled something
+incoherent, and they were gone.
+
+The Liberal member for Marlehouse rushed from the shop in an opposite
+direction without taking or paying for his ties, and the astute
+assistant packed them up, having added three that Eloquent did not buy,
+for the good of the trade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MAINLY ABOUT REGINALD PEEL
+
+The holidays had started badly, there was no doubt about that.  All the
+young Ffolliots were agreed about it.  First Buz broke his arm on
+Boxing-day.  That was upsetting in itself, and Buz, as an invalid, was
+a terrible nuisance.  Then the Ganpies had to return to Woolwich much
+sooner than they had expected: another matter for gloom and woe.  And
+finally came the crushing intelligence that Mr Ffolliot did not intend
+to start for his oasis till the beginning of February, after the twins
+had gone back to school and Grantly to the Shop.  And this was
+considered the very limit.  Fate had done its worst.
+
+No party: no relaxation of the rules as to absence of noise and
+presence of perfect regularity and punctuality at meals: no cheerful
+gathering together of neighbouring families for all sorts of
+junkettings; in fact, none of the usual features of the last fortnight
+of the Christmas holidays.  And yet, in looking back afterwards, the
+young Ffolliots, with, perhaps, the exception of the unfortunate Buz,
+would have confessed that on the whole they had had rather a good time.
+Mary, in particular, would have owned frankly, had she been asked, that
+she had never enjoyed a holiday more.
+
+For one thing, the big boys had been "so nice to her," and by "the big
+boys" she meant Grantly and Reggie Peel.
+
+She and Grantly had always been great allies.  When they were little
+they did everything together, for the three and a half years that
+separated Mary from the twins seemed, till they should all get into the
+twenties, an immeasurable distance.  But Grantly hitherto had been no
+more polite and considerate than the average brother.  He was both
+critical and plain-spoken, and poor Mary had suffered many things at
+his hands . . . till this holiday; and it never occurred to her that
+this agreeable change in Grantly's attitude might be due to some
+alteration in herself rather than in him.
+
+Mary was far too interested in life with a big "L" to waste any time
+upon self-analysis or introspection.  Neither she nor Grantly had ever
+referred to the night of young Rabbich's dinner at the Moonstone, but
+since that night she had been distinctly conscious of a slightly more
+respectful quality in his manner towards her.  The tendency was
+indefinable, illusive, but it was there, and simple-minded Mary only
+reflected gratefully that Grantly was "growing up awfully nice."
+
+Regarding Reggie Peel, however, she did venture to think that she must
+be rather more attractive than she used to be; and complacently
+attributed his new gentleness to the fact that she had put up her hair
+since she last saw him.
+
+Gentleness was by no means one of Reggie's chief characteristics.  He
+was ruthless where his own ends were concerned, tirelessly hard
+working, amusing, and of a caustic tongue: a cheerful pessimist who
+expected the very least of his fellow-creatures, until such time as
+they had given some proof that he might expect more.  Yet there were a
+favoured few, a very few, whom he took for granted thankfully, and Mary
+had long known that her mother was one of those few.  Lately she had
+realised with a startled thrill of gratification that she, too, had
+stepped out of the rank and file to take her place among those chosen
+ones, for Reggie had confided to her a secret that none of the others,
+not even her mother, knew.
+
+Among the many serious periodicals of strictly Imperial tone that Mr
+Ffolliot read, was one that from time to time indulged its readers with
+exceptionally well-written short stories.  Quite recently a couple of
+these stories had dealt with military subjects, and were signed
+"Ubique."  The stories were striking, strong, and evidently from the
+pen of one who knew his ground.  Mr Ffolliot admired them, and
+graciously drew the attention of his family to them.  One had appeared
+in the January number, and Mrs Ffolliot and Mary fell foul of it
+because it was too painful.  They thought it pitiless, even savage, in
+its inexorable disregard of the individual and deification of the
+Cause.  Grantly, of course, upheld the writer.  The male of the species
+prides itself on inhumanity in youth.  Mr Ffolliot approved the story
+from the artistic standpoint, and the General defended it on the score
+of its absolute truth.  Reggie, quite contrary to custom, gave no
+opinion at all till he was asked by Mary, one day when they were riding
+together.
+
+As she expected, he defended the writer's stern realism.  But what she
+did not expect was that he seemed to make a personal matter of it,
+almost imploring her to see eye to eye with him, which she wholly
+failed to do.
+
+"I think he must be a terribly hard man, that 'Ubique,'" she said at
+last, "with no toleration or compassion.  He talks as though
+incompetence were an unpardonable crime."
+
+"So it is; if you undertake a job you ought to see that you're fit to
+carry it out."
+
+"You can't always be sure. . . .  You may do your best and . . . fail."
+
+"I grant you some people's best is a very poor best, but in this case
+the man let a flabby humanitarianism take the place of his judgment,
+and he caused far more misery in the end.  Can't you see that?"
+
+"All the same," Mary said decidedly, "I wouldn't like to fall into the
+hands of that man, the Ubique man I mean, not the failure.  He must be
+a cold-blooded wretch, or he couldn't write such things.  It makes me
+shudder."
+
+And Mary shivered as she spoke.
+
+"He must be a beast," she added.
+
+They were walking their horses along the turf at the side of the road
+skirting the woods.  Reggie pulled up and Mary stopped also a little in
+front.
+
+"Got a stone?" she asked carelessly.
+
+Reggie did not answer or dismount, and she turned in her saddle to look
+at him, to meet his crooked, whimsical smile.  Suddenly he dropped his
+reins and beat his breast, exclaiming melodramatically: "And Nathan
+said unto David, 'Thou art the man.'"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" Mary asked, bewildered.  "What man? do you
+mean you'd behave like the man in the story, or you wouldn't, or . . .
+Oh, Reggie, you don't mean to say you wrote it yourself?"
+
+"You have spoken."
+
+"You must be awfully clever!" Mary ejaculated with awe-struck
+admiration.
+
+"My cleverness will not be of much comfort to me if you persist in your
+wrong-headed opinion that the man who wrote that story is a beast."
+
+"Oh, that's different.  I know you, you see, and you're not a beast.
+You aren't really like that."
+
+"But I am.  That's the real me.  It is truly; the real, deep-down me,
+the me that's worth anything."
+
+"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I don't believe it; you _have_ some
+consideration for other people."
+
+"Not in that sense; if there was anything, any big thing, I had to put
+through--no one should stand in my way.  And it's the same with
+anything I want very much.  I go straight for it, and it matters
+nothing to me who gets knocked down on the route . . . and so you'll
+find," Reggie added very low.
+
+They were looking each other straight in the face, Mary a little
+breathless and wondering: "And so you'll find," Reggie repeated a
+little louder, and there was a look in his eyes that caused Mary to
+drop hers, and she rode on.
+
+Reggie caught her up.
+
+"Are you sorry, Mary?" he asked gently.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Well . . . about everything.  The story, and my ferocious mental
+attitude, and all the rest of it."
+
+He laid his hand on her horse's neck, and leaned forward to look in her
+face.  They were riding very close together, and Mary was too near the
+hedge to put more distance between them.
+
+"I can't be sorry you write so well," she said slowly, "it is very
+exciting--is the news for publication or not?"
+
+"I'd be grateful if you'd say nothing as yet--you see I've only done
+these two, and what's a couple of short stories?  Besides, it's not
+really my job, only it's amusing, and one can rub it in that way, and
+reach a larger class than by the strictly military article--no one
+knows anything about it except the editor of _The Point of View_--and
+you--I'd rather you didn't mention it, if you don't mind."
+
+"Of course I shan't mention it, but I shall look out for 'Ubique' with
+much greater interest."
+
+"And still think him a beast?"
+
+"That depends on what he writes."
+
+"I'm not so much concerned about what you think of Ubique as that you
+should remember that I mean what I say."
+
+"You say a good many absurd things."
+
+"Yes, but this is not absurd--when I want a thing very much . . ."
+
+"Oh, you needn't say all that again.  Be a silent, strong man like the
+heroes in Seton Merriman, they're much the best kind."
+
+"I'm not particularly silent, but I flatter myself that . . ."
+
+"It's a shame to crawl over this lovely grass--come on and have a
+canter," said Mary.
+
+That night Reggie Peel sat long by his bedroom fire.  The bedroom fire
+was a concession to his acknowledged grown-upness.  The young Ffolliots
+were allowed no bedroom fires.  Only when suffering from bad colds or
+in the very severest weather was a fire granted to any child out of the
+nursery.  But Reggie, almost a captain now, was popular with the
+servants, especially with the stern Sophia, head-housemaid, and she
+decreed that he had reached the status of a visitor, and must,
+therefore, have a fire in his bedroom at night.  He sat before it now,
+swinging the poker which had just stirred it to a cheerful blaze.  He
+had carefully switched off the light, for they were very economical of
+the electric light at Redmarley.  It had cost such a lot to put in.
+
+Five years ago he and General Grantly between them had supervised its
+installation, and the instruction of the head-gardener in the
+management of the dynamo-room; each going up and down, as often as they
+could get away, to share the discomfort with Mrs Ffolliot, and look
+after the men.  Mrs Grantly was, for once, almost satisfied, for she
+had carried off all the available children.  Mr Ffolliot had decreed
+that the work should be done while he was in the South of France, and
+expressed a strong desire that all should be in order before his
+return; and it was finished, for he stayed away seven weeks.
+
+And Reggie sat remembering all this, five years ago; and how just
+before the children were sent to their grandmother Mary used to want to
+sit on his knee, and how he would thrust her off with insulting remarks
+as to her weight and her personal appearance generally.
+
+She was a good deal heavier now, he reflected, and yet--
+
+Reggie had come to the parting of the ways, and had decided which he
+would follow.
+
+Like most ambitious young men he had, so far, taken as his motto a
+couplet, which, through over-usage, has become a platitude--
+
+  "High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone,
+  He travels the fastest who travels alone."
+
+
+Reggie had accepted this as an incontrovertible truth impossible to
+dispute; but then he had never until lately felt the smallest desire to
+travel through life accompanied by any one person.  He had fallen in
+and out of love as often as was wholesome or possible for so
+hard-working a young man, and always looked upon the experience as an
+agreeable relaxation, as it undoubtedly is.  But never for one moment
+did he allow such evanescent attachments to turn him a hair's breadth
+out of his course.  Now something had happened to him, and he knew that
+for the future the platitude had become a lie, and that the only
+incentive either to high hopes or their fulfilment lay in the prospect
+of a hearth-stone shared by the girl who a few hours ago declared that
+she "would not like to fall into that man's hands."
+
+Reggie was very modern.  He built no altar to Mary in his heart nor did
+he set her image in a sacred shrine apart.  He had no use for anyone in
+a shrine.  He wanted a comrade, and he craved this particular comrade
+with all the intensity of a well-disciplined, entirely practical
+nature.  He was not in the least conceited, but he knew that if he
+lived he would "get there," and the fact that he never had had, or ever
+would have, sixpence beyond the pay he earned did not deter him in his
+quest a single whit.  Mary wouldn't have sixpence either.  He knew the
+Redmarley rent-roll to a halfpenny.  Mrs Ffolliot frankly talked over
+her affairs with him ever since he left Woolwich, and more than once
+his shrewd judgment unravelled some tangle which Mr Ffolliot's
+singularly unbusiness-like habits had created.  He knew very well that
+were it not for General Grantly the boys could never have got the
+chance each was to get.  That General Grantly was spending the money he
+would have left his daughter at his death in helping her children now
+when they needed it most.  Mary and he were young and strong.  They
+could rough it at first.  Afterwards--he had no fears about that
+afterwards if Mary cared.
+
+But would Mary care?
+
+Reggie felt none of the qualms of a more sensitive man in making love
+to a very young girl who might certainly, both as regarded looks and
+social position, be expected to make an infinitely better marriage.  He
+was assailed by no misgivings as to what might be thought of the man
+who made use of his position as almost a son of the house to make love
+to this girl hardly out of the schoolroom.
+
+It was Mr Ffolliot's business to guard against such possibilities.
+
+If, however, he might be called unscrupulous on that score, his sense
+of fairness was stronger than his delicacy; for where the latter proved
+no obstacle, the former decided him that it would not be playing the
+game to make open love to Mary till she had "been out a bit," and he
+laid down the poker with a smothered oath.
+
+He had gone further than he intended that afternoon and he was
+sorry--but not very sorry.  "There's no harm in letting her know I'm in
+the running," he reflected.  "I hope it will sink in.  Otherwise she
+might stick me down in the same row with Grantly and the twins, which
+is the last thing in the world I want."
+
+He was glad he had told her about that story, even if it revealed him
+in an unfavourable light.  "If she ever cares for me, and God help me
+if she doesn't--she must care for me as I really am, an ugly devil with
+some brains and a queer temper.  I'll risk no disillusionment
+afterwards.  She must see plenty of other chaps first--confound them;
+but if any one out of the lot shows signs of making a dart I'll cut in
+first, I won't wait another minute, I'm damned if I will."
+
+And suddenly conscious that he had spoken aloud, Reggie undressed and
+went to bed, knowing full well that even though the hearth-stone should
+be eternally cold, and the high hopes flattened beyond all possible
+recognition, there yet remained to him something passing the love of
+women.
+
+For Reggie was not without an altar and a secret shrine, though not
+even the figure of the woman he loved best would ever fill it.  The
+sacred fire of his devotion burned with a steady flame that illumined
+his whole life, though not even to himself did he confess the vows he
+paid.
+
+"One must choose one's own mystery: the great thing is to have one."
+And if prayer be the daily expression to the soul of the desire to do
+the right thing, then Reggie prayed without ceasing that he might do
+his WORK, and do it well.  His profession was his God, and he served
+faithfully and with a single heart.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Mary had no fire to sit over, but all the same she dawdled throughout
+her undressing and, unlike Reggie, wasted the precious electric light.
+She had a great deal to think about, for Grantly and Reggie were not
+the only people to confide in Mary that holiday.  The day before he
+left, General Grantly had taken her for a walk, sworn her to secrecy,
+and then had sprung upon her a most astounding project.  No other than
+that he and Mrs Grantly should take her mother with them when they went
+to the South of France for March--their mother without any of them.
+
+"She has never had a real holiday by herself since she was married,"
+the General said, "and my idea is that she should come with us directly
+your father gets back.  The boys will be at school--Grantly at the
+Shop.  There will only be the two little ones and your father to
+consider, and you could look after them.  I'd like to take you too, my
+dear, but I don't fancy your mother could be persuaded to leave your
+father unless there was someone to see to things for him."
+
+"She'd never leave father alone," Mary said decidedly; "but she might,
+oh, she might go now I'm really grown up.  I should love her to go.
+Don't you think"--Mary's voice was very wistful--"that she's been
+looking a little tired lately . . . not quite so beautiful . . . as
+usual?"
+
+"Ah, you've noticed it too--that settles it--not a word, mind; if it's
+sprung upon her at a few days' notice it may come off.  If she has time
+to think she'll discover insurmountable difficulties.  Strategy, my
+dear, strategy must be our watchword."
+
+"But father," Mary suggested dubiously, "who's going to manage him?"
+
+"I think," the General said grimly, "I think we may safely leave your
+father in Grannie's hands.  She has undertaken to square him, and, what
+she undertakes--I have never known her fail to put through."
+
+"It will be most extraordinary to have mother go off for quite a long
+time by herself," Mary said thoughtfully.
+
+"She won't be by herself, she'll be with _her_ father and mother; has
+it never occurred to you as possible that sometimes we might like our
+daughter to ourselves?"
+
+Mary turned an astonished face towards her grandfather, exclaiming
+emphatically,
+
+"No, Ganpy, it certainly never has . . . before."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE RAM-CORPS ANGEL
+
+Grannie was writing letters.  Grandfather had gone into London to the
+War Office, and it was only ten o'clock.  Grannie was safe for an hour
+or two, for she was sending out notices about something, and that
+always took a long time.
+
+Ger was rather at a loose end, but with the admirable spirit of the
+adventurous for making the best of things, he decided to go forth and
+see what he could see.  No one was in the hall to question him as he
+went out, and he made straight for the common, where something exciting
+was always toward.  He had forgotten to put on a coat, and the wind was
+cold, so he ran along with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.  His
+cap was old, his suit, "a descended suit," was old, and his face,
+though it was still so early in the day, was far from clean.
+
+For once the common was almost deserted; but far away in front of the
+"Shop" a thin line of khaki proclaimed the fact that some of the cadets
+were drilling.
+
+Ger loved the Shop.  He had been there on several occasions,
+accompanied by one or other of his grandparents, to see Grantly, and he
+knew that he must not go in alone, or his brother would, as he put it,
+"get in a bate."  But there could be no objection to his standing at
+the gate and looking in at the parade ground.  He knew the porter, a
+nice friendly chap who would not drive him away.
+
+He turned off the common into the road that runs up past the Cadet
+Hospital.  He knew the Cadet Hospital, for once he had gone there with
+Grannie to visit "a kind of cousin" who had broken his collar-bone in
+the riding-school.  As he passed Ger looked in at the open door.  A
+little crowd of rather poor-looking people stood in the entrance, among
+them a boy about his own age, with a great pad of cotton-wool fastened
+over his ear by a bandage.
+
+A crowd of any sort had always an irresistible fascination for Ger.  He
+skipped up the path and pushed in among the waiting people to the side
+of the boy with the tied-up head.
+
+"Got a sore ear?" he murmured sympathetically.
+
+"Wot's it to you wot I got?" was the discouraging reply.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry, you know," said Ger with obvious sincerity.
+
+The boy looked hard at him and grunted.
+
+"What are you here for?" Ger whispered.
+
+"The Myjor, 'e got to syringe it," the boy mumbled, but this time his
+tone was void of offence.
+
+"Does it hurt?"
+
+"'E don't 'urt, not much, 'e is careful; 'e's downright afraid of
+urtin' ya'. . . .  An' if 'e does 'urt, it's becos 'e can't 'elp it,
+an' so," here he wagged his head impressively, "ya' just doesn't let
+on . . . see?  Wots the matter wiv you?"
+
+Here was a poser.  Yet Ger was consumed by a desire to see this
+mysterious "myjor" who syringed ears and didn't hurt people.  He had
+fallen upon an adventure, and he was going to see it out.
+
+"I don't know exactly," he whispered mysteriously, "but I've got to see
+him."
+
+"P'raps they've wrote about ya'," the bandaged boy suggested.
+
+Ger thought this was unlikely, but let the suggestion pass
+unchallenged.  He watched the various people vanish into a room on the
+right, saw them come out again, heard the invariable "Next please"
+which heralded the seclusion of a new patient, till everybody had gone
+and come back and gone forth into the street again save only the
+bandaged boy and himself.
+
+"You nip in w'en I comes out," the boy said encouragingly, "it's a bit
+lyte already, but 'e'll see ya' if yer slippy."
+
+It seemed a long time to Ger as he waited.  The little crowd of women
+and children had melted away.  Men in blue cotton jackets passed to and
+fro across the hall, "Sister," in a curious headdress and scarlet cape,
+looking like a picture by Carpaccio, came out of another room, went up
+the staircase and vanished from view.  No one spoke to him or asked his
+business, and Ger stood in a dark corner holding his cap in his hands
+and waiting.
+
+At last the boy came back with a clean bandage and a big new pad of
+cotton-wool over the syringed ear.
+
+"'Urry up," he whispered as he passed.  "I told 'im as there was one
+more."
+
+Ger hurried.
+
+Once inside that mysterious door he started violently, for a tall
+figure clad in a long white smock was standing near a sink brushing his
+nails.  He wore a black band round his head, and on his forehead,
+attached to the band, was a round mirror.  The very brightest mirror
+Ger had ever seen.
+
+So this was the Myjor.
+
+The uniform was quite new to Ger.
+
+The eyes under the mirror were very blue, and for the rest this
+strangely clad tall man had a brown moustache and a pleasant voice as
+he turned, and drying his hands the while, said:
+
+"Well, young shaver, what's the matter with you?"
+
+In his eight years Ger had had but few aches and pains save such as
+followed naturally upon falls or fights, but he knew that if this
+interview was to be prolonged he must have something, so he hazarded an
+ailment.
+
+"I've a muzzy feeling in my head sometimes, sir, a sort of ache, not
+bad, you know."
+
+The Myjor looked very hard at Ger as he spoke--evidently the little
+boy's voice and accent were in some way unexpected.
+
+He sat down and drew him forward close to his knees.  The round mirror
+on his forehead flashed into Ger's eyes and he winced.
+
+"Headache, eh?" said the Myjor cheerfully.  "You don't look as though
+you ought to get headaches.  Can you read?"
+
+"No, sir, that's just what I can't do, and there's awful rows about it.
+I can't seem to read, I don't want to much, but I do try . . .  I do
+really, but it's so muddly."
+
+"How long have you been learning?"
+
+"Years and years," said Ger mournfully.  "They say Kitten 'll read
+before me, and she's only four."
+
+"Um," said the Myjor, "that will never do.  We can't have Kitten
+stealing a march on us that way.  This must be seen into.  By the way,
+what's your name?"
+
+"Gervais Folaire Ffolliot," Ger answered solemnly, as though he were
+saying his catechism.
+
+"Ffolliot . . . Ffolliot . . . where d'you live?"
+
+"Redmarley . . . it's a long way from here."
+
+"What are you doing here, then?"
+
+"I'm stopping with grannie and grandfather."
+
+"And who is grandfather?"
+
+"General Grantly," Ger answered promptly, smiling broadly.  He always
+felt that his grandfather was a trump card anywhere, but in Woolwich
+most of all, "and he's got such a lot of medals, teeny ones, you know,
+like the big ones.  I can read _them_," he added proudly.  "I know them
+all.  Grannie taught me."
+
+"But why have you come to me?  And why on earth do you come in among
+the wives and children of the Shop servants?"
+
+"The door was open," Ger explained, "and I talked to the ear boy, and
+he said you were most awfully gentle and didn't hurt and hated if you
+had to--so I knew you were kind, and I'm awfully fond of kind people,
+so I wanted to see you--you're not cross, are you?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Um," again remarked the Myjor, and stared at Ger thoughtfully.
+"Well," he said at last, "since you are here, what is it you find so
+hard about reading?"
+
+"It's so muddly," Ger complained, "nasty little letters and all so much
+alike."
+
+"Exactly so," said the Myjor.
+
+Then he drew down the blinds.
+
+Ger's heart beat fast.  Here was an adventure indeed, and when you were
+once well in for an adventure all sorts of queer things happened.
+
+Unprecedented things happened to Ger, but he was never very clear
+afterwards as to what they were.  So many things were "done to him"
+that he became quite confused.  Lights flashed into eyes, lights so
+brilliant that they quite hurt.  Curious spectacles with heavy frames
+and glasses that took in and out were placed upon his nose, and he was
+only allowed to use one eye at a time, the other being blotted out by a
+black disk in the spectacles.  At last he looked through with both eyes
+together at letters on a card, letters that were blacker and clearer
+than any he had ever seen before . . . and the blinds were drawn up.
+
+"Will you please tell me," Ger asked politely, "what is that curious
+uniform you wear?  I don't seem to have seen it before, an' I've seen a
+great many."
+
+The Myjor laughed.  "It's my working kit; don't you like it?"
+
+"Very much," said Ger, "I think you look like an angel."
+
+"Really," said the Myjor.  "I haven't met any, so I don't know."
+
+"I haven't exactly met any," said Ger, "but I've seen portraits of two,
+and . . . I know a lot about them."
+
+"Now, young man, you listen to me," said the Ram-Corps Angel.  "Eyes
+are not my job really, but I'm glad you looked in to see me, for I'll
+send you to someone who'll put you right and you'll read long before
+the Kitten.  She'll never catch you.  Right away you'll go, she won't
+be in the same field.  You'd better go back now, or Mrs Grantly will be
+wondering where you are--cheer up about that reading."
+
+"Will I?" Ger asked breathlessly.  "Shall I be able to get into the
+Shop?  They pill you for eyes, you know."
+
+"Your eyes will be all right by the time you're ready for the Shop.
+You see crooked just now, you know--and it wants correcting, that's
+all."
+
+"What?" cried Ger despairingly.  "Do I squint?"
+
+"Bless you, no; the sight of your two eyes is different, that's
+all--when you get proper glasses you'll be right as rain.  Lots of
+people have it . . . if you'd been a Board School you'd have been seen
+to long ago," he added, more to himself than to Ger.
+
+Then Ger shook hands with the Ram-Corps Angel and walked rather slowly
+and thoughtfully across the common to grandfather's house though the
+wind was colder than ever.  He forgot to look in at the Shop gate, but
+the parade ground was empty.  The cadets had finished drilling.  Ger
+had been so long in that darkened room.
+
+He had lunch alone with his grannie, for grandfather was lunching at
+his club.  There was no poking of the Ffolliot children into
+schoolrooms and nurseries for meals when they stayed with the ganpies.
+His face was clean and his hair very smooth, and he held back Mrs
+Granny's chair for her just as grandfather did.  She stooped and kissed
+the fresh, friendly little face and told him he was a dear, which was
+most pleasant.
+
+He was hungry and the roast mutton was very good, moreover he was going
+to the Zoo that afternoon directly after lunch, grannie's French maid
+was to take him.  They were to have a taxi from Charing Cross, and
+lunch passed pleasantly, enlivened by the discussion of this enchanting
+plan.
+
+Presently he asked, apropos of nothing: "Do all the Ram-Corps officers
+look like angels?"
+
+"Like angels!" Mrs Grantly repeated derisively.  "Good gracious, no!
+Very plain indeed, some of them I've seen."
+
+"The one at the Cadet Hospital does," Ger said positively, "like a
+great big angel and a dear."
+
+"Who?  Major Murray?" Mrs Grantly inquired, looking puzzled; "where
+have you seen him?"
+
+But at this very moment someone came to tell Ger it was time to get
+ready, and in the fuss and excitement of seeing him off, his grannie
+forgot all about the Ram Corps and its angelic attributes.
+
+It was her day.  Guest after guest arrived, and she was pretty tired by
+the time she had given tea to some five and twenty people.
+
+The General never came in at all till the last guest had gone.  Then he
+sought his wife, and standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the
+fire he told her that Major Murray had been to see him, and had
+recounted Ger's visit of the morning, and the result of his
+investigations.
+
+Mrs Grantly, which was unusual, never interrupted once.
+
+"So you can understand," the General concluded, "I didn't feel like
+facing a lot of people."
+
+"I shall write at once to Margie," Mrs Grantly cried breathlessly, "and
+tell her she is a fool."
+
+"I wouldn't do that," the General said gently; "poor Margie, she has a
+good deal on her shoulders."
+
+"All the same--do you remember that that unfortunate child has been
+punished--punished because he was considered idle and obstinate over
+his lessons . . . punished . . . little Ger--friendly, jolly little
+Ger . . . I can't bear it," and Mrs Grantly burst into tears.
+
+The General looked very much as though he would like to cry too.  "It's
+an unfortunate business," he said huskily, "but you see, none of us
+have ever had any eye trouble, and the other children have all such
+good sight . . . it never occurred to me . . .  I must confess . . . of
+course it can be put right very easily; you're to take him to the
+oculist to-morrow; I've telephoned and made the appointment."
+
+Mrs Grantly dried her eyes.
+
+"We're all to blame," she exclaimed, "I'm just as much to blame as
+Margie . . . she'll be fearfully upset   I don't know how to tell her."
+
+"Tell you what," exclaimed the General, "I'll write to Ffolliot . . .
+I'll do it now, this instant, and the letter will catch the 7.30
+post . . ."
+
+At the door he paused and added more cheerfully, "I shall enjoy writing
+to Ffolliot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WHAT FOLLOWED
+
+As General Grantly had predicted, Mrs Ffolliot was very much upset when
+she heard about Ger's eyes, and was for rushing up to London herself,
+there and then to interview the oculist.  But Mr Ffolliot dissuaded
+her.  For one thing, he hated Redmarley without her even for a single
+night.  For another, he considered such a journey a needless expense.
+This, however, he did not mention, but contented himself with the
+suggestion that it would seem a reflection upon Mrs Grantly's
+competence to do anything of the kind; and that consideration weighed
+heavily with his wife where the other would have been brushed aside as
+immaterial and irrelevant.  "I can't understand it," the Squire
+remarked plaintively; "I did not know there had ever been any eye
+trouble in your family."
+
+"There never has, so far as I know; but surely," and Mrs Ffolliot spoke
+with something less than her usual gentle deference, "we needn't seek
+far to find where Ger gets his."
+
+"Do you mean that he inherits it from ME?"
+
+"Well, my dear Larrie, surely _you've_ got defective sight, else why
+the monocle?"
+
+"But Ger isn't a bit like me.  He is all Grantly.  In character, I
+sometimes think he resembles your mother, he is so fond of society; in
+appearance he's very like the others, except the Kitten.  Now, if the
+Kitten's sight had been astigmatic . . ."
+
+"We must take care that she doesn't suffer from neglect like poor
+little Ger," Mrs Ffolliot interrupted rather bitterly.  "I shall write
+at once to their house-master to have the twins' eyes tested.  I'll run
+no more risks.  We know Grantly's all right because he passed his
+medical so easily.  Poor, poor little Ger."
+
+"It certainly is most unfortunate," said Mr Ffolliot.
+
+He was really concerned about Ger, but mingled with his concern was the
+feeling that the little boy had taken something of a liberty in
+developing that particular form of eye trouble.  It seemed an unfilial
+reflection upon himself.  Moreover, there was something in the
+General's letter plainly stating the bare facts that he did not exactly
+like.  It was, he considered, "rather brusque."  He started for the
+South, of France four days earlier than he had originally intended.
+
+Ger was taken to the great oculist in London, who confirmed the
+"Myjor's" diagnosis of his case, and he was forthwith put into large
+round spectacles.  When he got them, his appearance brought the tears
+to his grandmother's eyes--tears she rigidly repressed, for Ger was so
+enormously proud of them.  The first afternoon he wore them he went
+with his grandfather to see Grantly playing in a football match at the
+Shop, and among those watching on the field he espied his friend "the
+Ram-Corps Angel."  Ger knew him at once, although he wore no white
+garment, not even khaki, just a plain tweed suit like his grandfather's.
+
+While the General was deep in conversation with the "Commy," Ger
+slipped away and sought his friend.
+
+"Hullo," said the 'Myjor,' "so you've got 'em on."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Ger, saluting solemnly, "and I'm very much obliged.
+It's lovely to see things so nice and clear.  Please may I ask you
+something?"
+
+The Major stepped back out of the crowd and Ger slipped a small hand
+confidingly into his.  Ger had not been to school yet, so there were
+excuses for him.
+
+"Do you think," he asked earnestly, "that if I'm very industr'us and
+don't turn out quite so stupid as they expected, that by-and-by I might
+get into the Ram Corps?"
+
+Major Murray looked down very kindly at the anxious upturned face with
+the large round spectacles.
+
+"But I thought the Shop was the goal of your ambition?"
+
+"So it was, sir, at first.  Then I gave it up because it seemed so
+difficult, and I talked it over with Willets, and he said _he'd_ never
+had a great deal of book-learnin'--though he writes a beautiful hand,
+far better than father--and then I thought I'd be a gamekeeper."
+
+"And what did Willets think?"
+
+"Well, he didn't seem to be very sure--and now I come to think of it,
+I'm not very fond of killing things . . . so if there was just a
+chance . . ."
+
+"I'd go into the Ram Corps if I were you," said Major Murray; "by the
+time you're ready, gamekeepers--if there are any--will have to pass
+exams, like all the other poor beggars.  You bet your boots on that.
+Some Board of Forestry or other will start 'em, you see if they don't."
+
+"Oh, well, if there's to be exams, that settles it.  I certainly shan't
+be one," Ger said decidedly; "I've been thinking it over a lot----"
+
+"Oh, you have, have you?"
+
+"An' it seems to me . . ."
+
+"Yes, it seems to you?"
+
+"That pr'aps you get to know people better if you mend all their
+accidents and things.  I'm awfully fond of people, they're so
+intrusting, I'd rather know about them than anything."
+
+"What sort of people?"
+
+"The men you know, and their wives and children; they're awfully nice,
+the ones I know--and if you see after them when they're ill and that,
+they're bound to be a bit fond of you, aren't they?"
+
+Major Murray gave the cold little hand in his a squeeze.  "It seems to
+me," he said, "that you're just the sort of chap we want.  You stick to
+it."
+
+"Is it _very_ hard to get in?"
+
+"Well, it isn't exactly easy, but it's dogged as does it, and if you
+start now--why, you've plenty of time."
+
+"That's settled then," said Ger, "and when you're Medical
+Inspector-General or some big brass hat like the fat old gentleman who
+came to see Ganpy yesterday--you'll say a good word for me, won't you?"
+
+"I will," Major Murray promised, "I most certainly will."
+
+"You see," Ger continued, beaming through his spectacles, "if there's
+war I should be bound to go, they can't get on without the Ram Corps
+then, and I'd be doing things for people all day long.  Oh, it would be
+grand."
+
+"It strikes me," said Major Murray, more to himself than to Ger, "that
+you stand a fair chance of getting your heart's desire--more than most
+people."
+
+"I'm very partikler about my nails now," said Ger.  "I saw you
+scrubbing yours that day at the Cadet Hospital."
+
+When he got home Mrs Ffolliot retired to her room and cried long and
+heartily, but Ger never knew it.  His spectacles to him were a joy and
+a glory, and he confided to the Kitten that _his_ guardian angel,
+Sergeant-Major Spinks, did sentry beside them every night so that they
+shouldn't get lost or broken.
+
+"My angel's in prizzen," the Kitten announced dramatically.
+
+"In prison!" exclaimed Ger, "whatever for?"
+
+"For shooting turkeys," the Kitten replied, "an' he's all over
+chicken-spots."
+
+"Why did he shoot turkeys for?"
+
+"'Cause he wanted more feathers for his wings."
+
+"But that wouldn't give him chicken-spots."
+
+"No, _that_ didn't--he got them at a pahty, like you did last
+Christmas."
+
+"Poor chap," said Ger, "but I can't see why he stays in prison when he
+could fly away."
+
+"They clipped his wings," the Kitten said importantly, "an' I'm glad;
+he can't come and bother me no more now."
+
+"I hope Spinks won't go shooting fowls and things in his off-time," Ger
+said anxiously.  "I must warn him."
+
+"Pheasants wouldn't matter so much," the Kitten said leniently, "I
+asked Willets; but turkeys is orful."
+
+"Not at all sporting to shoot turkeys," Ger agreed, "though they are so
+cross and gobbly."
+
+In the middle of February Mrs Ffolliot fell a victim to influenza, and
+she was really very ill.
+
+At first she would not allow anyone to tell her husband about it, but
+when she became too weak to write herself, Mary took it upon her to
+inform her father of her mother's state.  The doctor insisted on
+sending a nurse, as three of the servants had also collapsed, and Mrs
+Grantly came down from Woolwich to see to things generally; though when
+she came, she acknowledged that Mary had done everything that could be
+done.
+
+Mr Ffolliot curtailed his holiday by a week, and returned at the end of
+February, to find his wife convalescent, but thin and pale and weak as
+he had never before seen her during their married life.
+
+He decided that he would take her for a fortnight to Bournemouth.
+
+But Mrs Grantly had other views.
+
+She, Mary, and Mr Ffolliot were sitting at breakfast the day after his
+return, when he suggested the Bournemouth plan with what Willets would
+have called his most "Emp'rish air."
+
+Mrs Grantly looked across at Mary and the light of battle burned in her
+bright brown eyes.
+
+"I don't think Bournemouth would be one bit of good for Margie," she
+said briskly, "you can't be sure of sunshine--it may be mild, but it's
+morally certain to rain half the time, and Margie needs cheerful
+surroundings--sunshine--and the doctor says . . . a complete change of
+scene and people."
+
+"Where would you propose that I should take her?" Mr Ffolliot asked,
+fixing his monocle and staring steadily at his mother-in-law.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Hilary, I don't propose that _you_ should take
+her anywhere.  What I propose is that her father and I should take her
+to Cannes with us a week to-day."
+
+"To Cannes," Mr Ffolliot gasped, "in a week.  I don't believe she could
+stand the journey."
+
+"Oh yes, she could.  Her father will see that she does it as
+comfortably as possible, and I shall take Adèle, who can look after
+both of us.  We'll stay a night in Paris, and at Avignon if Margie
+shows signs of being very tired.  You must understand that Margie will
+go as our guest."
+
+Mr Ffolliot dropped his monocle and leant back in his chair.  "It is
+most kind of you and the General," he said politely, "but I doubt very
+much if she can be persuaded to go."
+
+"Oh she's going," Mrs Grantly said easily, while Mary, with scarlet
+cheeks, looked at her plate, knowing well that the subject had never
+been so much as touched upon to her mother.  "You see, Hilary, she has
+had a good deal of Redmarley, and the children and you, during the last
+twenty years, and it will do her all the good in the world to get away
+from you all for a bit.  Don't you agree with me, Mary?"
+
+Mary lifted her downcast eyes and looked straight at her father.  "The
+doctor says it's mother's only chance of getting really strong," she
+said boldly, "to get right away from all of us."
+
+"You, my dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly continued in the honeyed tones her
+family had long ago learnt to recognise as the precursor of verbal
+castigation for somebody, "would not be the agreeable and well-informed
+person you are, did you not go away by yourself for a fairly long time
+during every year.  I don't think you have missed once since Grantly
+was born.  How often has Margie been away by herself, even for a couple
+of nights?"
+
+"Margie has never expressed the slightest wish to go away," Mr Ffolliot
+said reproachfully.  "I have often deplored her extreme devotion to her
+children."
+
+"Somebody had to be devoted to her children," said Mrs Grantly.
+
+Mr Ffolliot ignored this thrust, saying haughtily, "Since I understand
+that this has all been settled without consulting me, I cannot see that
+any good purpose can be served in further discussion of the arrangement
+now," and he rose preparatory to departure.
+
+"Wait, Hilary," Mrs Grantly rose too.  "I don't think you quite
+understand that the smallest objection on your part to Margie would at
+once render the whole project hopeless.  What you've got to do is to
+smile broadly upon the scheme----"
+
+Here Mary gasped, the "broad smile" of the Squire upon anything or
+anybody being beyond her powers of imagination.
+
+"Otherwise," Mrs Grantly paused to frown at Mary, who softly vanished
+from the room, "you may have Margie on your hands as an invalid for
+several months, and I don't think you'd like that."
+
+"But who," Mr Ffolliot demanded, "will look after things while she's
+away?"
+
+"Why you and Mary, to be sure.  My dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly said
+sweetly, "a change is good for all of us, and it will be wholesome for
+you to take the reins into your own hands for a bit.  I confess I've
+often wondered how you could so meekly surrender the whole management
+of this big place to Margie.  It's time you asserted yourself a little."
+
+Mr Ffolliot stared gloomily at Mrs Grantly, who smiled at him in the
+friendliest fashion.  "You see," she went on, "you are, if I may say
+so, a little unobservant, or you would perhaps have personally
+investigated what made Ger, an otherwise quite normally intelligent
+child, so very stupid over his poor little lessons."
+
+"I've always left everything of that sort to his mother."
+
+"I know you have--but do you think it was quite fair?  And for a long
+time Margie has been looking thin and fagged.  Her father was most
+concerned about it at Christmas--but I never heard you remark upon it."
+
+"She never complains," Mr Ffolliot said feebly.
+
+"Complains," Mrs Grantly repeated scornfully.  "We're not a complaining
+family.  But I should have thought _you_ with your strong love of the
+beautiful would at least have remarked how she has gone off in looks."
+
+"She hasn't," said Mr Ffolliot with some heat.
+
+"She looks her age, every day of it," Mrs Grantly persisted.  "When we
+bring her back she'll look like Mary's sister!"
+
+"How long do you propose to be away?"
+
+"Oh, three weeks or a month; at the most a fortnight less than you have
+had every year for nineteen years."
+
+Mr Ffolliot made no answer; he took out his cigarette case and lit a
+cigarette with hands that were not quite steady.
+
+"You quite understand then, Hilary, that you are to put the whole
+weight of your authority into the scale that holds France for Margie?"
+
+"I thought you said it was settled?"
+
+"My dear man, you know what a goose she is; if she thought you hated
+it, nothing would induce her to go--you _must_ consider her for once."
+
+"I really must protest," Mr Ffolliot said stiffly, "against your
+gratuitous assumption that _I_ care nothing for Margie's welfare."
+
+"Not at all," Mrs Grantly said smoothly, "I only ask for a modest
+manifestation of your devotion, that's all."
+
+"Shall I go to her now?" said Mr Ffolliot with the air of a lamb led to
+the slaughter.
+
+"Certainly not--she'll probably be trying to get up lest you should
+want her for anything.  _I'll_ go and keep her in bed till luncheon.
+You may come and see her at eleven."
+
+When Fusby came in for the breakfast tray, Mr Ffolliot was still
+standing on the hearth-rug immersed in thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MARY AND HER FATHER
+
+In the lives of even the strongest and most competent among us, there
+will arise moments when decision of any kind has become impossible, and
+it is a real relief to have those about us who settle everything
+without asking whether we like it or not.  Such times are almost always
+the result of physical debility, when the enfeebled body so reacts upon
+brain and spirit that no matter how vigorous the one or valorous the
+other, both seem atrophied.
+
+It is at such times that we have cause to bless the doctor who is a
+strong man, and fears not to give orders or talk straight talk; and the
+relations who never so much as mention any plan till it has been
+decided, taking for granted we will approve the arrangements they have
+made.
+
+We are generally acquiescent, for it is so blessed to drift passively
+in the wake of these determined ones, till such time as, with returning
+physical strength, the will asserts itself once more.
+
+Thus it fell out that Mrs Ffolliot was surprisingly submissive when she
+was told by the doctor, a plain-spoken country doctor, who did not
+mince his words, that she must seize the chance offered of going to the
+South of France with her parents, or he wouldn't answer for the
+consequences.
+
+"You are," he said, "looking yellow and dowdy, and you are feeling blue
+and hysterical; if you don't go away at once you'll go on doing both
+for an interminable time."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot laughed.  "Then I suppose for the sake of the rest of the
+family I ought to go"--and she went.
+
+If Mr Ffolliot did not take Mrs Grantly's advice and look after things
+himself, he certainly was forced to attend to a good many tiresome
+details in the management of things outside the Manor House than had
+ever fallen to his lot before.  Mary saved him all she could, but
+Willets and Heaven and Fusby seemed to take a malicious delight in
+consulting him about trivial things that he found himself quite unable
+to decide one way or other.
+
+At first he tried to put them off with "Ask Miss Mary," but Willets
+shook his head, smiled kindly, and said firmly, "Twouldn't be fair,
+sir, 'twouldn't really."
+
+Ger and the Kitten had never seemed so tiresome and ubiquitous before,
+coming across his path at every turn; and Ger certainly nullified any
+uneasiness on the Squire's part regarding his eyes by practising, in
+and out of season, upon a discarded bugle.  A bugle bought for him by
+one of his friends in the Royal 'Orse for the sum of three and
+ninepence.  Ger had amassed three shillings of this sum, and the
+good-natured gunner never mentioned the extra ninepence.
+
+Ger had a quick ear and could already pick out little tunes on the
+piano with one finger, though, so far, he had found musical notation as
+difficult as every other kind of reading.
+
+But he took to the bugle like a duck to water, and on an evil day
+someone in Woolwich had taught him the peace call, "Come to the
+Cookhouse Door."
+
+The inhabitants of Redmarley were summoned to the cook-house door from
+every part of the village, from the woods, from the riverside, and from
+the churchyard.
+
+He played the bugle in the nursery and in the stableyard, he played it
+in the attics and outside the servants' hall when the servants' dinner
+was ready.
+
+He was implored, threatened and punished, but all without avail, for
+Ger had tasted the joys of achievement.  He had found what superior
+persons call "the expression of his essential ego," and just then his
+cosmos was all bugle.
+
+Not even his good-natured desire to oblige people was proof against
+this overwhelming desire to call imaginary troops to feed together on
+every possible and impossible occasion.  He did try to keep a good way
+from the house, or to choose moments in the house when he knew his
+father was out, but he made mistakes.  He could not discover by
+applying his eye to the keyhole of the study door whether his father
+was in the room or not, and, as he remarked bitterly, "Father always
+sat so beastly still" it was impossible to hear.
+
+He looked upon the Squire's objections as a cross, but the dread of his
+father's anger was nothing like so strong as his desire to play the
+bugle, and even the Squire perceived that short of taking the bugle
+away from him, which would have broken his heart, there was nothing for
+it but to frown and bear it--in moderation.
+
+Mrs Grantly's very direct assault had made a small breach in the wall
+of Mr Ffolliot's complacency; and a fairly vivid recollection of the
+shilling episode inclined him to deal leniently with Ger while his
+mother was away.  He rang the bell furiously for Fusby whenever the
+most distant strains of "Come to the Cook-house Door" smote upon his
+ears, and sent him post haste to stop that "infernal braying and
+bleating"; but beyond such unwelcome interruptions Ger tootled in peace.
+
+Mary was lonely and the days seemed long; she saw no one but her
+father, the servants, the two children and Miss Glover, the meek little
+governess, who seemed to spend most of her time in hunting for Ger
+among outhouses and gardens, and was scorned by Nana in consequence.
+
+When her mother was at home Mary was accustomed to wander about
+Redmarley unchallenged and unaccompanied save by the faithful Parker.
+But Mr Ffolliot took his duties as chaperon most seriously and expected
+that Mary should never stir beyond the gardens unless accompanied by
+Miss Glover.  He even seemed suspicious as to her most innocent
+expeditions, and every morning at breakfast demanded a minute
+time-table planning her day.
+
+Mary didn't mind this.  It was easy enough to say that after she had
+interviewed the cook (there was no housekeeper now at Redmarley) she
+would practise, or read French with Miss Glover; or go into Marlehouse
+accompanied by Miss Glover for a music lesson; or drive with Miss
+Glover and the children to Marlehouse to do the weekly shopping; or go
+with Miss Glover to the tailor to be fitted for a coat and skirt.  All
+that was easy enough to reel off in answer to the Squire's inquiries.
+It was the afternoons that were difficult.  She had been used to go
+into the village and visit her friends, Willets, Miss Gallup, the
+laundry-maid's mother, everybody there in fact, and now this seemed to
+be forbidden her unless Miss Glover went too, which spoiled everything.
+
+Sometimes she walked with the Squire and tried to feel an intelligent
+interest in Ercole Ferrarese, whose work Mr Ffolliot greatly admired.
+In fact he was just then engaged on a somewhat lengthy monograph
+concerning both the man and his work.
+
+Mary, in the hope of making herself a more congenial companion to her
+father, even went as far as to look up "Ercole" in Vasari's _Lives_.
+But Vasari was not particularly copious in details as to Ercole
+Ferrarese, and the particulars he did give which impressed Mary were
+just those most calculated to annoy her father.  As, for instance, that
+"Ercole had an inordinate love of wine and was frequently intoxicated,
+in so much that his life was shortened by this habit."
+
+The difficulties that may arise from such an inordinate affection had
+been brought home to her quite recently, and in one of their walks
+together after a somewhat prolonged silence she remarked to her father--
+
+"It was a pity that poor Ercole drank so much, wasn't it?"
+
+"Why seize upon a trifling matter of that sort when we are considering
+the man's work?" Mr Ffolliot asked angrily.  "For heaven's sake, do not
+grow into one of those people who only perceive the obvious; whose only
+knowledge of Cromwell would be that he had a wart on his nose."
+
+"I shouldn't say it was a very trifling matter seeing it killed
+him--drink I mean, not Cromwell's wart," Mary responded with more
+spirit than usual.  "Vasari says so."
+
+"It is quite possible that he does, but it is not a salient feature."
+
+"A wart on the nose would be a very salient feature," Mary ventured.
+
+"Exactly, that is what you would think and that is what I complain of.
+It is a strain that runs through the whole of you--except perhaps the
+Kitten--a dreadful narrowness of vision--don't tell me your sight is
+good--I'm only referring to your mental outlook.  It is the fatal
+frivolous attitude of mind that always remembers the wholly irrelevant
+statement that the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, was born when his
+mother was fourteen."
+
+"Was he?" Mary exclaimed with deep interest; "how very young to have a
+baby."
+
+Mr Ffolliot glared at her: "and nothing else," he continued, ignoring
+the interruption.
+
+"Oh, but I do remember other things about Ercole besides being a
+drunkard," she protested; "he hated people watching him work, I can
+understand that, and he was awfully kind and faithful to his master."
+
+"All quite useless and trifling in comparison with what I, myself, have
+told you of his work, which you evidently don't remember.  It is a
+man's work that matters, not little peculiarities of temperament and
+character."
+
+"I think," Mary said demurely, "that little peculiarities of
+temperament and character matter a good deal to the people who have to
+live with them."
+
+"That is possible but quite unimportant.  It is a man's intellect that
+is immortal, not his temperament."
+
+Again a long silence till Mary said suddenly: "Mother has never written
+anything or painted anything or done anything very remarkable, and yet
+she seems to matter a great deal to a lot of people besides us.  I
+never go outside the gates but people stop me and ask all sorts of
+questions about her.  Surely character can matter too?"
+
+Mr Ffolliot's scornful expression changed.  He looked at his daughter
+with interest.  "Do you know, Mary," he said quite amiably, "that
+sometimes I think you can't be quite as stupid as you make yourself
+appear."
+
+That was on Friday.  On Saturday Mary was in dire disgrace.
+
+Nana had taken the children to a cinematograph show in Marlehouse.
+Miss Glover went with them in the bucket to visit a friend there.  The
+Squire had affixed a paper to the outside of the study door saying that
+he was not to be disturbed till five o'clock, and it was a lovely
+afternoon.  The sort of afternoon when late March holds all the promise
+of May, when early daffodils shine splendidly in sheltered corners, and
+late snowdrops in a country garden look quite large and solemn.  When
+trodden grass has a sweet sharp smell, and all sorts of pretty things
+peep from the crannies of old Cotswold walls: those loose grey walls
+that are so infinitely various, so dear and friendly in their constant
+beautiful surprises.
+
+Mary saw the nursery party go, and stood and waved to them till they
+were out of sight, when a faint and distant summons to the cook-house
+door proved that Ger had begun to play the instant the bucket had
+turned out of the gates.
+
+Mary called Parker and went out.
+
+Down the drive she went, through the great gates and over the bridge to
+Willets' cottage.  Willets was out, but Mrs Willets was delighted to
+see her.  Mrs Willets was a kind, comfortable person, who brewed
+excellent home-made wines which she loved to bestow upon her friends.
+Mary partook of a glass of ginger wine, very strong and very gingery,
+and having given the latest news of the mistress (she, herself, was
+"our young lady" now), received in return the mournful intelligence
+that Miss Gallup had had a touch of bronchitis, "reely downright bad
+she'd bin, and now she was about but weak as a kitten, and very low in
+her mind; if you'd the time just to call in and see 'er, I'm sure she'd
+take it very kind, with your ma away, and all."
+
+So Mary hied her to Miss Gallup at the other end of Redmarley's one
+long lopsided street.  Her progress was a slow one, for at every
+cottage gate she was stopped with exclamations: "Why we thought you was
+lost, or gone to furrin parts with the mistress; none on us seen you
+since Church last Sunday."
+
+At last she reached "Two Ways," Miss Gallup's house, and Eloquent, of
+all people in the world, opened the door to her.
+
+Mary merely thought "How nice of him to come and see his aunt," and
+remarked aloud:
+
+"Ah, Mr Gallup, I'm glad to see you've come to look after the invalid,
+I've only just heard of her illness.  May I come in?  Will it tire her
+to see me?"
+
+And Eloquent could find no words to greet her except, "Please step this
+way," and he was nevertheless painfully aware that exactly so would he
+have addressed her half a dozen years ago had he been leading her to
+the haberdashery department of the Golden Anchor.
+
+Poor Eloquent was thrown off his mental balance altogether, for to him
+this was no ordinary meeting.
+
+Picture the feelings of a young man who thinks he is opening the door
+to the baker and finds incarnate spring upon the threshold.  Spring in
+weather-beaten, well-cut clothes, with a sweet, friendly voice and
+adorable, cordial smile.
+
+There she was, sitting opposite Miss Gallup on one slippery horsehair
+"easy chair," while her hostess, much beshawled, cushioned and
+foot-stooled, sat on the other.
+
+"My dear," Miss Gallup said confidentially, "Em'ly-Alice has gone to
+the surgery for my cough mixture and some embrocation, and she takes
+such a time.  I'm certain she's loitering and gossiping, and she knows
+I like my cup of tea at four, and you here, and all; if it wasn't that
+my leg's seem to crumble up under me I'd go and get it myself."
+
+"Dear Miss Gallup, don't be hard on Em'ly-Alice," Mary pleaded; "it's
+such a lovely afternoon I don't wonder she doesn't exactly hurry.  As
+for tea, let me get you some tea----"
+
+"I could," Eloquent interposed hastily, "I'm sure I could," and rose
+somewhat vaguely to go to the kitchen.
+
+"Let us both get it," Mary cried gaily, "we'll be twice as quick."
+
+And before Miss Gallup could protest they had gone to the kitchen and
+she could hear them laughing.
+
+Mary was thoroughly enjoying herself.  For three weeks she had poured
+out tea for her father solemnly at five o'clock and been snubbed for
+her pains.
+
+Here were two people who liked her, who were glad to see her, who
+thought it kind of her to come.  No girl can be wholly unconscious of
+admiration; nor, when it is absolutely reverential, can she resent it,
+and Mary felt no displeasure in Eloquent's.
+
+They could neither of them cut bread and butter.  It was a plateful of
+queerly shaped bits that went in on the tray; but there was an egg for
+Miss Gallup, and the tea was excellent.
+
+Miss Gallup began to feel more leniently disposed towards Em'ly-Alice.
+"She's done for me pretty well on the whole," she told Mary.  "Doctor,
+he wanted me to have the parish nurse over to Marle Abbas, but I don't
+hold with those new-fangled young women."
+
+"She's a dear," said Mary; "mother thinks all the world of her."
+
+"May be, may be," Miss Gallup said dryly; "but when you come to my time
+of life you've your own opinion about draughts.  And as for that
+constant bathin' and washin', I don't hold with it at all.  A bed's a
+bed, I says, and not a bath, and if you're in bed you should stay there
+and keep warm, and not have all the clothes took off you to have your
+legs washed.  How can your legs _get_ dirty if you're tucked in with
+clean sheets, in a clean room, in a clean house.  When I haves a bath I
+like it comfortable, once a week, at night in front of the kitchen
+fire, and Em'ly-Alice safe in bed.  No, my dear, I don't hold with
+these new-fangled notions, and Nurse Jones, she worries me to death.  I
+'ad 'er once, and I said, never again--whiskin' in and whiskin' out,
+and opening windows and washin' me all over, like I 'was a baby--most
+uncomfortable I call it."
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece struck five, Mary jumped up.  "I must
+fly," she exclaimed, "it's time for father's tea; I've been enjoying
+myself so much I forgot all about the time."
+
+"You see Miss Mary as far as the gates," Miss Gallup said to her
+nephew.  "Em'ly-Alice is in, I 'eard 'er pokin' the fire the wasteful
+way she has."
+
+Mary did not want Eloquent, for she greatly desired to run, but he
+followed with such alacrity she had not the heart to forbid him.  He
+walked beside her, or, more truly, he trotted beside her, through the
+village street, for Mary went at such a pace that Eloquent was almost
+breathless.  He found time, however, to tell her that he had paired at
+the House on Friday, and took the week-end just to look after Miss
+Gallup, who had seemed rather low-spirited since her illness.  They did
+the distance in record time, and outside the gates they found Mr
+Ffolliot waiting.
+
+"I've been to see Miss Gallup, father, she has been ill, and I looked
+in to inquire. . . .  I don't think you know Mr Gallup."
+
+Mr Ffolliot bowed to Eloquent with a frigidity that plainly proved he
+had no desire to know him.
+
+"I regret," Mr Ffolliot said in an impersonal voice, "that Miss Gallup
+has been ill.  Do you know, Mary, that it is ten minutes past five?"
+
+"Good evening, Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said hastily; "it was most kind
+of you to call, and it did my aunt a great deal of good.  Good-evening,
+Mr Ffolliot."  He lifted his hat and turned away.
+
+Mr Ffolliot stood perfectly still and looked his daughter over.  From
+the crown of her exceedingly old hat to her admirable boots he surveyed
+her leisurely.
+
+"Don't you want your tea, father?" Mary asked nervously, "or have you
+had it?"
+
+"I did want tea, at the proper hour, and I have not had it; but what I
+want much more than tea is an explanation of that young man's presence
+in your society."
+
+"I told you, father, I went to see Miss Gallup, who has had bronchitis,
+and he had come down from London for the week-end to see her, and so he
+walked back with me."
+
+"Did you know he was there?"
+
+"Of course not," Mary flushed angrily, "I didn't know Miss Gallup had
+been ill till Mrs Willets told me.  I haven't been outside the grounds
+for a fortnight except in the bucket, so I've heard no village news."
+
+"And why did you take it upon yourself to go outside the grounds to-day
+without consulting me?"
+
+"I was rather tired of the garden, father, and it was such a lovely
+day, and it seemed rather unkind never to go near any of the people
+when mother was away."
+
+"None of these reasons--if one can call them reasons--throws the
+smallest light upon the fact that you have been parading the village
+with this fellow, Gallup.  I have told you before, I don't wish to know
+him, I will not know him.  His politics are abhorrent to me, and his
+antecedents. . . .  Surely by this time you know, Mary, that I do not
+choose my friends from among the shopkeepers in Marlehouse."
+
+"I'm sorry, father, but this afternoon it really couldn't be helped.  I
+couldn't be rude to the poor man when he came with me.  He seemed to
+take it for granted he should; Miss Gallup suggested it.  I daresay he
+didn't want to come at all.  But they both meant it kindly--what could
+I do?"
+
+"What you can do, and what you must do, is to obey my orders.  I will
+not have you walk anywhere in company with that bounder----"
+
+"He isn't a bounder, father.  You're wrong there; whatever he may be he
+isn't that."
+
+Mr Ffolliot turned slowly and entered the drive.  Mary followed, and in
+silence they walked up to the house.
+
+He looked at his tall daughter from time to time.  She held her head
+very high and her expression was rebellious.  She really was an
+extremely handsome girl, and, in spite of his intense annoyance, Mr
+Ffolliot felt gratification in this fact.
+
+At the hall door he paused.  "I must ask you to remember, Mary, that
+you are no longer a child, that your actions now can evoke both comment
+and criticism, and I must ask you to confine your friendships to your
+own class."
+
+"I shall never be able to do that," Mary answered firmly; "I love the
+village people far too much."
+
+"That is a wholly different matter, and you know very well that I have
+always been the first to rejoice in the very friendly relations between
+us and--er--my good tenants.  This Gallup person is not one of them.
+There is not the smallest necessity to know him, and what's more, I
+decline to know him.  Do you understand?"
+
+"No, father, I don't.  I can't promise to cut Mr Gallup or be rude to
+him if I happen to meet him; he has done nothing to deserve it.  You
+don't ask us to cut that odious Rabbich boy, who _is_ a bounder, if you
+like."
+
+"I know nothing about the Rabbich boy, as you call him.  If he is what
+you say, I should certainly advise you to drop his acquaintance; but I
+must and do insist that you shall not further cultivate the
+acquaintance of this young Gallup."
+
+"He's going back to London to-morrow afternoon, father.  What _is_
+there to worry about?"
+
+Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "I shall be glad," he exclaimed, "when your mother
+returns."
+
+"So will everybody," said Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE GRANTLY STRAIN
+
+Easter, that year, fell in the second week of April, and both Grantly
+and the twins were home for it.  Mrs Ffolliot was back too.  The
+Riviera had done wonders for her, and she returned beautiful and gay,
+and immensely glad to have her children round her once more.
+
+To celebrate Mrs Ffolliot's return, it was decided to give a
+dinner-party.  Dinner-parties were rare occurrences at the Manor.  The
+Squire allowed about two a year, and grumbled a good deal over each.
+If he would have left the whole thing to Mrs Ffolliot, she and everyone
+else would have enjoyed it; but he would interfere.  Above all, he
+insisted on supervising the list of guests, and settling who was to go
+in with whom.  This time they were to number fourteen in all, and as
+Grantly and Mary were to be of the party, that left ten people to be
+discussed.
+
+It was arranged with comparative ease till about a week before the day
+fixed the bachelor intended for Mary broke his leg out hunting.  Mary
+had been allowed a new dress for the occasion; it would be the first
+time she had been at a real party in her father's house, and to be left
+out would have been a cruel disappointment.
+
+Bachelors in that neighbourhood, even elderly bachelors, who came up to
+the standard required by Mr Ffolliot were few, and there was
+comparatively little time.
+
+The four elder children, their father, and mother were sitting at
+lunch; they had reached the cheese stage.  Fusby and his attendant maid
+had departed, and the question of a "man for Mary" occupied the
+attention of the family.  When Mrs Ffolliot quite innocently discharged
+a bomb into their midst by exclaiming, "I've got it.  Let's ask Mr
+Gallup.  He's our member; he was very kind in coming to tell me about
+poor Buz's accident, very kind to him, too, I remember.  It would be a
+friendly thing to do.  The Campions are coming, they'd be pleased."
+
+Had Mrs Ffolliot not been gazing straight at her husband, she might
+have noticed that three pairs of startled eyes looked up at the same
+moment, and then were bent sedulously on the table.
+
+Uz alone curiously regarded his brethren.  Mr Ffolliot paused in the
+very act of pouring himself out another glass of marsala and set the
+decanter on the table with a thump, the glass only half-full.
+
+"Impossible," he said coldly, "absolutely out of the question."
+
+"But why?" Mrs Ffolliot asked; "there's nothing against the young man,
+and it would be a friendly thing to do."
+
+"That's why I won't have it done," Mr Ffolliot said decidedly.  "It
+would give a false impression.  He might be disposed to take liberties."
+
+"Oh no, Larrie; why should you think anything of that sort?  It seems
+to me such a pity people in the county shouldn't be friendly.  The
+Campions speak most highly of him."
+
+"My dear"--Mr Ffolliot spoke with evident self-restraint--"I do not
+care to ask my friends to meet Mr Gallup as an equal.  How could you
+ask any lady of your own rank to go in to dinner with him?  The thing
+is outrageous."
+
+"I was going to send him in with Mary," Mrs Ffolliot said innocently.
+"We must get somebody, and I know he's in the neighbourhood, for I saw
+him to-day."
+
+"If he were in Honolulu he would not be more impossible than he is at
+present," said the Squire irritably.  "Don't discuss it any more, my
+dear, I beg of you.  It is out of the question."
+
+And Mr Ffolliot rose from the table and took refuge in his study.
+
+"I'm sorry," Mrs Ffolliot sighed, "I should have liked to ask him," and
+then she suddenly awoke to the fact that her entire family looked
+perturbed and miserable to the last degree.
+
+Grantly pushed back his chair.  "May I go, mother," he said, "I've
+something I must say to father."
+
+"Not now, Grantly," and Mrs Ffolliot laid a gentle detaining hand upon
+his arm as he passed, "not just when he's feeling annoyed--if there's
+anything you have to tell him let it wait--don't go and worry him now."
+
+Grantly lifted his mother's hand off his arm very gently.  "I must,
+mummy dear, it can't wait."
+
+He looked rather pale but his eyes were steady, and she thought with a
+little thrill of pride how like his grandfather he was growing.
+
+He went straight to the study.  Mr Ffolliot was seated by the fire with
+_Gaston Latour_ open in his hand.
+
+Grantly shut the door, crossed to the fireplace and stood on the
+hearth-rug looking down at his father.  "I've come to say, father, that
+I think we _ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."
+
+"_You_ think we ought to . . ." the Squire paused in breathless
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes, sir, I do.  And I hope you'll think so too when you hear what
+I've got to say."
+
+"Go on," said Mr Ffolliot, laying down his book.  "Go on."
+
+It wasn't very easy.  Grantly swallowed something in his throat, and
+began rather huskily: "You see, sir, we're under an obligation to
+Gallup.  We are really."
+
+"_We_ are under an obligation.  What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Well I am, father, anyway.  You remember the night before the
+election----?"
+
+"I don't," the Squire interrupted, "why in the world should I----?"
+
+"Well, sir, it was like this . . .  I went to dinner with young Rabbich
+at the Moonstone, and I got drunk----"
+
+"You--got--drunk?" the pauses between each word were far more emphatic
+than the words themselves.
+
+"Yes, sir, we all had more than was good for us, and we went to the
+Radical meeting and made an awful row, and got chucked out and----"
+
+"Look here, Grantly, what has all this to do with young Gallup?  It was
+idiotic of you to go to his meeting, and the conduct of a vulgar
+blockhead to get drunk; but in what way . . ."
+
+"That's not all, sir; after the meeting the bands came into collision,
+and I got taken up."
+
+"_You_ got taken up?"
+
+"Two policemen, sir, taking me to the station, and Mr Gallup got me out
+of it and gave me a bed in his house."
+
+Mr Ffolliot sat forward in his chair.  "You accepted his
+hospitality--you slept the night in his house?"
+
+"If I hadn't I'd have slept the night in the lock-up, and it would have
+been in the papers."
+
+"But why--why should he have intervened to protect you?"
+
+"Do you think, sir"--Grantly's voice was very shy--"that it might be
+because we both come from the same place?"
+
+"He doesn't belong to the village."
+
+"In a way he does; there have been Gallups in Redmarley nearly as long
+as us."
+
+Mr Ffolliot said nothing.  He sat staring at his tall young son as if
+he were a new person.
+
+Grantly fidgetted and flushed and paled under this steady
+contemplation, saying at last: "You do see what I mean, don't you,
+father?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"That we ought to do something friendly?"
+
+"He has certainly, through your idiotic fault, contrived to put us
+under an obligation.  Why, I cannot think, but the fact remains.  I do
+not know anything that could have annoyed me more."
+
+Grantly ventured to think that perhaps a paragraph in the police
+reports of the local newspaper might have tried the Squire even more
+severely, but he did not say so.  He waited.
+
+"Does your mother know of all this?"
+
+"Oh no, father, it would make her so sorry.  Must we tell her?"
+
+"Your tenderness for her feelings in no way restrained you at the time;
+why this solicitude now?"
+
+"I'd rather she knew than seem to go back on Gallup."
+
+"You may go, Grantly, and leave me to digest this particularly
+disagreeable intelligence.  I have long reconciled myself to your lack
+of intellectual ability, but I did not know that you indulged in such
+coarse pleasures."
+
+"Father--did you never do anything of that kind when you were young?"
+
+"Most truthfully I can answer that I never did.  It would not have
+amused me in the least."
+
+"It didn't _amuse_ me," Grantly said ruefully; "I can't remember much
+about it."
+
+"Go," said Mr Ffolliot, and Grantly went, looking rather like Parker
+with his tail between his legs.
+
+Hardly had Mr Ffolliot realised the import of what Grantly had told him
+when the door was opened again and Buz came in.
+
+Buz, too, made straight for the hearth-rug, and standing there faced
+his bewildered parent (these sudden invasions were wholly without
+precedent), saying: "I've come to tell you, sir, that I think we
+_ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."
+
+Had Mr Ffolliot been a man of his hands he would have fallen upon Buz
+and boxed his ears there and then; as it was, he replied bitterly:
+
+"I am not interested in your opinion, boy, on this or any other
+subject.  Leave the room at once."
+
+But Buz, to his father's amazement, stood his ground.
+
+"You must hear me, father, else you can't understand."
+
+"If you've come to say anything about Grantly you may spare yourself
+the pains, he has told me himself."
+
+"About Grantly," Buz repeated stupidly, "why should I want to talk
+about Grantly?--it's about him and me I want to talk."
+
+"Him and you?"  Mr Ffolliot echoed desperately.
+
+"Yes, I rotted him that night and he was awfully decent----"
+
+"What night?"
+
+"The night I broke my arm--they said at the Infirmary that if he hadn't
+been so careful of me it would have been much worse."
+
+"You refer, I suppose, to Gallup?"
+
+"Yes, father, and it really was decent of him, because I went dressed
+up as a suffragette and had no end of a rag; he might have been awfully
+shirty, and he wasn't--he never told a soul.  Don't you think we ought
+to ask him?"
+
+"Does your mother know about this?"
+
+"Of course not, nobody knew except Uz and," Buz added truthfully,
+"Adèle."
+
+"Leave me," said Mr Ffolliot feebly, "I've had about as much as I can
+bear this afternoon--Go."
+
+"You do see, sir, that it makes a difference," pleaded the persistent
+Buz.
+
+"Go," thundered the exasperated Squire.
+
+"All right, father, I'm going, but you _do_ see, don't you?" said Buz
+from the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A RETROSPECT AND A RESULT
+
+Mr Ffolliot was really a much-tried man.  Those interviews with Grantly
+and Buz caused his nerves to vibrate most unpleasantly.
+
+So unhinged was he that for quite half an hour after Buz's departure he
+kept looking nervously at the door, fully expectant that it would open
+to admit Uz, primed with some fresh reason why Eloquent Gallup should
+be asked to dinner; and that he would be followed by Ger and the Kitten
+bent on a similar errand.
+
+However, no one else invaded his privacy.  The Manor House was very
+still; the only occasional sound being the soft swish of a curtain
+stirred by the breeze through the open window.
+
+Mr Ffolliot neither read _Gaston Latour_ nor did he write, though his
+monograph on Ercole Ferrarese was not yet completed.
+
+Wrapped in thought he sat quite motionless in his deep chair, and the
+subject that engrossed him was his own youth; comparing what he
+remembered of it with these queer, careless sons of his, who seemed
+born to trouble other people, Mr Ffolliot could not call to mind any
+occasion when he had been a nuisance to anybody.  He honestly tried and
+wholly failed.
+
+Such persons as have been nourished in early youth on Mr Thackeray's
+inimitable _The Rose and The Ring_ will remember how at the christening
+of Prince Giglio, the Fairy Blackstick, who was his godmother, said,
+"My poor child, the best thing I can send you is a little misfortune!"
+
+Now the Fairy Blackstick had evidently absented herself from Hilary
+Ffolliot's christening, for his youth was one long procession of
+brilliant successes.  It is true that his father, an easy-going,
+amiable clergyman, died during his first term at Harrow, but that did
+not affect Hilary's material comfort in any way.  It left his mother
+perfectly free to devote her entire attention to him.
+
+He was a good-looking, averagely healthy boy, who carried all before
+him at preparatory school.  Easily first in every class he entered, he
+was quite able to hold his own in all the usual games, and he left for
+Harrow in a blaze of glory, having obtained the most valuable classical
+scholarship.
+
+Throughout his career at school he never failed to win any prize he
+tried for, and when he left, it was with scholarships that almost
+covered the expenses of his time at Cambridge.  Moreover, he was head
+of his house and a member of the Eleven.
+
+His mother, a gentle and unselfish lady, felt that she could not do
+enough to promote the comfort of so brilliant and satisfactory a son.
+Hilary's likes and dislikes in the matter of food, Hilary's preference
+for silk underwear, Hilary's love of art and music, were all matters of
+equal and supreme importance to Mrs Ffolliot, and in every way she
+fostered the strain of selfishness that exists even in the best of us.
+
+At the university he did equally well.  He took a brilliant degree, and
+then travelled for a year or so, devoting himself to the study of
+Italian art and architecture; and finally accepted (he never seemed to
+try for things like other people) a clerkship in the Foreign Office.
+
+When he was eight and twenty his uncle died, and he inherited Redmarley.
+
+His conduct had always been blameless.  He shared the ordinary
+pleasures of upper-class young men without committing any of their
+follies.  He was careful about money, and never got into debt.  He
+accepted kindnesses as his right, and felt under no obligation to
+return them.
+
+He could not be said ever to have worked hard, for all the work he had
+hitherto undertaken came so easily to him.  He possessed a large circle
+of agreeable acquaintances, and no intimate friends.
+
+He met Marjory Grantly in her second season, and for the first time in
+his life fell ardently and hopelessly in love.
+
+Now was the chance for the Fairy Blackstick!
+
+But she evidently took no interest in Hilary Ffolliot, for Marjory,
+instead of sending him about his business, and perhaps thus rendering
+him for a space the most miserable of men, fell in love with him, and
+they were married in three months.
+
+The General, it is true, had misgivings, and remarked to Mrs Grantly
+that Ffolliot seemed too good to be true.  But there was no disproving
+it; and Hilary was so much in love that for a while, for nearly a year,
+he thought more about Marjory's likes and dislikes than his own.
+
+And Marjory's likes included such a vast number of other people.
+
+But the chance, the hundred-to-one chance, of turning him into an
+ordinary human being--loving, suffering, understanding--was lost.
+
+Once more in Life's Market he had got what he wanted at his own price,
+and with the cessation of competitive examinations all ambition seemed
+dead in him.
+
+And what of Marjory?
+
+Nobody, not even her father and mother who loved her so tenderly, ever
+knew what Marjory felt.  She had chosen her lot.  She would abide by
+it.  No doubt she saw her husband as he was, but as time went on she
+realised how few chances he had had to be anything different.  She was
+an only child herself.  She, too, had adoring parents, but their
+adoration took a different form from the somewhat abject and wholly
+blind devotion of Hilary's mother.  General and Mrs Grantly saw to it
+from the very first that they should love their daughter because she
+was lovable, and not only because she was theirs.  They had troops of
+friends, and exercised a large hospitality that entailed a constant
+giving out of sympathy for and interest in other people.  That there
+was much suffering, and sadness, and sin in the world was never
+concealed from Marjory in her happy girlhood; that it had not touched
+her personally was never allowed to foster the belief that it did not
+exist.  That there was also much happiness, and gaiety, and kindness
+was abundantly manifest in her own home, and every scope was given her
+for the development of the social instincts which were part of her
+charm.  She went to her husband at twenty "handled and made," and
+twenty years of married life had only perfected the work.
+
+As a girl she was perhaps intellectually intolerant.  Stupid people
+annoyed her, and she possessed all youth's enthusiastic admiration for
+achievement, for people who did things, who had arrived.  Hilary
+Ffolliot was a new type to her.  His brilliant record impressed her.
+His cultivated taste and extraordinary versatility attracted her, and
+his evident admiration gratified her girlish vanity.
+
+She was a proud woman, and if she had made a mistake she was not going
+to let it spoil her life.  Only once did she come near showing her
+heart even to her mother.  It was a year after the Kitten was born,
+when the General had just got the command at Woolwich, and Mrs Grantly
+once more came back to the assault--her constant plea that she should
+have Ger given over to her entirely.
+
+"You really are, Margie, a greedy, grasping woman.  Here are you with
+six children, four of them sons.  And here am I with only one child, a
+miserable, measly girl, and you won't let me have even one of the boys."
+
+The miserable, measly girl referred to laughed and knelt down at her
+mother's knee.  "Dearest, you really get quite as much of the children
+as is good for you--or them----"
+
+"You can't say I spoil them; I didn't spoil you, and you were only one."
+
+"I'm sorry I couldn't be more," Mrs Ffolliot said contritely; "but you
+see, mother dear, it's like this, it's just because I was only one I
+want the children to have as much as possible of each other . . . while
+they are young . . .  I want them to grow up . . ."  Mrs Ffolliot sat
+down on the floor and leant her head against Mrs Grantly's knees so
+that her face was hidden.  "I want them to realise what a lot of other
+people there are in the world, all with hopes and fears and likes and
+dislikes and joys and sorrows . . . and that each one of them is only a
+very little humble atom of a great whole--and that's what they can
+teach each other--I can't do it--you can't do it--but they can manage
+it amongst them."
+
+Mrs Grantly did not answer; quick as she was in repartee, she had the
+much rarer gift of sympathetic silence.  She laid a kind hand on her
+daughter's bent head and softly stroked it.
+
+The clock struck four, and still Mr Ffolliot sat on in his chair with
+_Gaston Latour_ unopened, held loosely in his long slender hands.
+
+A dignified presence with every attribute that goes to make the scholar
+and the gentleman; though one who judged of character from external
+appearance might have misdoubted the thin straight lips, the rather
+pinched nostrils, the eyes too close together, and above all, the
+head--high and intellectual, but almost devoid of curve at the back.  A
+clean-cut, ascetic, handsome face, as a rule calm and judicial in its
+dignified repose.
+
+This afternoon, though, the Squire lacks his usual serene poise.  His
+self-confidence has been shaken, and it is his young sons who have
+disturbed its delicately adjusted equilibrium.
+
+He was puzzled.
+
+It is a mistake to imagine that selfish and ungrateful people fail to
+recognise these qualities in others.  Not only are they quick to
+perceive incipient signs of them, but they demand the constant exercise
+of their opposites in their fellow men.
+
+Mr Ffolliot was puzzled.
+
+Among the words he used most constantly, both on paper and in
+conversation, were "fine shades" and "fineness" in its most
+psychological sense.  "Fineness" was a quality he was for ever
+belauding: a quality that he believed was only to be found in persons
+of complex character and unusually sensitive organisation.
+
+And yet he grudgingly conceded that he had, that afternoon, been
+confronted by it in two of his own quite ordinary children.
+
+What rankled, however, was that Buz, at all events, seemed doubtful
+whether he, the Squire, possessed it.  The dubious and thrice-repeated
+"you do understand, don't you, father?" rang in his ears.
+
+How was it that Buz, the shallow and mercurial, seemed to fear that
+what was so plain to him might be hidden from his father?
+
+Undesired and wholly irrelevant there flashed into his mind that walk
+with Mary, a short ten days ago, when he had reproached her with her
+limitations, her power to grasp only the obvious.  And it was suddenly
+revealed to Mr Ffolliot that certain obligations were obvious to his
+children that were by no means equally clear to him.
+
+Why was this?
+
+As if in answer came his own phrase, used so often in contemptuous
+explanation of their more troublesome vagaries--"the Grantly Strain."
+
+He was fair-minded and he admired courage.  He in no way underrated the
+effort it must have been for Grantly and Buz to come and confess their
+peccadillos to him.  And he knew very well that only because they felt
+someone else was involved had they summoned up courage to do so.
+
+If their evil-doings were discovered, they did not lie, these noisy,
+blundering children of his; but they never showed the smallest desire
+to draw attention to their escapades.
+
+His mind seemed incapable of concentration that afternoon, for now he
+began to wonder how it was that "the children" lately had managed to
+emerge from the noun of multitude and each had assumed a separate
+identity with marked and definite characteristics.
+
+There was Mary . . .
+
+Mr Ffolliot frowned.  If it hadn't been for Mary he really would have
+been quite glad to ask young Gallup to dinner.  But Mary complicated
+matters; for he had instantly divined what had struck none of the
+others, a connection between the Liberal member's amiability to his
+sons and the fact that those sons possessed a sister.
+
+Presently Fusby came in to make up the fire.  "Do you happen to know,
+Fusby, if your mistress is in the house and disengaged?"
+
+"I saw the mistress as I came through the 'all, sir, sitting in a
+window reading a book.  She was quite alone, sir."
+
+"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "thank you, I will go to her."
+
+As the door was closed behind his master, Fusby arose from brushing the
+hearth and shook his fist in that direction.
+
+"Go, I should think you would go, you one-eyed old image you.  Did you
+think I was going to fetch her to wait your pleasure?"
+
+Mrs Ffolliot laid down her book as her husband came across the wide old
+hall.  She made room for him on the window-seat beside her.  She
+noticed that he was flushed and that his hair was almost shaggy.
+
+"Have you got a headache, Larrie?" she asked in her kind voice.  "I
+hope Grantly had nothing disturbing to relate."
+
+"Yes, no," Mr Ffolliot replied vaguely; "I've been thinking things
+over, my dear, and I've come round to your opinion that perhaps it
+would be the right thing to ask young Gallup to dinner on the
+twenty-first.  There will be the Campions and the Wards to keep him in
+countenance."
+
+"I'm so glad you see it as I do," Mrs Ffolliot said gently, looking,
+however, much surprised.  "After all, he may not come, you know."
+
+"He'll come," and his wife wondered why the Squire laid such grim
+emphasis upon the words.
+
+"By the way," Mr Ffolliot said in quite a new tone, "you were saying
+something the other day about your mother's very kind offer to have
+Mary for some weeks after the May drawing-room.  I think it would be a
+good thing.  You don't want the fag and expense of going up to town so
+soon after you've come home.  Let her stay with her grandmother for a
+bit and go out--see that she has proper clothes--they will enjoy having
+the child, and she will see something of the world.  Let her have her
+fling--don't hurry her."
+
+"Why, Hilary, what a _volte-face_!  When I spoke to you about it before
+I was ill you said it was out of the question . . ."
+
+"My dear," said Mr Ffolliot testily, "only stupid people think that
+they must never change their minds.  I have decided that it will be
+good for Mary to leave Redmarley for a bit.  You must remember that I
+have been carefully observing her for the last few weeks.  She will
+grow narrow and provincial if she never meets anyone except the
+Garsetshire people.  Surely you must see that?"
+
+"May I tell Mary?  It's such fun when you're young to look forward to
+things."
+
+"Certainly tell Mary, and let her go as soon as her grandmother will
+have her.  She'd better get what clothes she wants in town."
+
+"She can go up with Grantly when he goes back to the Shop.  It _is_
+nice of you, Larrie."
+
+"I suppose she must stay for this tiresome dinner?  Why not let her go
+beforehand?  It's always very easy to get an odd girl."
+
+"That wouldn't do," Mrs Ffolliot said decidedly, "the child would be
+disappointed--besides I want her."
+
+Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "As you will, my dear," he said meekly, "but she'd
+better go directly it is over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE DREAM GOES ON
+
+"Aunt Susan, will you give me a bed on Thursday night?"
+
+Eloquent, who was spending the Easter recess at Marlehouse, had
+bicycled out to tea with Miss Gallup.
+
+"You know as I'm always pleased to give you a bed any time.  What do
+you want it then for?  Are you coming to stop a bit?"
+
+"Because," Eloquent took a deep breath and watched his aunt closely,
+"I'm dining at the Manor that night."
+
+"Then," said Miss Gallup sharply, "you don't have a bed here."
+
+"Why ever not?" and in his astonishment Eloquent dropped into the
+Garsetshire idiom he was usually so careful to avoid.
+
+"Because," Miss Gallup was flushed and tremulous, "no one shall ever
+say I was as a drag on you."
+
+"But, Aunt Susan, no one could say it, and if they did, what would it
+matter? and what in the world has that to do with giving me a bed?"
+
+"My dear," said Miss Gallup, "I know my place if you don't.  When you
+goes to dinner with Squire Ffolliot you must go properly from
+Marlehouse like anybody else--you must drive out, or hire a motor and
+put it up there, same as other people do, and go back again to your own
+house where you're known to be--it's in the paper.  There's no sort of
+use draggin' _me_ in.  I always knew as you'd get there some day, and
+now you've got there and no one's pleasder than me.  Do show me the
+invitation."
+
+Eloquent took a note from his breast-pocket and handed it to his aunt,
+who put on her spectacles and read aloud, slowly and impressively:--
+
+
+Dear Mr Gallup,--If you have no other engagement, will you come and
+dine with us on the twenty-first at eight o'clock.  It will give us
+great pleasure if you can.--Yours sincerely,
+
+MARGERY FFOLLIOT.
+
+
+"H'm, now that's not what I should have expected," Miss Gallup said in
+a disappointed tone.  "_I_ should have thought she'd 'a said, 'Mr and
+Mrs Ffolliot presents their compliments to Mr Gallup, and requests the
+pleasure of his company at a dinner-party'--I know there is a party,
+for Dorcas did tell Em'ly-Alice there was going to be one; only last
+night she was talking about it--it's downright blunt that note--I call
+it----"
+
+Eloquent laughed.  "All the same I've accepted, and now do explain why
+I can't sleep here instead of trailing all the way back into Marlehouse
+at that time of night."
+
+"If you can't _see_, why you must just take my word for it.  You and
+me's in different walks of life, and it's my bounden duty to see as you
+don't bemean yourself.  I'm always pleased to see you in a quiet way,
+but there's no use in strangers knowing we're relations."
+
+"What nonsense," Eloquent exclaimed hotly, "I've only got one aunt in
+the world, and I'm very proud of her, so let there be an end of this
+foolishness."
+
+Miss Gallup wiped her eyes.  "In some ways, Eloquent," she said
+huskily, "with all your politics an' that, you're no better than a
+child."
+
+"I'm hanged if I can see what you're driving at," Eloquent exclaimed in
+great irritation.  "Once more, Aunt Susan, will you give me a bed on
+Thursday?"
+
+"Don't ask me, my dear, don't ask me.  It's for your good as I refuse.
+_I_ can see the difference between us if you can't, and when you took
+on so with politics, and then your father left all that fortune so as
+you could leave the likes of the Golden Anchor, I said to myself, 'Now,
+Martha Gallup, don't you interfere.  Don't you go intrudin' on your
+brother's child.  If he sees fit to keep friendly it shows he's a good
+heart, but you keep your place.' . . .  An' I've kep' it; never have I
+been near you in Marlehouse, as you know--Not but what you've as't me,
+and very pleased I was to be as't . . ."
+
+"And very displeased I was that you would never come," Eloquent
+interrupted.
+
+"I know my place," Miss Gallup persisted.  "I don't mind the likes of
+the Ffolliots knowing we're related. . . .  They're bound to know, and
+they're not proud, none of 'em exceptin' Squire, that is to say, and he
+wouldn't think it worth while to be proud to the likes of me.  But I
+don't want to hang on and keep you down, and there's some as would
+think less of you for me bein' your aunt, so where's the use of
+flaunting an old-fashioned piece like me in their faces. . . .  If
+you'll come out next day and tell me all about the party, I'd take it
+most kind of you, Eloquent, that I should."
+
+"Why shouldn't I come here straight that night?  I shouldn't have
+forgotten anything by then."
+
+"No," Miss Gallup said firmly.  "I'd much rather you didn't come to me
+from that 'ouse nor go there from me.  You go back 'ome like a good
+boy.  It isn't as if you couldn't afford a chaise to bring you."
+
+Eloquent saw that she really meant what she said.  He was puzzled and
+rather hurt, for it had never occurred to him that his aunt was
+anything but his aunt: a kindly garrulous old lady who had always been
+extremely good to him, whom it was his duty to cherish, who looked upon
+him in the light of a son.
+
+He was a simple person and never realised that this simplicity and
+directness had a good deal to do with the undoubted cordiality of
+certain persons, who, apart from politics, were known to be very
+exclusive in the matter of their acquaintance; and that it was largely
+owing to the fact that he never showed the smallest false shame as to
+his origin, that members of his party who had at first consented to
+know him solely for political reasons, continued to know him when the
+Liberal Government was for a second time firmly established.  They
+perceived his primness, were faintly amused by his immense earnestness,
+and they respected his sincerity.
+
+The manner of his arrival on the fateful night was settled for him by
+Sir George Campion, who, meeting him in the street, offered him a seat
+in their motor.  Eloquent never knew that Mrs Ffolliot had asked Sir
+George to do this, thinking that it would make things easier and
+pleasanter for the guest who was the one stranger to the assembled
+party.
+
+On the night of the dinner Mary was dressed early and went to her
+mother's room to see if she could help her.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot was standing before her long glass and Sophia was shaking
+out the train of her dress, a soft grey-blue dress full of purple
+shadows and silvery lights.
+
+She turned and looked at her tall young daughter, critically, fondly,
+with the pride and fear and wonder a woman, above all a beautiful
+woman, feels as she realises that for her child everything is yet to
+come; the story all untold.
+
+"You may go, Sophia," she said gently.  "I think Miss Mary looks nice,
+don't you?  It's her first real evening frock, you know."
+
+Sophia looked from the one to the other and her severe face relaxed a
+little.  "It fits most beautiful," she vouchsafed.
+
+"Mother," Mary said when Sophia had gone, "I wanted to catch you just a
+minute--I've seen Mr Gallup since that night he came to tell us about
+Buz . . ."
+
+"You've met?" Mrs Ffolliot exclaimed, "where? and why have you never
+told me?"
+
+"It was while you were away.  Miss Gallup had been ill and I went to
+ask for her and he was there, and he walked home with me . . ."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot raised her eyebrows.
+
+"Oh, you think it funny too?  It couldn't be helped--old Miss Gallup
+seemed to think it was the proper thing and sent him--and father was
+waiting for me at the gate and was awfully cross. . . .  Mother, how
+_did_ you persuade him to let you ask Mr Gallup?"
+
+Mrs Ffolliot turned to her dressing-table and began to collect fan and
+handkerchief.  She looked in the glass and saw Mary behind her, eager,
+radiant, slim, upright, and gloriously young.  She began to see why
+father was so awfully cross.  There was more excuse than usual.
+
+"Why don't you answer me, mother? didn't you hear what I said?"
+
+"I heard, my darling.  Father needed no persuasion.  He simply changed
+his mind; but I can't think why you never told me you had met Mr Gallup
+already."
+
+Mary blushed.  The warm colour dyed forehead and neck and ears, and
+faded into the exceedingly white chest and shoulders, revealed to the
+world for the first time.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot saw all this in the glass, wondered if she could have
+imagined it, and turned to face her daughter.
+
+"Mother"--what honest eyes the child had, to be sure--"it wasn't the
+first time I'd spoken to him."
+
+"Really, Mary, you are very mysterious----"
+
+"I met him in the woods once before Christmas, and he was lost, and I
+showed him the way out, and father saw us . . . and was just as cross."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot felt more in sympathy with her husband than usual.  But
+all she said was, "Well, well, it's evident you don't need an
+introduction.  I forgot you'd seen him when he called.  I'm glad you
+told me in time to prevent it, or he would have thought it so
+odd--come, my child, we must go down."
+
+"_You_ aren't cross, are you, mother?" Mary asked wistfully.
+
+"Cross!" Mrs Ffolliot repeated, "at your first party.  What is there to
+be cross about?  Yes, my child, that dress is quite charming--father
+was right, you can stand that dead white--but it's trying to some
+people--come."
+
+The Campions called for Eloquent, and he found himself seated side by
+side with Sir George on one of the little seats, while Lady Campion and
+a pretty niece called Miss Bax sat opposite.  Miss Bax was disposed to
+be friendly and conversational, but to Eloquent the fact that he was
+going to Redmarley was no ordinary occurrence, and he would infinitely
+have preferred to have driven out alone, or, better still, to have
+walked through the soft spring night from his aunt's house to the
+Manor, which still held something of the glamour that had surrounded it
+in his childhood.
+
+For him it was still "the Manshun," immense, remote, peopled by
+inhabitants fine and strange, and far removed from ordinary life.  A
+house whose interior common folk were, it is true, occasionally allowed
+to see, walking on tiptoe, speaking in whispers, led and instructed by
+an important rustling old lady who wore an imposing cap and a silk
+apron; a strange, silent house where none save servants ever seemed to
+come and go.  He had not yet quite recovered from the shock it was to
+him to hear voices and laughter in that old panelled hall which he had
+known in childhood as so vast and shadowy.  He liked to remember all
+this, and to feel that he was going there as THEIR guest, to be with
+THEM on intimate friendly terms.  It was wonderful, incredible; it was
+part of the dream.
+
+". . . don't you think so, Mr Gallup?" asked Miss Bax, and Eloquent
+woke with a start to realise that he had not heard a word his pretty
+neighbour was saying.  He was thankful that the motor was dark and that
+the others could not notice how red he was.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said loudly, leaning forward, "I didn't catch
+what you said."
+
+"Is the man deaf?" Miss Bax wondered, for the motor was a Rolls-Royce
+and singularly smooth and noiseless.  "I was saying," she went on
+aloud, "that it will probably be my lot to go in to dinner with Grantly
+Ffolliot, and that cadets as a class are badly in need of snubbing;
+don't you agree with me?"
+
+"I haven't met any except young Mr Ffolliot," Eloquent said primly,
+"and I must say he did not strike me as a particularly conceited young
+man."
+
+"He isn't," Sir George broke in, "he's an exceedingly nice boy, they
+all are.  Their mother has seen to that."
+
+"Boys are so difficult to talk to," Miss Bax lamented; "their range is
+so limited, and my enthusiasm for football is so lukewarm."
+
+"Try him on his profession," Lady Campion suggested.
+
+"That would be worse.  Cadets do nothing but tell you how hard they are
+worked, and what a fearful block there is in the special branch of the
+army they are going in for.  Is young Ffolliot going to be a Sapper by
+any chance? for they're the worst of all--considering themselves, as
+they do, the brains of the army."
+
+"I don't think so," said Sir George; "he's not clever enough.  He's
+only got moderate ability and an uncommonly pretty seat on a horse.
+He'll get Field all right.  But why are you so sure, my dear, that
+he'll be your fate?  Why not Gallup here? and you could try and convert
+him to your views on the Suffrage question?  He'd be some use, you
+know.  He _has_ a vote."
+
+Again Eloquent blessed the darkness as he coloured hotly and brought
+his mind back to the present with a violent wrench.  He knew he ought
+to say something, but what?  He fervently hoped they would not assign
+him to this severe self-possessed young lady who thought cadets
+conceited and had political views.  Heavens! she might be another
+Elsmaria Buttermish with no blessed transformation later on into
+something human and approachable.
+
+"I'm afraid"--he heard Miss Bax talking as it were an immense way off
+as he floated away on the wings of his dream--"that my views would
+startle Mr Gallup."
+
+The motor turned in at the drive gates, they had reached the door.
+
+Eloquent was right in the middle of his dream.
+
+He followed Lady Campion and Miss Bax across the hall and down a
+corridor to a room he had never been in when he was a child.
+
+Fusby threw open a door and announced loudly, "Sir George and Lady
+Campion, Miss Bax, Mr Gallup."
+
+They were the last of the guests.
+
+For a little while he was less conscious of his dream.  This light,
+bright room with white panelled walls and furniture covered with gay
+chintzes, soft blurred chintz in palest pinks and greens, with pictures
+in oval frames, and people, ordinary people that he had seen before,
+all talking and laughing together.  This was not the Redmarley that he
+knew, grave and beautiful and old.
+
+This was not the Redmarley of his dream.  It came back to him as Mrs
+Ffolliot gave him her hand in welcome, presenting him to her husband
+and one or two other people.  It left him as she turned away and
+Grantly came forward and greeted him.  Grantly, tall and irreproachably
+well dressed, cheerful withal and quite at his ease.
+
+Sir George had pulled Mary into the very middle of the room and held
+her at arm's length with laughing comments.  How could men find the
+courage for that sort of thing?  He heard him ask what she had done
+with her sash, and then Mrs Ffolliot said, "I think you know my
+daughter, Mr Gallup; will you take her in to dinner?"
+
+And once more he was well in the middle of his dream, for he found
+himself in the corridor he knew, side by side with Mary, part of a
+procession moving towards the dining-room.
+
+Her hand was on his arm, but the exquisite moment was a little marred
+by the discovery that she was quite an inch taller than he.
+
+Eloquent had been to a good many public dinners; he had even dined with
+certain Cabinet Ministers, but always when there were only men.  He had
+never yet dined with people of the Ffolliots' class in this intimate,
+friendly way, and he found everything a little different from what he
+expected.  He had read very little fiction, and such mental pictures as
+he had evolved were drawn from his inner consciousness.  As always, he
+wondered how they contrived to be so gay, to talk such nonsense, and to
+laugh at it.  Seated between Mary and witty Mrs Ward, whose husband was
+one of his ardent supporters in the county, he did his best to join in
+the general conversation, but he found it hard.  Miss Bax, whose
+premonition regarding her fate was justified, seemed to have overcome
+her objection to cadets.  She and Grantly were just opposite to him,
+and he noticed with regret that Grantly was drinking champagne.  It
+would have been better, Eloquent thought, if the boy had abstained
+altogether after his experience at the election.  Mary, too, drank
+champagne, but Eloquent condoned this weakness in her case, she drank
+so little.  Everyone drank champagne except Sir George, who preferred
+whisky, and Eloquent himself, who drank Apollinaris.
+
+"Do you suffer from rheumatism?" Mary asked innocently.  "Do you think
+it would hurt you once in a way?"
+
+"I am not in the least rheumatic," Eloquent protested, "but I have
+never tasted anything intoxicating."
+
+"Then you don't know whether you'd like it or not.  Why not try some
+and see?" Mary suggested hospitably.
+
+Eloquent shook his head.  "Better not," he said, "you don't know what
+effect it might have on me."
+
+He ate whatever was put before him, wholly unaware of its nature, and
+in spite of Mary's efforts to keep the conversational ball rolling
+gaily, he was very silent.
+
+The dream had got him again, for he knew this room with the dark oak
+panelling and great old portraits of departed Ffolliots, some of them
+with eyes that followed you.  He knew the room, but as he knew it, the
+long narrow table, like the table in a refectory, was bare and polished
+and empty; or with a little cloth laid just at one end for old Mr
+Ffolliot.
+
+What did they think of it now, these solemn pictured people?--this
+long, narrow strip of brilliant light and flowers and sparkling glass
+and silver, surrounded by well-dressed cheerful persons, all,
+apparently, laughing and talking at the same time.
+
+They had reached dessert, and he was handing Mary a dish of sweets; she
+took four.  "Do take some," she whispered, "take lots, and what you
+don't want give to me; you can put them in my bridge-bag under the
+table, I want them for the children.  I promised Ger."
+
+Bewildered, but only too happy to do anything she asked him, Eloquent
+helped himself largely.
+
+"Now," Mary whispered, holding a little white satin bag open under the
+table, "and if they come round again, take some more."
+
+"It was my grandfather began it," she explained; "he used always to
+save sweets for us when we stayed with him, and now it's a rule--if we
+dine downstairs--if there are any--there aren't always, you know--and
+Fusby's so stingy, if there are any left he takes them and locks them
+up in a box till next time.  You watch Grantly, he's got some too, but
+he hasn't got anywhere to put them, like me.  I must go round behind
+him when mother collects eyes, then I'll nip up to Ger, for he'll never
+go to sleep till I've been . . ."
+
+"You see," she went on confidentially, "they will take them to Willets
+to-morrow.  He loves good sweets and he never gets any unless they take
+them to him.  They'll make a party of it, and Mrs Willets will give
+them each a weeny glass of ginger-wine.  They'll have a lovely time--do
+you know Willets?"
+
+"By sight, I think . . . he's your keeper, isn't he?  From all I can
+hear to-night he seems a very remarkable person, everyone is talking
+about him."
+
+"Oh, you ought to know him, he's the greatest dear in Redmarley.
+Everyone who knows us knows Willets, and dukes and people have tried to
+get him away, he's such a good sportsman, but he won't leave us.  We
+love him so much we couldn't bear it.  He couldn't either.  He's been
+keeper here nearly twenty-three years.  Before mother came he was here,
+and now there's all of us he'll never leave."
+
+"Have you got enough?  Won't they want some for themselves as well as
+Willets?"
+
+"Thanks to you, I've got a splendid lot.  One can't always ask people,
+you know, but I thought you wouldn't mind."
+
+"Shall I demand some more in a loud voice? there are some at the end of
+the table," Eloquent murmured; "I'm very shy, but I can be bold in a
+good cause."
+
+Mary looked at him in some surprise.  "Would you really?  Ah, it's too
+late, there's mother----"
+
+Eloquent watched her with breathless interest as she "went round the
+longest way" and received new spoils from Grantly as she passed.  How
+curious they were about their servants these people, where Fusby seemed
+to control the supplies and the children of the house secretly saved
+sweets for the keeper.
+
+The men did not sit long over their wine, and it was to the hall they
+went and not to the white-panelled room that Eloquent unconsciously
+resented as an anachronism; and in the hall bridge-tables were set out.
+
+This was a complication Eloquent had not foreseen.  Among his father's
+friends cards were regarded as the Devil's Books, and he did not know
+the ace of spades from the knave of hearts.
+
+Would they force him to play, he wondered.  Would he cover himself with
+shame and ignominy? and what if he said it was against his principles
+to play for money?
+
+He braced himself to be faithful to the traditions in which he had been
+trained, only to find that on his saying he never _had_ played bridge
+no one expressed the smallest desire that he should do so.
+
+In fact it seemed to him that three tables were arranged with almost
+indecent haste, cryptic remarks about "cutting in" were bandied about,
+and in less than five minutes he was sitting on the oak settle by the
+fire with Mrs Ffolliot, who talked to him so delightfully that the
+dream came back.
+
+Here on the high-backed settle he found courage to tell her how clearly
+he remembered that first time he had seen her in his father's shop; and
+plainly she was touched and interested, and drew him on to speak of his
+queer lonely childhood and the ultimate goal that had been kept ever
+before his eyes.
+
+He was very happy, and it seemed but a short time till somebody at one
+of the tables exclaimed "game and rub," and Mary came over to the
+settle saying, "Now, mother, you must take my place.  I've been awfully
+lucky, I've won half a crown."
+
+She sat down beside him on the settle asking, "Would you care to watch,
+or shall we just sit here and talk--which would you rather?"
+
+What Eloquent wanted to do was to stare: to gaze and gaze at the
+gracious young figure sitting there in gleaming white flecked with
+splashes of rosy light from the dancing flames, but he could hardly say
+this.
+
+"I'm afraid it would be of no use for me to watch; I have never played
+cards, and don't understand them in the least."
+
+"You mean you don't know the suits?"
+
+"What are suits?"
+
+"This must be seen to," said Mary; "you don't smoke, you drink nothing
+festive, you don't know one card from another; you can't go through
+life like this.  It's not fair.  We won't waste another minute, I'll
+teach you the suits now."
+
+She made him fetch a little table, she produced a pack of cards.  She
+spread them out and she expounded.  He was a quick study.  By the time
+Mr Ffolliot came to take Mary's place he knew all the suits.  By the
+time Mr Ffolliot had thoroughly confused him by a learned disquisition
+on the principles of bridge, Lady Campion's motor was announced, and he
+departed in her train.
+
+"Surely Mr Gallup is a very absent-minded person," Miss Bax remarked to
+her aunt when they had deposited Eloquent at his door.
+
+"I expect he's shy," said Lady Campion, who was sleepy and not
+particularly interested; "but wasn't Mary nice to him?--I do like that
+girl--she's so natural and unaffected."
+
+"She always strikes me as being a mere child," said Miss Bax, "so very
+unformed; is she out yet, or is she still in the schoolroom?"
+
+Sir George chuckled.  "She's on her way out," he said, "and, I fancy,
+on her way to an uncommonly good time as well.  That girl is a sight to
+make an old man young."
+
+"She certainly is handsome," said Miss Bax.
+
+Sir George chuckled again.  "Unformed," he repeated, "there's some of
+us likes 'em like that."
+
+Eloquent sat long in his orderly little dining-room where the glass of
+milk and tray of sandwiches awaited him on the sideboard.  His head was
+in a whirl.  She drank champagne.  She gambled.  She seemed to think it
+was perfectly natural and right to do these things.  It probably was if
+she thought so.  She . . .
+
+Heavens! what an adorable wife she would be for a young Cabinet
+Minister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+WILLETS
+
+Had Eloquent ever taken the smallest interest in country pursuits he
+must have come across Willets, for in that part of the Cotswolds
+Willets was as well known as the Marle itself.
+
+A small thick-set man with a hooky nose, and with bright, long-sighted
+brown eyes and strong, sensitive hands, wrists tempered and supple as a
+rapier, and a tongue that talked unceasingly and well.
+
+Sporting people wondered why Willets, with his multifarious knowledge
+of wood and river craft, should stay at Redmarley: a comparatively
+small estate, whose owner was known to preserve only because it was a
+tradition to do so, and not because he cared in the least about the
+sport provided.  Willets was wasted, they said, and it is possible that
+at one time Willets, himself, agreed with them.
+
+He came originally of Redmarley folk, and his wife from a neighbouring
+village.  He "got on" and became one of the favourite keepers on a
+ducal estate in the North, much liked both by the noble owner and his
+sporting friends; a steady, intelligent man with a real genius for the
+gentle craft.  He could charm trout from water where, apparently, no
+trout existed; he could throw a fly with a skill and precision
+beautiful to behold, and he was well read in the literature of his
+pursuits.  Much converse with gentlemen had softened the asperities of
+his Cotswold speech, he expressed himself well, wrote both a good hand
+and a good letter, and was very popular with those he served.  Life
+looked exceedingly rosy for Willets--for he was happy in his marriage
+and a devoted father to his three little girls--when the hand of fate
+fell heavily upon him.  There came a terribly severe winter in that
+part of Scotland, and one after another the little girls got bronchitis
+and died; the three in five months.
+
+He and his wife could bear the place no longer, and came South.  The
+Duke was really sorry to lose him, and took considerable trouble to
+find him something to do in the Cotswold country whence he came.
+
+It happened that just then old Mr Ffolliot was looking for a keeper who
+would see after things in general at the Manor, and the fishing in
+particular; so Willets accepted the situation merely as a make-shift
+for a short time, till something worthier of his powers should turn up.
+
+It was pleasant to be in the old county once more.  There was help and
+healing in the kind grey houses and the smiling pastoral country.  His
+wife was pleased to be near her people, and his work was of the
+lightest.  But Willets was not yet forty, he had ambitions, and the
+wages were much smaller than what he had been getting.  It would do,
+perhaps, for a year or two, and he knew that whenever he liked, his
+late master would be glad to have him back and would give him a post in
+the Yorkshire dales.
+
+Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Hilary, reigned in his stead.
+Willets announced to his wife that their time in Redmarley would be
+short.
+
+The young Squire married and in the bride's train came General Grantly
+with all the patience and enthusiasm and friendly anecdotal powers of
+your true angler; and in his train came like-minded brother officers to
+whom, it must be conceded, Hilary Ffolliot was always ready to offer
+hospitality.
+
+Things livened up a bit at Redmarley, and Willets decided to stay a
+little longer.
+
+Margery Ffolliot liked the Willets and was passionately sorry for them
+about the little girls; but it was the Ffolliot children who wove about
+Willets an unbreakable charm, binding him to his native village.
+
+One by one, with toddling steps and high, clear voices, they stormed
+the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive.
+
+Saving only their mother, Willets had a good deal more to do with the
+upbringing of the young Ffolliots in their earliest years than anybody
+else.  Singly and collectively, they adored him, tyrannised over him,
+copied him, learnt from him, and wasted his time with a prodigality a
+more sporting master than the Squire might have resented seriously.
+
+Thus it fell out that offers came to Willets, good offers from places
+far more important than Redmarley, where there were possibilities both
+in the way of sport and of tips--there was a sad scarcity of tips at
+Redmarley--and yet he passed them by.
+
+Sometimes his wife would be a little reproachful, pointing out that
+they were saving nothing and he was throwing away good money.
+
+Willets had always some excellent reason for not leaving just then.
+
+Redmarley had possibilities; it would be a nice place by the time
+Master Grantly was grown up and brought his friends.  No one else would
+take quite the same interest in it that he did; he was proud of the
+children, and money wasn't everything, and so Willets stayed on.
+
+With the arrival of the Kitten his subjugation was completed, and a
+seal was set upon the permanence of his relations with the Manor House.
+From the days when the Kitten in a white bonnet and woolly gaiters
+would struggle out of her nurse's arms to be taken by Willets, sitting
+on his knee and gazing at him with wine-coloured bright eyes not unlike
+his own, occasionally putting up a small hand encased in an absurd
+fingerless glove to turn his face that she might see it better, Willets
+was her infatuated and abject slave.  When on these occasions he
+attempted to restore her to her nurse she would clutch him fiercely and
+scream, so that it ended in his carrying her up to the house and up the
+backstairs to the nursery, whence he only escaped by strategy.
+
+No day passed without a visit from the Kitten and although he was not
+wholly blind to the defects in her character, he was sure she was the
+"peartest, sauciest, cleverest little baggage in the British Isles."
+
+Of course the fact that Eloquent had been asked to dine at the Manor
+House was much canvassed in the village.  Miss Gallup trumpeted the
+matter abroad, and naturally it was discussed exhaustively by what Mr
+Ffolliot would have called his "retainers."
+
+Willets was not sure that he approved.  "I've no doubt," he said
+leniently to Mrs Willets as they were sitting at tea, "that he's a
+smart young chap and he's got on wonderfully, but I don't altogether
+trust that pushing kind myself, and he's that sort.  Why, I saw him,
+with my own eyes, walk past this house with our Miss Mary as bold as
+brass.  I'll warrant if Squire had seen him he'd have been put out."
+
+"He was her partner at dinner last night," Fusby was saying, "and
+what's more," here Mrs Willets lowered her voice mysteriously, "he says
+as he looked at her that loving, he's sure he's after her."
+
+"After your grandmother!" Willets said rudely, his hawk's eyes bright
+with anger.  "As if Miss Mary would so much as look at him!  Let him
+seek a mate in his own class."
+
+"That's just what he won't do; Miss Gallup--she's that set-up and silly
+about him--says he must marry a lady, one who'll be able to help him
+now he's got so high up.  I'm surprised, I own it, at Squire--but
+probably it was the Mistress, she's all for friendliness always.  But
+I'll warrant they'd both be in a pretty takin' if they thought he was
+after Miss Mary."
+
+"I tell you he's nothing of the kind," Willets shouted, thumping the
+table so violently that he hurt his hand.  "It's scandalous to say such
+things, and so I'll tell Fusby the first time I see him--gossiping old
+silly."
+
+"Now, William, it's no good going on against Fusby.  He was as upset as
+you could be yourself, an' he only told me when he looked in this
+afternoon because he felt worried like.  He wouldn't care a bit if it
+wasn't that she seems taken with 'im.  He says he saw them whisperin'
+at dinner, and young Gallup he give something to Miss Mary under the
+table.  Fusby _saw_ them."
+
+"I don't believe it," Willets said stoutly.  "It's all some foolishness
+Fusby's gone and made up.  I don't hold with such cackle, and I'm
+surprised at you, my dear, allowing him to say such things."
+
+"How could I stop him?  He was worried, I tell you.  You talk to him
+about it yourself and see what he says."
+
+"I'm not going to talk about Miss Mary to anyone, let alone Fusby.
+There's nothing but mischief happens when people begins talking about a
+young lady.  I've seen it over and over again.  If, which I can't
+believe, young Gallup's got the cheek to be after our Miss Mary, he'll
+be choked off, and pretty quick too."
+
+"Who's going to do the chokin'?  He's in parlyment, he's got plenty
+money, there's nothing against him as I know of, and they've asked him
+to their house.  Who's going to do the chokin?"
+
+Mrs Willets paused, breathless and triumphant.  She seemed to take a
+malicious delight in considering the possibility of such a courtship.
+
+Willets looked at her steadily.  "We shan't have far to seek," he said,
+"and that old fool Fusby's got a maggot in his head.  Why, the fellow's
+gone to London; Parliament meets to-morrow, I saw it in the paper."
+
+Mrs Willets nodded, as who should say "I could an' I would"--aloud she
+remarked, "And Miss Mary's going to London to her granpa for a long
+visit, beautiful new clothes she's gettin', and going to see the King
+and Queen and all, so they're certain to meet.  It's quite like a story
+book."
+
+Willets frowned.  He had once spent two days in London.  He realised
+what a big place it was, but he also remembered that during those two
+days he had met seven people he knew in other parts of the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CROSS CURRENTS
+
+Reggie kept his word as to not interfering with Mary till such time as
+she should have seen a little more of the world.  How much of the world
+in general, and the male portion of it in particular, he was willing
+she should see, he could not make up his mind.  Sometimes he thought a
+very little would sufficiently salve his conscience and make a definite
+course of action possible.  Reggie was not one of those who feared his
+fate.  He was always eager to put it to the touch.  Inaction was
+abhorrent to him.  To desire a thing and to do nothing to obtain it
+seemed to him sheer foolishness.  Whether any amount of effort would
+get for him what he desired just now was on the knees of the gods.  But
+it was the waiting that tried him far more than the uncertainty.  He
+was not conceited.  He was confident, ready to take risks and to accept
+responsibility, but that is quite another thing.
+
+Just before her birthday he sent her a little necklet under cover to
+Mrs Ffolliot, asking that it might be put with Mary's other presents on
+her plate that morning.  And she had written to thank him for it, but
+he did not answer the letter.  He had always been by way of writing to
+her from time to time; letters, generally embellished with comic
+sketches and full of chaff and nonsense, which were shared by the
+family.  Lately he had not felt in the mood to write such letters.  He
+wanted to see her with an unceasing ache of longing intense and
+persistent; and if he wrote he wanted to write, not a love
+letter--Reggie did not fancy he'd be much of a hand at love
+letters--but something intimate and revealing that would certainly be
+unsuitable for "family reading."
+
+Then he got two letters from Redmarley that seemed to him to need an
+answer.
+
+These were the letters:--
+
+
+REDMARLEY,
+  _Tuesday._
+
+DEAR REGGIE,--We were all very excited to see it in the _Gazette_ this
+morning, though of course we knew it was coming.  The children took the
+_Times_ down to Willets at tea-time, and Fusby was at special pains to
+ask mother after lunch if there was any chance of Captain Peel coming
+down soon.  Is there?  You won't find me here unless it's very soon,
+for I'm actually to be allowed to stay with grannie for quite a long
+time.  After swearing that I should only go up for the drawing-room,
+and that it was nonsense to talk of my going out at all till mother
+could take me, the _pater_ has suddenly veered round, and I am to go up
+to Woolwich on May-Day, and what's more, he is taking me up himself.
+At first I thought I was to go with Grantly when he went back to the
+Shop, but that wouldn't do seemingly, Grantly wasn't enough chaperon,
+so father's coming just for one night.
+
+Last night we had a dinner-party and the Liberal member took me in.  He
+is such an odd little man.  Very, very good, I should think; very
+kind--not hard-hearted and ruthless like some people who write cruel
+stories about war--he is a nonconformist of sorts and doesn't do any of
+the usual things, so it's a little difficult to talk to him, but mother
+managed it--to make him talk, I mean.  I heard him murmuring away like
+anything while we were playing bridge.  She likes him too.  He has an
+odd way of looking at you as if you were a picture and not a person.
+Don't you think it's fun to be going to town on May-Day and to have
+proper dinner every night whether there are people or not.  I hope
+there will be lots of people.  Do come to Woolwich while I'm there, and
+mind you treat me with great respect.
+
+When is the new story coming out?  I wish they'd hurry up.  It will be
+so exciting to hear people talk about it and to think I know who wrote
+it and they don't.  Clara Bax came with the Campions last night--do you
+remember her?  She is _very_ pretty and so clever, understands all
+about politics and things like that.  Fancy, she sells newspapers in
+the street for the Cause.  She asked me if I'd help her, and I thought
+it would be great fun, but father--you know how he pounces--heard from
+the other end of the table, and though just a minute before he'd been
+ever so sympathetic with Miss Bax, at once interfered, and said I was
+much too ignorant to take any active part as yet, and Grantly frowned
+at me across the table.  Would you buy a newspaper from me, I wonder?
+
+When father pounces I always feel that I could almost marry an
+impossible person just to annoy him; but the worst of it is that I
+should have the impossible person always, and I might get rather tired
+of it.  Why should Miss Bax steal a horse and father beam and pay her
+compliments, and yet if I so much as look over the fence he shoos me
+away with a pitch-fork.
+
+I wonder if you will get out to India, as you wish?  In a way I hope
+you won't, because you'd go out in the autumn, wouldn't you? and if you
+are stationed anywhere at home you could come sometimes for a few days'
+hunting; but of course if you want it very much I want you to have it.
+
+This is a very long letter.  Good-bye, Reggie, and heaps of grats.  You
+a captain and me grown up: we are coming on.--Yours: affectionately,
+
+MARY B. FFOLLIOT.
+
+P.S.--Some fiend in human shape sent Ger a little red book, trumpet,
+and bugle notes for the army, and he makes Miss Glover play them and
+then practises.  There's one thing, it's a little change from the
+eternal "cook-house door," but it's very dreadful all the same.
+
+
+BRIDGE HOUSE, REDMARLEY,
+  _27th. April._
+
+DEAR SIR,--Excuse the liberty I take in writing to offer you my
+congratulations on the announcement in the paper yesterday.  Master Ger
+and Miss Kitten came to tea with my wife, and the mistress, with her
+usual kindness, sent me the paper.  When I first knew you, sir, you
+were very much the size Master Ger is now, and yet it seems but
+yesterday when I was teaching you to throw a fly just beyond the bridge
+here.  I always look on you as one of our young gentlemen, for you've
+come amongst us so many years now and always been so free and pleasant,
+and I hope I may have the pleasure of going out with you often in the
+future, though Master Ger did say he'd heard that you were thinking of
+India.  If that is so, I hope you'll make a point of coming down for a
+few days early in June, when the fly will be at its best.  If this mild
+weather continues we ought to get some very sizeable fish.
+
+It's funny to me to think how I've been here twenty-three years come
+Michaelmas, and when the present Squire came I never thought I should
+stop, he not being fond of sport.  If I may say so, you, sir, had a
+good deal to do with me stopping on that first summer, me being very
+fond of children, and then when they came at the Manor House and the
+mistress always sent them down to be shown to us as soon as ever they
+went out, I began to feel I'd taken root here, and so I suppose I have.
+
+Master Ger is becoming a first-rate performer on the bugle, he played
+for us yesterday, quite wonderful it was.  My wife begs to join with me
+in respectful congratulations.--Your obedient servant,
+
+WILLIAM WILLETS.
+
+
+He wrote to Willets at once, promising to come down at the end of May
+for a week-end, even if he couldn't get more.  He was frightfully busy,
+for he was one of the instructors at Chatham, and had many other irons
+in the fire as well.  He waited till he knew Mary was in Woolwich and
+then he wrote to her:--
+
+
+It was nice of you to send me such pretty grats, and I am truly
+appreciative.  I also had the jolliest letter from old Willets.  He
+promises good sport very shortly, and I shall make a point of turning
+up at Redmarley when the fly is on the water, if only for a couple of
+nights, for when Willets foretells "sizeable fish" you know you're in
+for a first-class thing.  It will be queer to be at the Manor House and
+you away.  Only once has that happened to me, the year you were at
+school, and now "all that's shuv be'ind you" and you're out and dancing
+about.  I shall certainly have urgent private affairs in Woolwich
+during the next month.  Talk of respect!  When was I ever anything but
+grovelling?  And once I have gazed upon your portrait in train and
+feathers I shall be reduced to such a state of timidity you won't know
+me.
+
+The other day I met your friend Clara Bax selling _Votes for Women_ at
+the Panton Street corner of Leicester Square, and she hadn't at all a
+Hurrah face on.  I greeted her and bought one of the beastly little
+papers, and went on my way.  But something caused me to look back, and
+I beheld Miss Bax seemingly in difficulties with two young
+feller-me-lads, who evidently had no intention of going on.  There was
+no policeman handy--besides, there's a coolness at present between
+members of the force and the fair militants--so I went back and dealt
+faithfully with Miss Bax's admirers, and they departed, I regret to
+say, blaspheming.
+
+Miss Bax seemed rather shaken, the type was evidently new to her, and I
+suggested that she should quit her pitch for the moment and come and
+have lunch with me; so we went together to the _Petit Riche_, where we
+consumed an excellent omelette; and the bundle of papers, which I,
+Mary, had nobly carried through the streets of London, sat on a chair
+between us and did chaperon.
+
+Personally, I see no reason why women should not have votes if they
+want 'em, but I see every reason why no woman, and above all no young
+woman, should sell papers anywhere, more especially in Leicester
+Square.  I'd like to give the Panks, and the Peths, and the Hicemen a
+bit of my mind on the subject.  The mere thought of you ever indulging
+in such unseemly vagaries fills me with horror unspeakable.  Talk of
+the Squire!  Pouncing and pitchforks wouldn't be in it with me, I can
+tell you, and yet Miss Bax isn't an orphan.
+
+That very day I met a lugubrious procession of females, encased in
+large sandwich-boards proclaiming a meeting somewhere.  They were
+dismally dodging the traffic, and looked about as dejected as they
+could look--ladies every one of them.  I begin to think old England's
+no place for women when they're reduced to that sort of thing--what do
+you say to India for a change?
+
+The story will be out next month, but you won't like it--too technical.
+
+I hope young Grantly's doing some work.  This term counts a lot, and he
+mustn't pass out low for the honour of the family.
+
+My salaams to the General and Mrs Grantly, and to you--my remembrances.
+Do you, by the way, remember "our last ride together" in January?  When
+shall we have another?  Would the General let us ride in the park one
+day if I could get off?--Yours,
+
+REGGIE.
+
+P.S.--Why the kind and blameless member for Marlehouse?  Has the Squire
+changed his politics?  It's all very well for you to say the young man
+looked at you as if you were a picture.  We've another name for that
+sort of sheep's eyes where I come from.  He'd better not let me catch
+him at it.
+
+
+Eloquent came to the conclusion that it is very difficult to pay court
+to a girl who belongs to what his father was wont to call "the
+classes."  He wondered how they managed it.  Such girls, it seemed to
+him, were never left alone for a minute.  One's only chance was to see
+them at parties in a crowd, and if you did dine at their houses, there
+was always bridge directly after dinner, when conversation was
+restricted to "I double hearts," or "with you," or "No."  He studied
+the rules of bridge industriously, for he found on inquiry that even
+Cabinet Ministers did not disdain it as a recreation.  Therefore Dalton
+shared with blue-books the little table by his bed.
+
+It's a far cry from Westminster to Woolwich, and in spite of
+indefatigable spade-work on his part, it was well on in the third week
+in May before he so much as caught a glimpse of Mary Ffolliot.
+
+Then one morning he saw her in Bond Street with her grandmother.  She
+was on the opposite side of the street rather ahead of him, but he knew
+that easy strolling walk, the flat back, and proud carriage of the
+head: that head with its burnished hair coiled smoothly under a
+bewitching hat.  They stopped to look in at Asprey's window, and he
+dashed across the road in the full stream of traffic.  Two indignant
+taxi-drivers swore, and he reached the curb breathless, but uninjured,
+just as they went into the shop.
+
+He stood staring at the window, keeping at the same time a sharp
+look-out on the door.
+
+What an age they were!
+
+He had just decided that the only thing to do was to go in and buy
+something, when they came out.
+
+Mary saw him at once, and his round face looked so wistful that she
+greeted him with quite unnecessary warmth.  She recalled him to Mrs
+Grantly, who, remembering vaguely that he was a young man who had
+"risen from the ranks," was also more cordial than the occasion
+demanded.
+
+He walked up Bond Street with them, piloted them across Piccadilly, and
+turned with them down Haymarket, so plainly delighted to see them, so
+nervous, so pathetically anxious to please, that Mrs  Grantly's
+hospitable instincts, fatally easy to rouse where pity played a part,
+overcame her discretion.  Her husband and her daughter used to declare
+that she had a perfect genius for encumbering herself with impossible
+people--and repenting afterwards.  With dismay she realised that
+Eloquent had, apparently, attached himself to them.  Short of cruelly
+wounding his feelings, she saw herself walking about London all day,
+accompanied by this painfully polite young man.  It seemed impossible
+to call a taxi, and leave him desolate there on the pavement
+unless . . .  Mrs Grantly's heart was hopelessly soft where animals
+were concerned, and just then Eloquent reminded her of nothing so much
+as an affectionate dog, allowed to frisk gaily to the front door, and
+cruelly shut in on the wrong side, as she said--
+
+"We've got to meet my husband at the Stores, Mr Gallup, perhaps you'll
+kindly get us a taxi, as I'm rather tired."
+
+His woebegone face was too much for her, and she added, "We're always
+at home on Sunday afternoons."
+
+Mary rather wondered at her grannie.
+
+The taxi drove away and Eloquent walked down Haymarket as though he
+were treading on air.  To-day was Friday.  Sunday, oh blessed day! was
+the day after to-morrow.
+
+There were clovers nodding in her hat, a wide-brimmed fine straw hat
+that threw soft shadows over her blue eyes and turned them dark as the
+clear water underneath Redmarley Bridge.  And he would see her again on
+Sunday.
+
+That lady, that handsome portly lady, he had been afraid of her at
+first, she looked so large and imposing, but how kind she was!  How
+wonderfully kind and hearty she had been.  It was she who had invited
+him.  "We are always at home on Sundays," she said.  Surely that meant
+he might go more than once?
+
+That night he made his maiden speech in the House.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Reggie went down to Redmarley at the beginning of June from Saturday
+afternoon till Sunday evening.  The Squire had a bad cold and was
+confined to the house.  His nerves vibrated, so did the tempers of
+other people, but Reggie did not care.  He joined Willets at the river
+and fished till dinner-time.  Directly after dinner he went out again
+and they had splendid sport till nearly ten.  Willets walked with him
+back to the house, and Reggie had a curious feeling that Willets wanted
+to tell him something and couldn't come to the point.  So strong was
+this feeling that as they parted he said, "I shan't go to bed yet,
+Willets.  It's such a perfect night--may stroll down to the bridge, and
+if you're still up we might have a cigar together."
+
+He went into the house, chatted a while to Mrs Ffolliot and the Squire,
+and when they went to bed let himself out very quietly and strolled
+down the drive and out of the great gates to the bridge.  The perfect
+peace of the warm June night, the yellow moonlight on the quiet water,
+the wide-spanned bridge, the long straggling street of irregular gabled
+houses so kindly and so sheltering with their overhanging eaves, the
+dear familiar charm of it all seemed to grip Reggie by the throat and
+caused an unwonted smarting in his eyes.
+
+The village was absolutely deserted save for one motionless figure
+sitting on the wall at the far end of the bridge.
+
+"Hullo, Willets," Reggie called, "not in bed yet?"
+
+"I'm always a bit wakeful when the fly's up, sir; the river seems to
+draw me, and I can't leave it."
+
+"Have a cigar," said Reggie, and sat down beside him.
+
+They smoked in silence for a few minutes till Willets said--
+
+"Seen anything of Miss Mary up there, sir?"
+
+"No, Willets, I haven't been able to get away for a minute till now,
+but I may manage to run down to Woolwich next week just to buck to the
+General about my catch.  You'll have him down then post haste--I
+bet----"
+
+"I suppose, sir," said Willets, with studied carelessness, "you never
+happened to come across the young man that's member for these parts?"
+
+"What, young Gallup?  I believe I saw him once.  He's making quite a
+name for himself I hear, his maiden speech was in all the papers.  By
+the way though, I _did_ hear of him the other day in a letter I had
+from Miss Mary.  They'd all been to dine at the House of Commons with
+him, and had no end of a time."
+
+"Well I _am_ damned!" said Willets.
+
+He said it seriously, almost devoutly, and Reggie turned right round to
+stare at him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, but I really was fairly
+flabbergasted."
+
+He stood up sturdy and respectful in a patch of moonlight, and his keen
+brown eyes raked Reggie's as though they would read his very soul.
+
+It wasn't an easy soul to read, and Reggie knew that Willets had
+something on his mind, so he waited.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," Willets said again.  He had never got over
+the feeling that Reggie was one of the young gentlemen, and that it
+behoved him to be careful of his language in front of him.
+
+Reggie Peel laughed.  "Look here, Willets," he said, "what's your
+objection?  Why shouldn't they go to the House of Commons to dine with
+Gallup if it amuses them?"
+
+"I don't know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback.  An' in a small
+place like this it's certain to make talk.  That old Miss Gallup, now,
+she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her
+nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house,
+and for us as _belongs_ to the house--well, we don't relish it.  I
+hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll
+make it convenient to go up and see after Miss Mary?"
+
+The hawk's eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Reggie's face, so lean and
+sallow and set; the moonlight accentuated the rather hollow cheeks.
+and cast black shadows round his eyes, which looked green and sinister.
+
+Suddenly he smiled, and when Reggie smiled, his whole face altered.
+
+"Out with it, Willets," he said, "what maggot have you got in your head
+now?  You're worried about something; you may as well tell me.  I'm
+safe as a church."
+
+"I'd like to know, sir," Willets remarked in a detached impersonal
+tone, "what's your opinion of mixed marriages?"
+
+"_What_ sort of marriages?"
+
+"Well marriages where one of the parties has had a different bringing
+up to the other.  Now suppose, sir--do you know Miss Shipway--over to
+Marlehouse; her father's got that big shop top of the market-place full
+of bonnets and mantles and such--good-looking girl she is----"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't know the lady, Willets; why?"
+
+"Well, sir, it's this way.  She'll have a tidy bit of money when old
+Shipway dies; her mother was cook at the Fleece, but they've got on.
+Well now, sir, suppose you was to go after Miss Shipway-----"
+
+Reggie's eyes twinkled.  "It might be a most sensible proceeding on my
+part--a poor devil like me--if as you say she's a nice girl and will
+have a lot of money.  Will you give me an introduction?"
+
+"I'm not jokin', sir, nor taking the liberty to propose anything of the
+sort; it's only----"
+
+"A hypothetical case?"
+
+"That's it, sir.  I mean suppose a gentleman like yourself was to marry
+a girl like her, do you think you'd be happy?"
+
+"Surely it would all depend on whether they liked each other--and liked
+the same things----"
+
+"Ah, sir, that's it.  _Would_ you like the same things, do you suppose?"
+
+"Well, Willets, I don't see that you've any cause to worry.
+Unfortunately I don't know the young lady, so I can't see how I'm to
+get any forrader."
+
+"Suppose, sir, a young _lady_, like what the Mistress was, should marry
+a man in quite a different rank from herself, do you think _they'd_ be
+happy?"
+
+"It depends," said Reggie, "what sort of a chap he was.  People rise,
+you know."
+
+"Well, suppose he did, would they happy?"
+
+"I couldn't say, Willets, I'm sure.  Is it any particular young lady
+you're worried about?"
+
+ Willets sat down on the wall.  "In my time,"
+he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me
+to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own
+class.  But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."
+
+For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you
+think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"
+
+"I think so.  I shall try anyway."
+
+"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd
+better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fishing."
+
+"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets.  I suppose we must go to bed.
+Many thanks for the splendid sport.  I have to get back to Chatham
+to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a
+time."
+
+"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for
+but one night."
+
+Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.
+
+He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.
+
+The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket
+and read it easily:
+
+"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter.  I'm glad you
+rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or
+carrying sandwich boards.  I'm much too busy having a lovely time.  Oh
+_never_ have I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both
+Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie.  She is
+having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member.  It's
+all very well for her to say she is forming him.  She is undermining
+all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist
+constituents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have
+him again.
+
+"She has taught him auction: he played with her last _Sunday_ afternoon
+because it was too wet to be out in the garden.  She has sent him to
+lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she
+talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories.  She
+tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he
+can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate
+what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful
+and delightfully amusing--you know Grannie's way--that the poor young
+man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply
+follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads.  He gave a dinner
+for us in the House the other night and got Ganpy a seat in the
+Stranger's Gallery.  He couldn't get us into the Ladies' Gallery
+because of the silly rule about only wives and sisters or near
+relations made since the suffragette fusses, but he showed us all about
+and it was simply fascinating.  Of course Grannie met lots of members
+she knew, and we enjoyed ourselves awfully.  We are going to tea on the
+Terrace next week.  The dance at the Shop was ripping, and you needn't
+think I only danced with cadets.  I danced with majors and colonels,
+and a beautiful captain in the Argyle and Sutherland, but I've come to
+the conclusion that the jolliest thing is to be Ganpy's wife on these
+occasions.  You never saw such court as gets paid to Grannie.  She
+never has a dull minute.
+
+"Grantly went home on Sat. just for the night, and he says it's all too
+beautiful for words.  Sometimes I feel wicked to be missing it, and I
+get homesick for mother and the children; but I do enjoy it all.  When
+are you coming up to play about too?  You stern, industrious young man."
+
+Reggie folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.
+
+"So that's what old Willets was driving at," he thought.  He leaned out
+again to shake the ash out of his pipe.  In the far east there was a
+pearly streak.  "Daylight," he muttered, "--and by Jove I see it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"MEN'S MEAL, FIRST CALL"
+
+Mrs Grantly was interested in Eloquent.  He was quite unlike any of the
+innumerable young men she had had to do with before.  His simplicity
+and directness appealed to her; she admired his high seriousness even
+while she seemed to deride it, and though violently opposed to his
+party, she shared that party's belief in his political future.
+
+The General shook his head; not over what he and Mary called "Grannie's
+infatuation for Mr Gallup," but over the possible results of this
+friendliness and intimacy to Mr Gallup.  For the General saw precisely
+the same possibilities that Mr Ffolliot had seen, and didn't like what
+he saw one whit better than did the Squire.
+
+Eloquent never saw Mary alone.  Generally he was wholly taken
+possession of by Mrs Grantly, or such friends of hers as would be
+bothered with him.  Yet his golden dream was with him continually, and
+in the dear oasis of his fancy he walked in an enchanted garden with
+Mary.  In his waking moments, his sane practical moments, he would
+realise that it was sheer absurdity to imagine that she ever could care
+for him.  He did not expect her to care, but--and here he drifted
+across the desert of plain possibilities into the merciful mirage of
+things hoped for--if she would condescend to let him serve her, he
+might take heart of grace.
+
+He watched her carefully.
+
+It did not seem to him that there was anybody else.  There were crowds:
+crowds of dreadful, well-dressed, good-looking, cheerful men, who
+chaffed and laughed and quaffed any drinks that happened to be going;
+but he did not fear the enemy in battalions, and so far it appeared
+that her besiegers always attacked in companies.
+
+Sometimes he was sure that she knew how he felt, and was trying in
+gentle, delicately pitiful ways to show him that it was of no use.
+Then again he would dismiss this thought as absurd and conceited.  How
+should Mary know?  How could she try to show him she didn't care when
+he had never shown her that he did?  How could he show her?
+
+It was this desire to show her, this hope of familiarising her with the
+idea that caused Eloquent to resort to every possible place where he
+might see her.  He went down to Woolwich as often as decency would
+permit, which wasn't often.  He inundated Mrs Grantly with invitations
+to the House, and he haunted the theatres, generally in vain, in the
+hope of seeing her at the play.  He would often reflect bitterly how
+easy things were for the young shopman in these matters.  He met his
+girl and took her for a walk, and no one thought any the worse of
+either of them.  There was none of this nerve-racking, heartrending
+uncertainty, this difficulty of access, this sense of futility, in
+their relations.
+
+Of the many mysterious attributes of the "classes," there was none to
+be so heartily deplored as their entire success in secluding their
+young women, while apparently they gave them every possible opportunity
+for amusement of all kinds.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Reggie went down to Woolwich once while Mary was with her grandparents,
+but it was not, from her point of view, a very satisfactory visit.
+Reggie was grumpy, and looked very tired and overworked.  Moreover,
+Mary, though she could not have confessed it for the world, was just a
+trifle hurt that he never reminded her of that last ride together.
+
+Just as he was leaving on the Sunday night, and they were all in the
+garden, he walked with her a little way down a winding path that hid
+them from the others, saying abruptly--
+
+"Shall I let you know directly if they are going to send me to the
+Shiny?"
+
+"Of course I should like to know, but . . .  India is a long way off,
+Reggie, why do you want to go so far?"
+
+"Because, my dear, it means work and promotion, and one's chance, and
+lots of things; one being quite decent pay.  Besides, I like India, I
+shall be glad to go back, if . . ."
+
+They had followed the path, and it led them out to the lawn again,
+where the others were standing.  He didn't finish his sentence--
+
+"Say you want me to get out there, Mary."
+
+"Of course I want you to go if you really wish it."
+
+"I'll let you know then.  I shall know myself early in July, I
+fancy . . . perhaps I'll run down to Redmarley; you'll be back then?"
+
+They joined the others; Reggie made his farewells and left.
+
+Mary went and took her grandfather's arm, and made him walk round the
+garden with her.  She developed an intelligent interest in geography,
+and made searching inquiries as to the healthiness of India generally.
+
+It was comforting to walk arm and arm with grandfather.  She didn't
+know why, but she felt a little frightened, a little homesick.  How
+clearly one can see some people's faces when they are not there.  What
+unusual eyes Reggie had, so green in some lights.  He was looking
+dreadfully thin, poor boy, downright ill he looked, and yet everyone
+said he was very strong.  No one else shook hands quite like Reggie: he
+had nice hands, strong and gentle; thin, but not hard and nubbly.  Why
+is a summer night often so sad?  Night-scented stock has a sad smell,
+though it is so sweet.  He shouldn't work so hard.  He was overdoing
+it.  Surely if he went to India they'd give him some leave . . . it
+might be years before he came back.  Three years he was away once.
+
+Mary clasped both her hands over her grandfather's arm.  "I do love you
+so, Ganpy," she said; "there's nobody like you in the world, no one at
+all."
+
+The General smiled in the twilight, and pressed the arm in his against
+his side.  He said nothing at all, yet Mary felt vaguely comforted.
+
+In the beginning of July she went back to Redmarley, and everyone was
+very glad to see her again.  One Saturday morning when the Squire and
+Mrs Ffolliot had started in the victoria to lunch with neighbours on
+the other side of Marlehouse, Mary called Parker and went to walk in
+the woods.  It was a grey morning, warm and sunless and still.  She
+wandered about quite aimlessly.  She was restless and unsettled, and
+had a good deal to think over.
+
+Just before she left Woolwich, Eloquent Gallup had called one afternoon
+when both the General and Mrs Grantly were out; but he asked boldly for
+Mary.  She was at home, and he was shown into the cool, shady garden,
+where she was lying in a hammock reading a novel.
+
+This was Eloquent's chance and he took it.  He did not stay long.  He
+left before tea, but during the time he did stay he contrived to let
+Mary see . . . what it must be confessed she had already suspected.  He
+said nothing definite.  He was immensely distant in his reverence, but
+a much humbler girl than Mary could hardly have mistaken his meaning.
+He was so pathetically diffident it was impossible to snub him, and she
+had no desire to snub him.  Always she was immensely sorry for
+him--why, she did not know.
+
+He was plain.  He was insignificant.  He was not a gentleman by birth,
+but he was--and Mary's standard was fairly high--so far as she could
+see, a thorough gentleman in feeling and in action.  Moreover, he had
+ability, and an immense capacity for hard work, both of them qualities
+that appealed to Mary.
+
+So she allowed herself to dally vaguely with the idea.  It was very
+pleasant to be set in a shrine; to be worshipped; to be served in a
+prayerful attitude of adoration.  To be able by a kind word, a kind
+glance, to raise a fellow creature to a dizzy height of happiness.  How
+could anyone be unkind to that excellent little man?  Suppose . . .
+this was a daring supposition, and Mary grew hot all over as she
+entertained it--suppose, in the dim and distant future, when
+Reggie . . .  Reggie had never written after he went back to Chatham,
+nothing had happened then about India; but suppose he did go for years
+and years, and forgot her . . . perhaps he had never wanted to remember
+her in that particular way, and she had magnified quite little things
+that meant nothing at all. . . .  Suppose she ultimately, years hence,
+could bring herself to marry Mr Gallup.  How angry her father would be!
+But that was a prospective contingency that only amused Mary.  He would
+be angry whoever she married.  He would be exceedingly angry if she got
+engaged to . . . that young man at Chatham who was so taciturn and
+neglectful . . . who didn't seem to want to get engaged to anyone.
+Clara Bax said it would be dreadfully dull to marry anyone you'd known
+all your life.  Would it?  Clara Bax said it would be tiresome in the
+extreme to marry anybody.  But about that Mary was not sure.
+
+Westminster is certainly the nicest part of London; there are bits of
+it that remind one of Redmarley.  It would be pleasant to be rich and
+important, and feel that you are helping to pull the wires that control
+destinies; helping to make history.  Ah, that was what Reggie called
+it.  He would do it.  She was sure of that; but Reggie's wife would
+have no hand in it.
+
+With clear intuition she saw that of these two men, only one could be
+influenced by his wife in anything that concerned his work.  Reggie's
+wife would be outside all that.  Eloquent's wife, _if she were the
+right woman_, would share everything: and at that moment Parker began
+to bark, and Mary found that she had walked into a part of the wood
+called the Forty Firs, and that Eloquent Gallup was standing right on
+the very same spot, where seven months ago she had assisted him to rise
+from a puddle.
+
+Parker didn't like Eloquent upright a bit better than he had liked
+Eloquent prone, and he made a great yapping and growling and bouncing
+and skirmishing around about the two of them, until he finally subsided
+into suspicious sniffing at Eloquent's ankles.
+
+"Has Parliament risen then?" Mary asked, when she had soothed Parker to
+quiescence.
+
+"No, Miss Ffolliot, I came down"--Eloquent's eyes were fixed hungrily
+on her face, and she noticed that his was nothing like so round as it
+used to be, and that he was very pale--"because I couldn't keep away."
+
+Mary said nothing.  There seemed nothing to say.
+
+"Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said again, "I think you must know why I have
+come down, what I feel about you, what I have felt about you since the
+first minute I saw you in this very place, when I was so ridiculous and
+you so beautiful and kind.  I have travelled a good way since then, but
+I know that in caring for you as I do I am still ridiculous, and it is
+only because you are so beautiful and kind, although you are so far
+above me, that I dare to tell you what I feel . . . but I would like
+your leave to think about you.  Somehow, without it, it seems an
+impertinence, and, God knows, no man ever felt more worship for a woman
+than I feel for you.  Do you give me that leave?"
+
+Mary was very much touched, very much shaken.  Eloquent's power lay in
+his immense earnestness.  She no longer saw him small and insignificant
+and common.  She saw the soul of him, and recognised that it was a
+great soul.  For one brief moment she wondered if she could . . .
+
+Through the woods rang the notes of a bugle.  Ger was playing "Come to
+the cook-house door."  Mary's heart seemed to leap up and turn right
+over.
+
+"Come to the cook-house door" is not by any means one of the most
+beautiful of the bugle sounds of the British Army.  It is rather jerky
+at the best of times, and as performed by Ger it was wheezy as well.
+But for Mary just then it was a clear call to consciousness.
+
+Pity and sympathy and admiration are not love: and Mary knew it, and in
+that moment she became a woman.
+
+Eloquent had taken her hand, taken it with a respect and gentleness
+that affected her unspeakably.  She gave a little sob.  She did not try
+to draw it away.  "Oh dear," she sighed, "I am so sorry, for it's all
+no use," and the tears ran down her cheeks.
+
+Eloquent lifted her hand and kissed it.
+
+"Don't cry, my dear," he said, "don't cry.  I'm glad I've known you and
+loved you. . . ."
+
+Again through the woods there rang that "first call" so dear to the
+heart of Ger.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr Gallup, I mustn't stay . . . try to forgive me, and . . ."
+
+"Forgive," Eloquent repeated scornfully, "what have I to forgive?
+_That_ is for you."
+
+Mary turned and walked swiftly away, and Eloquent watched her till she
+was out of sight.
+
+Parker kept close at her side, but every now and then he jumped up and
+tried to lick her face.  Parker knew all was not right with Mary and he
+was uneasy.
+
+Mary knew full well that it was to no comfortable cook-house door that
+Ger had summoned her.  That wheezy bugle called her to the outposts of
+the world; to a life of incessant acerbating change, where there was no
+certainty, no stability, no sweet home peace, or that proud fixity of
+tenure that is the heritage of those who own the land on which they
+live.  She had no illusions.  Not in vain had she lived with her
+grandmother at Woolwich and heard the lamentations of the officers'
+wives when plans were changed at the last moment, and the fair prospect
+of a few years at home was blotted out by the inexorable orders for
+foreign service.  And the Sappers were worst of all, for except at a
+very few stations they hadn't even a mess, and there was not the
+friendly fellowship of "the Regiment" to count upon.
+
+The yard was quite deserted, for the men had gone to dinner.  She
+paused at the gate and looked long and lovingly at the clustering
+chimneys, and lichened, grey-green roofs she loved: and as she looked a
+new sound broke the stillness.  Three loud reports and then the
+touf-touf, spatter-dash-spatter-dash of a motor bicycle.
+
+Mary opened the gate, went through, shut it behind her and leant
+against it, for her knees were as water.
+
+The noise came on, it passed the house, turned into the back drive,
+came round, and someone in overalls, covered with dust from head to
+foot, swept into the deserted yard; saw Mary, pulled up short, and
+pushed the bike against a wall.
+
+This dusty person tore off his goggles.  It was Captain Reginald Peel,
+R.E., and he came across the yard towards her.
+
+"Hullo, Mary," he said, "I told you I'd let you know whenever I heard.
+The A.A.G.'s a brick, I'm going to India.  Marching orders came last
+night."
+
+Mary's lips trembled and her voice died in her throat.  Reggie took out
+a large silk handkerchief and mopped his dusty face.
+
+He came on towards her and took both her hands.
+
+"Mary," he said, "can you leave all this?  Can you face it?  Will you
+come with me and help me to build bridges and make roads and dig
+drains. . . .  Will you come so that we can have the rest of our
+lives . . . together?"
+
+They looked straight into one another's eyes.
+
+"I will," said Mary, and she said it as solemnly as if she were
+repeating a response in the Marriage Service.
+
+Reggie loosed one of her hands.  Again he polished his face.
+
+"I should like awfully to kiss you," he said, "but I'm so fearfully
+dusty--do you mind?"
+
+"I think," said Mary, with a queer choky laugh, "that I'd rather like
+it."
+
+And just at that moment Willets appeared at a gate leading from the
+garden.  He didn't see them, and opened the gate, which squeaked
+abominably, came through and let it shut with a clang, but they,
+apparently, heard nothing.
+
+Willets stood transfixed, for he saw the motor-bike and the dusty young
+man in overalls, and clasped close in the arms of the said dusty young
+man was Miss Mary!
+
+Willets gave one quick glance, smote his hands softly together, and
+turned right round with his back to them.  He leaned on the gate and
+gazed steadfastly into the distant garden.  It was a squeaky gate, that
+gate.  If he opened it, it might disturb them, and bless you, they were
+but young, and one is only young once.
+
+So kindly Willets stared, with eyes that were not quite so keen as
+usual, at the bit of garden he could see; and there, delphiniums were
+blooming.  The sun came out just at that moment, and they looked
+particularly blue and tall and splendid.
+
+It seemed to Willets that he admired those delphiniums for hours and
+hours, but it was really only a few minutes till he heard a rather
+husky voice behind him saying, "It's all right, Willets, you may turn
+round and congratulate us."
+
+And there they were both standing "as bold as brass" he said
+afterwards, and the delphiniums he had just been studying so closely
+were not as blue as Mary's eyes.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY***
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Ffolliots of Redmarley, by L. Allen Harker
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Ffolliots of Redmarley
+
+
+Author: L. Allen Harker
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 17, 2007  [eBook #22999]
+[This file last updated on July 1, 2008]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
+
+by
+
+L. ALLEN HARKER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MURRAY
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MABEL VIOLET JEANS.
+
+  For that dread "move" you saw me through,
+  For all the things you found to do.
+  For china washed and pictures hung--
+  And oh, those books, the hours among!
+  For merry heart that goes all day,
+  For jest that turns work into play,
+  For all the dust and dusters shared,
+  For that dear self you never spared:
+  And most of all, that all of it
+  Was light with laughter, spiced with wit--
+  Take, dear, my love, and with it take
+  The little book you helped to make.
+
+
+
+
+First Edition  . . . . . . .  July, 1913
+Cheaper Edition  . . . . . .  September, 1919
+Reprinted  . . . . . . . . .  January, 1925
+
+
+
+
+THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ELOQUENT
+
+"Father, what d'you think we'd better call him?" Mrs Gallup asked, when
+the baby was a week old; "have you thought of a name?"
+
+"I've _fixed_ on a name," her husband replied, triumphantly.  "The
+child shall be called Eloquent."
+
+"Eloquent," Mrs Gallup repeated, dubiously.  "That's a queer name,
+isn't it?  'Tisn't a name at all, not really."
+
+"It's going to be my son's name, anyhow," Mr Gallup retorted,
+positively.  "I've thought the matter out, most careful I've considered
+it, and that's the name my son's got to be called . . .  Eloquent
+Gallup he'll be, and a very good name too."
+
+"But why Eloquent?" Mrs Gallup persisted.  "How d'you know as he'll
+_be_ eloquent? an' if he isn't, that name'll make him a laughing-stock.
+Suppose he was to grow up one of them say-nothing-to-nobody sort of
+chaps, always looking down his nose, and afraid to say 'Bo' to a goose:
+what's he to _do_ with such a name?"
+
+"There's no fear my son will grow up a-say-nothing-to-nobody sort of
+chap," said Mr Gallup, boastfully.  "I'll take care of that.  Now you
+listen to me, mother.  You know the proverb 'Give a dog a bad name'----"
+
+"I never said it was a bad name," Mrs Gallup pleaded.
+
+"I should think you didn't--but look here, if it's true of a bad name,
+mustn't it be equally true of a good one?  Why, it's argument, it's
+logic, that is.  Call a boy Eloquent and ten to one he'll _be_
+eloquent, don't you see?"
+
+"But what d'you want him to be eloquent for?" Mrs Gallup enquired
+almost tearfully.  "What good will it do him--precious lamb?"
+
+"There's others to be thought of as well as 'im," Mr Gallup remarked,
+mysteriously.
+
+"Who?  More children?" asked Mrs Gallup.  "I don't see as he'd need to
+be eloquent just to mind his little brother or sister."
+
+"Ellen Gallup, you listen to me.  That babe lying there on your knee
+with a red face all puckered up is going to sway the multitude."  Mrs
+Gallup gasped, and clutched her baby closer.  "He's going to be one of
+those whose voice shall ring clarion-like"--here Mr Gallup
+unconsciously raised his own, and the baby stirred uneasily--"over"--he
+paused for a simile--he had been going to say "land and sea," but it
+didn't finish the sentence to his liking, "far and wide," he concluded,
+rather lamely.
+
+Mrs Gallup made no remark, so he continued: "Eloquent Gallup shall be a
+politician.  Some day he'll stand for parlyment, _and he'll get in_,
+and when he's there he'll speak up and he'll speak out for the rights
+of his fellow men, and he'll proclaim their wrongs."
+
+And there and then, as if in vindication of his father's belief in him,
+the baby began to roar so lustily that further converse was impossible.
+
+A week later, the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup.  Abel was a
+concession to his mother's qualms.  It was his father's name, and by
+her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should
+Eloquent prove a misnomer.
+
+"After all," she reflected, "if the poor chap shouldn't have the gift
+of the gab, Abel's a good everyday workin' name, and he can drop the E
+if it suits 'im.  'Tain't always them as has most to say does most,
+that's certain; and why his father's so set on him being one of those
+chaps forever standing on platforms and haranguing passes me.  I never
+see no good come of an election yet, an' I've seen plenty of harm: what
+with drinkin' and quarrellin', and standin' for hours at street corners
+argifying.  Politics is all very well in their place, but let it be a
+small place, says I, and let 'em keep there."
+
+Abel Gallup was fifty years old and his wife over forty when they
+married; staid, home-loving people both.  Abel's business was that of
+"a General Outfitter," and "The Golden Anchor" that was hung over the
+entrance to the shop presided over the fortunes of a sound, going
+concern.  Only ready-made clothes were sold, only ready money was
+accepted.  They were well-to-do, and living simply above their shop in
+the main street of Marlehouse were able to save largely.
+
+Abel Gallup, however, was not merely a keen man of business and
+successful tradesman.  He was, in addition, an idealist and a dreamer
+of dreams; but so shrewd and level-headed was he, that he kept the two
+things quite apart.  His business was never neglected, and he returned
+to it all the fresher, inasmuch as in his off times his mind was
+ardently concerned with other things.
+
+He was a self-educated, self-made man, who had started as shop-boy and
+risen to be proprietor.  He had always been interested in politics, and
+in their study had found the relaxation that others sought in art,
+music, literature, or less intellectual pursuits.  He was proud of his
+liking for politics, counting it for much righteousness that he should
+be able to find such joy in what he considered so useful and important
+a matter.  In fact, he had a habit of saying, "Seek ye first the
+Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be
+added unto you," with the comfortable reflection that such temporal
+prosperity as had been added to him was probably a reward for his
+abstention from all frivolous pleasures.  He had no particular desire
+to rise in the world, himself.  When he married, comparatively late in
+life, it was a woman of his own class, a comely, sensible,
+"comfortable" woman, who would order his house well, and see to it that
+there was "no waste."
+
+She did all this; but she did infinitely more.  She gave him a son, and
+in that son all his hopes and dreams, his secret humilities and
+unconscious vanities, his political devotions and antipathies were all
+brought together and focussed in one great determination that this son
+of his should have all that he had been denied; that in this son every
+one of his own inarticulate aspirations should find a voice.
+
+He was a Congregationalist and a prominent member of this sect, the
+chief dissenting body in Marlehouse.  He read little poetry and no
+fiction, but he was widely read in and thoroughly conversant with all
+the political events and controversies of both his own generation and
+of the one before it.  A political meeting was to him what a
+public-house is to the habitual drunkard; he could not pass it.  He
+never spoke in public himself, but he longed to do so with a longing
+that was intense as it was hopeless.  He knew his limitations, and was
+quite conscious that his English was not that of the platform.
+
+Little Eloquent could never remember when he first began to hear the
+names that were afterwards to be the most familiar household words to
+him.  Two names, two personalities ever stood out in memory as an
+integral part of his child-life--those of William Ewart Gladstone and
+John Bright.
+
+These were his father's idols.
+
+They glowed, fixed planets in the political firmament, stable,
+unquenchable, a lamp to the feet of the faithful.  Each shining with a
+steady radiance that the divergence in their views on many points could
+neither confuse nor obscure.
+
+The square, dogged, fighting face of the man of peace; the serene,
+scholarly, aquiline features of the great Liberal leader were familiar
+to the little boy as the face of his own father.
+
+That John Bright died when Eloquent was about six made no difference in
+his influence.  There were two likenesses of him in the sitting-room,
+and under one of these the words were inscribed: "Be just and fear
+not"; and Eloquent, who was brought up to look upon justice as the
+first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such
+fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none
+of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested
+in the portraits of the great commoner.  But he found comfort in the
+reflection that "Dada," mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild
+and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very
+clean-looking little tradesman, with trim white whiskers, a bald head,
+and a round, rosy face, wherein shrewd, blue eyes twinkled cheerfully.
+
+No, dada bore not the slightest resemblance either to Mr Gladstone or
+Mr Bright, and yet, Eloquent reflected, "what a man he was!"  Dada was
+the chief factor in Eloquent's little world--law-giver, lover, and
+friend.
+
+It is probable that his childhood would have been more normal and less
+politically precocious had his mother lived.  But she died when he was
+four years old, a fortnight after the birth of a little sister who
+lived but a few hours.
+
+Abel Gallup's sister came to keep house for them, and luckily, she,
+like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of
+her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct.  Now his wife
+had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments.  Politics,
+especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child,
+were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered
+that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be
+remote almost to invisibility.
+
+With her death all this was altered.  Abel Gallup was very lonely, and
+turned to his little son for comfort.  The child was biddable, loving,
+and gentle, and "to please his dada" had ever been held before him as
+his highest honour and duty.
+
+Before he could read he could repeat long portions from the various
+speeches his father particularly admired; he learned by heart easily
+and had a retentive memory, and his father had only to say over a
+sentence two or three times when the child was word perfect.  It gave
+Abel Gallup the most exquisite delight to stand his little son between
+his knees and hear the stirring, sonorous sentences rolled out in the
+high, child voice; and even in those early days he used to impress upon
+Eloquent that when he was grown-up he "would have to speak different to
+dada."
+
+And little Eloquent, not realising that his father referred merely to
+accent and general grammar, would puzzle for hours wondering how such
+men as Mr Gladstone or John Bright would express their common wants.
+In what lofty terms, for instance, would Mr Gladstone inform his aunt,
+if he had an aunt, that his collar was frayed at the back and was
+scratching his neck.  This, Eloquent felt, was quite a likely
+contingency, "seeing as he wore 'em so high."  And how, he wondered,
+would Mr John Bright intimate delicately to the authorities who ruled
+his home that he hoped there would be pork for dinner on Sunday and
+plenty of crackling.  He felt certain that Mr Bright would be
+sympathetic in the matter of crackling; he didn't know why, but he was
+sure of it.  Equally convinced was he that the great statesman would
+express his desire in impressive and rhetorical language.  He repeated
+"bits" from the speeches that he knew, to see if he could fasten on a
+chance phrase here and there that could be introduced into the common
+conversations of life; but they never did fit, and he was fain to
+express his small wants in the plain language of the folk about him.
+
+Another name floated vague and nebulous among the impressions of very
+early childhood: that of one Herbert Spencer; and this was curious, for
+Abel Gallup was what he would himself have described as "a sincere
+Believer."  Nevertheless, he was immensely attracted by the
+philosopher's _Study of Sociology_, and little Eloquent was made to
+learn and repeat many long bits from that dispassionate work.  There
+was no portrait of Mr Herbert Spencer hanging upon the walls; he was
+not a living force, a real presence, like Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright; he
+spake not with the words of "a great soul greatly stirred"; yet there
+was something in his polished and logical sentences that gave Eloquent
+a doubtless quite erroneous sense of his personality, and of a certain
+aloofness in his attitude.  He never called into council the "bits"
+from Mr Herbert Spencer in order to find majestic language in which to
+express the ordinary wants of life.
+
+Eloquent was taken to his first political meeting when he was six years
+old, and he fell asleep before he had been there half an hour.  His
+father put his arm round the child, rested the heavy little head
+against his shoulder and let him sleep in peace.  Not even the cheering
+woke him, and his father carried him home, still sleeping.  Perhaps
+Abel believed that in some mysterious manner the child absorbed the
+opinions of the speakers through the pores.  He was not in the least
+annoyed with the little boy for falling asleep, nor did his tender
+years prevent a repetition of the experiment a few months later.  This
+time Eloquent kept awake for nearly an hour.  He was dreadfully bored,
+but at the same time felt very elated and important.  He was the only
+little boy in the hall.
+
+Abel Gallup was never tired of impressing upon Eloquent that "the
+people had the power, and the people had the votes to send you to
+parlyment or keep you out.  Don't you be misled, my boy, by them as
+would wish you to try to please the gentry by and bye.  The gentry's
+few and the people's many.  I don't say a word against the gentry,
+mind, they're all right in their proper place, and very pleasant they
+be, some of them, but when the time comes for you to stand, just you
+remember that even hereabout there's hundreds of little houses for one
+manshun, and in every one of those little houses there's a vote, and
+you can have it if you go the right way about.  When you're _in_,
+Eloquent, then you can hob-a-nob with the gentry if it so pleases you;
+but _till_ you're in, remember it's the working man as can make or mar
+you."
+
+Eloquent's aunt, Miss Gallup, had for many years "kept" the post-office
+and general shop in the village of Redmarley; but when her brother
+asked her to come and look after his home and his motherless child, she
+did not hesitate.  She resigned her position of post-mistress, sold the
+good-will of her shop, and went to live in Marlehouse at "The Sign of
+the Golden Anchor."
+
+She did not lose her interest in Redmarley, however; she had many
+friends there, and it was one of the treats of little Eloquent's
+childhood to drive there with his aunt "in a shay," to spend the
+afternoon in the woods, and have tea afterwards either with the
+housekeeper at the "Manshun" or in one of the cottages in the village.
+
+In those days, only one old gentleman lived at the "Manshun."  He "kept
+himself very much to himself," so aunt said, and Eloquent never saw him
+except from an upper window in the Golden Anchor, when he happened to
+drive through Marlehouse.
+
+Neither did the little boy ever see much of the interior of the
+"Manshun" itself, except the housekeeper's room, which was down a
+passage just inside the back entrance.
+
+It was during these visits to the housekeeper at Redmarley that it
+first dawned upon Eloquent that there could be two opinions as to the
+absolute righteousness of the Liberal Cause.  Moreover, he found out
+that his aunt's political views were not on all fours with those of his
+father.  This last discovery was quite a shock to him, and there was
+worse in store.  For while he sat in solemn silence devouring bread and
+jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard
+her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as "that there Gladstone," and
+the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as
+"a snake in the grass."
+
+"It's curious, Miss Gallup," the butler said, thoughtfully, "that your
+brother should be that side in politics, and him so well-to-do and all.
+If he'd been in the boot trade now, I could have understood it--there's
+something in the smell of leather that breeds Radicals like a bad drain
+breeds fever; but clothes now, and lining and neck-ties and hosiery,
+you'd think they'd have a softening effect on a man.  Dissenter, too,
+he is, isn't he?"
+
+"My brother's altogether out of the common run," Miss Gallup remarked,
+rather huffily.  She might deplore his politics herself--when she was
+some distance away from him--but no one else should presume to find
+fault.  "He may be mistaken in his views--I think he is mistaken--but
+that don't alter the fact that he's a very successful man: a solid man,
+well thought of in Marlehouse, I can tell you."
+
+"Dada says," Eloquent broke in, "that he's successful _because_ of his
+views."
+
+"Well, to be sure," exclaimed the housekeeper in astonishment, "who'd
+have thought the child could understand."
+
+"The child," groaned Miss Gallup, "hears nothing but politics all day
+long--it turns me cold sometimes, it does really."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ONE OF THEM
+
+When Eloquent was six years old his visits to the "Manshun" at
+Redmarley ceased.
+
+Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Mr Hilary, reigned in his stead.
+The butler and the housekeeper, handsomely pensioned, left the village.
+The staff of servants was much reduced, and at first Mr Hilary Ffolliot
+only came down to Redmarley for two or three days at a time.  Then he
+married and came to live there altogether.
+
+Eloquent had liked going to Redmarley.  The place attracted him, and
+the people were kind, even if they were wrong-headed as to politics.
+One day he asked his aunt when they would go again.
+
+"I don't fancy we shall go much now," she replied; "most of my friends
+have left.  It's all different now up at the 'Manshun,' with a young
+missus and a new housekeeper; though they seem pleased enough about it
+in the village; a well-spoken, nice-looking young lady they says she
+is, but I shan't go there no more.  They don't know me and I don't know
+them, and there we'll have to leave it."
+
+And there it was left.
+
+Redmarley would probably have faded altogether from Eloquent's mind,
+but for something that occurred to give it a new interest in his eyes.
+
+The summer that he was seven, he was sent to the Grammar School.  He
+came home every day directly after morning lessons, for he was as yet
+considered too small to take part in the games which were at that time
+but slightly supervised.
+
+One day he returned to find a victoria and pair standing at the shop
+door, coachman on the box, footman standing on the pavement.  This was
+unusual.  Such an equipage must, he felt, belong to some member of the
+dangerously seductive "upper classes" his dada warned him against so
+often.  The class that some day would _want_ him.  The class he was to
+keep at arm's length till he was safely "in."
+
+The shop door was open, and Eloquent looked in.  Dada, himself, was
+serving a customer; moreover, he was looking particularly brisk and
+pleased.
+
+Eloquent crept into the shop cautiously.  None noticed him.  The four
+shopmen were serving other customers, and they all happened to be at
+the counter on the right-hand side.
+
+It was a long shop with two counters that stretched its entire length,
+and was rather dark and close as a rule, but to-day there was bright
+sunshine outside.  It shone through the big plate-glass windows, the
+glass door stood open, and somehow the shop looked gay.  Dada had the
+left-hand counter all to himself.
+
+Eloquent had never before seen anyone in the least like this customer,
+who, with slender hands, sat turning over little ready-made suits,
+boy's suits, and feeling the stuff to see if it were strong; she had
+taken off one of her long white gloves, and it lay beside the suits.
+
+Eloquent gazed and gazed, and edged up the side of the counter towards
+her.  Had he possessed eyes for anybody else he would have observed
+that the four assistants were staring also, and that his father, even,
+seemed very much absorbed by this particular purchaser.
+
+And, after all, why?
+
+She was just a tall, quite young woman, very simply dressed in white.
+
+But she was beautiful.
+
+Not pretty; beautiful in a large, luminous, quite intelligible way.
+
+It was all there, the gracious sovereignty of feature, colouring, above
+all, expression--that governs men.
+
+Little Eloquent knew it and came edging up the shop, drawn irresistibly
+as by some powerful magnetic force.
+
+The young shopmen knew it, and neglected their patrons as much as they
+dared to stare at her.
+
+Mr Gallup knew it, and stood rubbing his hands and thoroughly enjoying
+the good moment.
+
+Those other customers knew it, and although the inattention of the
+young shopmen annoyed them, they sat well sideways in their chairs that
+they, too, might take a peep at the lady without rudely turning round.
+
+The only person in the shop who appeared to know nothing about it was
+the lady herself.  She bent her lovely head over the little suits and
+pondered, murmuring:
+
+"I do wish I knew which they'd like best, a Norfolk jacket, or a jacket
+and waistcoat.  Can you remember which you liked best?" she asked,
+suddenly lifting large, earnest eyes to Mr Gallup's flushed and
+cheerful countenance.
+
+"Really, madam," said Mr Gallup, rather taken aback at the very
+personal turn the subject had taken, "I shouldn't think it matters in
+the least.  Both are equally suitable."
+
+At that moment, the lady caught sight of Eloquent edging, edging up the
+side of the counter, ever nearer to this astonishing vision.
+
+"Here's somebody who can tell us," she exclaimed.  "I'll explain to
+him. . . .  I'm buying suits for three little boys--Sunday suits, for
+church and Sunday school, you know--I want them plain and serviceable
+so that by and bye they won't look funny for school--_you_ know; well,
+would they like coats and waistcoats, or a Norfolk--which do you think?"
+
+"Coats and waistcoats," said Eloquent promptly, his eyes still glued to
+her face.
+
+"Why?" asked the lady.
+
+"Because you can take off your coat, and _then_ you're in your
+shirt-sleeves."
+
+"But aren't you in your shirt-sleeves when you take off a Norfolk?"
+
+"No," said Eloquent, "_then_ you're in your shirt."
+
+The lady laughed.  Mr Gallup laughed.  The assistants, who had not
+heard, for Eloquent spoke very low, sniggered sympathetically, and the
+other customers frowned.
+
+"That settles it," said the lady, "and I'm very much obliged to you.
+I'll have the three little grey suits with coats and waistcoats.  Poor
+little chaps, their mother died just a fortnight ago, and they've
+nothing tidy."
+
+"My mother's dead," Eloquent announced abruptly.
+
+The lady's eyes had been so soft, her face so tender and full of pity
+as she said, "poor little chaps," he felt a sudden spasm of jealousy.
+He wanted her to look at him like that.
+
+He did not see his father's start, nor the momentary pained contraction
+of his cheerful features.
+
+Eloquent's eyes were fixed on the lady's face, and sure enough he got
+what he wanted.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she said simply, and she looked it; she had turned her
+kind eyes full upon him, eyes wide apart and grey and limpid.
+
+He edged still nearer to her; so near that he stood upon her white
+dress with his dusty little boots, and still he stared unblinkingly.
+
+The young lady looked puzzled.  Why did the child regard her so
+fixedly?  She suddenly awoke to the fact that everyone in the shop was
+looking at her.  Even Mr Gallup, on the other side of the counter,
+seemed suddenly stricken by inertia, and instead of putting up the
+little suits in paper, was staring at the pair of them.
+
+Then Eloquent was moved to explain.
+
+"I've never seen anybody look like you before," he said gravely, "and I
+like watching you."
+
+"Thank you," said the lady, and she patted his cheek.
+
+She laughed.
+
+Mr Gallup laughed, and came back to the affairs of the Golden Anchor,
+busying himself in tying up her parcel, while he explained that
+Eloquent was his only child.
+
+Eloquent did not laugh, for she was going away.
+
+Dada carried the parcel to the shop door and gave it to the footman.
+He put it in the carriage, and held out a thin silken cloak for the
+lady, which she put on.  He covered her knees with a linen dust rug,
+and smiling and bowing she drove away.
+
+Eloquent turned back into the shop with his father.
+
+It seemed to have got very dark and gloomy again.
+
+"Dada," he asked, "who is that lady?"
+
+"That," said Mr Gallup, loudly and with no little pride, "is Mrs
+Ffolliot of Redmarley, the bride."
+
+The customers were all listening, the four assistants were all
+listening.
+
+Mr Gallup held out his hand to Eloquent, and together they went through
+the shop and upstairs into the sitting-room, that looked out upon the
+market-place.
+
+"Dada, is she one of the Classes?" Eloquent inquired, nervously.
+
+"I believe you, my boy," Mr Gallup responded jocosely, "very much so,
+she is; a regular out and outer."
+
+His father went away chuckling, but Eloquent was much depressed.
+
+He went and stood over against one of the portraits of John Bright and
+looked at him for help.
+
+"Be just and fear not," said that statesman.
+
+"All very well," thought Eloquent, "she didn't pat _your_ cheek."
+
+He went and sought counsel of Mr Gladstone, a youngish Mr Gladstone in
+the Free Trade Hall, Manchester: "At last, my friends, I have come
+amongst you . . . unmuzzled," said the legend underneath his portrait.
+
+But Eloquent felt that this was just what he was not.  He felt very
+muzzled indeed.  All sorts of vague thoughts went surging through his
+brain that could find no expression in words.
+
+"I do believe," he said desperately, "if she was to give the
+whisperingest little call, I'd be obliged to go . . . and so would
+you," he continued, shaking his head at Mr Gladstone, "you'd do just
+the same."
+
+He felt that, in some inexplicable, subtly mysterious fashion, there
+was a kind of affinity between Mr Gladstone and Mrs Ffolliot.
+
+Mr Gladstone would understand, and not be too hard upon him.
+
+In the years that followed, he saw Mrs Ffolliot from time to time from
+the window or in the street, but never again did he come so close to
+her as to touch her.
+
+Never did he see her, however, without that strange thrill of
+enthusiastic admiration; that dumb, inarticulate sense of having seen
+something entirely satisfying and delightful; satisfying for the moment
+only: he paid dearly for his brief joy in after hours of curious
+depression and an aching sense of emptiness and loss.  She was so far
+away.
+
+Sometimes she was driving with her husband, and little Eloquent
+wondered after they had passed what manner of man it could be who had
+the right to sit by her whenever he liked.  He never had time to notice
+Mr Ffolliot, till one day he saw him in the carriage alone, and
+scrutinised him sternly.  Long afterwards he read how some admirer of
+Lord Hartington had said that what he liked most about him was his
+"You-be-damnedness."  The phrase, Eloquent felt, exactly described Mr
+Ffolliot; aloof, detached, a fastidious, fine gentleman to his finger
+tips, entirely careless as to what the common people thought of him;
+not willingly conscious, unless rudely reminded of their existence,
+that there were any common people: such, Eloquent felt sure, was Mr
+Ffolliot's mental attitude, and he hated him.
+
+Mr Ffolliot wore a monocle, and just at that time a new figure loomed
+large on the little boy's political horizon--a figure held up before
+him not for admiration, but reprobation--as a turncoat, an apostate, a
+real and menacing danger to the Cause dada had most at heart; the
+well-known effigy of Mr Joseph Chamberlain.  He always appeared with
+monocle and orchid.  In his expression, judged by the illustrated
+papers, there was something of that same "you-be-damnedness" he
+disliked so much in Mr Ffolliot.  Eloquent lumped them together in his
+mind, and hated Mr Ffolliot as ardently as he worshipped his wife; and
+to no one at all did he ever say a word about either of them.
+
+He rose rapidly in the school, and when he was nine years old had
+reached a form with boys much older than himself, boys old enough to
+write essays; and Eloquent wrote essays too; essays which were cruder
+and quainter than those of his companions.  One day the subject
+given--rather an abstruse theme for boys to tackle--was Beauty.
+Eloquent wrote as follows:
+
+"Beauty is tall and has a pleasant sounding voice, and you want to come
+as near as you can.  You want to look at her all the time because you
+don't see it often.  Beauty is most pretty to look at and you don't
+seem to see anyone else when it's there.  She smells nice, a wafty
+smell like tobacco plants not pipes in the evening.  When beauty looks
+at you you feel glad and funny and she smiles at you and looks with her
+eyes.  She is different to aunts and people's wives.  Taller and quite
+a different shape.  Beauty is different.--E. A. Gallup, class IIIb."
+
+
+He was twelve years old when they left Marlehouse.  His father had
+bought a larger business in a busy commercial town, where there was a
+grammar school famous throughout the Midlands.
+
+There Eloquent was educated until he was seventeen, when he, too, went
+into the outfitting business.  He attended lectures and the science
+school in his free time, and belonged to two or three debating clubs.
+He was in great request at the smaller political gatherings as a
+speaker, and with constant practice bade fair to justify his name.
+
+He occasionally went to Marlehouse, generally on political business,
+but never to Redmarley.  Nevertheless, stray items of Redmarley news
+reached him through his aunt, who still kept up her friendship with
+some of the village folk there.
+
+From her he learned that there were a lot of young Ffolliots; that they
+were wild and "mishtiful," unmanageable and generally troublesome; that
+Mrs Ffolliot was still immensely popular and her husband hardly known
+after all these years; that, owing, it was supposed, to their
+increasing family, they did not entertain much, and that the "Manshun"
+itself looked much as it had always looked.
+
+Eloquent made no comment on these revelations, but he treasured them in
+his heart.  Some day he intended to go back to Redmarley.  He never
+forgot Mrs Ffolliot, or the impression she had made upon him the first
+time he saw her.
+
+When Eloquent was four-and-twenty Abel Gallup died.  He then learned
+that his father was a much wealthier man than anyone had supposed.
+Miss Gallup was left an annuity of a hundred a year.  The rest of the
+very considerable property (some seventy thousand pounds) was left to
+Eloquent, but with the proviso that until he was elected a member of
+Parliament he could not touch more than three hundred a year, though he
+was to be allowed two thousand pounds for his election expenses
+whenever, and as often as he chose to stand, until he was elected; as
+long as the money lasted.  Once he was in Parliament the property was
+his absolutely, to dispose of as he thought fit.
+
+It was proof of Abel Gallup's entire trust in his son, that there was
+not one word in the will that in any way whatsoever expressed even a
+hope as to the legatee's political convictions.
+
+Miss Gallup went back to Redmarley.  Eloquent sold the outfitting
+business, and went to London to study parliamentary business from the
+stranger's gallery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ANOTHER OF THEM
+
+A young man was walking through Redmarley woods towards Redmarley
+village, and from time to time he gazed sorrowfully at his boots.  There
+had been a lot of rain that winter, and now on this, the third Sunday in
+December, the pathway was covered with mud, which, when it was not
+sticky, was extremely slippery.
+
+The young man walked rather slowly, twirling a smart cane as he went, and
+presently he burst into speech--more accurately--a speech.
+
+"What, gentlemen," he demanded, loudly and rhetorically, "but no--I will
+not call you gentlemen; here to-night, I note it with pride and gladness,
+there are but few who can claim that courtesy title.  I who speak, and
+most of you who do me the honour to listen, can lay claim to no prouder
+appellation than that of MEN.  What then, fellow-men, I ask you, what
+_is_ the House of Lords?  What purpose does it serve except to delay all
+beneficent legislation, to waste the country's time and to nullify the
+best efforts. . . .  Confound . . ."
+
+He slipped, he staggered, his hat went one way, his stick another, and he
+sat down violently and with a splash in a particularly large puddle.  And
+at that instant he was suddenly beset by a dog--a curiously long-legged
+fox-terrier--who came bouncing round him with short rushes and sharp
+barks.  He had reached a part of the woods where the paths cross.  Fir
+trees were very thick just there, and footsteps made hardly any sound in
+the soft mud.
+
+A tall girl came quickly round the corner, calling "Parker!" and pulled
+up short as she beheld the stranger seated ingloriously in the puddle.
+But it was only for a moment; she hastened towards him, rebuking the dog
+as she came: "Be quiet, Parker, how rude of you, come off now, come to
+heel"--then, as he of the puddle, apparently paralysed by his undignified
+position, made no effort to arise, on reaching him she held out her
+hands, saying; "I wouldn't _sit_ there if I were you, it's so awfully
+wet.  Shall I pull you up?  Dig your heels in, that's it.  I say, you are
+in a mess!"
+
+He was.
+
+The leggy fox-terrier ceased to bark.  Instead, he thrust an inquisitive
+nose into the stranger's bowler hat and sniffed dubiously.
+
+The girl was strong and had pulled with a will.
+
+"I am much obliged to you," the young man remarked stiffly, at the same
+time regarding his rescuer with a suspicious and inimical eye, to see if
+she were laughing at him.
+
+She did nothing of the kind.  Her candid gaze merely expressed dismay,
+subtly mingled with commiseration.  "I don't see how we're to clean you,"
+she said; "only scraping would do it--a trowel's best, but, then, I don't
+suppose you've got one about you."
+
+The young man tried to look down his back, always a difficult feat.
+
+"You're simply covered with mud from head to foot," she continued.  "The
+only thing I can think of for you to do is to come to the stables, and
+I'll get Heaven to clean you . . . unless, perhaps," she added,
+doubtfully, "you were coming to the house."
+
+"If you will kindly direct me to the village," he said, "I have to pay a
+call there, and no doubt my friends will assist me to remove some of this
+mud."
+
+"But you can't go calling like that," she expostulated; "you'd far better
+come to the stables first.  Heaven's so used to us, he'd clean you up in
+no time; besides, by far the quickest way to the village is down our
+drive.  There's no right-of-way through these woods; didn't you see the
+boards?"
+
+"Whenever," he spoke with deliberate emphasis, "I see a board to the
+effect that trespassers will be prosecuted, I make a point of walking
+over that land as a protest."
+
+"Dear me," she said.  "It must take you sadly out of your way sometimes.
+Where have you come from to-day?"
+
+"From Marlehouse."
+
+"Then you'd have saved yourself at least a mile and a half, and your
+trousers all that mud, if you'd stuck to the road; it's ever such a long
+way round to come by the woods."
+
+"I prefer the woods."
+
+There was such superior finality in his tone, that the girl was
+apparently crushed.  She started to walk, he followed; she waited for
+him, and they tramped along side by side in silence; he, covertly taking
+stock of his companion; she, gazing straight ahead as though for the
+moment she had forgotten his existence.
+
+A tall girl, evidently between sixteen and seventeen, for her hair was
+not "done up," but tied together at the back with a large bow, whence it
+streamed long and thick and wavy to her waist: abundant light brown hair,
+with just enough red in it to give it life and warmth.
+
+His appraising eye took in the fact at once that all her clothes were
+old, shabby, and exceedingly well cut.  Her hat was a shapeless soft felt
+with no trimming, save a rather ragged cord, and she wore it turned down
+all round.  It had once been brown, but was now a mixture of soft faded
+tints like certain lichens growing on a roof.  Her covert coat, rather
+too big, and quite nondescript in colour, washed by the rains of many
+winters, revealed in flowing lines the dim grace of the broad, yet
+slender shoulders beneath.
+
+Her exceedingly short skirt was almost as weather-beaten as the coat, but
+it swung evenly with every step and there was no sagging at the back.
+
+Last of all, his eyes dropped to her boots: wide welted, heavy brown
+boots; regular country boots; but here again was the charm of graceful
+line, and he knew instinctively that the feet they encased were slender
+and shapely and unspoiled.
+
+He raised his eyes again to the serenely unconscious profile presented to
+his view: a very finished profile with nothing smudgy or uncertain about
+it.  The little nose was high-bridged and decided, the red lips full and
+shut closely together, the upper short and deeply cleft in the centre.
+
+He was just thinking that, in spite of his muddy hat, he would rather
+like her to look at him again, when she turned her large gaze upon him
+with the question:
+
+"Were you preaching just before you fell down?"
+
+He flushed hotly.  "Certainly not--did it sound like . . . that?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't sure.  I thought if you were a curate trying a sermon
+you'd have said 'brethren,' but 'fellow men' would do, you know; and then
+I heard something about the 'house of the Lord,' and I was sure you must
+be a sucking parson; but when I came up I wasn't so sure.  What were you
+saying over, if it wasn't a sermon?"
+
+"It was stupid of me . . . but I do a good deal of public speaking, and I
+never dreamt anyone was within miles . . ."
+
+"Oh, a speech, was it?  Where are you going to speak it?"
+
+"I shall probably address a meeting in Marlehouse to-morrow night."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I've been asked to do so."
+
+"Will it be in the paper on Saturday?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+"How grand; do tell me your name, then I can look for your speech.  I'd
+love to read it and see if you begin with the bit I heard about fellow
+men and the house of the Lord."
+
+"The House of Lords," he corrected.
+
+"Oh," said the girl.  "Them!  It's them you're against.  I was afraid you
+objected to churches."
+
+"I don't care much for churches, either," he observed, gloomily.  "Do
+you?"
+
+"I've really never thought about it," she confessed.  "One's supposed to
+like them . . . they're good things, surely?"
+
+"Institutions must be judged by their actual utility; their adaptability
+to present needs.  Traditional benefits can no longer be accepted as a
+reason for the support of any particular cause."
+
+"I think," she said, "that the mud on your clothes is drying.  It will
+probably brush off quite nicely."
+
+Had he ever read _Alice in Wonderland_ he might have remembered what
+preceded the Caucus Race.  But he never had, so he merely thought that
+she was singularly frivolous and irrelevant.
+
+"You haven't told me your name," she continued, "so that I can look for
+that speech.  We're nearly home, and I'll hand you over to Heaven so that
+he can make you tidy for your call."
+
+"My name is E. A. Gallup," he replied, shortly.
+
+"Up or op?" she asked.
+
+"Up," he replied, wishing to heaven it weren't.
+
+"Mine's M. B. Ffolliot, two 'fs' and two 'ls'.  We live here, you know."
+
+"I guessed you were a Miss Ffolliot.  In fact, I may say I knew it."
+
+"Everyone knows us about here," she said sadly.  "That's the worst of it.
+You can never get out of anything you've done."
+
+E. A. Gallup looked surprised, but as she was again gazing into space she
+did not observe him.
+
+"Whenever hay's trampled, or pheasants startled, or gates left open, or
+pigs chased, or turkeys furious, they always say, 'It's them varmints of
+young Ffolliots.'"
+
+"Do you know," he said, and his grave face suddenly broke into a most
+boyish grin, "I believe even I have heard something of the kind."
+
+"If you live anywhere within six miles of Redmarley you'll hear little
+else, and it isn't always us . . . though it is generally.  This stupid
+gate's locked.  We'll have to get over.  It's easiest to do it like this."
+
+"This" was to go back a few paces, run forward, put her hands on the top
+and vault the gate as a boy vaults a "gym" horse.  E. A. Gallup did not
+attempt to follow suit.  He climbed over, clumsily enough, dropping his
+stick on the wrong side.  When he had recovered it, he raised his muddy
+hat with a sweep.  "I see we are in a road of some sort, perhaps you will
+kindly direct me to the village, and I will not trouble . . . er . . . Mr
+Heaven----"
+
+"But much the nearest way to the village is down our front drive.  And we
+pass the stables to go to it."
+
+"I couldn't think of intruding in your drive.  Have the goodness to
+direct me."
+
+"But the woods are ours just as much as the drive; where's the
+difference?  In fact, we'd _rather_ have people walk in the drive because
+of the pheasants."
+
+"There _is_ a difference, though it may not be apparent to you . . . if I
+follow this road, do I come to the village?"
+
+"Don't be silly," she said shortly.  "If you prefer to be all over mud
+there's no more to be said, but I can't direct you any more than I've
+done.  If you want to get to the village you must go down our drive,
+unless you go wandering another mile and a half out of your way.  It's
+quite a short drive; only you must come by the stables to get to it.
+_Are_ you coming?"
+
+"I'm afraid I seem ungrateful," he began.
+
+"You do rather," she interrupted.
+
+"I assure you I am not.  I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot see why
+I should trouble . . ."
+
+"Oh, Heaven's used to it; _he_ wouldn't mind, but it's evident you would,
+so come along.  It will be dark before long, and I'll get into no end of
+a row if I'm out alone, and father meets me when I get in.  Not a soul
+will see you, please hurry."
+
+She led him across a deserted stableyard, and round the back of the house
+through a wide-walked formal garden, where Christmas roses shone star
+white in the herbacious border, where yew trees were clipped into
+fantastic shapes, and tall grey statues looked like ghosts in the
+gathering dusk, till they reached the sweep of gravelled drive in front
+of the house.  Wide lawns sloped steeply to the banks of the Marle, which
+flowed through the grounds.  The red December sun was reflected in a
+myriad flames in the many mullioned windows of the Manor.  As the girl
+had promised, not a soul was in sight, and it was very still.
+
+"There, Mr Gallup," she announced, cheerfully, "follow the drive and
+you'll find the village outside the gates.  Good-bye!  I must go in by
+the side door with these boots."  And before he could do more than lift
+his hat while he murmured inarticulate thanks, she had walked swiftly
+away and vanished round the angle of the house.
+
+For a moment he stood quite still, looking at the beautiful old Jacobean
+manor-house so warmly red in the sunset.  Then he, too, turned and walked
+quickly down the winding drive, and as he went he murmured softly: "So
+that's what they're like . . . curious anomaly . . . curious anomaly."
+
+The girl entered the house by the side door, changed her muddy boots and
+hung up her coat and hat in a little room devoted to boot boxes and pegs,
+and ran upstairs to the schoolroom.  Her elder brother, Grantly, who
+lounged smoking in the deep window-seat, swung his feet to the floor with
+a plump, and sat facing her as she came in, saying sternly:
+
+"Mary, who on earth was that man you were with?  Where did you pick him
+up?"
+
+Mary laughed.  "I literally picked him up from the very wettest part of
+the wood, where all the firs are, you know.  He was sitting mournfully in
+a young pond, apparently quite incapable of getting up by himself, and
+very much afraid of Parker, who was barking furiously."
+
+"Showed his sense; but what was that chap doing there, and who is he?"
+
+"He was trespassing, of course; makes a point of it, he says, but he'd
+evidently lost his way, so I put him right.  I thought if he and the
+pater met there'd be words.  He isn't at all a meek young man, and talks
+like that _Course of Reading_ Miss Glover loves so."
+
+"If he talked so much, he must have told you something about himself."
+
+"Not much; his name is E. A. Gallup, and he was going to pay a call in
+Redmarley."
+
+"What's he like?  I only saw his back, and deucedly disreputable it was.
+He looked as if he had been rolling drunk."
+
+Mary laughed again.  "I shouldn't think _he_ ever got drunk," she said;
+"he's far too solemn.  In appearance, he's rather like a very respectable
+young milkman, fresh-coloured, you know, and sort of blunt everywhere,
+but he speaks--if you can imagine a cross between a very superior curate
+and the pater--that's what he speaks like, except that there's just an
+echo of an accent--not bad, you know, but there."
+
+Grantly took the pipe out of his mouth and pulled the lobe of his ear
+meditatively.
+
+"Gallup," he repeated.  "Gallup, I've heard something about that name
+quite lately.  Surely, if you walked with him right from the Forty Firs
+and talked all the time, you must have found out something more?"
+
+"He's going to make a speech at Marlehouse to-morrow night; he was
+spouting away like anything just before he fell down.  That's what made
+Parker bark so."
+
+"I've got it," cried Grantly.  "He's the Liberal candidate, that's what
+he is.  He's standing against poor old Brooke of Medenham, and they say
+he'll get in, too--young brute."
+
+"Is he a Labour member?"
+
+"No, Liberal, they couldn't run a Labour member at Marlehouse; not enough
+cash in the constituency . . . tell you who he is, son of old Gallup that
+kept the ready-made clothes shop in the market-place--'Golden Anchor' or
+something, they called it.  Mother used to buy suits there for the kids
+in the village for Easter, jolly decent suits they were, too."
+
+"And does he keep on the 'Golden Anchor'?"
+
+"I don't think so, but I don't know.  Jolly good cheek marching through
+our woods, as if they belonged to him.  Wish I'd met him."
+
+"My dear chap, we're the last people in the world who can say anything to
+people for marching through other people's property, you especially.
+Why, nine-tenths of the bad rows, ever since any of us could walk, have
+been about that sort of thing."
+
+"Good old Mary, that Radical chap's converted you.  What else did he say?
+Come on; get it off your chest."
+
+At that moment, the door was opened by an elderly man-servant, who
+announced: "The master wishes to speak to you, Miss Mary."
+
+"Oh, Botticelli!  Cimabue!  Burne Jones!" Mary ejaculated.  "The pater
+must have been looking out of the window, too.  What _bad_ luck."
+
+"I wouldn't mention having _touched_ the chap in your interview with the
+pater," Grantly called after her.
+
+
+As Eloquent neared the Manor gates--those great gates famous throughout
+the country for the gryphons on their posts and their wonderful
+fairy-like iron tracery--a little boy came out from amongst the tall
+chestnuts in the avenue.  His face was dirty and his sailor-suit much the
+worse for wear, but his outstanding, high-bridged little nose and broad,
+confident smile proclaimed him one of the family.  He stood right in the
+stranger's path, exclaiming:
+
+"Hullo! had a scrap with the keeper?"
+
+His tone proclaimed a purely friendly curiosity.  "Certainly not,"
+Eloquent answered, coldly.  "I had the misfortune to slip and fall."
+
+"Why ever didn't they clean you up a bit at the house?" the little boy
+asked.
+
+"Your sister was kind enough to suggest it----"
+
+"Which sister?"
+
+"Miss----" he hardly liked to say "M. B.," and paused.
+
+"Big or little?  There's only two."
+
+"Rather big, I should say."
+
+"Oh, that's Mary--did she bump into you?"
+
+Eloquent looked hopelessly puzzled, and the boy hastened to add:
+
+"She's a bit of a gawk, you know, and awfully strong.  I thought she
+might have charged into you and knocked you over . . . she wouldn't mean
+to do it . . ."
+
+"I must be going," said Eloquent, "good-evening," and he hastened on his
+way.
+
+"Sorry you couldn't stop to tea," the small boy called after him
+hospitably.  "I'm Ger, so you'll know me again when you see me."
+
+The child stood for a minute looking after the stranger in the hope that
+he would turn his head, and nod or wave to him in friendly farewell, but
+he did neither.  Ger gave a little sigh, and trotted up the drive towards
+home.
+
+Outside the gates Eloquent paused and looked back at them.  Brought from
+Verona generations ago, they were a perfect example of a perfect period.
+Richly decorative, various in design, light and flowing in form, the
+delicate curves broke into actual leafage, sweeping and free as nature's
+own.  The Ffolliots were proud of their gates.
+
+He gazed at them admiringly, and then, like Ger, he sighed.
+
+"Why," he muttered, "why should they have had all this always?  I wonder
+if it's the constant passing through gates like this that helps to make
+them what they are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+REFLECTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT
+
+Eloquent found that M. B. Ffolliot had not deceived him as to the
+nearness of the village.  A few yards to the left, over the bridge, and
+the long, irregular street lay in front of him; the river on one side;
+the houses, various in size and shape, but alike in one respect, that
+the most modern of them was over two hundred years old.  He knew that
+his aunt's house was at the very end of the street and furthest from
+the bridge, and that Redmarley village was nearly a mile in length.
+Yet he did not hurry.  He walked very slowly in the middle of the muddy
+road, resolved to marshal and tabulate his impressions as was his
+orderly wont.
+
+But in this instance his impressions refused to conform to either
+process, and remained mutinously chaotic.
+
+He found that, in thinking of Mary, he unconsciously called her "that
+girl," whereas such maidens as he hitherto had encountered were always
+"young ladies."  He didn't know many "young ladies," but those he did
+know he there and then called into review and compared with Mary
+Ffolliot.
+
+They were all of them much better dressed, he was certain of that.  But
+he was equally assured that not one of them would have forborne to
+laugh at his plight, as he sat abject and ridiculous in the very
+largest puddle in Redmarley woods.
+
+She had not laughed.
+
+And would any one of these well-dressed young ladies (Eloquent took
+into account that it was Sunday) have held out helping hands to a total
+stranger with such absolute simplicity, so entirely as a matter of
+course? not as a young woman to a young man, but as one fellow-creature
+to another who had, literally, in this instance, fallen upon evil times.
+
+How tall she was, and how strong.
+
+Again (he blushed at the recollection) he seemed to feel the clasp of
+those muscular young hands in the worn tan-coloured gloves, gloves
+loose at the wrists, that did not button but were drawn on.  He had
+noticed her leather gloves as she held out her hands to him, and knew
+that in the language of the trade they were "rather costly to start
+with, but lasted for ever."
+
+They did not stock goods of that class in the particular branch of the
+outfitting trade that he knew best.  People wouldn't pay the price.
+And he found himself saying over and over again, "wouldn't pay the
+price," and it was of the girl he was thinking, not of her gloves.
+
+How eager she had been that he should come and be brushed; "I've no
+objection," Eloquent reflected, "to being under an obligation to her,
+but I'm hanged if I'd be beholden to Ffolliot for anything."  Somehow
+it gave him infinite satisfaction to think of Mary's father in that
+familiar fashion.  He, to put up boards about trespassers in the woods!
+
+Who was he?
+
+Eloquent ignored the fact that they were the same boards that had been
+there in old Mr Ffolliot's time, and badly needed repainting.
+
+That little boy, too, who first appeared to suspect him of poaching,
+and then expressed sorrow that he would not stay to tea.  What an
+extraordinary family they seemed to be!
+
+The girl had actually owned to being constantly suspected of all sorts
+of damage, and not always wrongfully either.  He was devoured by
+curiosity as to what forms her lawlessness could take.
+
+"A bit of a gawk" her young brother had called her.  How dared he?
+
+"Goddess," thought Eloquent, was much more appropriate than gawk.  He
+had no very clear conception of a goddess, but vaguely pictured a woman
+fair and simple and superb and young--not quite so young as Mary
+Ffolliot.  It was only during the last year or two that he had read any
+poetry, and he was never quite sure whether he liked it or not.  It was
+upsetting stuff he considered, vaguely disquieting and suggestive.  Yet
+there were times when it came in useful.  It said things for a chap
+that he couldn't say for himself.  It expressed the inexpressible . . .
+in words.  It synthesised and formulated fantastic and illusive
+experiences.
+
+His youthful facility in learning "bits" of prose by heart had not
+deserted him, and he found verse even easier to remember; in fact,
+sometimes certain stanzas would recur with irritating persistency when
+he didn't want them at all; and in thinking of this, to him, new type
+of girl, there flowed into his mind the lines:
+
+  "Walking in maiden wise,
+  Modest and kind and fair,
+  The freshness of spring in her eyes
+  And the fulness of spring in her hair."
+
+
+Gawk, indeed! that little boy ought to have his head smacked.
+
+And having come to a definite condition at last, he found he had
+reached his aunt's house.  The lamp was lit in the parlour and the
+blind was down, for it was already quite dark.  He had taken
+twenty-five minutes to walk from Mr Ffolliot's gates to his aunt's
+house.
+
+Miss Gallup, plump, ruddy, and garrulous, very like her brother Abel
+with her round pink face and twinkling eyes, was greatly delighted to
+see him.
+
+"You've come to your old aunt first thing, Eloquent," she cried
+triumphantly, "which is no more than I expected, though none the less
+gratifying, and you nearly a member and all.  How things do come to
+pass, to be sure.  I wish as your poor father had lived to see this
+day, and you going into parlyment with the best of 'em."
+
+"Don't say 'going in,' aunt," Eloquent expostulated.  "It's quite on
+the cards that they won't elect me.  Personally, I think they would
+have done better to put up a stronger candidate.  Marlehouse is always
+looked upon as a safe Tory seat; you know Mr Brooke has been member for
+a long time, and was unopposed at the last election."
+
+"An' never opens his mouth in London from one year's end to the other,
+sits and sleeps, so I've heard, and leaves the rest to do all the
+talking and bills and that.  My dear boy, don't tell me!  Marlehouse
+folk's got too much sense to give the go-by to one as can talk and was
+born amongst 'em, and they all know you."
+
+"But, Aunt Susan, I thought you were ever such a Tory.  What has become
+of all your political convictions, if you want me to get in?"
+
+Miss Gallup laughed.  "Precious little chance; I had of _'aving_ any
+convictions all the years I kept house for your dear father; an' a
+pretty aunt I'd be if I could go against you now.  Politics is all very
+well, but flesh and blood's a deal more, an' a woman wouldn't be half a
+woman if she didn't stand by her own.  It don't seem to matter much
+which side's in.  There'll be plenty to find fault with 'em whichever
+it is, and anyway from all I can hear just now you're on the winnin'
+side, so 'vote for Gallup,' says I, an' get someone as'll speak up for
+you--and not sit mumchance for all the world like a stuckey image night
+after night.  Your bag come by the carrier all right yesterday.  And
+now you must want your tea after that long walk--but, good gracious me,
+boy, have you met with an accident, or what, that you're all over with
+mud like that?  You aren't hurted, are you?"
+
+Eloquent again explained his mishap, but he said nothing about Mary
+Ffolliot.  His aunt took him to the back-door and brushed him
+vigorously, then they both sat down to tea in her exceedingly cosy
+sitting-room.
+
+"Do you like being back here again after all these years, Aunt Susan?"
+asked Eloquent.  "I suppose everything has changed very much since you
+lived here before."
+
+"Not so much as you'd think; and then the _place_ is the same, and as
+one grows older that counts for a lot.  When one's young, one's all for
+change and gallivantin', but once you're up in years 'tis the old
+things you cares for most; 'an when I heard as the house I was born in
+was empty I just had to come back.  Redmarley village don't change,
+because no one can build.  Mr Ffolliot sees to that; not one rood of
+land will he sell, and the old houses looks just the same as when I was
+a little girl.  Your father he left Redmarley when he was fourteen, and
+went 'prentice to the 'Golden Anchor,' an' he never cared for the
+village like me.  I hardly knew him when I was young, he being twelve
+years older than me, and him coming home but seldom."
+
+"It must make a good deal of difference having a family at . . . the
+Manor," said Eloquent, with studied carelessness.  He had nearly said
+"the Manshun," after the fashion of the villagers.
+
+"Of course it do.  There's changes there, if you like."
+
+"I suppose you sometimes see . . . the young people?"
+
+"See them?  I should just think we do, _and_ hear them and hear _about_
+them from morning to night.  There never was more mixable children than
+the young Ffolliots."
+
+"How many are there?"  Eloquent tried to keep his voice cool and
+uninterested, but he felt as he used to feel when he was a child in
+"hiding games," when some one told him he was "getting warm."
+
+"Well, there's Mr Grantly, he's the eldest; he's going to be an officer
+in the army like his grandpa; he's gone apprentice to some shop."
+
+"What?" asked Eloquent, in astonishment.
+
+"I thought it a bit queer myself, but Miss Mary herself did say it.
+'Grantly's gone to the shop,' she said, 'to learn to be a soldier'; and
+I said, 'Well, the gentry's got more sense than I thought for, if they
+gives 'em a trade as well.'  And Miss Mary she said again, he'd gone to
+a shop right enough, and went off laughing."
+
+"But that's impossible," said Eloquent.  "He must have gone either to
+Sandhurst or Woolwich; there's nowhere else he could go."
+
+"She never mentioned neither of those names.  'Shop,' she said . . .
+you needn't look at me like that, Eloquent . . . I'm positive."
+
+"You were telling me how many children there were," Eloquent remarked
+pacifically, "Grantly, the eldest son, and then . . . ?"
+
+"I'm getting warm," his mind kept saying.
+
+"Then Miss Mary, just a year younger, very like her mother she is . . .
+in looks, but she hasn't got the gumption of Mrs Ffolliot.  That'll
+come, perhaps . . . later.  A bit of a tomboy she's bin, but she's
+settling down."
+
+"I suppose she is nearly grown up?"
+
+"Between seventeen and eighteen, she'll be, but not done up her hair
+yet--that's Mr Ffolliot's doin's; he's full of fads as an egg's full o'
+meat.  Then there's the twins, Uz and Buz they calls 'em.  They're at
+Rugby School, they are, but they'll be home for the holidays almost
+directly.  I can't say I'm partial to scripture names myself, and only
+last time he was here I asked Mr Grantly what they called them that
+for, when there was so many prettier names in our language, and he
+said, quite solemn like, 'Uz his first-born and Buz his brother, that's
+why, you see.'  And I said, 'but they're twins, sir'; and he said, 'but
+Uz was born five minutes before Buz, so it's quite correct,' and went
+off laughing.  They're always laughing at something, those children."
+
+"Then are there just the four?' asked Eloquent, who knew perfectly well
+there were more.
+
+"Oh, bless you, no; there's Master Ger; now I call him the pick of the
+bunch, the most conformable little chap and full of sense: he'll talk
+to you like one of yourselves; he's everybody's friend, is Master Ger.
+Miss Kitten's the youngest, and a nice handful she is.  She and Master
+Ger does everything together, and they do say as she's the only one as
+don't care two pins for her papa; nothing cows her, she'd sauce the
+king himself if she got the chance."
+
+"From what you say, I gather that they seem to do pretty much as they
+like," Eloquent remarked primly.
+
+"Outside they do, but in the house they say those poor children's
+hushed up something dreadful.  Mr Ffolliot's a regular old Betty, he
+never ought to have had one child, let alone six.  He's always reading
+and writing and studying and sitting with his nose in a book, and then
+he complains of nerves.  I'd nerve him if I was his wife--but she's all
+for peace, poor lady, and I suppose she makes the best of a bad job."
+
+"Is she unhappy?" Eloquent demanded, with real solicitude.
+
+"If she is, she don't show it, anyhow.  She goes her way, and he goes
+his, and her way's crowded with the children, and there it is."
+
+"Are you thinking of going to church, Aunt Susan?"
+
+Miss Gallup looked surprised.
+
+"Well, no, not if you don't want to come.  I generally go, but I'm more
+than willing to stop with you."
+
+"But I'd like to go," Eloquent asserted, and got very red in the face
+as he did so.  "I don't think I've ever been in the church here."
+
+"Well, there's no chapel as you could go to if you was ever so minded.
+Old Mr Molyneux mayn't be so active as some, but there's never been no
+dissent since he was vicar, and that's forty years last Michaelmas."
+
+"What about my father?" Eloquent suggested.
+
+"Your dear father got his dissenting opinions and his politics in
+Marlehouse, not here."
+
+"Then I'm afraid I shan't get many votes from this village," said
+Eloquent, but he said it cheerfully, as though he didn't care.
+
+"That's for you to see to," Miss Gallup said significantly; "there's no
+tellin' what a persuasive tongue mayn't do."
+
+As Eloquent walked through the darkness with his aunt, he heard her
+cheerful voice go rippling on as in a dream.  He had no idea what she
+talked about, his whole mind was concentrated in the question: "Will
+she be there?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE IMPRESSIONS ARE INTENSIFIED
+
+The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high."  It boasted an
+organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses.
+"The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and
+saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered.
+Very rarely was there a week-day service.  The villagers would have
+regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet,
+notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from
+sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it
+during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been
+shut.
+
+The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the
+fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time
+when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying
+villages that now had churches of their own.  Therefore, it was never
+full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going
+to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but
+sparsely attended.
+
+Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cushion and red footstools and
+everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the
+left.
+
+On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the
+chancel steps belonging to the Manor House.  In the one, there were
+three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.
+
+Eloquent began to wish he had not come.
+
+People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their
+several fashions.  The organist started the voluntary, and the choir
+came in.
+
+The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow
+a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."
+
+As if he didn't know!
+
+Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the
+ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.
+
+She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive
+relief, much more Sundayish.  In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this
+dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other
+young ladies of his acquaintance.  Not that she in the least resembled
+them.  Not a bit.  Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's
+eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the
+outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat
+and skirt, it was uncommonly well made.  She wore blue fox furs, too,
+hat and stole and muff all matching, and her hair was tied twice with
+dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.
+
+Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed.  Behind her followed a youth
+ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller.  He
+walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square
+shoulders.  His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of
+an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory.  There was no
+fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about _his_ clothes.  He was,
+Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top
+of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and
+well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.
+
+"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent.  "He's never seen the wrong side of a
+counter in his life."
+
+"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the
+congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.
+
+Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair
+shone burnished and bright in the lamplight.  Just before the psalms
+she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her
+profile for the space of three seconds.
+
+When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the
+steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.
+
+"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot
+began in a voice of thunder.  The congregation lifted startled heads,
+and looked considerably surprised.  Grantly was nervous.  He read very
+fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands;
+and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.
+
+Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and
+a beating.  He longed passionately to stand up at that brass bird and
+read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular.
+He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that
+size.
+
+"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth
+the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of
+bribes. . . ."
+
+How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the
+present day, thought Eloquent. . . .  The "knut" had somewhat subdued
+his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the
+words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley
+with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."  Two more verses,
+and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but
+supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.
+
+Eloquent registered a vow.
+
+The vicar himself read the second lesson, and the meditations of the
+assembled worshippers were undisturbed.
+
+The vicar always preached for exactly ten minutes.  He took an
+old-fashioned hour-glass up into the pulpit with him, and when it ran
+out he concluded his discourse.  Redmarley folk highly approved this
+ritual.  When stray parsons came to preach, especially if they were
+dignitaries of the church, a body could never tell what they might be
+at, and the suspense was wearing.  Why, the Dean of Garchester had been
+known to keep on for half an hour.
+
+The Redmarley worshippers rarely slept.  It wasn't worth while.
+Instead, they kept a wary eye upon the hour-glass.  They trusted to
+their vicar's honour, and he rarely failed them.  As the last grains of
+sand ran out he turned to the east, and most people were back home and
+sitting down to supper by eight o'clock.
+
+Miss Gallup never hurried out of church.  She thought it unseemly.
+Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his
+place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle.  Mary
+looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him
+with friendly recognition.
+
+The "knut" had gone on ahead.
+
+Eloquent gave no answering smile.  For one thing, he had never for one
+moment expected her to take the slightest notice of him, and the fact
+that she had done so raised a perfect tumult of unexpected and
+inexplicable emotion.
+
+The hot blood rushed to his face, and there was a singing in his ears.
+He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form,
+and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in
+the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated
+whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want to stop here all night?"
+
+"Mr Grantly read very nice, didn't he?"
+
+Miss Gallup remarked complacently, as they were walking home.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Aunt Susan, I thought he read very badly: he
+bellowed so, and was absolutely wanting in expression."
+
+"Poor young gentleman," Miss Gallup said tolerantly.  "Last time he
+read, back in summer it was, he did read so soft like, no one could
+hear a word he said, and I know they all went on at him something
+dreadful, so this time I suppose he thought as they _should_ hear him."
+
+"Do you think," Eloquent asked diffidently, "that Mr Molyneux would
+like me to read the lessons some Sunday when I'm down here?"
+
+Miss Gallup stopped short.
+
+"Well, now," she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was
+just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you--you'd
+snap my head off, you being chapel and all."
+
+Eloquent longed to say that he was not so wrapped up in chapel as all
+that, but long habits of self-restraint stood him in good stead.  Where
+possible votes were concerned it did not do to speak the thought of the
+moment, so he merely remarked indifferently that he'd be "pleased to be
+of any assistance."
+
+"Of course," Miss Gallup continued, as she walked on, "there's no
+knowing whether, with the election coming on and all, the vicar might
+think it quite suitable, though he's generally glad to get any one to
+read as will."
+
+"Surely," Eloquent said severely, "he does not carry his political
+views into his religious life, to the extent of boycotting those who do
+not agree with him."
+
+"It's his church," Miss Gallup rejoined stoutly; "no one can read in it
+without 'tis his wish."
+
+"My dear aunt, you surely don't imagine that I want to read the lessons
+at Redmarley except as a matter of kindness . . . assistance to Mr
+Molyneux.  What other reason can I have?"
+
+"Well," said Miss Gallup, shrewdly, "it might be that you wanted to
+show how well you could do it . . ." she paused.
+
+Eloquent blushed in the darkness.
+
+"And with an election coming on, you never know what motives folks
+has," she continued.  "But it's my belief Mr Molyneux'd be pleased as
+Punch.  He's all for friendliness, he is.  I know who wouldn't be
+pleased, though----"
+
+"Who is that?" asked Eloquent, as his aunt had stopped, evidently
+waiting to be questioned.
+
+"Why, Mr Ffolliot; he don't take much part in politics, but he thinks
+Redmarley belongs to him, and he'd be mighty astonished if you was to
+get up and read in the parish church, and him not been told anything
+about it."
+
+"I shall certainly call on Mr Molyneux tomorrow," said Eloquent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SQUIRE
+
+Hilary Ffolliot, squire of Redmarley in the county of Garsetshire, did
+not appreciate the blessings heaped upon him by providence in the shape
+of so numerous a family, and from their very earliest years manifested
+a strong determination that no child of his should be spoilt through
+any injudicious slackening of discipline.
+
+His rules and regulations were as the sands of the sea for number, and
+as they all tended in the same direction, namely, to the effacement of
+his lively and ubiquitous offspring, it is hardly surprising that such
+a large and healthy family found it difficult, not to say impossible,
+to attain to his ideal of the whole duty of children.  And although a
+desire not to transgress his code regarding silence and decorum in such
+parts of the house as were within ear-shot of his study was strong in
+the children, knowing how swift and sure was the retribution overtaking
+such offenders--yet, however willing the spirit, the flesh was weak,
+and succumbed to temptations to jump whole flights of stairs, to slide
+down bannisters, arriving with a sounding thump at the bottom, and
+occasionally to bang the schoolroom door in the faces of the pursuing
+brethren.
+
+Thus it was that strangers ringing the front-door bell at the Manor
+House were, on being admitted, faced by large cards on the opposite
+wall bearing such devices as, "Be sure you shut the door quietly," "Do
+not speak loudly," "Go round to the back if possible."  And it is told
+of one timid guest, that on reading the aforesaid directions (which, by
+the way, were only supposed to apply to the children) he incontinently
+fled before the astonished butler could stop him; and, as directed,
+meekly rang the back-door bell, some five minutes afterwards.
+
+Mr Ffolliot suffered from nerves.  He was by temperament quite unfitted
+to be either a country squire or the father of a large family.  Above
+all, was he singularly unable to bear with equanimity the strain upon
+his income such a large family entailed.  He liked his comforts about
+him, he was by nature of a contemplative and aesthetically studious
+turn, and saw no good reason why his learned leisure should suffer
+interruption, or his delicate susceptibilities be ruffled by such
+incongruities as the loud voices and inharmonious movements of a set of
+thoughtless children.
+
+The village was small and well-to-do, his duties as a landowner sat
+lightly upon him, and he was very awe-inspiring, didactic, and distant
+in his dealings with the surrounding neighbours.  He had a fine taste
+in old prints and old port, and every spring his health necessitated a
+somewhat lengthened stay in an "oasis" which he had "discovered," so he
+said, in the south of France, where he communed with nature, and
+manifested a nice appreciation of the artistic efforts of his host's
+most excellent cook.
+
+In fact, the matter of intercourse with outsiders was largely left to
+the discretion of his wife; and whoever had much to do with Mrs
+Ffolliot (and most people wanted as much as they could get) spent a
+good deal of time in the society of the children.  And to the
+children--what was she not to those children?
+
+For them "mother" signified everything that was kind, and gay, and
+gracious, and above all, understanding.  Other people might be stupid,
+and attaint with evil intention accidents, which while certainly
+unfortunate in their results, were wholly unpremeditated, but mother
+always gave the offender the benefit of the doubt, and not infrequently
+by her charms of person and persuasive arts of conversation, so
+effectually turned away the wrath of the injured one (generally a
+farmer), that no hint of the escapade reached Mr Ffolliot's ears.
+
+For the fact is that being somewhat tightly kept at home, the young
+Ffolliots were more than something of a nuisance when they went abroad;
+and as several of them generally were abroad, in their train did
+mischief and destruction follow.
+
+For three hundred years there had been Ffolliots at Redmarley; of the
+last three owners two were married and childless, and the one
+immediately preceding Mr Hilary Ffolliot was a bachelor.  But the fact
+that the Manor had not for over a hundred years descended from father
+to son, in no way affected the love each reigning Ffolliot felt for it.
+
+There was something about Redmarley that seized the imagination and the
+affection of the dwellers there.  The little grey stone village that
+lay so lovingly along the banks of the Marle was so enduring, so
+valorous in its sturdy indifference to time; in the way its gabled
+cottages under their overhanging eaves faced summer sun and winter
+rains, and instead of crumbling away seemed but to stand the firmer and
+more dignified in their cheery eld.
+
+The Ffolliots were good landlords.  No leaking roofs or defective walls
+were complained of at Redmarley.  Never was Ffolliot yet who had not
+realised the unique quality of the village, and done his best to
+maintain it.  It never grew, rarely was a house to let, and the jerry
+builder was an unknown evil.  It was a healthy village, too, set high
+in the clean Cotswold air.  Big farms surrounded it, the nearest
+railway line was three miles off, and the nearest station almost seven.
+
+Of course there was poverty and a good deal of rheumatism among the
+older inhabitants, but on the whole the periodic outbursts of
+industrial discontent and unrest that convulsed other parts of England
+seemed to pass Redmarley by.
+
+Had the Manor stood empty or the vicar been a poor man with a large
+family, doubtless things would have been uncomfortable enough to stir
+the villagers out of their habitual philosophic acceptance of the "rich
+man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" as an inevitable and
+immutable law.  But they couldn't actively dislike either squire or
+parson, and although the agricultural labourer is slow of speech he is
+not lacking in shrewdness, and those at Redmarley realised that things
+would be much worse than they were if Squire and Parson were suddenly
+eliminated.
+
+Hilary Ffolliot liked the role of landed proprietor in the abstract.
+He would not have let the Manor and lived elsewhere for the world.  He
+went regularly to church on Sunday morning, though it bored him
+extremely, because, like Major Pendennis, he thought that "when a
+gentleman is _sur ses terres_ he must give an example to the country
+people."  Had he been starving he would not have sold a single rood of
+Redmarley land to assuage his hunger.  Similarly he would himself have
+done without a great many things rather than let any of his people go
+hungry.  But it was only because they were _his_ people, part of the
+state and circumstance of Redmarley.  He didn't care for them a bit as
+individuals.  Any intercourse with the peasantry was irksome to him.
+Dialect afflicted him.  He had nothing to say to them, and they were
+stricken dumb in his awe-inspiring presence.  He was well content to
+have few personal dealings with those, who, in his own mind, he thought
+of as his "retainers."  He left everything of that sort to his wife.
+
+It was the same with the children.  He looked upon them as a concession
+to Marjory's liking for that sort of thing: and by "that sort of thing"
+he meant his wife's enthusiastic interest in her fellow-creatures.
+
+To be sure he was pleased that there should be no question as to a
+direct heir . . . but . . . six of them was really rather a nuisance.
+Children were like peasantry, inclined to be awkward and uncouth, crude
+in thought and word and deed; apt to be sticky unless fresh from the
+hands of nurse; in summer nearly always hot, frequently dirty, and
+certainly always noisy, with, moreover, a distinct leaning towards low
+company and a plainly manifest discomfort in his own.
+
+He was proud of them because they were Ffolliots, and because they were
+tall and straight and handsome (how wisely he had chosen their
+mother!), and he supposed that some day, when they became more
+civilised, he would be able to take some pleasure in their society.
+Even the two eldest, Grantly and Mary, wearied him.  He could never
+seem to find any topic of mutual interest, except Redmarley itself, and
+then they always introduced irrelevant matter relating to the
+inhabitants that he had no desire to hear.
+
+Had Marjory, his wife, grown plain and anxious during her twenty years
+of married life, it is probable she would have bored him too.  But she
+kept her hold upon him because she was not only the most beautiful
+woman he knew, but she satisfied his artistic sensibilities all round.
+She was full of individuality and quick-witted decision.  Long ago she
+had made up her mind that it was quite impossible to alter him, but she
+was equally assured as to her perfect right to differ from him in every
+possible way.  He quite fell in with this view of the situation; so
+long as he was allowed unchallenged to be as stiff and stand-off and
+unapproachable as he pleased, he was well content that she should be
+extraordinarily sympathetic, gracious, and gay.  It pleased him that
+the "retainers" should adore her and come to her in their troubles and
+difficulties; that she should be constantly surrounded by her children;
+that she should be in great request at every social gathering in the
+county.
+
+Did it happen that his need of her clashed with the children's, and
+that just then she considered theirs was the stronger claim, he was
+annoyed; but apart from that he approved of her devotion to them.
+Somebody must look after the children; and it was not in his line.
+
+So many things were not in his line.
+
+One day, early in their married life, with unusual want of tact,
+Marjory had asked him what his line was.
+
+The question surprised and distressed him, it was so difficult to
+answer.  However, the retort courteous came easily to Mr Ffolliot, and
+raising her hand to his lips, he replied, "To provide a sufficiently
+beautiful setting for you, my dear, that is my _metier_ at present."
+And Marjory, who had spent a long, hot morning in superintending the
+removal of books, busts, and pictures to the room that, for the future,
+was to be his study, the room that till then had been her drawing-room,
+felt an unregenerate desire to slap him with the hand he had just
+kissed.
+
+Mr Ffolliot believed that he could best develop the ultimate highest
+that was in him if his surroundings were entirely harmonious.
+Therefore had he selected the sunniest, largest room on the entrance
+floor for his own study.  It had a lovely view of the river.
+
+The oak wainscotting and shelves were removed there piece by piece from
+the old library at the back, which faced north and had rather an
+uninteresting outlook towards the woods.  This rather gloomy chamber he
+caused to be newly panelled with wood enamelled white, and presented it
+to his wife for her own use with a "God bless you, my darling, I hope
+you may have many happy hours here."
+
+Her drawing-room was the only room in Redmarley that Marjory Ffolliot
+thoroughly disliked, and she never sat there if she could help it.
+
+On that Sunday afternoon when Eloquent thought fit to visit his aunt,
+Mr Ffolliot had left his writing-table and was standing in one of the
+great windows that he might look out and, with the delicate
+appreciation of the connoisseur, savour the crimson beauties of the
+winter sunset.
+
+As he gazed he mentally applauded the pageant of colour provided for
+his enjoyment, and then he perceived two figures standing not fifty
+yards from his window.
+
+One he recognised at once as his daughter, and for a moment he included
+her in his beatitude at the prospect presented to his view.  Yes; Mary
+was undoubtedly pleasing to the eye, she was growing very like his
+wife, and for that resemblance, like the Ancient Mariner, "he blessed
+her unaware."
+
+But when he became fully cognisant of the other figure, his feeling
+wholly changed.  He screwed his eyeglass firmly into his eye and glared
+at the couple.
+
+Who on earth was this muddy, rather plebeian-looking person with whom
+Mary was conversing on apparently friendly and familiar terms?  He
+suddenly realised with an irritated sense of rapidly approaching
+complications that Mary was nearly grown up.
+
+In another minute the young man was walking down the drive alone, and
+his daughter had vanished.
+
+He gave her time to take off her boots, then he sent for her.
+
+He sat down at his writing-table and awaited her, feeling intensely
+annoyed.
+
+How dared that mud-bespattered young man speak to her?
+
+How could Mary be so wanting in dignity as to reply?
+
+What was Marjory about to allow it?
+
+Those children had far too much latitude.
+
+He was in that frame of mind which, during the middle ages, resulted in
+the immurement of such disturbing daughters in the topmost turrets of
+their fathers' castles.
+
+Mary came in, shut the door softly, and waited just inside it to say
+nervously:
+
+"You sent for me, father?"
+
+"Come here," said Mr Ffolliot.
+
+Mary crossed the big room and stood at the other side of the knee-hole
+table facing him.
+
+"I sent for you," Mr Ffolliot began slowly, and paused.  Angry as he
+was, he found a moment in which to feel satisfaction at her pure
+colouring . . . "to make enquiries" he continued, "as to your late
+companion.  Who is that exceedingly muddy person with whom you were
+talking in the front drive a few minutes ago?"
+
+Yes; her colouring was certainly admirable.  A good healthy blush
+sweeping over the white forehead till it reached the pretty growth of
+hair round the temples and dying away as rapidly as it had arisen, was
+quite a forgivable weakness in a young girl.
+
+"I believe," said Mary cautiously, "that he is Mr Gallup, the new
+Liberal candidate."
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"No, father.  He told me his name, but it was Grantly who thought he
+was that one."
+
+"And may I ask what reason Mr Gallup had for imparting his name to
+you--did no one introduce him?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+"Well, how did the man come to speak to you?" Mr Ffolliot demanded,
+irritably.  "You must see that the matter requires explanation."
+
+"He was lost," Mary said mournfully, "and so I showed him the way."
+
+"Lost," Mr Ffolliot repeated scornfully; "lost in Redmarley!"
+
+"No, father, in the wood."
+
+"And what was he doing in our woods, pray?"
+
+"He had tried to come by a short-cut and got muddled and he fell down,
+and I couldn't pass by without speaking, could I . . . he might have
+broken his leg or something."
+
+"What were you doing in the woods alone?  I have told you repeatedly
+that I will not have you scouring the country by yourself.  You have
+plenty of brothers, let one of them accompany you."
+
+"I wasn't exactly alone," Mary pleaded; "Parker was with me."
+
+"Mary," Mr Ffolliot said solemnly, "has it ever occurred to you that
+you are very nearly eighteen years old?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"Well, that being the case, don't you think that decorum in your
+conduct, more dignity and formality in your manner are a concession you
+owe to your family.  You know as well as I do that a young girl in your
+position does not converse haphazard with any stranger that she happens
+to find prone in the woods.  It's not done, Mary, and what is more, _I_
+will not have it.  This impertinent young counter-jumper probably was
+only too ready to seize upon any excuse to address you.  You should
+have given him the information he asked and walked on."
+
+"But we were going the same way," Mary objected; "it seemed so snobby
+to walk on, besides . . ." again that glorious blush, "he didn't speak
+to me first, I spoke to him."
+
+Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "Remember," he said solemnly, "that should you see
+him again you do not know that young man. . . ."
+
+Silence on the part of Mary.  Deep thought on the brow of Mr Ffolliot.
+
+"To-morrow," he said at last, "you may do up your hair."
+
+"Oh, father, mayn't I do it up to-night before church.  I should love
+to, do let me."
+
+"No, my child, to-morrow is more suitable."
+
+Mary did not ask why.  None of the children except the Kitten ever
+questioned any of Mr Ffolliot's decisions . . . to him.
+
+"Have you done with me, father?" Mary asked.  "I think it must be
+tea-time."
+
+"Yes, Mary, you may go, but remember, nothing of this sort must ever
+occur again; it has distressed and annoyed me."
+
+"I'm sorry, father, I didn't think . . ."
+
+"You never do," said Mr Ffolliot, "that is what I complain of."
+
+Thus it came about that Mr Ffolliot was himself directly responsible
+for the friendly smile which greeted Eloquent as Mary passed him in the
+aisle of Redmarley church that evening.
+
+She had not been allowed to put up her hair that evening.  She was not
+a grown-up lady yet.
+
+Therefore would she grin at whomsoever she pleased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE KITTEN
+
+The Kitten was born on a Whitsunday morning about eight o'clock.  Mr
+Ffolliot went himself to announce the news to Ger, who was sitting in
+his high chair eating bread and milk at nursery breakfast.  Ger was all
+alone with Thirza, the under-nurse, and he was thunderstruck to see his
+father at such an unusual hour, above all, in such an unusual place as
+his nursery.
+
+"Ger," said Mr Ffolliot, quite genially for him, "you've got a new
+little sister."
+
+Ger regarded his father solemnly with large, mournful eyes, then said
+aggrievedly, "Well, _I_ can't help it."
+
+Mr Ffolliot laughed.  "You don't seem overjoyed," he remarked.
+
+"Are you sorry, father?" Ger asked anxiously.
+
+"Sorry," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "of course not; why should you think I'm
+sorry?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Ger, "it makes another of us."
+
+Mr Ffolliot ignored this remark.  He moved towards the door.  At the
+door he paused; "You may," he said graciously, "go and see your little
+sister in an hour or two; mother said so."
+
+As the door was closed behind him, Thirza sat down again with a sort of
+gasp.  "Whatever did you mean, my dear, talking to Squire like that?"
+she demanded shrilly.
+
+"Like what?" asked Ger.
+
+"Sayin' as it wasn't your fault, and seemin' so down about it all.
+Why, you ought to be glad there's a dear little new baby, and you such
+an affectionate child an' all."
+
+"It makes another of us," Ger persisted, and Thirza gave him up as an
+enigma.
+
+In due time he went to the dressing-room off the big spare bedroom, and
+there sat the kind, comfortable lady he knew as "mother's nurse" (Ger
+had not seen her as often as the others, but still she came from time
+to time "just to see how they were all getting on," and he liked her).
+There she sat on a small rocking-chair with a bundle on her knee.
+
+"Come, my darling, and see your little sister," she cried cheerfully.
+
+Ger advanced.  She opened the head flannel and displayed a small, dark
+head, and a red, puckered countenance.
+
+"When will she be able to see?" asked Ger.
+
+As if in answer the baby opened a pair of large dark eyes and stared
+fixedly at the round, earnest face bent above her.
+
+"See, bless you!" mother's nurse exclaimed, "see! why, she isn't a
+kitten.  She can see right enough.  Look how she's taking you in.  She
+has stared about from the minute she was born, as if she'd been here
+before and was looking round to see that things were all the same.
+She's the living image of Squire."
+
+"I think she's rather like a kitten," Ger persisted, "but I'm glad she
+can see.  I think she likes me rather."
+
+And that was how the Kitten got her name.
+
+She was not a Grantly.  She was all Ffolliot, and she was the only one
+of the children absolutely fearless in the presence of her father.
+
+Small and dark and delicately made, with quick-sighted falcon-coloured
+eyes that nothing escaped.  Unlike her big, healthy brethren, she was
+never in the slightest degree shy or clumsy, and she cared not a single
+groat for anyone or anything in the whole wide world so long as she got
+her own way.  And this, being a member of the Ffolliot family, she did
+not get nearly as often as she would have liked.  But she understood
+her father as did none of the others, and she could "get round him" in
+a fashion that filled those others with astonished admiration.
+
+She also considerably astonished Mr Ffolliot, for from the very first
+she was familiar, and familiarity on the part of his children he
+neither encouraged nor desired.  Moreover, she was ubiquitous and
+elusive.  No army of nurses could restrain the Kitten in her
+peregrinations.  She could speak distinctly, run, and run fast, when
+she was little over a year old, and she possessed a singularly
+enquiring mind.  She was demonstrative but not affectionate; she was
+enchanting, and stony-hearted was the creature who could resist her.
+She liked an audience, and she loved to "tell" things.  To this end she
+would sit on your knee and lay one small but determined hand upon your
+cheek to turn your face towards her, so that she could make sure you
+were attending.  She kept the small hand there, soft and light, a
+fairy-like caress, unless your attention wandered.  If this happened, a
+sharp little pinch quickly diverted your thoughts into the proper
+channel.  As she pinched you, the Kitten dropped her eyes so that you
+noticed how long and black were her eyelashes.  Then, having punished
+you, she raised her eyes to yours with so seraphic an expression that
+you thought of "large-eyed cherubim" and entirely forgot that she had
+pinched you at all, unless next day as you looked in the glass you
+happened to notice a little blue mark on your cheek.  The Kitten could
+pinch hard.
+
+She was Ger's greatest joy and his unceasing anxiety.  From the very
+first he had constituted himself her guide, philosopher . . . and
+slave.  Yet the dictatorial little lady found out very early in the
+day, that in certain things she had to conform to her indulgent
+brother's standards, the family standards; and though she might be all
+Ffolliot in certain matters, the Grantly ethics were too strong for
+her.  That Ger should love her, that he should be always kind and
+protective and unselfish she took as a matter of course; but she wanted
+him to admire her too, and ready as he was to oblige her in most
+things, she found that here he was strangely firm.  If she told tales
+or complained of people, or persisted in tiresome teasing when asked
+politely to desist, Ger withdrew the light of his countenance, and the
+Kitten was uncomfortable.
+
+To tell tales, or complain, or try to get another into trouble for any
+reason whatsoever was forbidden.  The others had each in their turn
+accepted this doctrine as they accepted day and night, the sun and moon
+and stars.  The Kitten had to be taught these things, and Ger it was
+who saw to it that she learned them.
+
+There was a law in the family that if any member of it, after enduring
+for a space a certain line of conduct from another, said, "_Please_
+stop it," that person had to stop, or nemesis, by no means
+leaden-footed, overtook the offender.  It took quite a long time to get
+it into the Kitten's head that it was a law.
+
+She had an extraordinarily loud and piercing cry when she was angry--a
+cry that penetrated to the sacred study itself, no matter where she
+might be in the house.
+
+One day when she was about three years old she was so naughty, so
+disobedient, so entirely unmanageable at nursery tea, that Nana, the
+long-suffering, fairly lost her temper.  The Kitten placed the final
+stone on a pillar of wrongdoing by drawing patterns on the tablecloth
+with a long line of golden syrup dropped from a blob she had secured on
+her small finger, and Nana gave the chubby hand belonging to the finger
+a good hard smack.  The Kitten opened her mouth and gave vent to a yell
+almost demoniacal in its volume and intensity.
+
+Mr Ffolliot, reading the _Quarterly Review_ in dignified seclusion,
+heard it in his study, was convinced that his youngest child was being
+tortured by the others, and hastened hot-foot to the nursery.
+
+Ger had his fingers in his ears.  Nana, flushed and angry, stirred her
+tea pretending that she didn't hear; Thirza murmured pacific and wholly
+useless nothings.  At her father's sudden and wholly unexpected
+appearance, accompanied as it was by the swift uprising of both the
+nurses, the Kitten stopped her clamorous vociferation, and with bunches
+of tears still hanging on her lashes smiled radiantly at the Squire,
+announcing with a wave of her sticky little hand.
+
+"'At's fahver."
+
+"What," Mr Ffolliot demanded angrily, "what in heaven's name has been
+done to that child to make her shriek like that?  What happened?"
+
+"Miss Kitten, sir," Nana said slowly, "has not been very good at tea
+this afternoon."
+
+"But what made her shriek like that?" Mr Ffolliot continued--"a more
+alarming cry I never heard."
+
+"She smacked me," said the Kitten, glowering at Nana, "she 'urted me";
+and at that moment she met Ger's eyes.
+
+The Kitten turned very red.
+
+"Who smacked you?" asked Mr Ffolliot unwisely.
+
+Ger stared at the Kitten, and the Kitten wriggled in her chair.
+
+"Say what _you_ did," muttered Ger, still holding his small sister in
+compelling gaze.
+
+Nana smiled.  She had started with Grantly, and knew the family.
+
+"Fahver," said the Kitten in her most seductive tones, "take me," and
+she held out her arms.
+
+Mr Ffolliot succumbed.  He went round to his youngest daughter and
+lifted her out of her high chair, only to put her down with exceeding
+haste a moment later.
+
+"The child is all over some horrible sticky substance," he cried,
+irritably.
+
+"'At was it," said the Kitten.
+
+Mr Ffolliot fled to wash his hands and change his coat.  Nana and
+Thirza sat down again.  Ger shook his head at his small sister.  "You
+_are_ a rotter," he said, sadly.
+
+The Kitten began to cry again, but this time she cried quite softly,
+and Nana, in spite of the libations of golden syrup, took her upon her
+knee to comfort her.
+
+Every evening the children went down to the hall to play with their
+mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than
+usually festive.  Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed
+over him--in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly
+knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world.
+
+One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr
+Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall.  Fusby had just taken the tray,
+the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten
+sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest
+of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging."  Uz and Buz,
+by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large
+palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot
+missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth.
+
+When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been
+swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten
+scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her
+grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned
+her Grannie's face towards her.
+
+"Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "that
+Ganpie had been killed or Ger?"
+
+Mrs Grantly shuddered--"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she
+exclaimed.
+
+"But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted.  "You're all saying
+'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'--which one would you
+rather?"
+
+But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten
+was clearly disappointed.
+
+That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you,
+God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm
+sure Grannie's very much obliged too."
+
+At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands
+tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds
+about her--a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she
+had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.
+
+She was fond of adding a sort of P.S. to her regular prayers, and
+enjoyed its effect upon her mother, who made a point of, herself,
+attending the orisons of her two youngest children.  One evening when
+Mrs Ffolliot had been reading her a rather pathetic story of a
+motherless child, the Kitten added this petition, "Please, God, take
+care of all the little girls wiv no mummies."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot was touched and related the story afterwards to Uz and
+Buz, who grinned sceptically.
+
+Next night, when the Kitten had been very naughty, and Mrs Ffolliot had
+punished her, she repeated her prayers with the greatest unction, and
+when she reached the usual postscript, fixed her eyes sternly on her
+mother's face as she prayed fervently, "And please, dear God, take
+great care of the poor little girls what _have_ got mummies."
+
+A mystically minded friend of Mrs Ffolliot's had talked a good deal of
+guardian angels to Ger and the Kitten.  Ger welcomed the belief with
+enthusiasm.  It appealed at once to his friendly nature, and the
+thought of an angel, "a dear and great angel," all for himself,
+specially concerned about him, and there always, though invisible save
+to the eye of faith, was a most pleasing conception.
+
+Not that it would have pleased Ger unless he had been assured that
+everyone else had one too.  And he forthwith constructed a theory that
+when people got tired of doing nothing in heaven they came back again
+and looked after folks down here.
+
+His views of the angel's actual attributes would much have astonished
+his mother's friend had he expressed them.  But Ger said nothing, and
+quietly constructed an angel after his own heart, who was in point of
+fact an angelic sort of soldier servant, never in the way, but always
+there and helpful if wanted.
+
+He could not conceive of any servant who was not also a friend, and
+having received much kindness from soldiers in the ranks he fixed upon
+that type as the most agreeable for a guardian angel.  And although he
+greatly admired the two framed pictures of angels the lady had given
+them to hang in the nursery--Guercino's Angel and Carpaccio's "Tobias
+and the angels"--his own particular angel was quite differently clad,
+and was called "Spinks" after a horse gunner he had dearly loved, who
+was now in India.
+
+The Kitten, far less impressionable, and extremely cautious, was
+pleased with the idea when it was first mooted, and discussed the
+question exhaustively with Ger, deciding that her angel had large wings
+like the one with the child in the picture.
+
+"Does it stay with me in the night-nursery all night?" she enquired.
+
+"'He,' not 'it,'" Ger corrected; "but perhaps yours is a 'she.'"
+
+"I won't have a she," the Kitten said decidedly, for even at four years
+old she had already learnt that her own sex had small patience with her
+vagaries.
+
+"You'll have to have what's sent you," Ger said solemnly.
+
+"I won't have a lady angel, so there," said the Kitten, "I'll have a
+man angel."
+
+"I daresay they'll let you," Ger said soothingly.  "A great, big, kind
+man with wings like you said."
+
+"Has yours got wings?" the Kitten demanded.
+
+"I don't think so," said Ger, "he's not that sort; but," he added
+proudly, "he's got spurs."
+
+"Will it stay in the nursery _all_ night?" the Kitten asked again
+rather nervously.
+
+"Of course that's what he's for, to take care of you, so that you'll
+feel quite safe and happy."
+
+"Oh," said the Kitten, and her voice betrayed the fact that she found
+this statement far from reassuring.
+
+She said nothing to her mother, and Mrs Ffolliot heard her say her
+prayers as usual, kissed her, blessed her, and tucked her in.  No
+sooner, however, had Mrs Ffolliot gone down the passage than the most
+vigorous yells brought her back to the night-nursery, while both Nana
+and Thirza hastened there also.
+
+The Kitten was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed and apparently more
+indignant than frightened.
+
+"Take it away," she exclaimed; "open the window and let it out."
+
+"Let what out?" asked the bewildered Mrs Ffolliot.
+
+"The angel," sobbed the Kitten, "I don't want it, I heard its wings
+rustling and it disturbed me dreffully--I don't want it, open the
+window wide."
+
+"The window is open at the top," said Mrs Ffolliot; "but why do you
+want to get rid of an angel?  Surely that's a lovely thing to have in
+the room."
+
+"No," said the Kitten firmly, "I don't like it, and I don't want it.  I
+don't want no angel I haven't seen.  I don't like people in my room
+when I go to sleep."
+
+Nana and Thirza had melted away, only too thankful not to be called
+upon to arbitrate in the angel question.  Mrs Ffolliot and her small
+daughter stared at each other in the flickering firelight.
+
+"I'm sure," said Mrs Ffolliot, trying hard to steady her voice, "that
+no self-respecting angel would stay for a minute with a little girl
+that didn't want him.  You may be certain of that."
+
+"A she might," the Kitten suggested suspiciously.
+
+"No angel would," Mrs  Ffolliot said decidedly.
+
+"Do you think," the Kitten asked anxiously, "that there's enough room
+at the top for it to squeege froo?  I can't _bear_ those wings
+rustling."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot switched on the light.  "You can see for yourself."
+
+"Thank you, mummy dear, I'll be much happier by myself, really," and
+the Kitten lay down quite contentedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+GENTLEMAN GER
+
+It was the 22nd of December, the younger Ffolliots were gathered in the
+schoolroom, and Ger was in disgrace.
+
+The twins were back from school, and that afternoon they had unbent
+sufficiently to take part in a representation of "Sherlock Holmes" in
+the hall.  The whole family, with the exception of the Kitten, had seen
+the play in the Artillery Theatre at Woolwich during their last visit
+to grandfather.
+
+It is a play that not only admits of, but necessitates, varied and loud
+noises.
+
+Everything ought to have gone without a hitch, for earlier in the
+afternoon Mr Ffolliot had departed in the carriage to take the chair at
+a lecture in Marlehouse; and a little later Grantly had driven his
+mother to the station in the dogcart to meet a guest.
+
+Unfortunately the lecture on Carpaccio at the Literary Institute was of
+unusually short duration, and Mr Ffolliot returned tired and rather
+cross, just as Ger was enacting the hansom cab accident at the foot of
+the staircase, by beating a deafening tattoo on the Kitten's bath with
+a hair-brush.
+
+The twins and the Kitten (who had proved a wrapt and appreciative
+audience) melted away with Boojum-like stealth the moment the hall door
+was opened; but Ger, absorbed in the entrancing din he was making,
+noticed nothing, and his father had to shake him by the shoulders
+before he would stop.
+
+"I suppose," Ger remarked thoughtfully, "that we must look upon father
+as a cross."
+
+"He certainly _is_ jolly cross," Uz murmured.  "He should hear the row
+we kick up at school when we've won a match, and nobody says a
+syllable."
+
+"But I mean," Ger persisted, wriggling about on his seat as though the
+problem tormented him, "that if father were as nice as mother we'd be
+too happy, and it wouldn't be good for us; like the people in Fairy
+stories, you know, when they're too well off, misfortunes come."
+
+"I don't think," Buz said dryly, "that we have any cause to dread
+misfortunes on that score.  But cheer up, Ger, it'll soon be time for
+the pater to go abroad, and then nobody will get jawed for six long
+weeks."
+
+"I shouldn't mind the jawings so much or the punishments," said Ger,
+after a minute's pause, "if it wasn't for mother.  She minds so, she
+never seems to get used to it.  I'm glad she was out this
+afternoon--though we did want her to see the play--but whatever will
+she say when I can't go down to meet Reggie with the rest of you?  And
+what'll _he_ think?"
+
+Ger's voice broke.  Punishment had followed hard on the heels of the
+crime, and banishment to the schoolroom for the rest of the evening was
+Ger's lot.  Had Mr Ffolliot belonged to a previous generation he would
+probably, when angry, have whacked his sons and whacked them hard.
+They would infinitely have preferred it.  But his fastidious taste
+revolted from the idea of corporal punishment, and his ingenuity in
+devising peculiarly disagreeable penalties in expiation of their
+various offences, was the cause of much tribulation to his indignant
+offspring.
+
+"Here _is_ mother!" cried Buz, "and she's got Reggie.  Come down and
+see him you others, but for heaven's sake, come quietly."
+
+The Reggie in question was a young Sapper just then stationed at
+Chatham, and a "very favourite cousin."
+
+The Ffolliot children were in the somewhat unusual position of having
+no uncles and aunts, and no cousins of their own, for the sad reason
+that both their parents were "onlies."  Therefore did they right this
+omission on the part of providence in their own fashion, by adopting as
+uncles, aunts, and cousins all pleasant guests.
+
+Reggie wasn't even a second cousin; but his people being mostly in
+India, he had for many years spent nearly all his holidays, and later
+on his leave, at Redmarley, and he was very popular with the whole
+family.  Even Mr Ffolliot unbent to a dignified urbanity in his
+presence.  He approved of Reggie, who had passed seventh into Woolwich
+and first into the Sappers, and Grantly always thanked his lucky stars
+that he was destined for Field Artillery, and was not expected to
+follow in Reggie's footsteps in the matter of marks.
+
+Ger worshipped Reggie, and it was with a heart full of bitterness, and
+eyes charged with hot tears that blurred the firelight into long bands
+of crimson, that he leant against the schoolroom table, alone, while
+the others all trooped off on tiptoe into the hall to give rapturous
+though whispered greeting to their guest.
+
+Reggie did not whisper though; the warning cards had no sort of effect
+upon him, and the forlorn little figure drooping against the table
+sprang erect and shook the big drops from his cheeks as he heard his
+cousin's jolly voice "Where's my friend Ger?"--a murmured
+explanation--then, "O _bad_ luck!  I'll go to him--No don't come with
+me--not for two minutes."
+
+How Ger blessed him for that forethought!  To be found in disgrace was
+bad enough; but to be seen in tears, and by his whole family! . . .
+
+Hastily scraping his cheeks with a corner of his dilapidated Norfolk
+jacket--if you have ever tried to do this you'll know that it is more
+or less of a test of suppleness--he went slowly to the door, and in
+another minute was lifted high into the air and shaken violently by a
+slight, rather plain young man, who bore with the utmost meekness a
+passionate embrace highly detrimental to his immaculate collar: and the
+best of it all was, that he was quite unconscious of the fact that Ger
+had not met him with the others, nor seemed aware of anything unusual
+beyond the pleasantness of once more sitting in the big slippery
+leather-covered arm-chair beside the schoolroom fire, while the rest of
+the family, having given him exactly the two minutes' start he had
+demanded, came flocking back to sit all over him and shout their news
+in an excited chorus.
+
+Next morning, while his father was out in the village, Ger ensconced
+himself in one of the deep-seated windows of the study, as a quiet
+haven wherein he might wrestle in solitude with the perfect and
+pluperfect of the verb _esse_, which he had promised his mother he
+would repeat to her that morning.
+
+Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward
+that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs
+Ffolliot) every morning.  Ger could not read.  It was extraordinary how
+difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that
+seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered,
+appeared capable of giving so much pleasure.
+
+It puzzled Ger extremely.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of
+the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so
+pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations
+were ever vaguely associated with the scent of violets.  The reason for
+this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as
+possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly
+all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her
+waistband.
+
+It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's
+training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using
+the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being
+quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing
+table, the promise would be faithfully kept.  Besides, like all true
+book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his books, and provided
+the children treated them with due care and respect, had no objection
+to their taking them out of the shelves and reading them.
+
+For a long time there was no sound in the room but an occasional
+whispered, "_fui, fuisti, fuit_."  Presently Grantly and Mary came in
+to discuss a fancy-dress dance to which they were bidden that evening
+at a neighbour's; then, in rushed Reggie in coat and hat with a newly
+arrived parcel in his hand.  Ger had seen the railway van come up the
+drive, but as he had promised his mother not to move until he had
+mastered his verb, he did not make his presence known to anyone.
+
+Reggie went over to Mr Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a shilling lying on
+the table seized it and fled from the room.  Three minutes later Ger
+saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot
+returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the "perfect and
+pluperfect and future perfect," went slowly upstairs to his mother to
+repeat it.
+
+All went on peacefully and quietly in the schoolroom for the next half
+hour, when suddenly Grantly and Mary whirled into the room in a state
+of such excited indignation as took their mother quite five minutes to
+discover what all the fuss was about.  When at last they had been
+induced to tell their story separately, and not in a chorus almost
+oratorio-like in its confusion, Mrs Ffolliot discovered to her dismay
+that they were accused of meddling with a shilling which their father
+had placed on the book-club collecting card, ready for the collector
+when she should call.
+
+When she _did_ call the shilling was gone, and as Grantly and Mary were
+known to have been in the study, the squire came to the conclusion that
+one of them must have knocked against his table and brushed it off, and
+he gave it out that "unless they found it, and thus repaired the
+mischief and annoyance their carelessness had caused, he would not
+allow them to go to the dance that evening!"
+
+He never suspected that any member of his family would take the
+shilling, but he was ready to believe all things of their clumsiness.
+In vain did Grantly and Mary protest that they had never been near his
+desk; the squire might have been Sherlock Holmes himself, so certain
+was he as to the exactitude of his deductions.
+
+"The card has been pushed from where it was originally placed to the
+extreme edge of the table; the shilling must have been knocked off, and
+had doubtless rolled under some article of furniture; let them see to
+it that it was found; they might hunt there and then if they liked, as
+he would not require the room for half an hour."
+
+The consciousness of their innocence in no way sustained Grantly and
+Mary under the appalling prospect of losing the party.  They had of
+course hunted frantically everywhere, but naturally had found no trace
+of the shilling.
+
+Ger sat quite still during the recital of their wrong's, his face
+growing paler and paler, and his honest grey eyes wider and wider in
+the horror of his knowledge.  For he knew who had taken the shilling,
+and he knew also that it was his plain duty to right his innocent
+brother and sister.  But at what a cost!  He could not tell of Reggie,
+and yet it was so unlike Reggie for it was . . . even to himself Ger
+hardly liked to confess what it was--and he had gone off in such a
+hurry!  To Ger, a shilling seemed a very large sum, his own greatest
+wealth, amassed after many weeks of hoarding, had once reached five
+pence halfpenny, nearly all in farthings; and he even found himself
+conjecturing the sort of monetary difficulty into which Reggie had
+fallen, and from which a shilling might extricate him.  He knew there
+were such things as "debts," and that the army was "very expensive,"
+for he had heard his grandfather say so.  Like many extremely upright
+people Ger was gentle in his judgments of others.  Himself of the most
+crystalline honesty, he could yet conceive of circumstances wherein a
+like probity might be hard for somebody else: at all costs poor Reggie
+must be screened, but it was equally clear to him that his brother and
+sister must not lose the pleasure long looked-forward-to as the opening
+joy of the holidays.
+
+Now there was about Ger a certain loyalty and considerateness in his
+dealings with others, that had earned for him the _sobriquet_ of
+"Gentleman Ger."  He was very proud of the title, and his mother, whom
+he adored, had done all in her power to foster the feeling of _noblesse
+oblige_; so Ger felt that here and now a circumstance had arisen which
+would try what stuff he was made of.  The excited talk raged round him
+like a storm, but after the first he heard none of it.  He slipped
+quietly off his chair, and unnoticed by the group round his mother,
+left the room and crept down the back staircase.  All doubt and
+questioning was at an end.  His duty seemed quite clear to him: he
+would take the blame of that shilling, Mary and Grantly would go to
+their party, and Reggie . . .  Reggie would not be back till quite
+late, when he, too, was going to the fancy-dress dance.  Reggie need
+never know anything about it.
+
+By this time he had reached the study door, and stood with his hand
+upon the handle.  And as he waited, screwing his courage to the
+sticking point, there came into his mind the words of a psalm that he
+had learned by heart only last Sunday to repeat to his mother.  He
+learned it more easily than usual because he liked it; when she read it
+to him he found he could remember it, and now, just as a dark room is
+transiently illumined by the falling together of the fire in sudden
+flame, there came into Ger's mind the words, "He that sweareth to his
+own hurt and changeth not."  He turned the handle and went in.
+
+The squire was sitting in his big armchair in front of the fire reading
+_Marius the Epicurean_, and trying to compose his nerves, which still
+vibrated unpleasantly after all the fuss about the shilling.  He had
+even quoted to himself somewhat testily something about "fugitive
+things not good to treasure"; but whether he referred to the nimbly
+disappearing shilling, or to the protestations of Grantly and Mary, was
+not clear.  He generally solaced himself with Pater when perturbed, and
+he had nearly persuaded himself that he was once more nearly attuned to
+"perfect tone, fresh and serenely disposed of the Roman Gentleman,"
+when Ger opened the door, and walked over towards him without shutting
+it--an unpardonable offence at any time.
+
+"Gervais," exclaimed the squire, and his tone was the reverse of
+serene, "Why are you not in the schoolroom?  What on earth do you want?"
+
+Ger went back and shut the door carefully and quietly, and once more
+crossed the room till he stood directly in front of his father.  The
+squire noted with a little pang of compunction how pale the child was.
+"What is it?" he said more gently.
+
+"Father, I've come about that shilling.  I took it."
+
+"_You_ took it," exclaimed the squire in amazement.  "Why?"
+
+Here was a poser.  Ger was so absolutely unused to lying that he was
+quite unprepared for any such question as this, so he was silent.
+
+"Why did you take it?" angrily reiterated his father.  "And what have
+you done with it?  Answer at once.  You know perfectly well that it is
+a most shocking breach of good manners to ignore a question in this
+fashion."
+
+"I took it," repeated Ger stupidly, his large grey eyes looking into
+space beyond his father.
+
+"So I hear," said the squire, growing more and more annoyed.  "But why
+did you take it?  and where have you put it?"
+
+"I can't tell you, father," said Ger firmly, and this time he met his
+father's eyes unflinchingly.  To himself he said, "I won't tell more'n
+_one_ lie for mother's sake."
+
+The squire was dumfoundered by this obstinacy.  It was unheard
+of--absolutely without parallel in his domestic annals--that one of his
+children should actually flout him! yes! actually flout him with such
+an answer as this.
+
+"Go and stand over there in that corner," he thundered, "and you shan't
+move until you can answer my questions, if you stand there for the rest
+of the day.  If you children have nothing else, I am determined that
+you shall have good manners."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was nearly five o'clock, and Ger still stood in the same corner of
+the study watching the last streak of red fade from the chill January
+sky.  There was no sound in the room save only the soft "plop" of a
+cinder as it fell on to the tiled hearth.  The fire had burned low, and
+he was very cold.  Never in all his life had he gone without his dinner
+before, and although he was no longer hungry, everything seemed, as he
+said afterwards, "funny and misty."
+
+The squire had fulfilled his threat.  After sending the culprit away to
+wash his tear-stained face and hands, and to procure a clean
+handkerchief, he bade him return to stand in the same corner till he
+should arrive at a proper sense of the respect due to a parent.  He had
+locked the door upon Ger when he went to lunch, and forbade any member
+of the family, including his wife, to hold any sort of communication
+with the culprit.  Parker the fox-terrier, however, did not obey the
+squire, and remained in the study with Ger regardless of the fact that
+the servants' dinner bell had rung, which was also the signal for his
+own.  And to Parker Ger confided the whole story, and very puzzled and
+unhappy it made him, for he ran between Ger and the door snuffing and
+whining till the squire came back and turned him out, when he remained
+upon the mat outside uneasily barking at intervals.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot was almost beside herself with grief and consternation.
+It was such an inexplicable piece of obstinacy on Ger's part, and he
+was not usually obstinate.
+
+Grantly and Mary, while relieved that they would still have the
+opportunity of wearing the dresses which had been the object of so much
+thought, were really concerned about Ger; it seemed so senseless of
+him, "why couldn't he say why he wanted the beastly shilling and have
+done with it?"
+
+The squire himself was very seriously disturbed.  He had stormed and
+raged, he had argued, he had even spoken very kindly and eloquently on
+the subject of dishonesty, and the necessity there was for full
+confession before forgiveness could be obtained (this last appeal
+sorely trying Ger's fortitude), but all to no avail.  As the needle
+points ever to the north, so all the squire's exhortations ended with
+the same question, to be met with the same answer, growing fainter in
+tone as the hours wore on, but no less firm in substance.  "I can't
+tell you, father."
+
+Mr Ffolliot could no longer bear the little white-faced figure standing
+so silently in the corner of the room.  He went forth and walked about
+the garden.  He really was a much tried man just then.  Only last night
+Buz, lying in wait for Reggie as he came to bed, had concealed himself
+in an angle of the staircase, and when his cousin, as he thought,
+reached his hiding-place, pounced out upon him, blowing out his lighted
+candle, and exclaiming in a sepulchral voice, "Out, out, damned
+candle!" (Buz was doing _Macbeth_ at school and had a genius for inept,
+and generally inaccurate quotation)--then flew up the dark staircase
+two steps at a time fully expecting hot pursuit, but none came.  Dead
+silence, followed by explosive bursts of smothered laughter from Reggie
+and Grantly who had followed the squire upstairs.  It did not comfort
+Mr Ffolliot at the present moment to reflect that Buz had had to write
+out the whole scene in which the "germ," as his father called it, of
+his misquotation occurred.  At present his mind was full of Ger, and
+ever and anon like the refrain of a song, there thrust into his
+thoughts a sentence he had been reading when the little boy had
+interrupted him that morning, "and towards such a full and complete
+life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and
+effective auxiliary must be, in a word, insight."  "Could it be
+possible?" he asked himself, "that he was in some way lacking in this
+quality?"
+
+He turned somewhat hastily and went back into the house.  Once more Ger
+heard the key turn in the lock, and his father came in, followed by
+Fusby, bearing tea upon a tray.
+
+The front door banged, and Ger's heart positively hammered against his
+ribs, for no one but Reggie ever dared to bang the Manor House front
+door.  In another minute he had come in, and was standing on the
+hearth-rug beside Mr Ffolliot, bringing with him a savour of frosty
+freshness into the warm, still room.
+
+"I got through sooner than I expected," said Reggie, in his big cheery
+voice, "and caught the two twenty-five, so I walked out.  I've been to
+the stables to tell Heaven he needn't drive in for me after all.  O
+tea!  That's good,--where's Aunt Marjory?  By the way, uncle, I owe you
+a shilling.  A parcel came for me just as I was starting, and there was
+a shilling to pay on it.  I had no change and was in a tearing hurry,
+so I took one I saw lying on your desk--hope it was all right."
+
+There was a little soft thud in the far corner of the room, as Ger fell
+forward on his face, worn out by his long watch, and the rapture of
+this immense relief.
+
+When things grew clear again the room was full of light and he was
+lying in his mother's arms.  Reggie was kneeling beside him trying to
+force something in a spoon between his lips, something that smelt, so
+Ger said, "like a shop in Woolwich" and tasted very queer and hot.
+
+"Lap it up, old chap," whispered Reggie, and Ger wondered why he seemed
+to have lost his voice.  "There now, that's all right.  You'll be as
+fit as possible directly," and Reggie scrambled up from his knees and
+bolted from the room.
+
+Ger sat up and looked at his father who was standing beside him.  The
+lamp shone full on the squire's face, and he, too, like Reggie, seemed
+to have got a cold in his eyes; but in spite of this peculiarity, there
+was that in their expression which told Ger that everything was all
+right again, and that in this instance absolution without confession
+had been fully and freely granted.
+
+So Ger, from the safe shelter of his mother's arms, explained, "I
+couldn't tell more'n one lie because of mother, you know, and I thought
+he wanted it for debts or something.  Is those sangwidges anchovy or
+jam, do you think?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE DANCE
+
+Reggie Peel was not quite sure whether he liked Mary with her hair up
+or not.  The putting up of the hair necessitated a readjustment of his
+whole conception of her, and . . . he was very conservative.
+
+With Mary the tom-boy child, with Mary the long-legged flapper and good
+chum, he was affectionately at his ease.  He had petted and tormented
+her by turns, ever since as a boy of ten he had first seen her, a baby
+a year old, in his Aunt Marjory's arms.  Throughout her turbulent but
+very cheerful childhood he had been her firm, if patronising, friend.
+Then as she developed into what Ger had described to Eloquent as "a bit
+of a gawk," he became more than ever her friend and champion.  "Uncle
+Hilary was so beastly down on Mary;" and Mary, though she did knock
+things over and say quite extraordinarily stupid things on occasion,
+was "such a good old sort."
+
+He had never considered the question of her appearance till this
+Christmas.  He supposed she was good-looking--all the Ffolliots were
+good-looking--but it really didn't matter much one way or another.  She
+was part of Redmarley, and Redmarley as a whole counted for a good deal
+in Reginald Peel's life.  He, too, had fallen under its mysterious
+charm.  The manor-house mothered him, and the little Cotswold village
+cradled him in kindly keeping arms.  His own mother had died when he
+was seven, his father married again a couple of years later; but, as Mr
+Peel was in the Indian Forest Department, and Reggie's young stepmother
+a faithful and devoted wife, he saw little of either of them, except on
+their somewhat infrequent leaves when they paid so many visits and had
+to see so many people, that he never really got to know either them or
+his half-brother and sister.
+
+The love of Redmarley had grown with his growth till it became part of
+him; so far he had looked upon Mary as merely one of the many pleasant
+circumstances that went to the making of Redmarley.  Now, somehow, she
+seemed to have detached herself from the general design and to have
+taken the centre of the picture.  He was not sure that he approved of
+such prominence.
+
+She startled him that first evening when, with the others, she met him
+in the hall.  She was unexpected, she was different, and he hated that
+anything at Redmarley should be different.
+
+"Mary's grown up since yesterday," Uz remarked ironically, "she's like
+you when you first managed to pull your moustache."
+
+Of course Reggie suitably chastised Uz for his cheek, but all the same
+there was a difference.
+
+To be sure she still wore her skirts well above her ankles, but
+nowadays quite elderly ladies wore short skirts, so that in no way
+accentuated her youth; and after all was she so very young?
+
+Mary would be eighteen on Valentine's day.
+
+Arrayed in Elizabethan doublet and hose for Lady Campion's dance,
+Reggie stood before his looking-glass and grinned at himself
+sardonically.
+
+"Ugly devil," he called himself, and then wondered how Mary would look
+as Phyllida the ideal milkmaid.
+
+Ugly he might be, but his type was not unsuited to the period he had
+chosen.  A smallish head, wide across the brows, well-shaped and
+poised, with straight, smooth hair that grew far back on the temples
+and would recede even further as the years went on; humorous bright
+grey eyes, not large, but set wide apart under slightly marked
+eyebrows; a pugnacious, rather sharply-pointed nose with a ripple in
+it.  Reggie declared that his nose had really meant well, but changed
+its mind half way down.  His mouth under the fair moustache was not in
+the least beautiful, but it was trustworthy, neither weak nor sensual,
+and the chin was square and dogged.  His face looked long with the
+pointed beard he had stuck on with such care, and above the wide white
+ruff, might well have belonged to some gentleman adventurer who
+followed the fortunes of Raleigh or Drake.  For in spite of its
+insignificant irregularity of feature there was alert resolve in its
+expression; a curious light-hearted fixity of purpose that was
+arresting.
+
+Reggie had never been popular or distinguished at Wellington; yet those
+masters who knew most about boys always prophecied that "he would make
+his mark."
+
+It was the same at the "Shop"; although he never rose above a corporal,
+there were those among the instructors who foretold great things of his
+future.  His pass-out place was a surprise to everyone, himself most of
+all.  He was reserved and did not make friends easily; he got on quite
+pleasantly with such men as he was thrown with; but he was not a
+_persona grata_ in his profession.  He got through such a thundering
+lot of work with such apparent ease.
+
+"A decent chap, but a terrible beggar to swat," was the general verdict
+upon Reginald Peel.
+
+To Mrs Ffolliot and the children he showed a side of his character that
+was rigidly concealed from outsiders, the truth being that as a little
+boy he had been very hungry for affection.  The Redmarley folk loved
+him, and his very sincere affection for them was leavened by such
+passionate gratitude as they never dreamed of.
+
+His face grew very gentle as he gazed unseeingly into the glass.  He
+was thinking of loyal little Ger.
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter.  He blew out the
+candles on his dressing-table and fled.
+
+Few gongs or dinner bells were sounded at the Manor House.  Mr Ffolliot
+disliked loud noises.  As he ran down the wide shallow staircase into
+the hall he saw that Mary was standing in the very centre of it, while
+her father slowly revolved round her in appreciative criticism, quoting
+the while:--
+
+  "The ladies of St James's!
+  They're painted to the eyes;
+  Their white it stays for ever,
+  Their red it never dies;
+  But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
+  Her colour comes and goes;
+  It trembles to a lily,--
+  It warms to a rose--"
+
+
+This was strictly true, for Mary flushed and paled under her father's
+gaze, standing there tall and slender in russet gown and white bodice,
+a milking stool under her arm.  She wore "buckled shoon" and a white
+sunbonnet, and was as fair a maid as a man could see between
+Christmases.
+
+She was surprised that her father should express his approval thus
+graciously, but she was not uplifted.  It was Mr Ffolliot's way.  He
+had been detestable all day, and now he was going to be charming.  His
+compliments counted for little with Mary.  Yesterday he had told her
+she moved like a Flanders mare, and hurt her feelings very much.  Her
+dress was made in the house and cost about half the price of her shoes
+and stockings, but Mary was not greatly concerned about her dress.  She
+wanted to go to the dance, to dance all night and see other people.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot, looking tired and pale, was sitting with Ger on an oak
+settle by the hearth.  Ger had been allowed to stay up till dinner time
+to see his family dressed.  The twins were sitting on the floor in
+front of the fire.  Reggie paused on the staircase four steps up, and
+behind him came Grantly in smock frock (borrowed from the oldest
+labourer in Redmarley) and neat gaiters as the typical Georgian
+"farmer's boy" to match Mary's milk-maid.
+
+"Aren't you coming, Aunt Marjory?" Reggie asked.  "I thought you were
+to appear as one of the Ladies of St James's as a foil for Mary."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot shook her head.  "I did think of it, but I've got a bad
+headache.  Mary doesn't really need me as a chaperon, it's only a boy
+and girl dance; besides, you and Grantly can look after her."
+
+Mr Ffolliot went and sat down on the settle beside his wife.  "You're
+much better at home," he said tenderly, "you'd only get tired out
+sitting up so late."
+
+Grantly and Mary exchanged glances.  They knew well enough that Mrs
+Ffolliot had decided at the last moment that she had better stay at
+home to look after the twins, who were certain, if left to their own
+devices, to get into mischief during her absence.
+
+"That rumpus with Ger upset her awfully," Mary whispered to Reggie as
+they went into dinner, "and she won't risk anything fresh.  It is a
+shame, for she'd have loved it, and she always looks so ripping."
+
+The three young people left directly after dinner.  Grantly stopped the
+carriage at an old Ephraim Teakle's cottage in the village, and they
+all went in to let him have a look at them, for it was his smock, a
+marvel of elaborate stitching, that Grantly was wearing.
+
+Ephraim was eighty-seven years old and usually went to bed very early,
+but to-night he sat up a full hour to see "them childer," as he called
+the Ffolliots.  He was very deaf, but had the excellent sight of a
+generation that had never learned to read.  He stood up as the young
+people came in, and joined in the chorus of "laws," of "did you evers,"
+indulged in by his granddaughter and her family.
+
+"'Er wouldn' go far seekin' sarvice at mop, not Miss Mary wouldn't," he
+said; "an' as for you, Master Grantly, you be the very moral of me when
+I did work for Farmer Gayner over to Winson.  Maids did look just like
+that when I wer a young chap--pretty as pins, they was."
+
+But Mrs Rouse, his granddaughter, thought "Mr Peel did look far an'
+away the best, something out o' the common 'e were, like what a body
+sees in the theatre over to Marlehouse . . . but there, I suppose 'tis
+dressin' up for the likes o' Master Grantly, an' I must say
+laundry-maid, she done up grandfather's smock something beautiful."
+
+Abinghall, Sir George Campion's place, was just outside Marlehouse
+town.  The house, large and square and comfortable, was built by the
+first baronet early in the nineteenth century.  The Campions always did
+things well, and "the boy and girl dance" had grown very considerably
+since its first inception.  Indeed, had Mrs Ffolliot realised what
+proportions it had assumed since she received the friendly informal
+invitation some five weeks before, she would have risked the
+recklessness of the twins, and made a point of chaperoning Mary herself.
+
+For the last three generations the Campions had been strong Liberals,
+therefore it was quite natural that with an election due in a fortnight
+there should be bidden to the dance many who were not included in Lady
+Campion's rather exclusive visiting list.
+
+It is extraordinary how levelling an election is, especially at
+Christmas time, when peace and goodwill are acknowledged to be the
+prevailing and suitable sentiments.
+
+Even the large drawing-room at Abinghall wouldn't hold the dancers, so
+a floor and a huge tent had been imported from London, and joined to
+the house by a covered way.  A famous Viennese band played on a stage
+at one end, and around the sides were raised red baize seats for those
+who wanted to watch the dancing.  Lady Campion received her guests at
+the door of the large drawing-room; she caught Mary by the arm and held
+her to whisper rapidly, "I don't know half the people, Mary, do help
+me, and if you see anyone looking neglected, say a kind word, and get
+partners, like a dear.  I depended on your mother, and now she has
+failed me."
+
+Naturally the Liberal candidate was bidden to the dance, and Eloquent
+arrayed in the likeness of one of Cromwell's soldiers, a dress he had
+worn in a pageant last summer, was standing exactly opposite the
+entrance to the tent, when at the second dance on the programme
+Phyllida and the Farmer's Boy came in, and with the greatest good-will
+in the world proceeded to Boston with all the latest and dreadful
+variations of that singularly unbeautiful dance.  Grantly had imported
+the very newest thing from Woolwich, Mary was an apt pupil, and the two
+of them made a point always of dancing the first dance together
+wherever they were.  They were singularly well-matched, and tonight
+their height, their quaint dress, their remarkable good looks and
+their, to Marlehouse eyes, extraordinary evolutions, made them
+immediately conspicuous.
+
+Eloquent, stiff, solemn, and uncomfortable in his wide-leaved hat and
+flapping collar, watched the smock-frock and russet gown as they bobbed
+and glided, and twirled and crouched in the mazes of that mysterious
+dance, and the moment they stopped, shouldered his way through the
+usual throng of pierrots, flower-girls, Juliets, Carmens, Sikhs, and
+Chinamen to Lady Campion, who was standing in the entrance quite near
+the milk-maid who was already surrounded by would-be partners.
+
+"Lady Campion, will you present me to Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent asked in
+a stand-and-deliver sort of voice, the result of the tremendous effort
+it had been to approach her at all.
+
+She looked rather surprised, but long apprenticeship to politics had
+taught her that you must bear all things for the sake of your party, so
+she smiled graciously on the stiff, rosy-faced Cromwellian, and duly
+made the presentation.
+
+"May I," Eloquent asked, with quite awful solemnity, "have the pleasure
+of a dance?"
+
+"I've got twelve or fourteen and an extra, but I can't promise to dance
+any one of them if other people are sitting out, because I've promised
+Lady Campion to help see to people.  I'll give you one if you'll
+promise to dance it with someone else--if necessary----"
+
+Eloquent looked blue.  "Isn't that rather hard?" he asked meekly.
+
+"Everyone's in the same box," Mary said shortly, "and you, of all
+people, ought simply to dance till your feet drop off.  Let me see your
+card--What? no dances at all down?  Oh, that's absurd--come with me."
+And before poor Eloquent could protest he found himself being whisked
+from one young lady to another, and his card was full all except
+twelve, fourteen, and the second extra--which he rigidly reserved.
+
+"There," said Mary, smiling upon him graciously, "that's well over.
+I've been most careful; you are dancing with just about an equal number
+of Liberal and Tory young ladies, and you ought to take at least five
+mamas into supper; don't forget; look pleased and eager, and be careful
+what you say to the pretty girl in pink, she's a niece of our present
+member."
+
+Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White
+King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table
+(he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose
+name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just
+displayed on the bandstand.
+
+He really worked hard.  He danced carefully and laboriously--he had had
+lessons during his last year in London--and entirely without any
+pleasure.  So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very
+letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager."  His
+round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather
+prim gravity.  The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should
+have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young
+ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall
+milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at
+him in kindly approval.  He noticed that she danced several times with
+the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very
+good friends.
+
+At last number twelve showed on the bandstand.  Eloquent was not very
+clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went
+to her to claim it.  It came just before the supper dances.
+
+"Yes, this is our dance," said Mary, "shall we one-step for a change?"
+
+"It seems to me," said Eloquent mournfully, "that one does nothing but
+change all the time.  Now this is a waltz, how can you one-step to a
+waltz?"
+
+"Poor man," Mary remarked pityingly.  "It _is_ muddling if you're not
+used to it.  Let us waltz then, that will be a change."
+
+Once round the room they went, and Eloquent felt that never before had
+he realised the true delight of dancing.  He was very careful, very
+accurate, and his partner set herself to imitate exactly his archaic
+style of dancing, so that they were a model of deportment to the whole
+room.  But it was only for a brief space that this poetry of motion was
+vouchsafed to him.
+
+Mary stopped.
+
+"Do you see," she asked, "that old lady near the band.  She has been
+sitting there quite alone all the evening and she must be dying for
+something to eat.  Don't you think you'd better take her to have some
+refreshment?"
+
+"No," said Eloquent decidedly, "not just now.  I've been dancing with
+all sorts of people with whom I didn't in the least desire to dance
+solely because you said I ought, and now I'm dancing with you and I'm
+not going to give it up.  May we go on again?"
+
+Again they waltzed solemnly round.  Again Eloquent felt the thrill that
+always accompanies a perfect achievement.  Again Mary stopped.
+
+"That old lady is really very much on my conscience," she said; "if you
+won't take her in to have some supper, I must get Reggie, he'd do it."
+
+"But why now?" Eloquent pleaded.  "If, as you say, she has sat there
+all night, a few minutes more or less can make no difference--why
+should we spoil our dance by worrying about her?  Do you know her?"
+
+"I don't think I know her," Mary said vaguely, "but I have an idea she
+has something to do with coal.  She's probably one of your
+constituents, and I think it's rather unkind of you to be so
+uninterested; besides, what does it matter whether one knows her or
+not, she's here to enjoy herself, it's our business to see that she
+does it. . . ."
+
+"Why our business?"  In a flash Eloquent saw he had made a mistake.
+Mary looked genuinely surprised this time.
+
+"Why, don't you think in any sort of gathering it's everybody's
+business . . . if you see anyone lonely . . . left out . . . one
+tries. . . ."
+
+"I've been lonely and left out at dozens of parties in London, where I
+didn't know a soul, and I never discovered that anyone was in the least
+concerned about me.  At all events no one ever tried to ameliorate my
+lot."
+
+"But you're a man, you know. . . ."
+
+"A man can feel just as out of it as a woman.  It's worse for him in
+fact, for it's nobody's business to look after him."
+
+Eloquent spoke bitterly.
+
+"But surely since you, yourself, have suffered, you ought to be the
+more sympathetic with that stout lady----"
+
+"I will go, since you wish it; but I don't know her and she may think
+it impertinent. . . ."
+
+"I'll come too," said Mary.  "_I_ don't know her but I can introduce
+you . . . we'll both go."
+
+The lady in question was stout and rubicund, with smooth,
+tightly-braided brown hair, worn very flat and close to the head, and
+bright observant black eyes.  She wore a high black satin dress, and
+had apparently been poured into it, so tight was it, so absolutely
+moulded to her form.  A double gold chain was arranged over her ample
+bosom, and many bracelets decorated her fat wrists.  She was quite
+alone on the raised red seat.  For the last two hours Mary had noticed
+her sitting there, and that no one, apparently, ever spoke to, or came
+to sit by her.
+
+There she remained placidly watching the dancers, her plump ungloved
+hands folded in her lap.  She appeared rather cold for she wore no
+wrap, and what with draughts and the breeze created by the dancers, the
+tent was a chilly place to sit in.
+
+Mary mounted the red baize step and sat down beside the solitary one.
+
+"Don't you think it's time you had something to eat?" she shouted . . .
+they were _so_ near the band, which at that moment was braying the
+waltz song from the "Quaker Girl."  The old lady beamed, but shook her
+head:
+
+"I'm very well where I am, my dear, I can see nicely and I'm glad I
+came."
+
+"But you can come back," Mary persisted.  "This gentleman"--indicating
+Eloquent--"will take you to have some supper, and then he'll bring you
+back again just here if you like. . . .  May I introduce Mr Gallup?
+Mrs . . . I fear I don't know your name. . . ."
+
+Eloquent stood below bowing stiffly, and offered his arm.  The lady
+stood up, chuckled, winked cheerfully at Mary, and stepped down on to
+the floor.
+
+"Well, since you _are_ so obliging," she said, and took the proffered
+arm.  "You don't know me, Mr Gallup," she continued, "but you will do
+before the election's over.  Don't look so down in the mouth, I shan't
+keep you long, just a snack's all I want, and to stamp my feet a bit,
+which they're uncommonly cold, and then you can go back to the sweet
+pretty thing that fetched you to do the civil--oh, I saw it all! what a
+pity she's the other side, isn't it? what a canvasser she'd make with
+that smile . . . well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a
+Radical before this _and_ changed her politics, so don't you lose
+heart . . . soup, yes, I'd fancy some soup . . . well, what a sight to
+be sure . . . and how do you feel things are going in the
+constituency? . . ."
+
+But Eloquent had no need to answer.  His charge kept up a continual
+flow of conversation, only punctuated by mouthfuls of food.  When at
+last he took her back to the seat near the band, Mary had gone to
+supper and was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, Mr Gallup," said the lady, "though you
+wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been forced.  Now let an old woman
+give you a bit of advice. . . .  _Look_ willin' whether you are or not."
+
+Poor Eloquent felt very much as though she had boxed his ears.  A few
+minutes later he saw that the Elizabethan gentleman and Mary were
+seated on either side of his recent partner and were apparently well
+amused.
+
+How did they do it?
+
+And presently when Reggie Peel and Mary passed him in the Boston he
+heard Peel say, "Quite the most amusing person here to-night.  I shall
+sit out the next two dances with her, I'm tired."
+
+"I was tired too, that's why . . ." they went out of earshot, and he
+never caught the end of the sentence.
+
+Eloquent danced no more with Mary, nor did he sit out at all with the
+indomitable old lady, who, bright-eyed and vigilant, still watched from
+her post near the band.  The end was really near, and he stood against
+the wall gloomily regarding Mary as she flew about in the arms--very
+closely in the arms as ruled by the new dancing--of a young barrister.
+He was staying with the Campions and had, all the previous week, been
+helping heartily in the Liberal cause.  He had come down from London
+especially to do so, but during Christmas week there was a truce on
+both sides, and he remained to enjoy himself.
+
+Just then Eloquent hated him.  He hated all these people who seemed to
+find it so easy to be amusing and amused.  Yet he stayed till the very
+last dance watching Phyllida, the milkmaid, with intense disapproval,
+as, her sun-bonnet hanging round her neck, she tore through the Post
+Horn Gallop with that detestable barrister.  He decided that the
+manners of the upper classes, if easy and pleasant, were certainly much
+too free.
+
+It was a fine clear night and he walked to his rooms in Marlehouse.  He
+felt that he had not been a social success.  He was much more at home
+on the platform than in the ball-room, yet he was shrewd enough to see
+that his lack of adaptability stood in his way politically.
+
+How could he learn these things?
+
+And as if in answer to his question, there suddenly sounded in his ears
+the fat chuckling voice of the black satin lady:
+
+"Well, well, there's many a pretty Tory lady married a Radical before
+this, _and_ changed her politics, so don't you lose heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"THE GANPIES"
+
+"Father's mother," living alone far away in the Forest of Dean, rarely
+came to Redmarley, and the children never went to visit her.  A frail
+old lady to whom one was never presented save tidily clad and fresh
+from the hands of nurse for a few moments, with injunctions still
+ringing in one's ears as to the necessity for a quiet and decorous
+demeanour.
+
+This was grandmother, a shadow rather than a reality.
+
+The Ganpies were something very different.  The name, an abbreviation
+for grandparents, was invented by Grantly when he was two years old,
+and long usage had turned it into a term of endearment.  People who
+knew them well could never think of General and Mrs Grantly apart, each
+was the complement of the other; and for the Ffolliot children they
+represented a dual fount of fun and laughter, understanding and
+affection.  They were the medium through which one beheld the
+never-ending pageant unrolled before the entranced eyes of such happy
+children as happened to "belong" gloriously to one "commanding the R.A.
+Woolwich."  And intercourse with the Ganpies was largely leavened by
+concrete joys in the shape of presents, pantomimes, tips, and all
+things dear to the heart of youth all the world over.
+
+Such were the Ganpies.  Nothing shadowy about them.  They were a
+glorious reality; beloved, familiar, frequent.
+
+They were still comparatively young people when their daughter married,
+and Mrs Grantly was a grandmother at forty-one.  They would have liked
+a large family themselves, but seeing that Providence had only seen fit
+to bestow on them one child, they looked upon the six grandchildren as
+an attempt to make amends.
+
+Mrs Grantly's one quarrel with Marjory Ffolliot was on the score of
+what she called her "niggardliness and greed," in refusing to hand over
+entirely one of the six to their grandparents.
+
+It is true that the large house on the edge of Woolwich Common was
+seldom without one or two of the Ffolliot children.  Mr Ffolliot was
+most accommodating, and was more then ready to accept the General's
+constant invitations to his offspring; but in spite of these
+concessions Mrs Grantly was never wholly satisfied, and it was
+something of a grievance with her that Marjory was so firm in her
+refusal to "give away" any one of the six.
+
+Casual observers would have said that Mrs Grantly was by far the
+stronger character of the two, but people who knew General Grantly
+well, realised that his daughter had her full share of his quiet
+strength and determination.  Mrs Ffolliot, like her father, was
+easy-going, gentle, and tolerant; it was only when you came "up
+against" either of them that you realised the solid rock beneath the
+soft exterior.
+
+Now there was nothing hidden about Mrs Grantly.  She appeared exactly
+what she was.  Everything about her was definite and decided, though
+she was various and unexpected as our British weather.  She was an
+extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic
+courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of
+impulsiveness and caution.  In very truth a delightful bundle of
+paradox.  Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration
+for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness
+quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband.  But the
+snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift
+at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily.  She spoke
+her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she
+had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks were
+generally illuminating.
+
+The villagers at Redmarley adored her, for, from her very first visit
+she made her presence felt.
+
+It had long been the custom at Redmarley for the ladies in the village
+and neighbourhood to meet once a week during the earlier winter months
+to make garments for presentation to the poor at Christmas, and the
+first meeting since the Manor House possessed a mistress took place
+there under Mrs Ffolliot's somewhat timid presidency.  It coincided
+with Mrs Grantly's first visit since her daughter's marriage, and she
+expressed her willingness to help.
+
+At Mrs Ffolliot's suggestion it had already been arranged that a blouse
+instead of a flannel petticoat should this year be given to the younger
+women.  The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they
+were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according
+to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful
+ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material.  For years
+donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination.  She
+chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what
+style, and who should receive them when made.
+
+On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her
+brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses
+which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out.  Miss Tibbits undid the
+parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round
+the dining-room table.
+
+Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was
+an expressive countenance.
+
+"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own
+family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor
+should be dressed in dusters?"
+
+The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material
+which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by
+drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."
+
+"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to
+consider utility, not ornament."
+
+Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material,
+gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so
+that it fell draped about her.
+
+"Look at me!" she exclaimed.  "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff
+like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"
+
+And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the
+downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had
+selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.
+
+The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into
+helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in
+yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit
+abashed.
+
+"Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried.  "Can you conceive any
+self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made
+of _this_?"
+
+"A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?"
+
+"Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted.  "Now you
+are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make
+supposed to give any pleasure to the poor creatures or not."
+
+"I should say so most assuredly," the vicar replied, his eyes twinkling
+with fun.  "What other purpose could you have?"
+
+Miss Tibbits cleared her throat.  "I have always understood," she said
+primly, "that the sewing club was instituted to make useful garments
+for deserving persons, who were, perhaps, so much occupied by family
+cares that they had little time available for needle-work."
+
+"That is," said the vicar solemnly, "the laudable object of the sewing
+club."
+
+"But I don't suppose," Mrs Grantly remarked briskly, still standing
+draped in the obnoxious material, "that there is any bye-law to the
+effect that the garments should be of an odious and humiliating
+description."
+
+"Of course not," the ladies chorussed, smiling.  They were beginning,
+all but Miss Tibbits, who was furious, to enjoy Mrs Grantly.
+
+"Then let us," Mrs Grantly's voice suddenly became soft and seductive,
+and she flung the folds of material from her, "give them something
+pretty.  They don't have much, poor things, and it's just as easy to
+make them pretty as ugly.  Ladies, I've been to a good many sewing
+meetings in my life, and I always fight for the same thing, a present
+should be just a little bit different--don't you think--not hard and
+hideous and ordinary. . . ."
+
+"That material is bought and paid for," Miss Tibbits interrupted, "it
+must be used."
+
+"It shall be used," cried Mrs Grantly, "I'll buy it, and I'll make it
+into dusters for which purpose it was obviously intended, and every
+woman in Redmarley shall have two for Christmas as an extra.  A good
+strong duster never comes amiss."
+
+"Perhaps," Miss Tibbits said coldly, "you will undertake to procure the
+material."
+
+"Certainly," said Mrs Grantly, "but I'll buy it in blouse lengths, and
+every one different.  Why should a whole village wear the same thing as
+though it was a reformatory?"
+
+It appeared that the vicar had called with his list of the "deserving
+poor."  In five minutes Mrs Grantly had detached each person, and made
+a note of her age and circumstances.  She had only been in the village
+a week, and she already knew every soul in it.
+
+She whirled off the vicar in a gale of enthusiasm, nobody else got a
+word in edgewise.  Finally she departed with him into the hall, and saw
+him out at the front door, and her last whispered words were
+characteristic:
+
+"You've let that Tibbits woman bully you for twenty years, now I'm
+going to bully you for a bit instead, and between us we'll give those
+poor dears a bit of cheer this Christmas."
+
+From that moment the vicar was Mrs Grantly's slave.
+
+Nobody knew how the affair leaked out, but the whole thing was known in
+the village before a week had passed, with the result that fifteen
+women visited the vicar, one after the other, and after much
+circumlocution intimated that "If so be as 'e would be so kind, they'd
+be glad if 'e'd 'int to the ladies as they 'adn't nearly wore out last
+Christmas petticoat, and, if it were true wot they'd 'eard as they was
+talkin' of givin' summat different, might Mrs Mustoe, Gegg, Uzzel, or
+Radway, etc., have anything they did choose to make as warn't a
+petticoat."
+
+There was a slump in petticoats.
+
+In despair he went to Mrs Grantly, and she undertook to see the matter
+through.
+
+"It's absurd," Mrs Grantly remarked to her daughter, "in a little place
+like this where one knows all the people, and exactly what they're
+like, to make things all the same size.  Fancy me trying to get into a
+blouse that would fit that skinny Miss Tibbits!  A little common sense
+is what's needed in this sewing society, and, Marjory, my dear, I'm
+going to do my best to supply it."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Throughout the years that followed, Mrs Grantly continued to supply
+common sense to the inhabitants of Redmarley.  She found places for
+young servants, both in her own household and those of her friends,
+till gradually there were many links between the village and "'Orse and
+Field and Garrison."
+
+More than one Redmarley damsel married a gunner "on the strength."  Had
+the intending bridegroom been anything else, Mrs Grantly would herself
+have forbidden the banns!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHRISTMAS AT REDMARLEY
+
+That year Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, and on the Saturday afternoon
+Eloquent drove out from Marlehouse to Redmarley to spend the week-end
+with his aunt.  She was out when he arrived, and he went straight to
+the vicarage, asked for the vicar, and was shown into the study, where
+Mr Molyneaux sat smoking by the fire in a deep-seated high-backed chair.
+
+Even as he entered the room, Eloquent was conscious of the pleasurable
+thrill that things beautiful and harmonious never failed to evoke.  The
+windows faced west; the red sun, just sinking behind Redmarley Woods,
+shone in on and was reflected from walls covered from floor to ceiling
+with books; books bound for the most part in mellow brown and yellow
+calf, that seemed to give forth an amber light as from sun-warmed
+turning beeches.
+
+The vicar had discarded his clerical coat, and wore a shabby grey-green
+Norfolk jacket frayed at the cuffs; nevertheless, Eloquent sincerely
+admired him as he rose to give courteous greeting to his guest.
+
+The old vicar was stout and bald, and the grey hair that fringed his
+head was decidedly rumpled.  A long face, with high, narrow forehead
+and pointed beard, cheeks heavy and creased, straight nose, with
+strongly marked, sensitive nostrils.  The mouth, full-lipped and
+shutting firmly under the grey moustache, cut straight across the upper
+lip; the eyes, rather prominent blue eyes, had once been bold and
+merry, and were still keen.  A fine old face, deeply lined and
+sorrowful, bearing upon it the impress of great possibilities that had
+remained--possibilities.  He was somehow in keeping with his room, this
+warm, untidy, comfortable room that smelt of tobacco and old leather,
+where there was such a curious jumble of things artistic and sporting:
+a few pictures and bas-reliefs, nearly all of the pre-Renaissance
+Italian School, a big stuffed trout in a glass case, a fox's brush and
+mask, an old faded cricket cap; and over the carved mantelshelf, the
+portrait of a Georgian beauty in powder and patches, whose oval face,
+heavy-lidded eyes, and straight features were not unlike the vicar's
+own.
+
+There was in the vicar's manner the welcoming quality that puts the
+shyest person at his ease.  He was secretly much surprised that young
+Gallup should call upon him; but no hint of this appeared in his
+manner, and Eloquent found no difficulty in stating the object of his
+visit with business-like directness.
+
+"I came to ask you," he remarked with his usual stiff solemnity, "if
+you would care for me to read the lessons at morning service
+to-morrow. . . .  I do not read badly. . . .  I have studied elocution."
+
+The humorous lines round the old vicar's eyes deepened, but he answered
+with equal gravity, "That is very good of you, and I gratefully accept
+your kind offer.  General Grantly has promised to read the first
+lesson, but I shall be glad if you will read the second.  Will you do
+both at the afternoon service?  There's no evensong on Christmas Day."
+
+This was rather more than Eloquent had bargained for, but . . . she
+might come to the afternoon service as well.  "I shall be most happy,"
+he said meekly, "to do anything I can to assist."
+
+The vicar rang for tea, but Eloquent arose hastily, saying he had
+promised to have tea with his aunt.  He had no desire to prolong the
+interview with this urbane old gentleman now that its object was
+achieved.  Mr Molyneux saw him to the front door and watched him for a
+moment as he bustled down the drive.  "So that," he said to himself, as
+he went back to the warm study, "is our future member . . . for
+everyone says he will get in.  Why does he want to read the lessons, I
+wonder?  It will certainly do him no good with his dissenting
+constituents, and it is they who will get him in--what can his object
+be?"
+
+The Ffolliot family formed quite a procession as they marched up the
+aisle on Christmas morning.  General and Mrs Grantly were there;
+Reggie, Mr and Mrs Ffolliot, and the six young Ffolliots.  They
+overflowed into the seat behind, and the Kitten, whom nothing ever awed
+or subdued, was heard to remark that since she couldn't sit with
+Willets, the keeper, who always had "such instasting things in his
+pottets," she'd sit "between the Ganpies."  Reggie, Mary, and her four
+brothers filled the second seat: Mary sat at the far end, and Ger
+nearest the aisle, that he might gaze entrancedly at his grandfather
+while he read the lesson.  Reggie came next to Ger, and Grantly
+separated Uz and Buz, so that Eloquent only caught an occasional
+glimpse of Mary's extremely flat back between the heads of other
+worshippers.
+
+"Oh come, all ye faithful!" the choir sang lustily as it started in
+procession round the church, and the faithful responded vigorously.
+The Kitten pranced on her hassock, and always started the new verse
+before everyone else in the clearest of pure trebles.  The Ffolliot
+boys shouted, and for once Mr Ffolliot forebore to frown on them.  No
+woman with a houseful of children can remain quite unmoved on Christmas
+morning during that singularly jubilant invocation, and Mrs Grantly and
+Margery Ffolliot ceased to sing, for their eyes were full of tears.  Mr
+Ffolliot fixed his monocle more firmly, and bent forward to look at the
+Kitten, and to catch her little pipe above the shouts of her brothers
+behind.
+
+The Kitten sang words of her own composition during the Psalms, her
+grandparents both singing loudly themselves in their efforts not to
+hear her, for the Kitten's improvisations were enough to upset the
+gravity of a bench of bishops.
+
+The General read the first lesson in a brisk and business-like
+monotone, and when he had finished his grandsons applauded noiselessly
+under the book-board.
+
+The Kitten was very much to the fore during "Praise him and magnify him
+for ever," and then came the second lesson.
+
+Eloquent walked up the aisle and took his stand at the lectern with the
+utmost unconcern.  Shy and awkward he might be in ordinary social
+intercourse, but whenever it was a matter of standing up before his
+fellow-creatures and haranguing them, his self-consciousness dropped
+from him like a discarded garment, and he instantly acquired a mental
+poise and serene self-confidence wholly lacking at other times.
+
+The second lesson on Christmas morning contains the plainest possible
+statement of a few great facts, and Eloquent proclaimed them in a
+singularly melodious voice with just exactly the emphatic simplicity
+they demanded.
+
+The perfect sincerity of great literature is always impressive.  All
+over the church heads were turned in the direction of the lectern, and
+when the short lesson ended the Kitten demanded in a quite audible
+voice, "Why did he stop so soon for?"
+
+Eloquent looked at Mary as he passed down the aisle to his place,
+half-hoping she might meet his glance with the frank confident smile he
+found so disturbing and delicious.  But her eyes were bent upon her
+prayer-book and she appeared quite unconscious that someone had just
+been reading the Bible exceptionally well.
+
+He felt chilled and disappointed.  "It is quite possible," he reflected
+bitterly, "that in this out-of-the-way old church they don't know good
+reading from bad."
+
+There is no sermon at Redmarley on Christmas morning, and people who
+have been at the early service get out soon after twelve o'clock.
+Eloquent waited in the churchyard and watched the young Ffolliots and
+Reggie Peel come out.  Mary saw him and nodded cheerfully, but she did
+not, as he felt might have been expected, come up to him and exclaim,
+"How beautifully you read!"
+
+No one did.
+
+Such of the congregation as had already been to early service hurried
+home to look after the dinner; or, as in the case of the young
+Ffolliots, to deposit prayer-books and take violent exercise until
+lunch time.
+
+In the afternoon Eloquent read the lessons to a very meagre assembly.
+The Manor House seats were empty and his enthusiastic desire to be of
+assistance to the vicar cooled considerably.  His aunt during dinner
+announced with the utmost frankness that wild horses would not drag her
+to church "of an afternoon"; she "liked her forty winks peaceable."
+She, however, further informed him that "he read very nice"; but as she
+had said the same thing of Grantly Ffolliot's performance, her nephew
+could not feel uplifted by her praise.
+
+The vicar poured a little balm on his wounded spirit by hastening after
+him as he walked slowly and gloomily homewards, to thank him with warm
+urbanity for his kind help, but he made no remark upon his reading.
+They parted at the vicarage gate, and Eloquent pursued his way alone.
+
+He felt restless and curiously disappointed.  Everything was exactly as
+it had been before, and somehow he had expected it to be different.
+
+So far he had encountered no special desire on the part of the "upper
+classes" to cultivate him.  He was quite shrewd enough to perceive that
+those he had met--the Campions at Marlehouse and the few who had
+offered him hospitality in London--had done so purely on political
+grounds.
+
+Only one, so far, had shown any kindness to him, the shy, wistfully
+self-conscious young man, hungry for sympathy and comprehension.  Only
+one, Mary Ffolliot, had seemed to recognise in him other possibilities
+than those of party: but had she?
+
+Anyway, here was he in the same village with her not a mile away, and
+yet a gulf stretched between them apparently impassable as a river in
+flood to a boatless man who could not swim.
+
+That evening Miss Gallup decided that her nephew did not possess much
+general conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MISS ELSMARIA BUTTERMISH
+
+The twins were not in the least alike, either in disposition or
+appearance, but they were inseparable.  They were known to their large
+circle of friends and still more numerous censors as "Uz" and "Buz,"
+but their real names were Lionel and Hilary, a fact they rigidly
+suppressed at all times.
+
+Buz was tall for his age, slender and fair, with regular, Grantly
+features, and eyes like his mother's.  Uz was short and chubby,
+tirelessly mischievous, and of an optimistic cheerfulness that neither
+misfortune nor misunderstanding could diminish.  Buz was the reading
+Ffolliot, imaginative, and easily swayed by what he read; and his was
+the fertile brain that created and suggested all manner of wrong-doing
+to his twin.  Just then the mania of both was for impersonation.  "To
+dress up," and if possible to mislead their fellow-creatures as to
+their identity, was their chief aim in life.  Here, the "prettiness"
+that in his proper person Buz deplored and abhorred came in useful.  He
+made a charming girl, his histrionic power was considerable, and on
+both accounts he was much in demand at school theatricals; moreover,
+his voice had not yet broken, and when he desired to do so he could
+speak with lady-like softness and precision.
+
+"Who's the chap that read the second lesson?" he asked Ger, who proudly
+walked between the twins on their way from church.  Ger adored the
+twins.
+
+"He's the muddy young man who came last Sunday," Ger answered promptly.
+Proud to be able to afford information, he continued, "His aunt's our
+nice Miss Gallup, and he's going to get in at the Election, nurse says."
+
+"Oh, is he?" cried Uz, whose political views were the result of strong
+conviction unbiassed by reflection.  "We'll see about that."
+
+"I feel," Buz murmured dreamily, "that it is my duty to find out that
+young man's views on Female Suffrage.  The women in this district
+appear to me sadly indifferent as to this important question.  It's
+doubtful if any of them will tackle him.  Now I'm well up in it just
+now, owing to that rotten debate last term."
+
+"When that long-winded woman jawed for nearly an hour, d'you mean?"
+asked Uz "Exactly.  I never dreamt she would come in useful, but you
+never know."
+
+"Shall you call?" Uz gurgled delightedly.  "Where'll you get the
+clothes?  Mary's would be too big, besides everyone about here knows
+'em, they're so old, and she'd never lend you anything decent.'
+
+"I shouldn't ask her if I really wanted them; but in this instance I
+scorn the mouldy garments of Sister Mary."
+
+"Whose'll you get?" Uz asked curiously.
+
+"My son," Buz rejoined, "I shall be like the king's daughter in the
+Psalms.  Never you fear for my appearance.  As our dear French prose
+book would remark: 'The grandmother of the young man so attractive has
+a maid French, of the heart excellent, and of the habits most chic.'"
+
+"You mean Adele will lend them?"
+
+"You bet.  She says I speak her tongue to the marvel, is it not?"
+
+
+On Boxing-Day Eloquent called upon as many of the vote-possessing
+inhabitants of Redmarley as could be got in before his aunt's early
+dinner.  He found but few at home, for on that morning there is always
+a meet in the market-place at Marlehouse, and the male portion of the
+inhabitants is sporting both by inclination and tradition.  He found
+the wives, however, and on the whole they were gracious to him.  His
+visit pleased, for the then member, Mr Brooke, had not been near
+Redmarley for years, and left the whole constituency to his agent, who
+was nearly as slack as the member for Marlehouse himself.
+
+Eloquent, who had by no means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage,
+was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as
+breathed its name.  His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith
+led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him
+pause.  He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the
+anti-suffrage party.  As his old father was wont to remark cautiously,
+"You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly
+discovered his whereabouts.
+
+He ate his cold turkey with an excellent appetite, feeling that he had
+spent a useful if arduous morning.  The give-and-take of ordinary
+conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this
+occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite
+talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable
+impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for
+his success in the Election.  His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas
+Day had filled her with forebodings.
+
+In the afternoon he devoted himself to his correspondence.  His aunt
+gave up the parlour to him and went out to see her friends, while he
+sat in stately solitude at a table covered with papers plainly
+parliamentary in kind.
+
+For about an hour he worked on undisturbed.  Presently he heard the
+front gate creak, and looking up beheld a bicycle, a lady's bicycle,
+propped against the garden wall.  Someone rapped loudly at the front
+door, and whoever it was had hard knuckles, for there was no knocker.
+
+Presently Em'ly-Alice, Miss Gallup's little maid, appeared holding a
+card between her finger and thumb, and announced--"A young lady come to
+see you, please, sir."
+
+For one mad moment Eloquent thought it might perhaps be Mary with some
+message for his aunt, but the card disillusioned him.  It was a very
+shiny card, and on it was written in ink in round, very distinct
+writing--
+
+"Miss Elsmaria Buttermish."
+
+He had barely time to take this in before Miss Buttermish herself
+appeared.
+
+"I'm glad to have found you at home, Mr Gallup," she announced easily;
+"I come on behalf of our beloved leaders to obtain a clear statement of
+your views as to 'Votes for Women,' for on those views a great deal
+depends.  Kindly state them as clearly and concisely as you can."
+
+Miss Buttermish drew up a chair to the table, sat down and produced a
+note-book and pencil; while Eloquent, speechless with astonishment and
+dismay, stood on the other side of it holding the shiny visiting-card
+in his hand.
+
+Miss Buttermish tapped with her pencil on the table and regarded him
+enquiringly.
+
+Apparently quite young, she was also distinctly pleasing to the eye.
+She wore an exceedingly well cut, heavily braided black coat and skirt,
+the latter of the tightest and skimpiest type of a skimpy period.  Her
+hat was of the extinguisher order, entirely concealing her hair, except
+that just in the front a few soft curls were vaguely visible upon her
+forehead.  A very handsome elderly-looking black fox stole threw up the
+whiteness of her rounded chin in strong relief, and her eyes looked
+large and mysterious through the meshes of her most becoming veil.
+Eloquent was conscious of a certain familiarity in her appearance.  He
+was certain that he had seen her before somewhere, and couldn't recall
+either time or place.
+
+"I'm waiting, Mr Gallup," she remarked pleasantly.  "You must have made
+up your mind one way or other upon this important question, and it will
+save both my time and your own if you state your views--may I say, as
+briefly as possible."
+
+Eloquent gasped . . . "I fear," he said, "that I have by no means made
+up my mind with any sort of finality--it is such a large
+question. . . .  I have not yet had time to go into it as thoroughly as
+I could wish. . . .  There is so much to be said on both sides."
+
+"There," Miss Buttermish interrupted, "you are mistaken; there is
+_nothing_ to be said for the '_antis_.'  Their arguments are
+positively . . . footling."
+
+"I cannot," Eloquent said stiffly, "agree with you."
+
+"Sit down, Mr Gallup," Miss Buttermish said kindly, at the same time
+getting up and seating herself afresh on a corner of the sofa.  "We've
+got to thresh this matter out, and you've got to make up your mind
+whether you are for or against us.  You are young, and I think that you
+hardly realise the forces that will be arrayed against _you_ if you
+join hands with Mr Asquith on this question."
+
+Miss Buttermish sat up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa,
+and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather
+like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess.  The
+allusion to his youth rankled.  He did not sit down, but stood where he
+was, staring darkly at his guest.  After a very perceptible pause he
+said:
+
+"It is impossible for me to give you a definite opinion . . ."
+
+"It's not an _opinion_ I want," Miss Buttermish interrupted scornfully,
+"it's a definite guarantee.  Otherwise, young man, you may make up your
+mind to incessant interruption and . . . to various other annoyances
+which I need not enumerate.  We don't care a bent pin whether you are a
+Liberal or a Tory or a red-hot Socialist, so long as you are sound on
+the Suffrage question.  If you are in favour of 'Votes for Women,' then
+we'll help you; if not . . . I advise you to put up your shutters."
+
+Eloquent flushed angrily and, strangely enough, so did Miss Buttermish
+at the same moment.  In fact, no sooner had she spoken the last
+sentence than she looked extremely hot and uncomfortable.
+
+"I see no use," he said coldly, "in prolonging this interview.  I
+cannot give you the guarantee you wish for.  It is not my custom to
+make up my mind upon any question of political importance without
+considerable research and much thought.  Intimidation would never turn
+me from my course if, after such investigation, I should decide against
+your cause.  Nor would any annoyance your party may inflict upon me
+now, affect my support of your cause should I, ultimately, come to
+believe in its justice."
+
+Miss Buttermish rose.  "Mr Gallup," she said solemnly, "there is at
+present a very wide-spread discontent among us.  Till we get the vote
+we shall manifest that discontent, and I warn you that the lives of
+members of Parliament and candidates who are not avowedly on our side
+will be made"--here Miss Buttermish swallowed  hastily . . . "most
+unpleasant.  Those that are not for us are against us, and . . . we are
+very much up against them.  I am sorry we should part in anger . . ."
+
+"Pardon me," Eloquent interrupted, "there is no anger on my side.  I
+respect your opinions even though as yet I may not wholly share them."
+
+Miss Buttermish shook her head.  "I'm really sorry for you," she
+murmured; "you are young, and you little know what you are letting
+yourself in for."
+
+Eloquent opened the parlour door for her with stiff politeness, and she
+passed out with bent head and shoulders that trembled under the heavy
+fur.  Surely this militant young person was not going to cry!
+
+He followed her in some anxiety down to the garden gate, held it open
+for her to pass through, which she did in absolute silence, and he
+waited to watch her mount her bicycle.
+
+This she did in a very curious fashion.  She started to run with it,
+leapt lightly on one pedal, and then, to Eloquent's amazement, essayed
+to throw her other leg over like a boy.
+
+The lady's skirt was tight, the Redmarley roads were extremely muddy,
+the unexpected jerk caused the bicycle to skid, and lady and bicycle
+came down sideways with considerable violence.
+
+"Damn!" exclaimed Miss Buttermish.
+
+"Oh, those modern girls!" thought the shocked Eloquent as he ran
+forward to assist.  He pulled the bicycle off Miss Buttermish, and
+stood it against the wall.  She sat up, her hat very much on one side.
+
+"Do you know," she said rather huskily, "I do believe I've broken my
+confounded arm."
+
+She held out her left hand to Eloquent, who pulled her to her feet.
+Her right arm hung helpless, and even through her bespattered veil he
+could see that she was very white.
+
+"Pray come in and rest for a little," he said concernedly, "and we can
+see what has happened."
+
+"I'm sure it's broken, I heard the beastly thing snap----" the girl
+stumbled blindly, Eloquent caught her in his arms, and saw that she had
+fainted from pain.
+
+He carried her into the house and laid her on the horsehair sofa, put a
+cushion under her arm, and seizing the large scissors that his orderly
+aunt kept hanging on a hook at the side of the fire, cut her jacket
+carefully along the seam from wrist to shoulder.  She wore a very
+mannish, coloured flannel shirt.  This sleeve, too, he cut, and
+disclosed a thin arm, extremely brown nearly to the elbow, and very
+fair and white above, but the elbow was distorted and discoloured; a
+bad break, Eloquent decided, with mischief at the joint as well
+probably.  He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head.
+It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him.  With
+his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened
+her heavy furs.  Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the
+while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria."  She looked
+pathetically young and helpless lying there.  Eloquent forgot her
+militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain.  As he
+knelt down by the sofa to sponge her face he started so violently that
+he upset a great deal of the water he had brought.
+
+It was already growing dark, but even in the dim light as he looked
+closely at Miss Buttermish without her hat, her likeness to Mary
+Ffolliot was striking.  She wore her hair cropped close.  "Could she
+have been in prison?" thought Eloquent, remembering how light she was
+when he carried her in.
+
+With hands that trembled somewhat he pushed the wet curly hair back
+from the forehead so like Mary's.  There were the same wide brow, the
+same white eyelids with the sweeping arch and thick dark lashes, the
+delicate high-bridged nose and well-cut, kindly mouth; the same pure
+oval in the line of cheek and chin.
+
+Certainly an extraordinary resemblance.  She must at least be a cousin;
+and, in spite of his sincere commiseration of the young lady's
+suffering, he felt a jubilant thrill in the reflection that this
+accident must bring him into further contact with the Ffolliots.
+
+There was no brandy in the house, for both he and his aunt were total
+abstainers, so he fetched a glass of water and held it to the young
+lady's lips as she opened her eyes.  She drank eagerly, looked
+searchingly at him, then she glanced down at her bare arm and the cut
+sleeve.  The colour flooded her face, and with real horror in her voice
+she exclaimed, "You've never gone and _cut_ that jacket!"
+
+"I had to.  Your arm ought to be set at once, and goodness knows where
+the doctor may be to-day.  You'd best be taken to Marlehouse Infirmary,
+I think; it's a bad break."
+
+"But it's her best coat, quite new," Miss Buttermish persisted
+fretfully, "quite new; you'd no business to go and cut it.  I promised
+to take such care of it."
+
+"I'm very sorry," Eloquent replied meekly; "but it really was necessary
+that your arm should be seen to at once, and I dared not jerk it about."
+
+"Can it be mended, do you think, so that it won't show?"  There was
+real concern in her voice.
+
+"I'm sure of it," he answered, much astonished at this fuss about a
+coat at such a moment; "I cut it carefully along the seam."
+
+"I say," exclaimed Miss Buttermish, "I must get out of this"--and she
+prepared to swing her feet off the sofa--rather big feet, he noted, in
+stout golfing shoes.  Forcibly he held her legs down.
+
+"Please don't," he implored.  "You must not jar that arm any more than
+can be helped.  Shall I go up to the Manor House and get them to send a
+conveyance for you?--you really mustn't think of walking, and I don't
+know where else we could get one to-day."
+
+Miss Buttermish closed her eyes and frowned heavily.  Then in a faint
+voice--
+
+"How do you know I'm from the Manor House?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, you're very like . . . the family."
+
+"_All_ of them?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"You are very like certain members of the family I have seen," he said
+cautiously.  "May I go?  I'll send the servant to sit with you----"
+
+Miss Buttermish clutched at him violently with her left hand,
+exclaiming, "No, no--don't send anybody yet; I must get out of this
+beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . .  Look here, you're a very
+decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you--will you play the game when you
+go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes?  The
+blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll
+just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . .  Oh,
+confound . . .  I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot
+you . . . but if you _could_ not mention it . . ."
+
+Her head fell back and she nearly fainted again from pain.  Eloquent
+divested her of her skirt, and with it the last remnant of Miss
+Buttermish disappeared--a slim slip of a boy in running shorts, with
+bare knees, and a gym-belt lay prone on the sofa, very pale and
+shivering.
+
+In absolute silence Eloquent folded the skirt and the coat, and laying
+hat and furs on the top, placed them in a neat heap on a chair in the
+corner.
+
+He went to his bedroom, fetched the eiderdown off his own bed and
+covered the boy with it.  As he was tucking in the eiderdown at the
+side Buz put out a cold left hand and held him by the coat sleeve,
+saying curiously--"Are you in an awful bait? are you going to be really
+stuffy about it?"
+
+Eloquent looked straight into the quizzical grey eyes that held his.
+The boy's voice belied the eyes, for it was anxious.
+
+"Of course not," he said quite seriously, "I'm only too sorry your
+trick should have had such a disastrous conclusion.  Who shall I ask
+for up at the house, and what shall I do with the things?"
+
+"Oh take them with you--could you?  Give 'em to Fusby, and tell him to
+put them in their rooms--the furs are granny's.  He'll do it and never
+say a word; decent old chap, Fusby.  I say, I'm awfully sorry to be
+such a nuisance.  I'm certain I could walk home if you'll let me."
+
+"That you certainly must not do, I'll go at once.  Here's the
+hand-bell.  I'll tell the maid that she is to come if you ring.  I
+expect my aunt will be in directly--I'll be as quick as I can--cheer
+up."
+
+Eloquent bustled about putting the remains of Miss Buttermish tidily
+into his suit-case while the grey eyes followed his movements with
+amused interest.
+
+"I'm most awfully obliged," said Buz in a very low voice; "I do feel
+such an ass lying here."
+
+There was a murmur of voices in the passage.  The front door was closed
+with quiet decorum and the little sitting-room grew darker.  Two big
+tears rolled over and Buz sniffed helplessly, for his handkerchief was
+in the pocket of the jacket lately worn with such gay impudence by Miss
+Elsmaria Buttermish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE THIN END
+
+Eloquent rode the bicycle left outside by Miss Buttermish, rode
+carefully, bearing the suit-case in his left hand.  The village was
+quite deserted and he reached the great gates of the Manor House
+unchallenged.  The gates stood open and he entered the dark shadowy
+drive without having encountered a living soul.  Lights gleamed from
+the lower windows of the house, but the porch was in darkness.  He rang
+loudly, and Fusby, the old manservant, switched on the light as he
+opened the door and revealed a square, oak-panelled room and the
+warning cards.  The inner door leading to the hall was closed, but the
+sound of cheerful voices reached Eloquent.
+
+Fusby stood expectant, and in spite of his imperturbable and almost
+benedictory manner he looked mildly surprised.
+
+"Is Mrs Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked rather breathlessly.
+
+"She is, sir," Fusby answered, but in a tone that subtly conveyed the
+unspoken "to some people," fixing his eyes the while on the suitcase.
+
+"Do you think she could speak to me here?" Eloquent continued humbly.
+
+"I think not, sir; the mistress at present is dispensing tea to the
+fam'ly.  She does not as a rule see people at the door.  Can I take a
+message?"
+
+"I fear I must disturb her," said Eloquent, conscious all the time that
+Fusby's mild gaze was concentrated on the suit-case.  "One of her
+sons"--for the life of him he couldn't remember the boy's ridiculous
+name--"has broken his arm."
+
+"Master Buz, sir?" asked Fusby, quite unmoved by the intelligence;
+"it's generally 'im."
+
+"Yes, Master Buz, and he asked me to give you this. . . .  It's some
+things of his.  I'll send for the suit-case--put it out of the way
+somewhere--he was dressed up . . . these are the clothes----"
+
+"He will 'ave 'is frolic," Fusby murmured indulgently; "a very
+light-'earted young gentleman he is--step this way, please, sir."
+
+Fusby opened a door behind him, and announced in the voice of one
+issuing an edict, "Mr Gallup."
+
+There seemed to Eloquent crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered
+about a round table near the fire.  He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the
+very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the
+hearthrug warming his coat tails.  Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea
+into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of
+Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire
+from Mrs Ffolliot.  These four were clear to him as he came into the
+hall.  There was a fire of logs in the open fireplace and a good many
+lights, and Eloquent, coming out of the soft darkness of that winter
+afternoon, felt dazzled and intolerably hot.
+
+The four people he saw first suddenly seemed to recede to an
+immeasurable distance, and he became conscious of others whom he could
+not focus.  His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he was
+conscious that at his entrance dead silence had fallen upon the group
+by the fire.  Then Mrs Ffolliot rose and held out a kind fair hand to
+him, and said something that he could not hear.  Somehow he reached the
+succouring hand and clung to it like a drowning man, mumbling the
+while, "Sorry to intrude upon you, but one of your sons"--again the
+name eluded him--"has broken his arm, and he's in my aunt's cottage."
+
+"Look at Ganpie's tea!" exclaimed a shrill clear voice, and the Kitten
+diverted attention from Eloquent to the General, who was calmly pouring
+the tea from his newly filled cup upon the bear-skin hearthrug, as he
+gazed fixedly at this bringer of ill-tidings.
+
+Eloquent could never remember clearly what happened between the dual
+announcement of the accident and the spilling of the General's tea,
+till the moment when he found himself sitting on the settle beside Mrs
+Grantly with a cup of tea of his own, which Mary had poured out.
+Everyone else seemed to have melted away, Mrs Ffolliot to telephone to
+the doctor, the General to order his motor, the Kitten and Ger to the
+nursery, and the rest of the party to the four winds.
+
+But he, Mrs Grantly, and Mary were still sitting at the fire, and Mary
+had asked him if he took sugar.
+
+"Two lumps," he said.
+
+"So do I," said Mary, and it seemed a most wonderful coincidence of
+kindred tastes.
+
+In thinking it over afterwards it struck him that the whole family took
+the accident very coolly.  There was no fuss, very little exclamation;
+and to Eloquent, sitting as a guest in that old hall where, as a small
+boy, he had sometimes peeped wonderingly, there came a curious feeling
+that either he had dreamt of this moment or that it had all happened
+aeons of ages ago, and that if it was a dream then Mary was in a dream
+too, that he had always wanted her, been conscious of her, only then
+she was an immense way off; vaguely beautiful and desirable, but set in
+a luminous haze of impossibilities, remote, apart as a star.
+
+Now she was friendly and approachable, only a few yards away, looking
+across at him with frank kind eyes and the firelight shining on her
+bright hair.
+
+The time seemed all too short till Mrs Ffolliot, dressed for driving,
+in a long fur coat, came back to tell them that the doctor was at a
+case five miles off, at a house where there was no telephone, and that
+she had arranged to take Buz into the Marlehouse Infirmary to have the
+arm set there, and, if necessary, he must stay there till he could be
+moved. . . .
+
+"Could they drive Mr Gallup back?"
+
+So there was nothing for it but to accompany the General and Mrs
+Ffolliot.
+
+Mr Ffolliot did not appear at all.
+
+General Grantly went outside with the chauffeur, and Eloquent again
+experienced the queer dream-like sense of doing again something he had
+done already as he followed Mrs Ffolliot into the motor.  He had never
+lost his awestruck admiration for her, and it never occurred to him to
+sit down at her side.  He was about to put down one of the little seats
+and sit on that, when she said, "Oh, please, sit here, Mr Gallup," and
+he sank into the seat beside her, confused and tremulous.  Mary and Mrs
+Grantly had come into the porch with them, and stood there now calling
+out all sorts of messages and questions.  The inner door stood open,
+and the hall shone bright behind them.
+
+The motor purred and slid swiftly down the drive.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot switched off the light behind her head, and Eloquent
+became conscious of a soft pervading scent of violets.  The twenty
+years that lay between her first visit to his father's shop and this
+wonderful new nearness seemed to him but as one short link in a chain
+of inevitable circumstances.  Like a picture thrown on a screen he saw
+the little boy standing at her knee, the giggling shop assistants, and
+his father flushed and triumphant.  And he knew that through all the
+years he had always been sure that such a moment as this would come,
+when he would sit beside her as an equal and a friend. . . .  And here
+he was, sitting with her in her father's motor, sharing the same fur
+rug.  What was she saying?
+
+Something kind about the trouble he had taken . . . and the motor
+stopped at his aunt's gate.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Uz was in the midst of a large bite of plum-cake when Eloquent
+announced his errand.  Uz hastily took another bite, and just as the
+Kitten drew attention to her grandfather's tea he quietly opened the
+door of the hall, shut it after him softly, did the same by the front
+door, and hatless, coatless, and in his pumps--for his boots were
+exceedingly dirty, and Nana had caught him and turned him back to
+change before tea--he started down the drive at a good swinging run.
+His wind was excellent, and he reached Miss Gallup's gate in about five
+minutes.  Only once had he stopped, when the piece of cake he was
+carrying broke off short and dropped in the mud; he peered about for it
+during some four seconds, then gave it up and ran on.
+
+The lamp was lit in Miss Gallup's sitting-room, but the blind was not
+pulled down.  He looked in at the window and saw his brother lying on
+the sofa under the eiderdown, opened the front door--no one ever locks
+a door in Redmarley unless they go out, and then the key is always
+under the scraper--and walked in.
+
+"Hullo," said Buz; "isn't this rotten?"
+
+"Little man's just come, so I did a bunk.  I didn't wait to hear his
+revelations about the lovely suffragette----"
+
+"I don't believe he'll tell," Buz said; "he's not a bad little chap, he
+wasn't a bit shirty, helped me out of those beastly clothes and never
+said a word; took them with him too, so's they shouldn't be found here.
+I say, by the way, tell Adele to get the jacket mended and I'll pay it
+whenever I can get any money.  I'm frightfully sorry about that--he cut
+the sleeve right up to get my arm out.  Who got the togs?"
+
+"I don't know, he hadn't 'em when he came in----"
+
+"Gave 'em to Fusby, I expect; he'll see they're properly
+distributed----"
+
+"What happened, did you have a lark?"
+
+"He rose like anything," Buz chuckled delightedly.  "Chuck us your
+handkerchief, old chap, mine's in that coat--I'm only sorry for one
+thing."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I told him if he wouldn't declare for Votes for Women he'd better put
+up his shutters, and I know he thought I meant to rub it in about his
+father's shop--I didn't, it would have been beastly; but I'm certain he
+thought so by the way he flushed up.  He's a game little beggar, he
+wouldn't give in, or palaver or promise. . . .  Hullo, here's two more
+of the family----"
+
+The two more were Reggie Peel and Grantly.  The Ffolliots were not
+demonstrative, but they always shared good-luck or ill, therefore
+Reggie and Grantly made a bee-line for Miss Gallup's cottage whenever
+they understood what had happened.  They knew nothing of Miss
+Buttermish, and neither of the younger boys enlightened them.
+
+Miss Gallup returned to find her parlour full of Ffolliots; and just
+after her came her nephew, accompanied by General Grantly and Mrs
+Ffolliot, who bore Buz away in the motor to Marlehouse wrapped in a
+blanket and with the broken arm in a sling.
+
+When they had all gone--the motor towards Marlehouse, the three others
+to the Manor--Eloquent stood at the open gate for a minute or two and
+then went out, shutting it after him very softly, so that neither the
+three walking up the road, nor his aunt waiting at her open door,
+should hear.  Then he, too, set off in the direction of Marlehouse.  He
+had no intention whatever of walking there, but he could not face his
+aunt just then, nor bear the torrent of questions and comments that he
+knew would submerge him.
+
+The last hour had been for him an epoch-making, a profound experience,
+and he wanted, as his aunt would have said, "to squeege his orange dry."
+
+A course of action intensely irritating to Miss Gallup, who awaited his
+return, after seeing the Ffolliots off, with the utmost impatience.
+
+"Wherever could he have got to?"
+
+Em'ly-Alice, however, was longing to be questioned, and Miss Gallup
+indulged her.
+
+"How did the poor young gentleman break his arm?"
+
+"Fell off 'is bike, 'e did, and it must 'ave bin but a minute or two
+after the young lady'd gone----
+
+"Young lady!  What young lady?" Miss Gallup demanded sternly.
+
+"A young lady as come to see Mr Gallup.  Miss Buttermish was 'er name;
+I remember it most pertikler, because I thought what a funny name."
+
+"Buttermish, Buttermish," Miss Gallup repeated; "where did she come
+from?"
+
+"That I can't tell you, Miss; I was in the kitchen polishing the teapot
+for your tea when there comes a knock at the door, and when I opens it,
+there stood the young lady.  'Can I see Mr Gallup?' she says, and
+knowing he was in the parlour I as't her in.  She didn't stop long and
+no sooner was she gone than I hears Mr Gallup runnin' upstairs an' in
+and out, and presently 'e called out, 'Master Ffolliot's broken 'is
+arm,' and went off in ever such an 'urry.  I see 'im run down the
+garden, and 'e 'ad 'is portmanteau in 'is 'and----"
+
+"Nonsense," Miss Gallup said crossly; "what would he be doing with a
+portmanteau?"
+
+"That I can't say, mum, but 'e 'ad it, and when 'e'd gone I took the
+lamp in to the poor young gentleman wot was lyin' all 'uddled up on the
+sofa--'e said 'thank you' in a muffled voice that mournful, and I made
+up the fire and waited a minute but 'e didn't say no more, so I come
+away, an' in a few minutes the 'ouse seemed chock-full o' people.
+Where they come from passes me----"
+
+"Well, get tea now, as quick as you can.  I can't think where Mr Gallup
+can have got to."
+
+Miss Gallup lit a candle and went straight upstairs to her nephew's
+room.  His clothes were still in the drawers as she, herself, had
+arranged them--but the suit-case, the smart new leather suit-case, with
+E. A. G. in large black letters upon its lid, was gone.
+
+Miss Gallup sank heavily on a chair.  What could it mean?
+
+She immediately connected the advent of the strange young lady and the
+disappearance of her nephew's suit-case.
+
+She took off her bonnet and cloak and did not put them away, but left
+them lying on her bed; a sure sign of perturbation with Miss Gallup,
+who was the tidiest of mortals.
+
+She sought Em'ly-Alice in the bright little kitchen.  "What was the
+young lady like?" she asked.
+
+"Oh a superior young person, Miss, all in black."
+
+"Young, was she?" Miss Gallup remarked suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, Miss, quite young, I should say--about my own age; I couldn't see
+'er face very well, but she did talk like the gentry, very soft and
+distinct."
+
+"Did Mr Gallup seem pleased to see her?"
+
+"That I couldn't say, Miss, I'm sure.  I left 'em together and come out
+and shut the door."
+
+Miss Gallup went back to the parlour shaking her head.
+
+"There's a lot of them will be after him now 'e's stood for
+Parliament," she reflected grimly; "but I did _not_ think they'd have
+the face to track him to his aunt's house.  She's hanging about the
+lanes for him now I'll warrant.  Miss Buttermish indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ELECTION
+
+Eloquent had taken a small furnished house in Marlehouse, and was
+installed there with a housekeeper and manservant for the fortnight
+preceding the election.  The Moonstone, chief, and in fact only, hotel
+in the town, was "blue," and although the proprietor would have been
+glad enough to secure Eloquent's custom, it was felt better "for all
+parties" that he should make his headquarters elsewhere.  He worked
+hard and unceasingly, his agent was equally tireless, and it was only
+at the last that Mr Brooke's supporters awoke to the fact that if he
+was to represent Marlehouse again no stone should be left unturned.
+But it was too late: Mr Brooke, elderly, amiable, and lethargic, was
+quite incapable of either directing or controlling his more ardent
+supporters, and their efforts on his behalf were singularly devoid of
+tact.  The Tory and Unionist ladies were grievous offenders in this
+respect.  They started a house-to-house canvass in the town, and those
+possessed of carriages or motors parcelled out the surrounding villages
+and "did" them, their methods being the reverse of conciliatory.
+Indeed, had Mr Brooke in the smallest degree realised how these zealous
+supporters were injuring his cause, his smiling optimism would have
+been sadly shaken.
+
+The day after the accident Eloquent called at Marlehouse Infirmary to
+ask for Buz, and was informed that the arm had been set successfully,
+that it was a bad break, but that the Rontgen rays had been used, and
+it was going on satisfactorily.
+
+He wondered if he ought to send flowers or fruit to the invalid, but a
+vivid recollection of the look in Buz's eyes as he watched him pack his
+suit-case decided him that any such manifestation of sympathy would be
+unsuitable.  He then, although he was so rushed that he could hardly
+overtake his engagements, hired a motor to drive out to the Manor
+House, and so hurried the chauffeur that they fell straightway into a
+police trap and were "warned."
+
+He asked for Mrs Ffolliot, and Fusby blandly informed him that she was
+in Marlehouse with Master Buz.
+
+"Is Miss Ffolliot at home?" Eloquent asked boldly.
+
+"Miss Ffolliot is out huntin' with the young gentlemen," Fusby remarked
+stiffly.
+
+So Eloquent was fain to get into his motor again, and quite forgot to
+look in on his aunt on the way back.
+
+The night before the election there was a Liberal meeting in the Town
+Hall, and a certain section of the Tory party, a youthful and
+irresponsible section it must be confessed, had arranged to attend the
+meeting, and if possible bring it to nought.  The ringleader in this
+scheme was a young man named Rabbich, whose people some years before
+had bought a large property in a village about four miles from
+Redmarley.
+
+Mr Rabbich, senr., was an extremely wealthy man with many irons in the
+fire, a man so busy that he found little time to look after either his
+property or his family, and though he, himself, was generally declared
+to be a "very decent sort" with no nonsense or "side" about him, and of
+a praiseworthy liberality in the matter of subscriptions, his wife and
+children did not find equal favour either in the eyes of the villagers
+or those of his neighbours.
+
+Mrs Rabbich was a foolish woman whose fetich was society with a big
+"S," and she idolised her only son, a rather vacuous youth who had just
+managed to scrape into Sandhurst.
+
+On the night before the election then, young Rabbich gave a dinner at
+the Moonstone to some twenty youths of his own age, and Grantly
+Ffolliot was of the party.  Grantly did not like young Rabbich, and as
+a rule steered clear of him in the hunting-field and elsewhere, though
+civil enough if actually brought into contact with him.  But though
+Grantly did not like young Rabbich, he dearly loved any form of "rag,"
+and as party feeling ran very high just then, the chance of disturbing
+the last Liberal meeting before the election was far too entrancing to
+be missed.  He obtained his father's permission to go to the dinner (Mr
+Ffolliot was never difficult when his sons asked for permission to go
+from home), told his mother he would be late, obtained the key of the
+side door from Fusby, and quite unintentionally left his family under
+the impression that he was dining at the Rabbich's.
+
+Mine host of the Moonstone provided an excellent dinner, and young
+Rabbich kept calling for more champagne, so that it was a very
+hilarious and somewhat unsteady party that presently, in a solid
+phalanx, got wedged in at the very back of the Town Hall, which was
+filled to overflowing.  Twenty noisy young men in evening clothes, and
+all together, made a fairly conspicuous feature in the meeting, and the
+crowd, which was almost wholly Liberal in its sympathies, guessed they
+were out for trouble.
+
+During the first couple of speeches, which were short and introductory,
+they were fairly quiet, only indulging in occasional derisive comments.
+When Eloquent arose to address the meeting he was greeted by such a
+storm of cheering from his supporters, as quite drowned the hisses and
+cat-calls of the "knuts" at the back of the hall.
+
+But when he started to speak, their interruptions were incessant,
+irrelevant, and in the case of young Rabbich, offensive.
+
+Eloquent, who was long-sighted, clearly perceived Grantly Ffolliot,
+flushed, with rumpled hair and gesticulating arms, in the group at the
+back of the hall.  Young Rabbich, whose father had made the greater
+part of his money in butter and bacon, kept urging Eloquent to "go back
+to the shop," inquired the present price of socks and pyjamas, and
+whether the clothes he wore just then were made in Germany?
+
+Eloquent saw Grantly Ffolliot frown and say something to his companion
+as young Rabbich continued his questions, and then quite suddenly the
+whole of that end of the hall was in a turmoil, and one by one the
+interrupters were hauled from their seats and forcibly ejected from the
+meeting, in spite of desperate resistance on their part.  After that,
+peace was restored, and Eloquent continued his speech amidst the
+greatest enthusiasm.
+
+His supporters cheered him to his house, and then departed to parade
+the town, while their band played "Hearts of Oak," the chosen war-song
+of the "Yallows."  Meanwhile the Rabbich party had returned to the
+Moonstone to compare their bruises and to get more drinks, and then
+they sallied forth again to join a "Blue" procession, headed by a band
+that played "Bonnie Dundee," which is the battle-cry of the Blues.
+
+The rival bands met, the rival processions met and locked, and there
+was a regular shindy.  Eloquent, very tired and rather depressed, as a
+man usually is on the eve of any great struggle, heard the distant
+tumult and the shouting, and thought he had better go out and see what
+was afoot.
+
+He had hardly got outside his own front door, which was in a
+little-frequented street not far from the police-station, when he saw
+two policemen on either side of a hatless, dishevelled, and unsteady
+youth, who held one of them affectionately by the arm while the other
+held him.
+
+Another glance and he perceived that the hatless one was Grantly
+Ffolliot.
+
+"Hullo!" cried Eloquent, "what's to do here?"
+
+"Gentleman very disorderly, sir, throwing stones at windows of your
+committee-room, fighting and brawling, and resisted violently--so we're
+taking him to the station."
+
+"He seems quiet enough now," Eloquent suggested.
+
+Grantly smiled at him sleepily.  "Good chaps, policemen," he murmured;
+"fine beefy chaps."
+
+"Look here," said Eloquent, "I'd much prefer you didn't charge him.
+His people are well known; it will only create ill-feeling.  I'll look
+after him if you leave him with me."
+
+The policemen looked at one another. . . .  "Of course," said the one
+to whom Grantly clung so lovingly, "we couldn't swear as it was him who
+threw the stones, though he was among them as did."
+
+"He's only a boy," Eloquent continued, "and he's drunk . . . it would
+be a pity to make a public example of him . . . just now--don't you
+think?--If you could oblige me in this . . .  I'm very anxious that the
+election should be fought with as little ill-feeling as possible."
+
+Something changed hands.
+
+"What about the other young gentlemen, sir?" asked the younger
+policeman.
+
+"With the other young gentlemen," Eloquent said ruthlessly, "you can
+deal exactly as you please, but if it can be managed don't charge any
+of them."
+
+With difficulty policeman number one detached himself from Grantly's
+embrace and handed him over to Eloquent.
+
+"Good-bye, old chap," Grantly called fondly as his late prop departed,
+"when I'm as heavy as you, you won't cop me so easy--eh, what?"
+
+Eloquent took the boy firmly by the arm and led him in.  His steps were
+uncertain and his speech was thick, but he was quite biddable, and
+brimming over with loving kindness for all the world.
+
+Eloquent took him into the sitting-room and placed him in a large
+arm-chair.  Grantly pushed his hair off his forehead and gazed about
+the room in rather bewildered fashion, at the round table strewn with
+papers, at the tray with a glass of milk and plate of sandwiches
+standing on the bare little sideboard, at his pale, fagged host, who
+stood on the hearthrug looking down at him.
+
+As he met Eloquent's stern gaze he smiled sweetly at him, and he was so
+like Mary when he smiled that Eloquent turned his eyes away in very
+shame.  It seemed sacrilege even to think of her in connection with
+anything so degraded and disgusting as Grantly's state appeared to him
+at that moment.  His Nonconformist conscience awoke and fairly shouted
+at him that he should have interfered to prevent the just retribution
+that had overtaken this miserable misguided boy . . . but he was her
+brother; he was the son of that gracious lady who was set as a fixed
+star in the firmament of his admirations; he could not hold back when
+there was a chance of saving him from this disgrace.  For to be charged
+with being "drunk and disorderly" in the Police Court appeared to
+Eloquent just then as the lowest depths of ignominy.
+
+"Now what in the world," he asked presently, "am I to do with you?  You
+can't go home in that state."
+
+"Bed, my dear chap, bed's what I'm for, . . . so sleepy, can hardly
+hold up my head . . . any shake-down'll do----"
+
+Grantly's head fell back against the chair, and he closed his eyes in
+proof of his somnolence.
+
+"All right," said Eloquent, "you come with me."
+
+With some difficulty he got Grantly upstairs and into his own room.
+Before the meeting he had told the servants they need not sit up for
+him; his own was the only other bed made up in the house.  Grantly lay
+down upon it, muddy boots and all, and turned sideways with a sigh of
+satisfaction; but just before he settled off he opened his eyes and
+said warningly:
+
+"I say, if I was you I wouldn't go about with young Rabbich--he's a
+wrong 'un--you may take it from me, he really is--he'll do you no
+good--Don't you be seen about with him."
+
+"Thank you," Eloquent said dryly, "I will follow your advice."
+
+"That's right," Grantly murmured, "never be 'bove taking advice."
+
+And in another minute he was fast asleep.  Eloquent covered him with a
+railway rug, thinking grimly the while that it seemed to have become
+his mission in life to cover up prostrated Ffolliots.
+
+He went downstairs, made up the fire, and lay down on the hard sofa in
+his dining-room, and slept an intermittent feverish sleep, in which
+dreadful visions of Mary between two policemen, mingled with the
+declaration of the poll, which proclaimed Mr Brooke to have been
+elected member for Marlehouse by an enormous majority.
+
+At six o'clock he got up.  In half an hour his servants would be
+stirring, and Grantly must be got out of the house before they appeared.
+
+He went to the kitchen, got a little teapot and cups, and made some
+tea.  Then he went to rouse Grantly.
+
+This was difficult, as he couldn't raise his voice very much because of
+the servants, and Grantly was sleeping heavily.  At last, by a series
+of shakes and soft punches, he succeeded in making him open his eyes.
+Eloquent had already turned up the gas, and the room was full of light.
+
+There is a theory extant that a man shows his real character when he is
+suddenly aroused out of sleep.  That if he is naturally surly, he will
+be surly then; if he is of an amiable disposition, he is good-natured
+then.
+
+Grantly sat up with a start and swung his feet off the bed.  "Mr
+Gallup," he said very gently, "I can't exactly remember what I'm doing
+here, but I do apologise."
+
+"That's all right," Eloquent said awkwardly.  "I thought perhaps you'd
+like to get home before the servants were about, and it's six o'clock.
+Come and have a cup of tea."
+
+"May I wash my face?" Grantly asked meekly.
+
+This accomplished, he went downstairs and drank the cup of tea Eloquent
+had provided for him.  His host lent him a bicycle and speeded him on
+his way.  At the door Grantly paused to say in a mumbling voice: "I
+don't know, sir, why you've been so awfully decent to me, but will you
+remember this? that if ever I can do anything for you, it would be very
+generous of you to tell me--will you remember this?"
+
+"I will remember," said Eloquent.
+
+As Grantly rode away Eloquent was filled with self-reproach, for he had
+not said one word either of warning or rebuke, and he had been brought
+up to believe in the value of "the word in season."
+
+Grantly pedalled as hard as he could through the dark deserted roads,
+and though his head was racking and he felt, as he put it, "like
+nothing on earth," he covered the five miles between Marlehouse and
+Redmarley in under half an hour.  He went round to the side door and
+felt for the key, as he hoped to slip in without meeting any of the
+servants who were, he saw by stray lights, just astir.
+
+That key was nowhere to be found.
+
+He tried every pocket in his overcoat, his tail coat, his white
+waistcoat, his trousers, all in vain.  That key was gone; lost!
+
+There was nothing for it but to try Mary's window.  Parker slept in her
+room, but Parker would never bark at any member of the family.  All the
+bedroom windows at Redmarley were lattice, and Mary's, at the back of
+the house on the first floor, stood open about a foot.
+
+"Parker," Grantly called softly, "Parker, old chap, rouse her up and
+ask her to let me in."
+
+An old wistaria grew under the window with thick knotted stems.
+Grantly climbed up this, and although it was very dark he was aware of
+something dimly white at the window.  Parker, much longer in the leg
+than any well-bred fox-terrier has a right to be, was standing on his
+hind legs thrusting his head out in silent welcome.
+
+"Go and rouse her up, old chap," Grantly whispered.  "I want her to
+open the window wide enough for me to get through."
+
+All the windows at the Manor House, open or shut, had patent catches
+that it was impossible to undo from the outside.
+
+He heard Parker jump on Mary's bed and probably lick her face, then a
+sleepy "What is it, old dog, what's the matter?" and a soft movement as
+Mary raised herself on her elbow and switched on the light.
+
+"Mary," in a penetrating whisper, "let me in, I've lost that confounded
+key."
+
+In a moment Mary was over at the window, undid the catches, and Grantly
+scrambled through.
+
+"Grantly!" Mary exclaimed.  "What on earth is the matter?  You look
+awful."
+
+Grantly caught sight of himself in her long glass and agreed with her.
+
+He was covered with mud from head to foot, his overcoat was torn, his
+white tie was gone, his beautiful smooth hair, with the neat ripple at
+the temples, stood on end in ragged locks; in fact he was as unlike the
+"Knut" of ordinary life as he could well be.
+
+"Get into bed, Mary," he said, "you'll catch cold . . ."
+
+Mary, looking very tall in her straight white nightgown, turned slowly
+and got into bed.  "Now tell me," she said.
+
+Grantly went and sat at the end of her bed and Parker joined him,
+cuddling up against him and trying to lick his face.  It mattered
+nothing to Parker that he was ragged and dirty and disreputable;
+nothing that he might have committed any crime in the rogues' calendar.
+He was one of the family, he was home, he had evidently been in
+trouble, he needed comfort, therefore Parker made much of him.  Grantly
+felt this and was vaguely cheered.
+
+"Now," said Mary again, and switched off the light; "you can have the
+eiderdown if you're cold."
+
+"Well, if you must know," said Grantly, "we went to the Radical meeting
+and got chucked out."
+
+"Who went?  I thought you were dining with the Rabbiches."
+
+"Not _the_ Rabbiches, _a_ Rabbich, and an insufferable bounder at that;
+but he gave us a jolly good dinner, champagne flowed."
+
+"And you got drunk?  Oh, Grantly!"
+
+"Well, no; I shouldn't describe it thus crudely--like the Irishman, I
+prefer to say 'having drink taken.'"
+
+"Well, 'having drink taken'--then?"
+
+"After we were chucked out for interrupting (it _was_ a rag) we went
+back to the Moonstone."
+
+"To the Moonstone," Mary repeated; "why there?"
+
+"Because we dined there, my dear.  Young Rabbich gave the feast; it was
+all arranged beforehand.  We meant to spoil that meeting, but we began
+too soon, and they were too strong for us, and . . . he's an ass, and
+shouted out all sorts of things he shouldn't--we deserved what we got."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I'm not very clear what happened then, except that there was the most
+tremendous shindy in the street, and fur was flying like anything, and
+the next I know was two bobbies had got me, and your friend Gallup
+squared them and took me home and put me to bed . . . and here I am."
+
+"Mr Gallup," Mary repeated incredulously; "you've been to bed in his
+house?"
+
+"You've got it, my sister; lay on his bed just as I am . . . and he
+woke me at six and sent me home on his bicycle."
+
+"But why--why should he have interfered?  I should have thought he'd
+have been _glad_ for you to be taken up, interrupting his meeting and
+being on the other side . . . and everything."
+
+"Well, anyway, that's what he did, and whatever his motives may have
+been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered
+his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or
+exhortation . . .  I tell you he behaved like a gentleman.  What's to
+be done?"
+
+"Nothing," said Mary decidedly.  "You've played the fool, and by the
+mercy of Providence you've got off uncommonly cheap.  It would worry
+mother horribly if she knew, and as for father . . . well you know what
+_he_ thinks of people who can't carry their liquor like gentlemen, and
+grandfather too . . . and . . . oh, Grantly--father's not going South
+till the very end of January; he decided to-night that as the weather
+was so mild he'd wait till then.  So it would _never_ do if it was to
+come out, your life would be unbearable, all of our lives; he'd say it
+was the Grantly strain coming out--you know how he blames every bit of
+bad in us on mother's people."
+
+"I know," groaned Grantly, "I know."
+
+"Well, anyway," Mary said in quite a different tone, "there's one thing
+we've got to remember, and that is we must be uncommonly civil to that
+young man if we happen to meet him--he's put us under an obligation."
+
+"I know . . . I know, that's what I feel, and I shall never have an
+easy minute till I've done something for him . . . and I don't see
+anything I can do with the pater like he is and all.  Isn't it a
+_beastly_ state of things?"
+
+In the darkness Mary leant forward and stroked the tousled head bent
+down over Parker.
+
+"Poor old boy," she said softly, "poor old boy," and Parker licked
+something that tasted salt off the end of his nose.
+
+When Grantly left his sister's room Parker went with him.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Eloquent's housekeeper found the missing key under his bed, and he sent
+it out to the Manor House that morning, addressed to Grantly, in a
+sealed envelope by special messenger.
+
+In the evening the poll was declared in Marlehouse, and the Liberal
+candidate was elected by a majority of three hundred and forty-nine
+votes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+OF THINGS IN GENERAL
+
+The result of the election was no surprise to the defeated party.  The
+honest among them acknowledged that they deserved to be beaten, and
+they felt no personal rancour against Eloquent.
+
+If Marlehouse was unfortunate enough to be represented by a Radical,
+they preferred that the Radical should be a Marlehouse man and not some
+"carpet-bagger" imported from South Wales.  Eloquent's bearing, both
+during the contest and afterwards, was acknowledged to be modest and
+"suitable."  If he was lacking in geniality and address, he was, at all
+events, neither bumptious nor servile.  His lenity towards the youths
+who had done their best to break up his meeting and wreck his committee
+rooms had leaked out, and gained for him, if not friends, at least
+toleration among several leading Conservatives who had been his
+bitterest opponents.
+
+Mary, Grantly, and Buz Ffolliot all felt a sneaking satisfaction that
+he _had_ got in.  A satisfaction they in no wise dared to express, for
+Mr Ffolliot was really much upset at the result of the election;
+feeling it something of a personal insult that one so closely
+associated with a ready-made clothes' shop, a shop in his own nearest
+town, should represent him in Parliament.  Mr Ffolliot would have
+preferred the "carpet-bagger."
+
+Mary, who cared as little as she knew about politics, was pleased.
+Because Eloquent had been "decent" to Grantly, she was glad he had got
+what he wanted, though why he should ardently desire that particular
+thing she did not attempt to understand.  Grantly was sincerely
+grateful to Eloquent for getting him out of what would undoubtedly have
+been a most colossal row, had any hint of his conduct at Marlehouse on
+the eve of the election reached his father's ears.
+
+Neither Grantly nor Mary knew anything of the Miss Buttermish episode.
+For Buz, since the accident, was basking in the sympathy of his family,
+and had no intention of diverting the stream of favours that flowed
+over him by any revelations they might not wholly approve.  Buz,
+therefore, had his own reasons, unshared by anyone but Uz (who was
+silent as the grave in all that concerned his twin), for gratitude to
+Eloquent.  Grantly and Buz unconsciously shared a rather unwilling
+admiration for the little, common-looking man who could do a good turn
+and hold his tongue, evidently expecting neither recognition nor
+remembrance.  For Eloquent expected neither, and yet he could not
+forget the real earnestness of Grantly Ffolliot's parting words.
+
+Could such a foolish youth be trusted to mean what he said? or was it
+only the surface courtesy that seemed to come so easily to the
+"classes" Eloquent still regarded with mistrust and suspicion?
+
+He longed to test Grantly Ffolliot.
+
+An opportunity came sooner than he expected.  Parliament did not meet
+till the end of the month, and although he went to London a good deal
+on varied business, he kept on the little house in his native town,
+wrote liberal cheques for all the charities, opened a Baptist bazaar,
+and generally did his duty according to his lights and the instructions
+of his agent.
+
+In the third week of January he was asked to "kick off" at a "soccer"
+match to be held in Marlehouse.  This was rather an event, as two
+important teams from a distance were for some reason or other to play
+there.  The Marlehouse folk played "Rugger" as a rule, but this match
+was regarded in the light of a curiosity; people would come in from
+miles round, and hordes of mechanics would flock over from Garchester,
+the county town.  It was considered quite a big sporting event, and his
+agent informed Eloquent that a great honour had been done him.
+
+Eloquent appeared duly impressed and accepted the invitation.
+
+Then it occurred to him that never in his life had he seen a football
+match of any kind.
+
+Games were not compulsory at the Grammar School, and Eloquent had no
+natural inclination to play them.  When a little boy he had generally
+gone for a walk with his father or his aunt on a half-holiday.  As he
+grew older he either attended extra classes at the science school or
+read for himself notable books bearing upon the political history of
+the last fifty years.  Games had no place in his scheme of existence.
+His father, most certainly, had never played games and had no desire
+that Eloquent should do so; as for going to watch other people play
+them--such a proceeding would have been dismissed by the elder Mr
+Gallup as "foolhardy nonsense."  Serious-minded men had no time for
+such frivolity.
+
+Nevertheless it became increasingly evident to Eloquent that a large
+number of his constituents--whether they actually took part in what he
+persisted in calling "these pastimes" or not--were very keenly
+interested in watching others do so, and Eloquent was consumed by
+anxiety as to how he was to discover what it was he was expected to do.
+
+There were plenty of his political supporters who were not only able
+but would have been most willing to solve his difficulty, but he
+dreaded the inevitable confession of his ignorance.  They would be kind
+enough, he was sure of that, but would they make game of his ignorance
+afterwards?  Would they _talk_?
+
+He was pretty sure they would.
+
+Eloquent hated talk.  Grantly and Buz Ffolliot had each recognised and
+admired that quality in him, and it is possible that he had vaguely
+discerned a kindred reticence in these feather-brained boys.
+
+He distrusted all his political allies in Marlehouse in this matter of
+the kick-off.
+
+Why then should Grantly Ffolliot occur to him as a person able and
+likely to help him in this dilemma?
+
+He was pretty sure that Grantly played football.  Soldiers did these
+things, and Grantly was going to be a soldier.  A soldier, in
+Eloquent's mind, epitomised all that was useless, idle, luxurious, and
+destructive.  Mr Gallup and his friends had disapproved of the
+Transvaal War; our reverses did not affect them personally, for they
+had no friends at the front, and our long-deferred victories left them
+cold.  The flame of Eloquent's enthusiasm was fanned at school, only to
+be quenched at home by the wet blanket of his father's disapproval.
+Sturdy Miss Gallup snapped at them both, and knitted helmets and
+mittens and sent socks and handkerchiefs and cocoa to the Redmarley men
+in South Africa; and her brother gave her the socks and handkerchiefs
+out of stock, but under protest.
+
+Eloquent knew no soldiers, either officers or in the ranks.  He had
+been taught to look upon the private as almost always drawn from the
+less reputable of the working classes, and although he acknowledged
+that officers might, some of them, be hard-working and intelligent, he
+was inclined to regard them with suspicion.
+
+Suppose he did ask Grantly Ffolliot about this ridiculous kick-off, and
+Grantly went about making fun of him afterwards?
+
+"Then I shall know," he said to himself.  All the same it appeared to
+him that Grantly Ffolliot was the only possible person _to_ ask.
+
+It came about quite easily.  One morning he was coming down the steps
+of the bank in Marlehouse and saw Grantly on horseback waiting at the
+curb till someone should turn up to hold his horse while he went in.
+He had ridden in to cash a cheque for his mother.  The main street was
+very empty and no available loafer was to be seen.
+
+As Grantly caught sight of Eloquent descending the steps he smiled his
+charming smile.  "Hullo, I've never seen you since the election.
+Heartiest grats," the boy called cheerily.  Eloquent went up to him and
+held out his hand.  He looked up and down the street, no one was within
+earshot.  "I've a favour to ask you, Mr Ffolliot," he said in a low
+tone, "but you must promise to refuse at once if you have any
+objection."
+
+Grantly leant down to him, smiling more broadly than ever.  "That's
+awfully decent of you," he said, and he meant it.
+
+Again Eloquent cast an anxious look up and down the street.  "They've
+asked me to kick-off at the match on Saturday, and . . . you'll think
+me extraordinarily ignorant . . .  I've no idea what one does.  Can I
+learn in the time?"
+
+Eloquent's always rosy face was almost purple with the effort he had
+made.
+
+Grantly, on the contrary, appeared quite unmoved.  He fixed his eyes on
+his horse's left ear and said easily: "It's the simplest thing in the
+world.  All we want is a field and a ball, and we've got both at home.
+At least . . . not a soccer ball--but I don't think that matters.  When
+will you come?"
+
+"When may I come?"
+
+"Meet me this afternoon in the field next but one behind the church.
+There's never anyone there, and we'll fix it up."
+
+"All right," said Eloquent.  "Many thanks . . .  I suppose you think it
+very absurd?" he added nervously.
+
+This time Grantly did not look at Mafeking's left ear, he looked
+straight into Eloquent's uplifted eyes, saying slowly:
+
+"I don't see that I'm called upon to think anything about it.  You've
+done another kind thing in asking me.  Why should you think I don't see
+it?"
+
+And in spite of himself Eloquent mumbled, "I beg your pardon."
+
+"This afternoon then, at three-thirty sharp--good-day."
+
+A loafer hurried up at this moment and Grantly swung off his horse and
+ran up the steps into the bank.
+
+Eloquent looked after the graceful figure in the well-cut riding
+clothes and sighed--
+
+"If I'd been like himself he'd have asked me to hold his horse while he
+went in, but things being as they are, he wouldn't," he reflected
+bitterly.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Only one belonging to a large family knows how difficult it is to do
+anything by one's self.
+
+That afternoon it seemed to Grantly that each member of the Manor House
+party wanted him for something, and he offended every one of them by
+ungraciously refusing to accompany each one in turn.
+
+His mother and Mary were driving into Marlehouse and wanted him to come
+and hold the horse while they went into the different shops, but he
+excused himself on the score of his morning's errand, and Uz was told
+off for the duty, greatly to his disgust.  Reggie asked Grantly to ride
+with him, but Grantly complained of fatigue, and Reggie, who knew
+perfectly well that the excuse was invalid, called him a slacker and
+started forth huffily alone, mentally animadverting on the "edge"
+displayed by the new type of cadet.
+
+Nearly ten years' service gave Reggie the right to talk regretfully of
+the stern school he had been brought up in.
+
+Ger, on the previous day, had been sent to his grandparents at Woolwich
+"by command"; and the Kitten was going with Thirza to a children's
+party.  She was therefore made to lie down for an hour after lunch--so
+she was disposed of.  There remained only Buz, and Buz was on the prowl
+seeking someone to amuse him.  His arm was still in a sling and he
+expected sympathy.  He shadowed Grantly till nearly half-past three,
+when that gentleman appeared in the back passage clad in sweater and
+shorts, with a Rugger ball under his arm.
+
+"Hullo," cried Buz, "where are you off to?"
+
+"I'm going to practise drop-kicks . . . by myself," Grantly answered
+grumpily.
+
+"Why can't I come?  I could kick even if I can't use this beastly arm."
+
+"No, it's too cold for you to stand about."
+
+"Bosh; I can wrap myself in a railway rug if it comes to that."
+
+"It needn't come to that.  You go for a sharp walk or else take a book
+and amuse yourself.  I must be off."
+
+"Well you _are_ a selfish curmudgeon," Buz exclaimed in real
+astonishment.  "Why this sudden passion for solitude?"
+
+Grantly banged the door in Buz's face, regardless of the warning cards,
+and set off to run.  Buz opened the door and looked after him, noted
+the direction, nodded his head thrice and nipped upstairs to Grantly's
+room, where he abstracted his field-glasses from their case hanging on
+a peg behind the door.  He hung them round his neck by the short black
+strap, tied a sweater over his shoulders, and went out by the side door
+in quite a different direction from that taken by his brother.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Oblivious of the surgeon's strict injunctions that he was on no account
+to run or risk a fall of any kind, holding the glasses with his free
+hand so that they shouldn't drag on his neck, directly he was clear of
+the house he broke into the swinging steady trot that had won him the
+half-mile under fifteen in the last school sports; climbed two gates
+and jumped a ditch, finally arriving at the top of a small hill, the
+very highest point on the Manor property.  From this eminence he
+surveyed the country round, and speedily, without the aid of the
+field-glasses, discerned his brother kicking a football well into the
+centre of the field, while the Liberal member for Marlehouse ran after
+it and tried somewhat feebly to kick it back.
+
+"Well I'm jiggered!" Buz exclaimed in breathless astonishment; "so he
+knows him too.  Whatever are they playing at?"
+
+He fixed the field-glasses, watching intently, then dropped them and
+rubbed his eyes, took them up again and gazed fixedly, and so absorbed
+was he that he positively leapt into the air when he heard his father's
+voice close beside him asking mildly, "What are you watching so
+intently, Hilary?"
+
+The lovely winter afternoon had tempted Mr Ffolliot out.  Usually Mrs
+Ffolliot accompanied him on his rare walks, but this afternoon he only
+decided to go out after she had left for Marlehouse.  Like Buz, he
+sought the highest point of his estate, in his case that he might
+complacently survey its many acres.
+
+Buz dropped the glasses so that they hung by their strap and swung
+round, facing his father with his back to the distant figures with the
+football, seized the glasses again and gazed into the copse, exclaiming
+eagerly, "A fox, sir; perhaps you could see him if you're quick,"
+pulled the strap over his head, gave the glasses a dextrous twist,
+entirely destroying their focus, and handed them to his father, who
+fiddled about for some time before he could see anything at all.
+
+"A fox," Mr Ffolliot repeated, "in the copse.  We had better go and
+warn Willets to look out for his ducks and chickens."
+
+"I don't suppose he'll stay, sir, but perhaps it would be as well.
+Shall I take the glasses, father, they're rather heavy?"
+
+But Mr Ffolliot had got them focussed and was leisurely surveying the
+distant scene; gradually turning so that in another moment he would
+bear directly on the field where Grantly and Eloquent were now to be
+seen standing in earnest conversation.
+
+"There he is," shouted the mendacious Buz, seizing his father by the
+arm so violently that he almost knocked him down, "over there towards
+the house; don't you see him? a big dog fox with a splendid brush----"
+
+Imperceptibly Buz had propelled his father down the slope on the side
+farthest from his brother.
+
+"My dear Hilary," Mr Ffolliot exclaimed, straightening his hat, which
+had become disarranged in the violence of his son's impact, "one would
+think no one had ever seen a fox before; why be so excited about it?"
+
+"But didn't you see him, sir?" Buz persisted.  "There he goes close by
+the garden wall; oh, do look."
+
+Mr Ffolliot looked for all he was worth.  He twiddled the glasses and
+put them out of focus, but naturally he failed to behold the mythical
+fox which was the product of his offspring's fertile brain.
+
+They were at the bottom of the slope now, and Buz gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"I thought I saw two youths in the five-acre field," Mr Ffolliot
+remarked presently; "what were they doing?"
+
+"Practising footer, I fancy," Buz said easily, thankful that at last he
+could safely speak the truth.
+
+"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "it is extraordinary what a lot of time the
+working classes seem able to spend upon games nowadays.  Still, I'm
+always glad they should play rather than merely watch.  It is that
+watching and not doing that saps the moral as well as the physical
+strength of the nation."
+
+"It's Thursday, you see, father--early closing," Buz suggested.
+
+"Well, well, I'm glad they should have their game.  Shall we stroll
+round and have a look at them?"
+
+"Oh I wouldn't, if I were you, father, they'd stop directly.  These
+village chaps are always so shy.  It would spoil their afternoon."
+
+"Would it?" Mr Ffolliot asked dubiously; "would it?  I should have
+thought they would have found encouragement in the fact that their
+Squire took an interest in their sports."
+
+"I don't think so," Buz said decidedly; "they hate to be looked at when
+they're practising."
+
+"Very well, very well, if you think so," Mr Ffolliot said with
+surprising meekness; "we'll go and see Willets instead, and tell him
+about that fox."
+
+"I don't think I'd bother him, the fox is miles away by now."
+
+"Well, where shall we go?" Mr Ffolliot demanded testily; "I've come out
+to walk with you, and you do nothing but object to every direction I
+propose."
+
+"Let us," said Buz, praying for inspiration, "let us go straight on
+till we come to a cleaner bit."
+
+Mr Ffolliot looked ruefully at his boots.  "It is wet," he remarked,
+"mind you don't slip with that arm of yours."
+
+"Shall I take the glasses, father?" Buz asked politely.
+
+"Yes, do, though I'm not sure that I wholly approve of Grantly lending
+these expensive glasses to you younger ones.  I must speak to him about
+it."
+
+Buz sighed heavily.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Just once more did Eloquent see Mary before Parliament met.  It was in
+a shop in Marlehouse the day after he had received his lesson in
+kicking off, and he was buying ties.  Eloquent was critical about ties,
+he had by long apprenticeship penetrated to the true inwardness of
+their importance, and this afternoon he was very difficult to please.
+Many boxes were laid upon the counter before him, the counter was
+strewn with "neckwear," and yet he had only found one to his liking.
+While the assistant was away seeking others from distant shelves,
+Eloquent busied himself in arranging the scattered ties carefully in
+their proper boxes.  For him it was a perfectly natural thing to do,
+but he happened to look into the mirror that faced the counter, and in
+it he beheld Mary Ffolliot seated at the counter behind him, and she
+was watching him with fascinated interest.  Buz was with her and they
+were buying socks.  Eloquent's deft hands dropped to his sides and he
+turned furiously red.  For no one knew better than he that it is not
+usual for a customer to arrange goods in a shop.
+
+The young lady in the mirror had discreetly turned her head away, the
+assistant came back, Eloquent bought two ties without having the least
+idea what they were like, and then he heard a voice behind him saying,
+"How do you do, Mr Gallup--we've not seen you since the election to
+congratulate you," and Mary was standing at his side holding out her
+hand.
+
+He shook hands with Mary, he shook hands with Buz, he mumbled something
+incoherent, and they were gone.
+
+The Liberal member for Marlehouse rushed from the shop in an opposite
+direction without taking or paying for his ties, and the astute
+assistant packed them up, having added three that Eloquent did not buy,
+for the good of the trade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MAINLY ABOUT REGINALD PEEL
+
+The holidays had started badly, there was no doubt about that.  All the
+young Ffolliots were agreed about it.  First Buz broke his arm on
+Boxing-day.  That was upsetting in itself, and Buz, as an invalid, was
+a terrible nuisance.  Then the Ganpies had to return to Woolwich much
+sooner than they had expected: another matter for gloom and woe.  And
+finally came the crushing intelligence that Mr Ffolliot did not intend
+to start for his oasis till the beginning of February, after the twins
+had gone back to school and Grantly to the Shop.  And this was
+considered the very limit.  Fate had done its worst.
+
+No party: no relaxation of the rules as to absence of noise and
+presence of perfect regularity and punctuality at meals: no cheerful
+gathering together of neighbouring families for all sorts of
+junkettings; in fact, none of the usual features of the last fortnight
+of the Christmas holidays.  And yet, in looking back afterwards, the
+young Ffolliots, with, perhaps, the exception of the unfortunate Buz,
+would have confessed that on the whole they had had rather a good time.
+Mary, in particular, would have owned frankly, had she been asked, that
+she had never enjoyed a holiday more.
+
+For one thing, the big boys had been "so nice to her," and by "the big
+boys" she meant Grantly and Reggie Peel.
+
+She and Grantly had always been great allies.  When they were little
+they did everything together, for the three and a half years that
+separated Mary from the twins seemed, till they should all get into the
+twenties, an immeasurable distance.  But Grantly hitherto had been no
+more polite and considerate than the average brother.  He was both
+critical and plain-spoken, and poor Mary had suffered many things at
+his hands . . . till this holiday; and it never occurred to her that
+this agreeable change in Grantly's attitude might be due to some
+alteration in herself rather than in him.
+
+Mary was far too interested in life with a big "L" to waste any time
+upon self-analysis or introspection.  Neither she nor Grantly had ever
+referred to the night of young Rabbich's dinner at the Moonstone, but
+since that night she had been distinctly conscious of a slightly more
+respectful quality in his manner towards her.  The tendency was
+indefinable, illusive, but it was there, and simple-minded Mary only
+reflected gratefully that Grantly was "growing up awfully nice."
+
+Regarding Reggie Peel, however, she did venture to think that she must
+be rather more attractive than she used to be; and complacently
+attributed his new gentleness to the fact that she had put up her hair
+since she last saw him.
+
+Gentleness was by no means one of Reggie's chief characteristics.  He
+was ruthless where his own ends were concerned, tirelessly hard
+working, amusing, and of a caustic tongue: a cheerful pessimist who
+expected the very least of his fellow-creatures, until such time as
+they had given some proof that he might expect more.  Yet there were a
+favoured few, a very few, whom he took for granted thankfully, and Mary
+had long known that her mother was one of those few.  Lately she had
+realised with a startled thrill of gratification that she, too, had
+stepped out of the rank and file to take her place among those chosen
+ones, for Reggie had confided to her a secret that none of the others,
+not even her mother, knew.
+
+Among the many serious periodicals of strictly Imperial tone that Mr
+Ffolliot read, was one that from time to time indulged its readers with
+exceptionally well-written short stories.  Quite recently a couple of
+these stories had dealt with military subjects, and were signed
+"Ubique."  The stories were striking, strong, and evidently from the
+pen of one who knew his ground.  Mr Ffolliot admired them, and
+graciously drew the attention of his family to them.  One had appeared
+in the January number, and Mrs Ffolliot and Mary fell foul of it
+because it was too painful.  They thought it pitiless, even savage, in
+its inexorable disregard of the individual and deification of the
+Cause.  Grantly, of course, upheld the writer.  The male of the species
+prides itself on inhumanity in youth.  Mr Ffolliot approved the story
+from the artistic standpoint, and the General defended it on the score
+of its absolute truth.  Reggie, quite contrary to custom, gave no
+opinion at all till he was asked by Mary, one day when they were riding
+together.
+
+As she expected, he defended the writer's stern realism.  But what she
+did not expect was that he seemed to make a personal matter of it,
+almost imploring her to see eye to eye with him, which she wholly
+failed to do.
+
+"I think he must be a terribly hard man, that 'Ubique,'" she said at
+last, "with no toleration or compassion.  He talks as though
+incompetence were an unpardonable crime."
+
+"So it is; if you undertake a job you ought to see that you're fit to
+carry it out."
+
+"You can't always be sure. . . .  You may do your best and . . . fail."
+
+"I grant you some people's best is a very poor best, but in this case
+the man let a flabby humanitarianism take the place of his judgment,
+and he caused far more misery in the end.  Can't you see that?"
+
+"All the same," Mary said decidedly, "I wouldn't like to fall into the
+hands of that man, the Ubique man I mean, not the failure.  He must be
+a cold-blooded wretch, or he couldn't write such things.  It makes me
+shudder."
+
+And Mary shivered as she spoke.
+
+"He must be a beast," she added.
+
+They were walking their horses along the turf at the side of the road
+skirting the woods.  Reggie pulled up and Mary stopped also a little in
+front.
+
+"Got a stone?" she asked carelessly.
+
+Reggie did not answer or dismount, and she turned in her saddle to look
+at him, to meet his crooked, whimsical smile.  Suddenly he dropped his
+reins and beat his breast, exclaiming melodramatically: "And Nathan
+said unto David, 'Thou art the man.'"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" Mary asked, bewildered.  "What man? do you
+mean you'd behave like the man in the story, or you wouldn't, or . . .
+Oh, Reggie, you don't mean to say you wrote it yourself?"
+
+"You have spoken."
+
+"You must be awfully clever!" Mary ejaculated with awe-struck
+admiration.
+
+"My cleverness will not be of much comfort to me if you persist in your
+wrong-headed opinion that the man who wrote that story is a beast."
+
+"Oh, that's different.  I know you, you see, and you're not a beast.
+You aren't really like that."
+
+"But I am.  That's the real me.  It is truly; the real, deep-down me,
+the me that's worth anything."
+
+"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I don't believe it; you _have_ some
+consideration for other people."
+
+"Not in that sense; if there was anything, any big thing, I had to put
+through--no one should stand in my way.  And it's the same with
+anything I want very much.  I go straight for it, and it matters
+nothing to me who gets knocked down on the route . . . and so you'll
+find," Reggie added very low.
+
+They were looking each other straight in the face, Mary a little
+breathless and wondering: "And so you'll find," Reggie repeated a
+little louder, and there was a look in his eyes that caused Mary to
+drop hers, and she rode on.
+
+Reggie caught her up.
+
+"Are you sorry, Mary?" he asked gently.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Well . . . about everything.  The story, and my ferocious mental
+attitude, and all the rest of it."
+
+He laid his hand on her horse's neck, and leaned forward to look in her
+face.  They were riding very close together, and Mary was too near the
+hedge to put more distance between them.
+
+"I can't be sorry you write so well," she said slowly, "it is very
+exciting--is the news for publication or not?"
+
+"I'd be grateful if you'd say nothing as yet--you see I've only done
+these two, and what's a couple of short stories?  Besides, it's not
+really my job, only it's amusing, and one can rub it in that way, and
+reach a larger class than by the strictly military article--no one
+knows anything about it except the editor of _The Point of View_--and
+you--I'd rather you didn't mention it, if you don't mind."
+
+"Of course I shan't mention it, but I shall look out for 'Ubique' with
+much greater interest."
+
+"And still think him a beast?"
+
+"That depends on what he writes."
+
+"I'm not so much concerned about what you think of Ubique as that you
+should remember that I mean what I say."
+
+"You say a good many absurd things."
+
+"Yes, but this is not absurd--when I want a thing very much . . ."
+
+"Oh, you needn't say all that again.  Be a silent, strong man like the
+heroes in Seton Merriman, they're much the best kind."
+
+"I'm not particularly silent, but I flatter myself that . . ."
+
+"It's a shame to crawl over this lovely grass--come on and have a
+canter," said Mary.
+
+That night Reggie Peel sat long by his bedroom fire.  The bedroom fire
+was a concession to his acknowledged grown-upness.  The young Ffolliots
+were allowed no bedroom fires.  Only when suffering from bad colds or
+in the very severest weather was a fire granted to any child out of the
+nursery.  But Reggie, almost a captain now, was popular with the
+servants, especially with the stern Sophia, head-housemaid, and she
+decreed that he had reached the status of a visitor, and must,
+therefore, have a fire in his bedroom at night.  He sat before it now,
+swinging the poker which had just stirred it to a cheerful blaze.  He
+had carefully switched off the light, for they were very economical of
+the electric light at Redmarley.  It had cost such a lot to put in.
+
+Five years ago he and General Grantly between them had supervised its
+installation, and the instruction of the head-gardener in the
+management of the dynamo-room; each going up and down, as often as they
+could get away, to share the discomfort with Mrs Ffolliot, and look
+after the men.  Mrs Grantly was, for once, almost satisfied, for she
+had carried off all the available children.  Mr Ffolliot had decreed
+that the work should be done while he was in the South of France, and
+expressed a strong desire that all should be in order before his
+return; and it was finished, for he stayed away seven weeks.
+
+And Reggie sat remembering all this, five years ago; and how just
+before the children were sent to their grandmother Mary used to want to
+sit on his knee, and how he would thrust her off with insulting remarks
+as to her weight and her personal appearance generally.
+
+She was a good deal heavier now, he reflected, and yet--
+
+Reggie had come to the parting of the ways, and had decided which he
+would follow.
+
+Like most ambitious young men he had, so far, taken as his motto a
+couplet, which, through over-usage, has become a platitude--
+
+  "High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone,
+  He travels the fastest who travels alone."
+
+
+Reggie had accepted this as an incontrovertible truth impossible to
+dispute; but then he had never until lately felt the smallest desire to
+travel through life accompanied by any one person.  He had fallen in
+and out of love as often as was wholesome or possible for so
+hard-working a young man, and always looked upon the experience as an
+agreeable relaxation, as it undoubtedly is.  But never for one moment
+did he allow such evanescent attachments to turn him a hair's breadth
+out of his course.  Now something had happened to him, and he knew that
+for the future the platitude had become a lie, and that the only
+incentive either to high hopes or their fulfilment lay in the prospect
+of a hearth-stone shared by the girl who a few hours ago declared that
+she "would not like to fall into that man's hands."
+
+Reggie was very modern.  He built no altar to Mary in his heart nor did
+he set her image in a sacred shrine apart.  He had no use for anyone in
+a shrine.  He wanted a comrade, and he craved this particular comrade
+with all the intensity of a well-disciplined, entirely practical
+nature.  He was not in the least conceited, but he knew that if he
+lived he would "get there," and the fact that he never had had, or ever
+would have, sixpence beyond the pay he earned did not deter him in his
+quest a single whit.  Mary wouldn't have sixpence either.  He knew the
+Redmarley rent-roll to a halfpenny.  Mrs Ffolliot frankly talked over
+her affairs with him ever since he left Woolwich, and more than once
+his shrewd judgment unravelled some tangle which Mr Ffolliot's
+singularly unbusiness-like habits had created.  He knew very well that
+were it not for General Grantly the boys could never have got the
+chance each was to get.  That General Grantly was spending the money he
+would have left his daughter at his death in helping her children now
+when they needed it most.  Mary and he were young and strong.  They
+could rough it at first.  Afterwards--he had no fears about that
+afterwards if Mary cared.
+
+But would Mary care?
+
+Reggie felt none of the qualms of a more sensitive man in making love
+to a very young girl who might certainly, both as regarded looks and
+social position, be expected to make an infinitely better marriage.  He
+was assailed by no misgivings as to what might be thought of the man
+who made use of his position as almost a son of the house to make love
+to this girl hardly out of the schoolroom.
+
+It was Mr Ffolliot's business to guard against such possibilities.
+
+If, however, he might be called unscrupulous on that score, his sense
+of fairness was stronger than his delicacy; for where the latter proved
+no obstacle, the former decided him that it would not be playing the
+game to make open love to Mary till she had "been out a bit," and he
+laid down the poker with a smothered oath.
+
+He had gone further than he intended that afternoon and he was
+sorry--but not very sorry.  "There's no harm in letting her know I'm in
+the running," he reflected.  "I hope it will sink in.  Otherwise she
+might stick me down in the same row with Grantly and the twins, which
+is the last thing in the world I want."
+
+He was glad he had told her about that story, even if it revealed him
+in an unfavourable light.  "If she ever cares for me, and God help me
+if she doesn't--she must care for me as I really am, an ugly devil with
+some brains and a queer temper.  I'll risk no disillusionment
+afterwards.  She must see plenty of other chaps first--confound them;
+but if any one out of the lot shows signs of making a dart I'll cut in
+first, I won't wait another minute, I'm damned if I will."
+
+And suddenly conscious that he had spoken aloud, Reggie undressed and
+went to bed, knowing full well that even though the hearth-stone should
+be eternally cold, and the high hopes flattened beyond all possible
+recognition, there yet remained to him something passing the love of
+women.
+
+For Reggie was not without an altar and a secret shrine, though not
+even the figure of the woman he loved best would ever fill it.  The
+sacred fire of his devotion burned with a steady flame that illumined
+his whole life, though not even to himself did he confess the vows he
+paid.
+
+"One must choose one's own mystery: the great thing is to have one."
+And if prayer be the daily expression to the soul of the desire to do
+the right thing, then Reggie prayed without ceasing that he might do
+his WORK, and do it well.  His profession was his God, and he served
+faithfully and with a single heart.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Mary had no fire to sit over, but all the same she dawdled throughout
+her undressing and, unlike Reggie, wasted the precious electric light.
+She had a great deal to think about, for Grantly and Reggie were not
+the only people to confide in Mary that holiday.  The day before he
+left, General Grantly had taken her for a walk, sworn her to secrecy,
+and then had sprung upon her a most astounding project.  No other than
+that he and Mrs Grantly should take her mother with them when they went
+to the South of France for March--their mother without any of them.
+
+"She has never had a real holiday by herself since she was married,"
+the General said, "and my idea is that she should come with us directly
+your father gets back.  The boys will be at school--Grantly at the
+Shop.  There will only be the two little ones and your father to
+consider, and you could look after them.  I'd like to take you too, my
+dear, but I don't fancy your mother could be persuaded to leave your
+father unless there was someone to see to things for him."
+
+"She'd never leave father alone," Mary said decidedly; "but she might,
+oh, she might go now I'm really grown up.  I should love her to go.
+Don't you think"--Mary's voice was very wistful--"that she's been
+looking a little tired lately . . . not quite so beautiful . . . as
+usual?"
+
+"Ah, you've noticed it too--that settles it--not a word, mind; if it's
+sprung upon her at a few days' notice it may come off.  If she has time
+to think she'll discover insurmountable difficulties.  Strategy, my
+dear, strategy must be our watchword."
+
+"But father," Mary suggested dubiously, "who's going to manage him?"
+
+"I think," the General said grimly, "I think we may safely leave your
+father in Grannie's hands.  She has undertaken to square him, and, what
+she undertakes--I have never known her fail to put through."
+
+"It will be most extraordinary to have mother go off for quite a long
+time by herself," Mary said thoughtfully.
+
+"She won't be by herself, she'll be with _her_ father and mother; has
+it never occurred to you as possible that sometimes we might like our
+daughter to ourselves?"
+
+Mary turned an astonished face towards her grandfather, exclaiming
+emphatically,
+
+"No, Ganpy, it certainly never has . . . before."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE RAM-CORPS ANGEL
+
+Grannie was writing letters.  Grandfather had gone into London to the
+War Office, and it was only ten o'clock.  Grannie was safe for an hour
+or two, for she was sending out notices about something, and that
+always took a long time.
+
+Ger was rather at a loose end, but with the admirable spirit of the
+adventurous for making the best of things, he decided to go forth and
+see what he could see.  No one was in the hall to question him as he
+went out, and he made straight for the common, where something exciting
+was always toward.  He had forgotten to put on a coat, and the wind was
+cold, so he ran along with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.  His
+cap was old, his suit, "a descended suit," was old, and his face,
+though it was still so early in the day, was far from clean.
+
+For once the common was almost deserted; but far away in front of the
+"Shop" a thin line of khaki proclaimed the fact that some of the cadets
+were drilling.
+
+Ger loved the Shop.  He had been there on several occasions,
+accompanied by one or other of his grandparents, to see Grantly, and he
+knew that he must not go in alone, or his brother would, as he put it,
+"get in a bate."  But there could be no objection to his standing at
+the gate and looking in at the parade ground.  He knew the porter, a
+nice friendly chap who would not drive him away.
+
+He turned off the common into the road that runs up past the Cadet
+Hospital.  He knew the Cadet Hospital, for once he had gone there with
+Grannie to visit "a kind of cousin" who had broken his collar-bone in
+the riding-school.  As he passed Ger looked in at the open door.  A
+little crowd of rather poor-looking people stood in the entrance, among
+them a boy about his own age, with a great pad of cotton-wool fastened
+over his ear by a bandage.
+
+A crowd of any sort had always an irresistible fascination for Ger.  He
+skipped up the path and pushed in among the waiting people to the side
+of the boy with the tied-up head.
+
+"Got a sore ear?" he murmured sympathetically.
+
+"Wot's it to you wot I got?" was the discouraging reply.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry, you know," said Ger with obvious sincerity.
+
+The boy looked hard at him and grunted.
+
+"What are you here for?" Ger whispered.
+
+"The Myjor, 'e got to syringe it," the boy mumbled, but this time his
+tone was void of offence.
+
+"Does it hurt?"
+
+"'E don't 'urt, not much, 'e is careful; 'e's downright afraid of
+urtin' ya'. . . .  An' if 'e does 'urt, it's becos 'e can't 'elp it,
+an' so," here he wagged his head impressively, "ya' just doesn't let
+on . . . see?  Wots the matter wiv you?"
+
+Here was a poser.  Yet Ger was consumed by a desire to see this
+mysterious "myjor" who syringed ears and didn't hurt people.  He had
+fallen upon an adventure, and he was going to see it out.
+
+"I don't know exactly," he whispered mysteriously, "but I've got to see
+him."
+
+"P'raps they've wrote about ya'," the bandaged boy suggested.
+
+Ger thought this was unlikely, but let the suggestion pass
+unchallenged.  He watched the various people vanish into a room on the
+right, saw them come out again, heard the invariable "Next please"
+which heralded the seclusion of a new patient, till everybody had gone
+and come back and gone forth into the street again save only the
+bandaged boy and himself.
+
+"You nip in w'en I comes out," the boy said encouragingly, "it's a bit
+lyte already, but 'e'll see ya' if yer slippy."
+
+It seemed a long time to Ger as he waited.  The little crowd of women
+and children had melted away.  Men in blue cotton jackets passed to and
+fro across the hall, "Sister," in a curious headdress and scarlet cape,
+looking like a picture by Carpaccio, came out of another room, went up
+the staircase and vanished from view.  No one spoke to him or asked his
+business, and Ger stood in a dark corner holding his cap in his hands
+and waiting.
+
+At last the boy came back with a clean bandage and a big new pad of
+cotton-wool over the syringed ear.
+
+"'Urry up," he whispered as he passed.  "I told 'im as there was one
+more."
+
+Ger hurried.
+
+Once inside that mysterious door he started violently, for a tall
+figure clad in a long white smock was standing near a sink brushing his
+nails.  He wore a black band round his head, and on his forehead,
+attached to the band, was a round mirror.  The very brightest mirror
+Ger had ever seen.
+
+So this was the Myjor.
+
+The uniform was quite new to Ger.
+
+The eyes under the mirror were very blue, and for the rest this
+strangely clad tall man had a brown moustache and a pleasant voice as
+he turned, and drying his hands the while, said:
+
+"Well, young shaver, what's the matter with you?"
+
+In his eight years Ger had had but few aches and pains save such as
+followed naturally upon falls or fights, but he knew that if this
+interview was to be prolonged he must have something, so he hazarded an
+ailment.
+
+"I've a muzzy feeling in my head sometimes, sir, a sort of ache, not
+bad, you know."
+
+The Myjor looked very hard at Ger as he spoke--evidently the little
+boy's voice and accent were in some way unexpected.
+
+He sat down and drew him forward close to his knees.  The round mirror
+on his forehead flashed into Ger's eyes and he winced.
+
+"Headache, eh?" said the Myjor cheerfully.  "You don't look as though
+you ought to get headaches.  Can you read?"
+
+"No, sir, that's just what I can't do, and there's awful rows about it.
+I can't seem to read, I don't want to much, but I do try . . .  I do
+really, but it's so muddly."
+
+"How long have you been learning?"
+
+"Years and years," said Ger mournfully.  "They say Kitten 'll read
+before me, and she's only four."
+
+"Um," said the Myjor, "that will never do.  We can't have Kitten
+stealing a march on us that way.  This must be seen into.  By the way,
+what's your name?"
+
+"Gervais Folaire Ffolliot," Ger answered solemnly, as though he were
+saying his catechism.
+
+"Ffolliot . . . Ffolliot . . . where d'you live?"
+
+"Redmarley . . . it's a long way from here."
+
+"What are you doing here, then?"
+
+"I'm stopping with grannie and grandfather."
+
+"And who is grandfather?"
+
+"General Grantly," Ger answered promptly, smiling broadly.  He always
+felt that his grandfather was a trump card anywhere, but in Woolwich
+most of all, "and he's got such a lot of medals, teeny ones, you know,
+like the big ones.  I can read _them_," he added proudly.  "I know them
+all.  Grannie taught me."
+
+"But why have you come to me?  And why on earth do you come in among
+the wives and children of the Shop servants?"
+
+"The door was open," Ger explained, "and I talked to the ear boy, and
+he said you were most awfully gentle and didn't hurt and hated if you
+had to--so I knew you were kind, and I'm awfully fond of kind people,
+so I wanted to see you--you're not cross, are you?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Um," again remarked the Myjor, and stared at Ger thoughtfully.
+"Well," he said at last, "since you are here, what is it you find so
+hard about reading?"
+
+"It's so muddly," Ger complained, "nasty little letters and all so much
+alike."
+
+"Exactly so," said the Myjor.
+
+Then he drew down the blinds.
+
+Ger's heart beat fast.  Here was an adventure indeed, and when you were
+once well in for an adventure all sorts of queer things happened.
+
+Unprecedented things happened to Ger, but he was never very clear
+afterwards as to what they were.  So many things were "done to him"
+that he became quite confused.  Lights flashed into eyes, lights so
+brilliant that they quite hurt.  Curious spectacles with heavy frames
+and glasses that took in and out were placed upon his nose, and he was
+only allowed to use one eye at a time, the other being blotted out by a
+black disk in the spectacles.  At last he looked through with both eyes
+together at letters on a card, letters that were blacker and clearer
+than any he had ever seen before . . . and the blinds were drawn up.
+
+"Will you please tell me," Ger asked politely, "what is that curious
+uniform you wear?  I don't seem to have seen it before, an' I've seen a
+great many."
+
+The Myjor laughed.  "It's my working kit; don't you like it?"
+
+"Very much," said Ger, "I think you look like an angel."
+
+"Really," said the Myjor.  "I haven't met any, so I don't know."
+
+"I haven't exactly met any," said Ger, "but I've seen portraits of two,
+and . . . I know a lot about them."
+
+"Now, young man, you listen to me," said the Ram-Corps Angel.  "Eyes
+are not my job really, but I'm glad you looked in to see me, for I'll
+send you to someone who'll put you right and you'll read long before
+the Kitten.  She'll never catch you.  Right away you'll go, she won't
+be in the same field.  You'd better go back now, or Mrs Grantly will be
+wondering where you are--cheer up about that reading."
+
+"Will I?" Ger asked breathlessly.  "Shall I be able to get into the
+Shop?  They pill you for eyes, you know."
+
+"Your eyes will be all right by the time you're ready for the Shop.
+You see crooked just now, you know--and it wants correcting, that's
+all."
+
+"What?" cried Ger despairingly.  "Do I squint?"
+
+"Bless you, no; the sight of your two eyes is different, that's
+all--when you get proper glasses you'll be right as rain.  Lots of
+people have it . . . if you'd been a Board School you'd have been seen
+to long ago," he added, more to himself than to Ger.
+
+Then Ger shook hands with the Ram-Corps Angel and walked rather slowly
+and thoughtfully across the common to grandfather's house though the
+wind was colder than ever.  He forgot to look in at the Shop gate, but
+the parade ground was empty.  The cadets had finished drilling.  Ger
+had been so long in that darkened room.
+
+He had lunch alone with his grannie, for grandfather was lunching at
+his club.  There was no poking of the Ffolliot children into
+schoolrooms and nurseries for meals when they stayed with the ganpies.
+His face was clean and his hair very smooth, and he held back Mrs
+Granny's chair for her just as grandfather did.  She stooped and kissed
+the fresh, friendly little face and told him he was a dear, which was
+most pleasant.
+
+He was hungry and the roast mutton was very good, moreover he was going
+to the Zoo that afternoon directly after lunch, grannie's French maid
+was to take him.  They were to have a taxi from Charing Cross, and
+lunch passed pleasantly, enlivened by the discussion of this enchanting
+plan.
+
+Presently he asked, apropos of nothing: "Do all the Ram-Corps officers
+look like angels?"
+
+"Like angels!" Mrs Grantly repeated derisively.  "Good gracious, no!
+Very plain indeed, some of them I've seen."
+
+"The one at the Cadet Hospital does," Ger said positively, "like a
+great big angel and a dear."
+
+"Who?  Major Murray?" Mrs Grantly inquired, looking puzzled; "where
+have you seen him?"
+
+But at this very moment someone came to tell Ger it was time to get
+ready, and in the fuss and excitement of seeing him off, his grannie
+forgot all about the Ram Corps and its angelic attributes.
+
+It was her day.  Guest after guest arrived, and she was pretty tired by
+the time she had given tea to some five and twenty people.
+
+The General never came in at all till the last guest had gone.  Then he
+sought his wife, and standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the
+fire he told her that Major Murray had been to see him, and had
+recounted Ger's visit of the morning, and the result of his
+investigations.
+
+Mrs Grantly, which was unusual, never interrupted once.
+
+"So you can understand," the General concluded, "I didn't feel like
+facing a lot of people."
+
+"I shall write at once to Margie," Mrs Grantly cried breathlessly, "and
+tell her she is a fool."
+
+"I wouldn't do that," the General said gently; "poor Margie, she has a
+good deal on her shoulders."
+
+"All the same--do you remember that that unfortunate child has been
+punished--punished because he was considered idle and obstinate over
+his lessons . . . punished . . . little Ger--friendly, jolly little
+Ger . . . I can't bear it," and Mrs Grantly burst into tears.
+
+The General looked very much as though he would like to cry too.  "It's
+an unfortunate business," he said huskily, "but you see, none of us
+have ever had any eye trouble, and the other children have all such
+good sight . . . it never occurred to me . . .  I must confess . . . of
+course it can be put right very easily; you're to take him to the
+oculist to-morrow; I've telephoned and made the appointment."
+
+Mrs Grantly dried her eyes.
+
+"We're all to blame," she exclaimed, "I'm just as much to blame as
+Margie . . . she'll be fearfully upset   I don't know how to tell her."
+
+"Tell you what," exclaimed the General, "I'll write to Ffolliot . . .
+I'll do it now, this instant, and the letter will catch the 7.30
+post . . ."
+
+At the door he paused and added more cheerfully, "I shall enjoy writing
+to Ffolliot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WHAT FOLLOWED
+
+As General Grantly had predicted, Mrs Ffolliot was very much upset when
+she heard about Ger's eyes, and was for rushing up to London herself,
+there and then to interview the oculist.  But Mr Ffolliot dissuaded
+her.  For one thing, he hated Redmarley without her even for a single
+night.  For another, he considered such a journey a needless expense.
+This, however, he did not mention, but contented himself with the
+suggestion that it would seem a reflection upon Mrs Grantly's
+competence to do anything of the kind; and that consideration weighed
+heavily with his wife where the other would have been brushed aside as
+immaterial and irrelevant.  "I can't understand it," the Squire
+remarked plaintively; "I did not know there had ever been any eye
+trouble in your family."
+
+"There never has, so far as I know; but surely," and Mrs Ffolliot spoke
+with something less than her usual gentle deference, "we needn't seek
+far to find where Ger gets his."
+
+"Do you mean that he inherits it from ME?"
+
+"Well, my dear Larrie, surely _you've_ got defective sight, else why
+the monocle?"
+
+"But Ger isn't a bit like me.  He is all Grantly.  In character, I
+sometimes think he resembles your mother, he is so fond of society; in
+appearance he's very like the others, except the Kitten.  Now, if the
+Kitten's sight had been astigmatic . . ."
+
+"We must take care that she doesn't suffer from neglect like poor
+little Ger," Mrs Ffolliot interrupted rather bitterly.  "I shall write
+at once to their house-master to have the twins' eyes tested.  I'll run
+no more risks.  We know Grantly's all right because he passed his
+medical so easily.  Poor, poor little Ger."
+
+"It certainly is most unfortunate," said Mr Ffolliot.
+
+He was really concerned about Ger, but mingled with his concern was the
+feeling that the little boy had taken something of a liberty in
+developing that particular form of eye trouble.  It seemed an unfilial
+reflection upon himself.  Moreover, there was something in the
+General's letter plainly stating the bare facts that he did not exactly
+like.  It was, he considered, "rather brusque."  He started for the
+South, of France four days earlier than he had originally intended.
+
+Ger was taken to the great oculist in London, who confirmed the
+"Myjor's" diagnosis of his case, and he was forthwith put into large
+round spectacles.  When he got them, his appearance brought the tears
+to his grandmother's eyes--tears she rigidly repressed, for Ger was so
+enormously proud of them.  The first afternoon he wore them he went
+with his grandfather to see Grantly playing in a football match at the
+Shop, and among those watching on the field he espied his friend "the
+Ram-Corps Angel."  Ger knew him at once, although he wore no white
+garment, not even khaki, just a plain tweed suit like his grandfather's.
+
+While the General was deep in conversation with the "Commy," Ger
+slipped away and sought his friend.
+
+"Hullo," said the 'Myjor,' "so you've got 'em on."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Ger, saluting solemnly, "and I'm very much obliged.
+It's lovely to see things so nice and clear.  Please may I ask you
+something?"
+
+The Major stepped back out of the crowd and Ger slipped a small hand
+confidingly into his.  Ger had not been to school yet, so there were
+excuses for him.
+
+"Do you think," he asked earnestly, "that if I'm very industr'us and
+don't turn out quite so stupid as they expected, that by-and-by I might
+get into the Ram Corps?"
+
+Major Murray looked down very kindly at the anxious upturned face with
+the large round spectacles.
+
+"But I thought the Shop was the goal of your ambition?"
+
+"So it was, sir, at first.  Then I gave it up because it seemed so
+difficult, and I talked it over with Willets, and he said _he'd_ never
+had a great deal of book-learnin'--though he writes a beautiful hand,
+far better than father--and then I thought I'd be a gamekeeper."
+
+"And what did Willets think?"
+
+"Well, he didn't seem to be very sure--and now I come to think of it,
+I'm not very fond of killing things . . . so if there was just a
+chance . . ."
+
+"I'd go into the Ram Corps if I were you," said Major Murray; "by the
+time you're ready, gamekeepers--if there are any--will have to pass
+exams, like all the other poor beggars.  You bet your boots on that.
+Some Board of Forestry or other will start 'em, you see if they don't."
+
+"Oh, well, if there's to be exams, that settles it.  I certainly shan't
+be one," Ger said decidedly; "I've been thinking it over a lot----"
+
+"Oh, you have, have you?"
+
+"An' it seems to me . . ."
+
+"Yes, it seems to you?"
+
+"That pr'aps you get to know people better if you mend all their
+accidents and things.  I'm awfully fond of people, they're so
+intrusting, I'd rather know about them than anything."
+
+"What sort of people?"
+
+"The men you know, and their wives and children; they're awfully nice,
+the ones I know--and if you see after them when they're ill and that,
+they're bound to be a bit fond of you, aren't they?"
+
+Major Murray gave the cold little hand in his a squeeze.  "It seems to
+me," he said, "that you're just the sort of chap we want.  You stick to
+it."
+
+"Is it _very_ hard to get in?"
+
+"Well, it isn't exactly easy, but it's dogged as does it, and if you
+start now--why, you've plenty of time."
+
+"That's settled then," said Ger, "and when you're Medical
+Inspector-General or some big brass hat like the fat old gentleman who
+came to see Ganpy yesterday--you'll say a good word for me, won't you?"
+
+"I will," Major Murray promised, "I most certainly will."
+
+"You see," Ger continued, beaming through his spectacles, "if there's
+war I should be bound to go, they can't get on without the Ram Corps
+then, and I'd be doing things for people all day long.  Oh, it would be
+grand."
+
+"It strikes me," said Major Murray, more to himself than to Ger, "that
+you stand a fair chance of getting your heart's desire--more than most
+people."
+
+"I'm very partikler about my nails now," said Ger.  "I saw you
+scrubbing yours that day at the Cadet Hospital."
+
+When he got home Mrs Ffolliot retired to her room and cried long and
+heartily, but Ger never knew it.  His spectacles to him were a joy and
+a glory, and he confided to the Kitten that _his_ guardian angel,
+Sergeant-Major Spinks, did sentry beside them every night so that they
+shouldn't get lost or broken.
+
+"My angel's in prizzen," the Kitten announced dramatically.
+
+"In prison!" exclaimed Ger, "whatever for?"
+
+"For shooting turkeys," the Kitten replied, "an' he's all over
+chicken-spots."
+
+"Why did he shoot turkeys for?"
+
+"'Cause he wanted more feathers for his wings."
+
+"But that wouldn't give him chicken-spots."
+
+"No, _that_ didn't--he got them at a pahty, like you did last
+Christmas."
+
+"Poor chap," said Ger, "but I can't see why he stays in prison when he
+could fly away."
+
+"They clipped his wings," the Kitten said importantly, "an' I'm glad;
+he can't come and bother me no more now."
+
+"I hope Spinks won't go shooting fowls and things in his off-time," Ger
+said anxiously.  "I must warn him."
+
+"Pheasants wouldn't matter so much," the Kitten said leniently, "I
+asked Willets; but turkeys is orful."
+
+"Not at all sporting to shoot turkeys," Ger agreed, "though they are so
+cross and gobbly."
+
+In the middle of February Mrs Ffolliot fell a victim to influenza, and
+she was really very ill.
+
+At first she would not allow anyone to tell her husband about it, but
+when she became too weak to write herself, Mary took it upon her to
+inform her father of her mother's state.  The doctor insisted on
+sending a nurse, as three of the servants had also collapsed, and Mrs
+Grantly came down from Woolwich to see to things generally; though when
+she came, she acknowledged that Mary had done everything that could be
+done.
+
+Mr Ffolliot curtailed his holiday by a week, and returned at the end of
+February, to find his wife convalescent, but thin and pale and weak as
+he had never before seen her during their married life.
+
+He decided that he would take her for a fortnight to Bournemouth.
+
+But Mrs Grantly had other views.
+
+She, Mary, and Mr Ffolliot were sitting at breakfast the day after his
+return, when he suggested the Bournemouth plan with what Willets would
+have called his most "Emp'rish air."
+
+Mrs Grantly looked across at Mary and the light of battle burned in her
+bright brown eyes.
+
+"I don't think Bournemouth would be one bit of good for Margie," she
+said briskly, "you can't be sure of sunshine--it may be mild, but it's
+morally certain to rain half the time, and Margie needs cheerful
+surroundings--sunshine--and the doctor says . . . a complete change of
+scene and people."
+
+"Where would you propose that I should take her?" Mr Ffolliot asked,
+fixing his monocle and staring steadily at his mother-in-law.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Hilary, I don't propose that _you_ should take
+her anywhere.  What I propose is that her father and I should take her
+to Cannes with us a week to-day."
+
+"To Cannes," Mr Ffolliot gasped, "in a week.  I don't believe she could
+stand the journey."
+
+"Oh yes, she could.  Her father will see that she does it as
+comfortably as possible, and I shall take Adele, who can look after
+both of us.  We'll stay a night in Paris, and at Avignon if Margie
+shows signs of being very tired.  You must understand that Margie will
+go as our guest."
+
+Mr Ffolliot dropped his monocle and leant back in his chair.  "It is
+most kind of you and the General," he said politely, "but I doubt very
+much if she can be persuaded to go."
+
+"Oh she's going," Mrs Grantly said easily, while Mary, with scarlet
+cheeks, looked at her plate, knowing well that the subject had never
+been so much as touched upon to her mother.  "You see, Hilary, she has
+had a good deal of Redmarley, and the children and you, during the last
+twenty years, and it will do her all the good in the world to get away
+from you all for a bit.  Don't you agree with me, Mary?"
+
+Mary lifted her downcast eyes and looked straight at her father.  "The
+doctor says it's mother's only chance of getting really strong," she
+said boldly, "to get right away from all of us."
+
+"You, my dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly continued in the honeyed tones her
+family had long ago learnt to recognise as the precursor of verbal
+castigation for somebody, "would not be the agreeable and well-informed
+person you are, did you not go away by yourself for a fairly long time
+during every year.  I don't think you have missed once since Grantly
+was born.  How often has Margie been away by herself, even for a couple
+of nights?"
+
+"Margie has never expressed the slightest wish to go away," Mr Ffolliot
+said reproachfully.  "I have often deplored her extreme devotion to her
+children."
+
+"Somebody had to be devoted to her children," said Mrs Grantly.
+
+Mr Ffolliot ignored this thrust, saying haughtily, "Since I understand
+that this has all been settled without consulting me, I cannot see that
+any good purpose can be served in further discussion of the arrangement
+now," and he rose preparatory to departure.
+
+"Wait, Hilary," Mrs Grantly rose too.  "I don't think you quite
+understand that the smallest objection on your part to Margie would at
+once render the whole project hopeless.  What you've got to do is to
+smile broadly upon the scheme----"
+
+Here Mary gasped, the "broad smile" of the Squire upon anything or
+anybody being beyond her powers of imagination.
+
+"Otherwise," Mrs Grantly paused to frown at Mary, who softly vanished
+from the room, "you may have Margie on your hands as an invalid for
+several months, and I don't think you'd like that."
+
+"But who," Mr Ffolliot demanded, "will look after things while she's
+away?"
+
+"Why you and Mary, to be sure.  My dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly said
+sweetly, "a change is good for all of us, and it will be wholesome for
+you to take the reins into your own hands for a bit.  I confess I've
+often wondered how you could so meekly surrender the whole management
+of this big place to Margie.  It's time you asserted yourself a little."
+
+Mr Ffolliot stared gloomily at Mrs Grantly, who smiled at him in the
+friendliest fashion.  "You see," she went on, "you are, if I may say
+so, a little unobservant, or you would perhaps have personally
+investigated what made Ger, an otherwise quite normally intelligent
+child, so very stupid over his poor little lessons."
+
+"I've always left everything of that sort to his mother."
+
+"I know you have--but do you think it was quite fair?  And for a long
+time Margie has been looking thin and fagged.  Her father was most
+concerned about it at Christmas--but I never heard you remark upon it."
+
+"She never complains," Mr Ffolliot said feebly.
+
+"Complains," Mrs Grantly repeated scornfully.  "We're not a complaining
+family.  But I should have thought _you_ with your strong love of the
+beautiful would at least have remarked how she has gone off in looks."
+
+"She hasn't," said Mr Ffolliot with some heat.
+
+"She looks her age, every day of it," Mrs Grantly persisted.  "When we
+bring her back she'll look like Mary's sister!"
+
+"How long do you propose to be away?"
+
+"Oh, three weeks or a month; at the most a fortnight less than you have
+had every year for nineteen years."
+
+Mr Ffolliot made no answer; he took out his cigarette case and lit a
+cigarette with hands that were not quite steady.
+
+"You quite understand then, Hilary, that you are to put the whole
+weight of your authority into the scale that holds France for Margie?"
+
+"I thought you said it was settled?"
+
+"My dear man, you know what a goose she is; if she thought you hated
+it, nothing would induce her to go--you _must_ consider her for once."
+
+"I really must protest," Mr Ffolliot said stiffly, "against your
+gratuitous assumption that _I_ care nothing for Margie's welfare."
+
+"Not at all," Mrs Grantly said smoothly, "I only ask for a modest
+manifestation of your devotion, that's all."
+
+"Shall I go to her now?" said Mr Ffolliot with the air of a lamb led to
+the slaughter.
+
+"Certainly not--she'll probably be trying to get up lest you should
+want her for anything.  _I'll_ go and keep her in bed till luncheon.
+You may come and see her at eleven."
+
+When Fusby came in for the breakfast tray, Mr Ffolliot was still
+standing on the hearth-rug immersed in thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MARY AND HER FATHER
+
+In the lives of even the strongest and most competent among us, there
+will arise moments when decision of any kind has become impossible, and
+it is a real relief to have those about us who settle everything
+without asking whether we like it or not.  Such times are almost always
+the result of physical debility, when the enfeebled body so reacts upon
+brain and spirit that no matter how vigorous the one or valorous the
+other, both seem atrophied.
+
+It is at such times that we have cause to bless the doctor who is a
+strong man, and fears not to give orders or talk straight talk; and the
+relations who never so much as mention any plan till it has been
+decided, taking for granted we will approve the arrangements they have
+made.
+
+We are generally acquiescent, for it is so blessed to drift passively
+in the wake of these determined ones, till such time as, with returning
+physical strength, the will asserts itself once more.
+
+Thus it fell out that Mrs Ffolliot was surprisingly submissive when she
+was told by the doctor, a plain-spoken country doctor, who did not
+mince his words, that she must seize the chance offered of going to the
+South of France with her parents, or he wouldn't answer for the
+consequences.
+
+"You are," he said, "looking yellow and dowdy, and you are feeling blue
+and hysterical; if you don't go away at once you'll go on doing both
+for an interminable time."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot laughed.  "Then I suppose for the sake of the rest of the
+family I ought to go"--and she went.
+
+If Mr Ffolliot did not take Mrs Grantly's advice and look after things
+himself, he certainly was forced to attend to a good many tiresome
+details in the management of things outside the Manor House than had
+ever fallen to his lot before.  Mary saved him all she could, but
+Willets and Heaven and Fusby seemed to take a malicious delight in
+consulting him about trivial things that he found himself quite unable
+to decide one way or other.
+
+At first he tried to put them off with "Ask Miss Mary," but Willets
+shook his head, smiled kindly, and said firmly, "Twouldn't be fair,
+sir, 'twouldn't really."
+
+Ger and the Kitten had never seemed so tiresome and ubiquitous before,
+coming across his path at every turn; and Ger certainly nullified any
+uneasiness on the Squire's part regarding his eyes by practising, in
+and out of season, upon a discarded bugle.  A bugle bought for him by
+one of his friends in the Royal 'Orse for the sum of three and
+ninepence.  Ger had amassed three shillings of this sum, and the
+good-natured gunner never mentioned the extra ninepence.
+
+Ger had a quick ear and could already pick out little tunes on the
+piano with one finger, though, so far, he had found musical notation as
+difficult as every other kind of reading.
+
+But he took to the bugle like a duck to water, and on an evil day
+someone in Woolwich had taught him the peace call, "Come to the
+Cookhouse Door."
+
+The inhabitants of Redmarley were summoned to the cook-house door from
+every part of the village, from the woods, from the riverside, and from
+the churchyard.
+
+He played the bugle in the nursery and in the stableyard, he played it
+in the attics and outside the servants' hall when the servants' dinner
+was ready.
+
+He was implored, threatened and punished, but all without avail, for
+Ger had tasted the joys of achievement.  He had found what superior
+persons call "the expression of his essential ego," and just then his
+cosmos was all bugle.
+
+Not even his good-natured desire to oblige people was proof against
+this overwhelming desire to call imaginary troops to feed together on
+every possible and impossible occasion.  He did try to keep a good way
+from the house, or to choose moments in the house when he knew his
+father was out, but he made mistakes.  He could not discover by
+applying his eye to the keyhole of the study door whether his father
+was in the room or not, and, as he remarked bitterly, "Father always
+sat so beastly still" it was impossible to hear.
+
+He looked upon the Squire's objections as a cross, but the dread of his
+father's anger was nothing like so strong as his desire to play the
+bugle, and even the Squire perceived that short of taking the bugle
+away from him, which would have broken his heart, there was nothing for
+it but to frown and bear it--in moderation.
+
+Mrs Grantly's very direct assault had made a small breach in the wall
+of Mr Ffolliot's complacency; and a fairly vivid recollection of the
+shilling episode inclined him to deal leniently with Ger while his
+mother was away.  He rang the bell furiously for Fusby whenever the
+most distant strains of "Come to the Cook-house Door" smote upon his
+ears, and sent him post haste to stop that "infernal braying and
+bleating"; but beyond such unwelcome interruptions Ger tootled in peace.
+
+Mary was lonely and the days seemed long; she saw no one but her
+father, the servants, the two children and Miss Glover, the meek little
+governess, who seemed to spend most of her time in hunting for Ger
+among outhouses and gardens, and was scorned by Nana in consequence.
+
+When her mother was at home Mary was accustomed to wander about
+Redmarley unchallenged and unaccompanied save by the faithful Parker.
+But Mr Ffolliot took his duties as chaperon most seriously and expected
+that Mary should never stir beyond the gardens unless accompanied by
+Miss Glover.  He even seemed suspicious as to her most innocent
+expeditions, and every morning at breakfast demanded a minute
+time-table planning her day.
+
+Mary didn't mind this.  It was easy enough to say that after she had
+interviewed the cook (there was no housekeeper now at Redmarley) she
+would practise, or read French with Miss Glover; or go into Marlehouse
+accompanied by Miss Glover for a music lesson; or drive with Miss
+Glover and the children to Marlehouse to do the weekly shopping; or go
+with Miss Glover to the tailor to be fitted for a coat and skirt.  All
+that was easy enough to reel off in answer to the Squire's inquiries.
+It was the afternoons that were difficult.  She had been used to go
+into the village and visit her friends, Willets, Miss Gallup, the
+laundry-maid's mother, everybody there in fact, and now this seemed to
+be forbidden her unless Miss Glover went too, which spoiled everything.
+
+Sometimes she walked with the Squire and tried to feel an intelligent
+interest in Ercole Ferrarese, whose work Mr Ffolliot greatly admired.
+In fact he was just then engaged on a somewhat lengthy monograph
+concerning both the man and his work.
+
+Mary, in the hope of making herself a more congenial companion to her
+father, even went as far as to look up "Ercole" in Vasari's _Lives_.
+But Vasari was not particularly copious in details as to Ercole
+Ferrarese, and the particulars he did give which impressed Mary were
+just those most calculated to annoy her father.  As, for instance, that
+"Ercole had an inordinate love of wine and was frequently intoxicated,
+in so much that his life was shortened by this habit."
+
+The difficulties that may arise from such an inordinate affection had
+been brought home to her quite recently, and in one of their walks
+together after a somewhat prolonged silence she remarked to her father--
+
+"It was a pity that poor Ercole drank so much, wasn't it?"
+
+"Why seize upon a trifling matter of that sort when we are considering
+the man's work?" Mr Ffolliot asked angrily.  "For heaven's sake, do not
+grow into one of those people who only perceive the obvious; whose only
+knowledge of Cromwell would be that he had a wart on his nose."
+
+"I shouldn't say it was a very trifling matter seeing it killed
+him--drink I mean, not Cromwell's wart," Mary responded with more
+spirit than usual.  "Vasari says so."
+
+"It is quite possible that he does, but it is not a salient feature."
+
+"A wart on the nose would be a very salient feature," Mary ventured.
+
+"Exactly, that is what you would think and that is what I complain of.
+It is a strain that runs through the whole of you--except perhaps the
+Kitten--a dreadful narrowness of vision--don't tell me your sight is
+good--I'm only referring to your mental outlook.  It is the fatal
+frivolous attitude of mind that always remembers the wholly irrelevant
+statement that the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, was born when his
+mother was fourteen."
+
+"Was he?" Mary exclaimed with deep interest; "how very young to have a
+baby."
+
+Mr Ffolliot glared at her: "and nothing else," he continued, ignoring
+the interruption.
+
+"Oh, but I do remember other things about Ercole besides being a
+drunkard," she protested; "he hated people watching him work, I can
+understand that, and he was awfully kind and faithful to his master."
+
+"All quite useless and trifling in comparison with what I, myself, have
+told you of his work, which you evidently don't remember.  It is a
+man's work that matters, not little peculiarities of temperament and
+character."
+
+"I think," Mary said demurely, "that little peculiarities of
+temperament and character matter a good deal to the people who have to
+live with them."
+
+"That is possible but quite unimportant.  It is a man's intellect that
+is immortal, not his temperament."
+
+Again a long silence till Mary said suddenly: "Mother has never written
+anything or painted anything or done anything very remarkable, and yet
+she seems to matter a great deal to a lot of people besides us.  I
+never go outside the gates but people stop me and ask all sorts of
+questions about her.  Surely character can matter too?"
+
+Mr Ffolliot's scornful expression changed.  He looked at his daughter
+with interest.  "Do you know, Mary," he said quite amiably, "that
+sometimes I think you can't be quite as stupid as you make yourself
+appear."
+
+That was on Friday.  On Saturday Mary was in dire disgrace.
+
+Nana had taken the children to a cinematograph show in Marlehouse.
+Miss Glover went with them in the bucket to visit a friend there.  The
+Squire had affixed a paper to the outside of the study door saying that
+he was not to be disturbed till five o'clock, and it was a lovely
+afternoon.  The sort of afternoon when late March holds all the promise
+of May, when early daffodils shine splendidly in sheltered corners, and
+late snowdrops in a country garden look quite large and solemn.  When
+trodden grass has a sweet sharp smell, and all sorts of pretty things
+peep from the crannies of old Cotswold walls: those loose grey walls
+that are so infinitely various, so dear and friendly in their constant
+beautiful surprises.
+
+Mary saw the nursery party go, and stood and waved to them till they
+were out of sight, when a faint and distant summons to the cook-house
+door proved that Ger had begun to play the instant the bucket had
+turned out of the gates.
+
+Mary called Parker and went out.
+
+Down the drive she went, through the great gates and over the bridge to
+Willets' cottage.  Willets was out, but Mrs Willets was delighted to
+see her.  Mrs Willets was a kind, comfortable person, who brewed
+excellent home-made wines which she loved to bestow upon her friends.
+Mary partook of a glass of ginger wine, very strong and very gingery,
+and having given the latest news of the mistress (she, herself, was
+"our young lady" now), received in return the mournful intelligence
+that Miss Gallup had had a touch of bronchitis, "reely downright bad
+she'd bin, and now she was about but weak as a kitten, and very low in
+her mind; if you'd the time just to call in and see 'er, I'm sure she'd
+take it very kind, with your ma away, and all."
+
+So Mary hied her to Miss Gallup at the other end of Redmarley's one
+long lopsided street.  Her progress was a slow one, for at every
+cottage gate she was stopped with exclamations: "Why we thought you was
+lost, or gone to furrin parts with the mistress; none on us seen you
+since Church last Sunday."
+
+At last she reached "Two Ways," Miss Gallup's house, and Eloquent, of
+all people in the world, opened the door to her.
+
+Mary merely thought "How nice of him to come and see his aunt," and
+remarked aloud:
+
+"Ah, Mr Gallup, I'm glad to see you've come to look after the invalid,
+I've only just heard of her illness.  May I come in?  Will it tire her
+to see me?"
+
+And Eloquent could find no words to greet her except, "Please step this
+way," and he was nevertheless painfully aware that exactly so would he
+have addressed her half a dozen years ago had he been leading her to
+the haberdashery department of the Golden Anchor.
+
+Poor Eloquent was thrown off his mental balance altogether, for to him
+this was no ordinary meeting.
+
+Picture the feelings of a young man who thinks he is opening the door
+to the baker and finds incarnate spring upon the threshold.  Spring in
+weather-beaten, well-cut clothes, with a sweet, friendly voice and
+adorable, cordial smile.
+
+There she was, sitting opposite Miss Gallup on one slippery horsehair
+"easy chair," while her hostess, much beshawled, cushioned and
+foot-stooled, sat on the other.
+
+"My dear," Miss Gallup said confidentially, "Em'ly-Alice has gone to
+the surgery for my cough mixture and some embrocation, and she takes
+such a time.  I'm certain she's loitering and gossiping, and she knows
+I like my cup of tea at four, and you here, and all; if it wasn't that
+my leg's seem to crumble up under me I'd go and get it myself."
+
+"Dear Miss Gallup, don't be hard on Em'ly-Alice," Mary pleaded; "it's
+such a lovely afternoon I don't wonder she doesn't exactly hurry.  As
+for tea, let me get you some tea----"
+
+"I could," Eloquent interposed hastily, "I'm sure I could," and rose
+somewhat vaguely to go to the kitchen.
+
+"Let us both get it," Mary cried gaily, "we'll be twice as quick."
+
+And before Miss Gallup could protest they had gone to the kitchen and
+she could hear them laughing.
+
+Mary was thoroughly enjoying herself.  For three weeks she had poured
+out tea for her father solemnly at five o'clock and been snubbed for
+her pains.
+
+Here were two people who liked her, who were glad to see her, who
+thought it kind of her to come.  No girl can be wholly unconscious of
+admiration; nor, when it is absolutely reverential, can she resent it,
+and Mary felt no displeasure in Eloquent's.
+
+They could neither of them cut bread and butter.  It was a plateful of
+queerly shaped bits that went in on the tray; but there was an egg for
+Miss Gallup, and the tea was excellent.
+
+Miss Gallup began to feel more leniently disposed towards Em'ly-Alice.
+"She's done for me pretty well on the whole," she told Mary.  "Doctor,
+he wanted me to have the parish nurse over to Marle Abbas, but I don't
+hold with those new-fangled young women."
+
+"She's a dear," said Mary; "mother thinks all the world of her."
+
+"May be, may be," Miss Gallup said dryly; "but when you come to my time
+of life you've your own opinion about draughts.  And as for that
+constant bathin' and washin', I don't hold with it at all.  A bed's a
+bed, I says, and not a bath, and if you're in bed you should stay there
+and keep warm, and not have all the clothes took off you to have your
+legs washed.  How can your legs _get_ dirty if you're tucked in with
+clean sheets, in a clean room, in a clean house.  When I haves a bath I
+like it comfortable, once a week, at night in front of the kitchen
+fire, and Em'ly-Alice safe in bed.  No, my dear, I don't hold with
+these new-fangled notions, and Nurse Jones, she worries me to death.  I
+'ad 'er once, and I said, never again--whiskin' in and whiskin' out,
+and opening windows and washin' me all over, like I 'was a baby--most
+uncomfortable I call it."
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece struck five, Mary jumped up.  "I must
+fly," she exclaimed, "it's time for father's tea; I've been enjoying
+myself so much I forgot all about the time."
+
+"You see Miss Mary as far as the gates," Miss Gallup said to her
+nephew.  "Em'ly-Alice is in, I 'eard 'er pokin' the fire the wasteful
+way she has."
+
+Mary did not want Eloquent, for she greatly desired to run, but he
+followed with such alacrity she had not the heart to forbid him.  He
+walked beside her, or, more truly, he trotted beside her, through the
+village street, for Mary went at such a pace that Eloquent was almost
+breathless.  He found time, however, to tell her that he had paired at
+the House on Friday, and took the week-end just to look after Miss
+Gallup, who had seemed rather low-spirited since her illness.  They did
+the distance in record time, and outside the gates they found Mr
+Ffolliot waiting.
+
+"I've been to see Miss Gallup, father, she has been ill, and I looked
+in to inquire. . . .  I don't think you know Mr Gallup."
+
+Mr Ffolliot bowed to Eloquent with a frigidity that plainly proved he
+had no desire to know him.
+
+"I regret," Mr Ffolliot said in an impersonal voice, "that Miss Gallup
+has been ill.  Do you know, Mary, that it is ten minutes past five?"
+
+"Good evening, Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said hastily; "it was most kind
+of you to call, and it did my aunt a great deal of good.  Good-evening,
+Mr Ffolliot."  He lifted his hat and turned away.
+
+Mr Ffolliot stood perfectly still and looked his daughter over.  From
+the crown of her exceedingly old hat to her admirable boots he surveyed
+her leisurely.
+
+"Don't you want your tea, father?" Mary asked nervously, "or have you
+had it?"
+
+"I did want tea, at the proper hour, and I have not had it; but what I
+want much more than tea is an explanation of that young man's presence
+in your society."
+
+"I told you, father, I went to see Miss Gallup, who has had bronchitis,
+and he had come down from London for the week-end to see her, and so he
+walked back with me."
+
+"Did you know he was there?"
+
+"Of course not," Mary flushed angrily, "I didn't know Miss Gallup had
+been ill till Mrs Willets told me.  I haven't been outside the grounds
+for a fortnight except in the bucket, so I've heard no village news."
+
+"And why did you take it upon yourself to go outside the grounds to-day
+without consulting me?"
+
+"I was rather tired of the garden, father, and it was such a lovely
+day, and it seemed rather unkind never to go near any of the people
+when mother was away."
+
+"None of these reasons--if one can call them reasons--throws the
+smallest light upon the fact that you have been parading the village
+with this fellow, Gallup.  I have told you before, I don't wish to know
+him, I will not know him.  His politics are abhorrent to me, and his
+antecedents. . . .  Surely by this time you know, Mary, that I do not
+choose my friends from among the shopkeepers in Marlehouse."
+
+"I'm sorry, father, but this afternoon it really couldn't be helped.  I
+couldn't be rude to the poor man when he came with me.  He seemed to
+take it for granted he should; Miss Gallup suggested it.  I daresay he
+didn't want to come at all.  But they both meant it kindly--what could
+I do?"
+
+"What you can do, and what you must do, is to obey my orders.  I will
+not have you walk anywhere in company with that bounder----"
+
+"He isn't a bounder, father.  You're wrong there; whatever he may be he
+isn't that."
+
+Mr Ffolliot turned slowly and entered the drive.  Mary followed, and in
+silence they walked up to the house.
+
+He looked at his tall daughter from time to time.  She held her head
+very high and her expression was rebellious.  She really was an
+extremely handsome girl, and, in spite of his intense annoyance, Mr
+Ffolliot felt gratification in this fact.
+
+At the hall door he paused.  "I must ask you to remember, Mary, that
+you are no longer a child, that your actions now can evoke both comment
+and criticism, and I must ask you to confine your friendships to your
+own class."
+
+"I shall never be able to do that," Mary answered firmly; "I love the
+village people far too much."
+
+"That is a wholly different matter, and you know very well that I have
+always been the first to rejoice in the very friendly relations between
+us and--er--my good tenants.  This Gallup person is not one of them.
+There is not the smallest necessity to know him, and what's more, I
+decline to know him.  Do you understand?"
+
+"No, father, I don't.  I can't promise to cut Mr Gallup or be rude to
+him if I happen to meet him; he has done nothing to deserve it.  You
+don't ask us to cut that odious Rabbich boy, who _is_ a bounder, if you
+like."
+
+"I know nothing about the Rabbich boy, as you call him.  If he is what
+you say, I should certainly advise you to drop his acquaintance; but I
+must and do insist that you shall not further cultivate the
+acquaintance of this young Gallup."
+
+"He's going back to London to-morrow afternoon, father.  What _is_
+there to worry about?"
+
+Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "I shall be glad," he exclaimed, "when your mother
+returns."
+
+"So will everybody," said Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE GRANTLY STRAIN
+
+Easter, that year, fell in the second week of April, and both Grantly
+and the twins were home for it.  Mrs Ffolliot was back too.  The
+Riviera had done wonders for her, and she returned beautiful and gay,
+and immensely glad to have her children round her once more.
+
+To celebrate Mrs Ffolliot's return, it was decided to give a
+dinner-party.  Dinner-parties were rare occurrences at the Manor.  The
+Squire allowed about two a year, and grumbled a good deal over each.
+If he would have left the whole thing to Mrs Ffolliot, she and everyone
+else would have enjoyed it; but he would interfere.  Above all, he
+insisted on supervising the list of guests, and settling who was to go
+in with whom.  This time they were to number fourteen in all, and as
+Grantly and Mary were to be of the party, that left ten people to be
+discussed.
+
+It was arranged with comparative ease till about a week before the day
+fixed the bachelor intended for Mary broke his leg out hunting.  Mary
+had been allowed a new dress for the occasion; it would be the first
+time she had been at a real party in her father's house, and to be left
+out would have been a cruel disappointment.
+
+Bachelors in that neighbourhood, even elderly bachelors, who came up to
+the standard required by Mr Ffolliot were few, and there was
+comparatively little time.
+
+The four elder children, their father, and mother were sitting at
+lunch; they had reached the cheese stage.  Fusby and his attendant maid
+had departed, and the question of a "man for Mary" occupied the
+attention of the family.  When Mrs Ffolliot quite innocently discharged
+a bomb into their midst by exclaiming, "I've got it.  Let's ask Mr
+Gallup.  He's our member; he was very kind in coming to tell me about
+poor Buz's accident, very kind to him, too, I remember.  It would be a
+friendly thing to do.  The Campions are coming, they'd be pleased."
+
+Had Mrs Ffolliot not been gazing straight at her husband, she might
+have noticed that three pairs of startled eyes looked up at the same
+moment, and then were bent sedulously on the table.
+
+Uz alone curiously regarded his brethren.  Mr Ffolliot paused in the
+very act of pouring himself out another glass of marsala and set the
+decanter on the table with a thump, the glass only half-full.
+
+"Impossible," he said coldly, "absolutely out of the question."
+
+"But why?" Mrs Ffolliot asked; "there's nothing against the young man,
+and it would be a friendly thing to do."
+
+"That's why I won't have it done," Mr Ffolliot said decidedly.  "It
+would give a false impression.  He might be disposed to take liberties."
+
+"Oh no, Larrie; why should you think anything of that sort?  It seems
+to me such a pity people in the county shouldn't be friendly.  The
+Campions speak most highly of him."
+
+"My dear"--Mr Ffolliot spoke with evident self-restraint--"I do not
+care to ask my friends to meet Mr Gallup as an equal.  How could you
+ask any lady of your own rank to go in to dinner with him?  The thing
+is outrageous."
+
+"I was going to send him in with Mary," Mrs Ffolliot said innocently.
+"We must get somebody, and I know he's in the neighbourhood, for I saw
+him to-day."
+
+"If he were in Honolulu he would not be more impossible than he is at
+present," said the Squire irritably.  "Don't discuss it any more, my
+dear, I beg of you.  It is out of the question."
+
+And Mr Ffolliot rose from the table and took refuge in his study.
+
+"I'm sorry," Mrs Ffolliot sighed, "I should have liked to ask him," and
+then she suddenly awoke to the fact that her entire family looked
+perturbed and miserable to the last degree.
+
+Grantly pushed back his chair.  "May I go, mother," he said, "I've
+something I must say to father."
+
+"Not now, Grantly," and Mrs Ffolliot laid a gentle detaining hand upon
+his arm as he passed, "not just when he's feeling annoyed--if there's
+anything you have to tell him let it wait--don't go and worry him now."
+
+Grantly lifted his mother's hand off his arm very gently.  "I must,
+mummy dear, it can't wait."
+
+He looked rather pale but his eyes were steady, and she thought with a
+little thrill of pride how like his grandfather he was growing.
+
+He went straight to the study.  Mr Ffolliot was seated by the fire with
+_Gaston Latour_ open in his hand.
+
+Grantly shut the door, crossed to the fireplace and stood on the
+hearth-rug looking down at his father.  "I've come to say, father, that
+I think we _ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."
+
+"_You_ think we ought to . . ." the Squire paused in breathless
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes, sir, I do.  And I hope you'll think so too when you hear what
+I've got to say."
+
+"Go on," said Mr Ffolliot, laying down his book.  "Go on."
+
+It wasn't very easy.  Grantly swallowed something in his throat, and
+began rather huskily: "You see, sir, we're under an obligation to
+Gallup.  We are really."
+
+"_We_ are under an obligation.  What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Well I am, father, anyway.  You remember the night before the
+election----?"
+
+"I don't," the Squire interrupted, "why in the world should I----?"
+
+"Well, sir, it was like this . . .  I went to dinner with young Rabbich
+at the Moonstone, and I got drunk----"
+
+"You--got--drunk?" the pauses between each word were far more emphatic
+than the words themselves.
+
+"Yes, sir, we all had more than was good for us, and we went to the
+Radical meeting and made an awful row, and got chucked out and----"
+
+"Look here, Grantly, what has all this to do with young Gallup?  It was
+idiotic of you to go to his meeting, and the conduct of a vulgar
+blockhead to get drunk; but in what way . . ."
+
+"That's not all, sir; after the meeting the bands came into collision,
+and I got taken up."
+
+"_You_ got taken up?"
+
+"Two policemen, sir, taking me to the station, and Mr Gallup got me out
+of it and gave me a bed in his house."
+
+Mr Ffolliot sat forward in his chair.  "You accepted his
+hospitality--you slept the night in his house?"
+
+"If I hadn't I'd have slept the night in the lock-up, and it would have
+been in the papers."
+
+"But why--why should he have intervened to protect you?"
+
+"Do you think, sir"--Grantly's voice was very shy--"that it might be
+because we both come from the same place?"
+
+"He doesn't belong to the village."
+
+"In a way he does; there have been Gallups in Redmarley nearly as long
+as us."
+
+Mr Ffolliot said nothing.  He sat staring at his tall young son as if
+he were a new person.
+
+Grantly fidgetted and flushed and paled under this steady
+contemplation, saying at last: "You do see what I mean, don't you,
+father?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"That we ought to do something friendly?"
+
+"He has certainly, through your idiotic fault, contrived to put us
+under an obligation.  Why, I cannot think, but the fact remains.  I do
+not know anything that could have annoyed me more."
+
+Grantly ventured to think that perhaps a paragraph in the police
+reports of the local newspaper might have tried the Squire even more
+severely, but he did not say so.  He waited.
+
+"Does your mother know of all this?"
+
+"Oh no, father, it would make her so sorry.  Must we tell her?"
+
+"Your tenderness for her feelings in no way restrained you at the time;
+why this solicitude now?"
+
+"I'd rather she knew than seem to go back on Gallup."
+
+"You may go, Grantly, and leave me to digest this particularly
+disagreeable intelligence.  I have long reconciled myself to your lack
+of intellectual ability, but I did not know that you indulged in such
+coarse pleasures."
+
+"Father--did you never do anything of that kind when you were young?"
+
+"Most truthfully I can answer that I never did.  It would not have
+amused me in the least."
+
+"It didn't _amuse_ me," Grantly said ruefully; "I can't remember much
+about it."
+
+"Go," said Mr Ffolliot, and Grantly went, looking rather like Parker
+with his tail between his legs.
+
+Hardly had Mr Ffolliot realised the import of what Grantly had told him
+when the door was opened again and Buz came in.
+
+Buz, too, made straight for the hearth-rug, and standing there faced
+his bewildered parent (these sudden invasions were wholly without
+precedent), saying: "I've come to tell you, sir, that I think we
+_ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."
+
+Had Mr Ffolliot been a man of his hands he would have fallen upon Buz
+and boxed his ears there and then; as it was, he replied bitterly:
+
+"I am not interested in your opinion, boy, on this or any other
+subject.  Leave the room at once."
+
+But Buz, to his father's amazement, stood his ground.
+
+"You must hear me, father, else you can't understand."
+
+"If you've come to say anything about Grantly you may spare yourself
+the pains, he has told me himself."
+
+"About Grantly," Buz repeated stupidly, "why should I want to talk
+about Grantly?--it's about him and me I want to talk."
+
+"Him and you?"  Mr Ffolliot echoed desperately.
+
+"Yes, I rotted him that night and he was awfully decent----"
+
+"What night?"
+
+"The night I broke my arm--they said at the Infirmary that if he hadn't
+been so careful of me it would have been much worse."
+
+"You refer, I suppose, to Gallup?"
+
+"Yes, father, and it really was decent of him, because I went dressed
+up as a suffragette and had no end of a rag; he might have been awfully
+shirty, and he wasn't--he never told a soul.  Don't you think we ought
+to ask him?"
+
+"Does your mother know about this?"
+
+"Of course not, nobody knew except Uz and," Buz added truthfully,
+"Adele."
+
+"Leave me," said Mr Ffolliot feebly, "I've had about as much as I can
+bear this afternoon--Go."
+
+"You do see, sir, that it makes a difference," pleaded the persistent
+Buz.
+
+"Go," thundered the exasperated Squire.
+
+"All right, father, I'm going, but you _do_ see, don't you?" said Buz
+from the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A RETROSPECT AND A RESULT
+
+Mr Ffolliot was really a much-tried man.  Those interviews with Grantly
+and Buz caused his nerves to vibrate most unpleasantly.
+
+So unhinged was he that for quite half an hour after Buz's departure he
+kept looking nervously at the door, fully expectant that it would open
+to admit Uz, primed with some fresh reason why Eloquent Gallup should
+be asked to dinner; and that he would be followed by Ger and the Kitten
+bent on a similar errand.
+
+However, no one else invaded his privacy.  The Manor House was very
+still; the only occasional sound being the soft swish of a curtain
+stirred by the breeze through the open window.
+
+Mr Ffolliot neither read _Gaston Latour_ nor did he write, though his
+monograph on Ercole Ferrarese was not yet completed.
+
+Wrapped in thought he sat quite motionless in his deep chair, and the
+subject that engrossed him was his own youth; comparing what he
+remembered of it with these queer, careless sons of his, who seemed
+born to trouble other people, Mr Ffolliot could not call to mind any
+occasion when he had been a nuisance to anybody.  He honestly tried and
+wholly failed.
+
+Such persons as have been nourished in early youth on Mr Thackeray's
+inimitable _The Rose and The Ring_ will remember how at the christening
+of Prince Giglio, the Fairy Blackstick, who was his godmother, said,
+"My poor child, the best thing I can send you is a little misfortune!"
+
+Now the Fairy Blackstick had evidently absented herself from Hilary
+Ffolliot's christening, for his youth was one long procession of
+brilliant successes.  It is true that his father, an easy-going,
+amiable clergyman, died during his first term at Harrow, but that did
+not affect Hilary's material comfort in any way.  It left his mother
+perfectly free to devote her entire attention to him.
+
+He was a good-looking, averagely healthy boy, who carried all before
+him at preparatory school.  Easily first in every class he entered, he
+was quite able to hold his own in all the usual games, and he left for
+Harrow in a blaze of glory, having obtained the most valuable classical
+scholarship.
+
+Throughout his career at school he never failed to win any prize he
+tried for, and when he left, it was with scholarships that almost
+covered the expenses of his time at Cambridge.  Moreover, he was head
+of his house and a member of the Eleven.
+
+His mother, a gentle and unselfish lady, felt that she could not do
+enough to promote the comfort of so brilliant and satisfactory a son.
+Hilary's likes and dislikes in the matter of food, Hilary's preference
+for silk underwear, Hilary's love of art and music, were all matters of
+equal and supreme importance to Mrs Ffolliot, and in every way she
+fostered the strain of selfishness that exists even in the best of us.
+
+At the university he did equally well.  He took a brilliant degree, and
+then travelled for a year or so, devoting himself to the study of
+Italian art and architecture; and finally accepted (he never seemed to
+try for things like other people) a clerkship in the Foreign Office.
+
+When he was eight and twenty his uncle died, and he inherited Redmarley.
+
+His conduct had always been blameless.  He shared the ordinary
+pleasures of upper-class young men without committing any of their
+follies.  He was careful about money, and never got into debt.  He
+accepted kindnesses as his right, and felt under no obligation to
+return them.
+
+He could not be said ever to have worked hard, for all the work he had
+hitherto undertaken came so easily to him.  He possessed a large circle
+of agreeable acquaintances, and no intimate friends.
+
+He met Marjory Grantly in her second season, and for the first time in
+his life fell ardently and hopelessly in love.
+
+Now was the chance for the Fairy Blackstick!
+
+But she evidently took no interest in Hilary Ffolliot, for Marjory,
+instead of sending him about his business, and perhaps thus rendering
+him for a space the most miserable of men, fell in love with him, and
+they were married in three months.
+
+The General, it is true, had misgivings, and remarked to Mrs Grantly
+that Ffolliot seemed too good to be true.  But there was no disproving
+it; and Hilary was so much in love that for a while, for nearly a year,
+he thought more about Marjory's likes and dislikes than his own.
+
+And Marjory's likes included such a vast number of other people.
+
+But the chance, the hundred-to-one chance, of turning him into an
+ordinary human being--loving, suffering, understanding--was lost.
+
+Once more in Life's Market he had got what he wanted at his own price,
+and with the cessation of competitive examinations all ambition seemed
+dead in him.
+
+And what of Marjory?
+
+Nobody, not even her father and mother who loved her so tenderly, ever
+knew what Marjory felt.  She had chosen her lot.  She would abide by
+it.  No doubt she saw her husband as he was, but as time went on she
+realised how few chances he had had to be anything different.  She was
+an only child herself.  She, too, had adoring parents, but their
+adoration took a different form from the somewhat abject and wholly
+blind devotion of Hilary's mother.  General and Mrs Grantly saw to it
+from the very first that they should love their daughter because she
+was lovable, and not only because she was theirs.  They had troops of
+friends, and exercised a large hospitality that entailed a constant
+giving out of sympathy for and interest in other people.  That there
+was much suffering, and sadness, and sin in the world was never
+concealed from Marjory in her happy girlhood; that it had not touched
+her personally was never allowed to foster the belief that it did not
+exist.  That there was also much happiness, and gaiety, and kindness
+was abundantly manifest in her own home, and every scope was given her
+for the development of the social instincts which were part of her
+charm.  She went to her husband at twenty "handled and made," and
+twenty years of married life had only perfected the work.
+
+As a girl she was perhaps intellectually intolerant.  Stupid people
+annoyed her, and she possessed all youth's enthusiastic admiration for
+achievement, for people who did things, who had arrived.  Hilary
+Ffolliot was a new type to her.  His brilliant record impressed her.
+His cultivated taste and extraordinary versatility attracted her, and
+his evident admiration gratified her girlish vanity.
+
+She was a proud woman, and if she had made a mistake she was not going
+to let it spoil her life.  Only once did she come near showing her
+heart even to her mother.  It was a year after the Kitten was born,
+when the General had just got the command at Woolwich, and Mrs Grantly
+once more came back to the assault--her constant plea that she should
+have Ger given over to her entirely.
+
+"You really are, Margie, a greedy, grasping woman.  Here are you with
+six children, four of them sons.  And here am I with only one child, a
+miserable, measly girl, and you won't let me have even one of the boys."
+
+The miserable, measly girl referred to laughed and knelt down at her
+mother's knee.  "Dearest, you really get quite as much of the children
+as is good for you--or them----"
+
+"You can't say I spoil them; I didn't spoil you, and you were only one."
+
+"I'm sorry I couldn't be more," Mrs Ffolliot said contritely; "but you
+see, mother dear, it's like this, it's just because I was only one I
+want the children to have as much as possible of each other . . . while
+they are young . . .  I want them to grow up . . ."  Mrs Ffolliot sat
+down on the floor and leant her head against Mrs Grantly's knees so
+that her face was hidden.  "I want them to realise what a lot of other
+people there are in the world, all with hopes and fears and likes and
+dislikes and joys and sorrows . . . and that each one of them is only a
+very little humble atom of a great whole--and that's what they can
+teach each other--I can't do it--you can't do it--but they can manage
+it amongst them."
+
+Mrs Grantly did not answer; quick as she was in repartee, she had the
+much rarer gift of sympathetic silence.  She laid a kind hand on her
+daughter's bent head and softly stroked it.
+
+The clock struck four, and still Mr Ffolliot sat on in his chair with
+_Gaston Latour_ unopened, held loosely in his long slender hands.
+
+A dignified presence with every attribute that goes to make the scholar
+and the gentleman; though one who judged of character from external
+appearance might have misdoubted the thin straight lips, the rather
+pinched nostrils, the eyes too close together, and above all, the
+head--high and intellectual, but almost devoid of curve at the back.  A
+clean-cut, ascetic, handsome face, as a rule calm and judicial in its
+dignified repose.
+
+This afternoon, though, the Squire lacks his usual serene poise.  His
+self-confidence has been shaken, and it is his young sons who have
+disturbed its delicately adjusted equilibrium.
+
+He was puzzled.
+
+It is a mistake to imagine that selfish and ungrateful people fail to
+recognise these qualities in others.  Not only are they quick to
+perceive incipient signs of them, but they demand the constant exercise
+of their opposites in their fellow men.
+
+Mr Ffolliot was puzzled.
+
+Among the words he used most constantly, both on paper and in
+conversation, were "fine shades" and "fineness" in its most
+psychological sense.  "Fineness" was a quality he was for ever
+belauding: a quality that he believed was only to be found in persons
+of complex character and unusually sensitive organisation.
+
+And yet he grudgingly conceded that he had, that afternoon, been
+confronted by it in two of his own quite ordinary children.
+
+What rankled, however, was that Buz, at all events, seemed doubtful
+whether he, the Squire, possessed it.  The dubious and thrice-repeated
+"you do understand, don't you, father?" rang in his ears.
+
+How was it that Buz, the shallow and mercurial, seemed to fear that
+what was so plain to him might be hidden from his father?
+
+Undesired and wholly irrelevant there flashed into his mind that walk
+with Mary, a short ten days ago, when he had reproached her with her
+limitations, her power to grasp only the obvious.  And it was suddenly
+revealed to Mr Ffolliot that certain obligations were obvious to his
+children that were by no means equally clear to him.
+
+Why was this?
+
+As if in answer came his own phrase, used so often in contemptuous
+explanation of their more troublesome vagaries--"the Grantly Strain."
+
+He was fair-minded and he admired courage.  He in no way underrated the
+effort it must have been for Grantly and Buz to come and confess their
+peccadillos to him.  And he knew very well that only because they felt
+someone else was involved had they summoned up courage to do so.
+
+If their evil-doings were discovered, they did not lie, these noisy,
+blundering children of his; but they never showed the smallest desire
+to draw attention to their escapades.
+
+His mind seemed incapable of concentration that afternoon, for now he
+began to wonder how it was that "the children" lately had managed to
+emerge from the noun of multitude and each had assumed a separate
+identity with marked and definite characteristics.
+
+There was Mary . . .
+
+Mr Ffolliot frowned.  If it hadn't been for Mary he really would have
+been quite glad to ask young Gallup to dinner.  But Mary complicated
+matters; for he had instantly divined what had struck none of the
+others, a connection between the Liberal member's amiability to his
+sons and the fact that those sons possessed a sister.
+
+Presently Fusby came in to make up the fire.  "Do you happen to know,
+Fusby, if your mistress is in the house and disengaged?"
+
+"I saw the mistress as I came through the 'all, sir, sitting in a
+window reading a book.  She was quite alone, sir."
+
+"Ah," said Mr Ffolliot, "thank you, I will go to her."
+
+As the door was closed behind his master, Fusby arose from brushing the
+hearth and shook his fist in that direction.
+
+"Go, I should think you would go, you one-eyed old image you.  Did you
+think I was going to fetch her to wait your pleasure?"
+
+Mrs Ffolliot laid down her book as her husband came across the wide old
+hall.  She made room for him on the window-seat beside her.  She
+noticed that he was flushed and that his hair was almost shaggy.
+
+"Have you got a headache, Larrie?" she asked in her kind voice.  "I
+hope Grantly had nothing disturbing to relate."
+
+"Yes, no," Mr Ffolliot replied vaguely; "I've been thinking things
+over, my dear, and I've come round to your opinion that perhaps it
+would be the right thing to ask young Gallup to dinner on the
+twenty-first.  There will be the Campions and the Wards to keep him in
+countenance."
+
+"I'm so glad you see it as I do," Mrs Ffolliot said gently, looking,
+however, much surprised.  "After all, he may not come, you know."
+
+"He'll come," and his wife wondered why the Squire laid such grim
+emphasis upon the words.
+
+"By the way," Mr Ffolliot said in quite a new tone, "you were saying
+something the other day about your mother's very kind offer to have
+Mary for some weeks after the May drawing-room.  I think it would be a
+good thing.  You don't want the fag and expense of going up to town so
+soon after you've come home.  Let her stay with her grandmother for a
+bit and go out--see that she has proper clothes--they will enjoy having
+the child, and she will see something of the world.  Let her have her
+fling--don't hurry her."
+
+"Why, Hilary, what a _volte-face_!  When I spoke to you about it before
+I was ill you said it was out of the question . . ."
+
+"My dear," said Mr Ffolliot testily, "only stupid people think that
+they must never change their minds.  I have decided that it will be
+good for Mary to leave Redmarley for a bit.  You must remember that I
+have been carefully observing her for the last few weeks.  She will
+grow narrow and provincial if she never meets anyone except the
+Garsetshire people.  Surely you must see that?"
+
+"May I tell Mary?  It's such fun when you're young to look forward to
+things."
+
+"Certainly tell Mary, and let her go as soon as her grandmother will
+have her.  She'd better get what clothes she wants in town."
+
+"She can go up with Grantly when he goes back to the Shop.  It _is_
+nice of you, Larrie."
+
+"I suppose she must stay for this tiresome dinner?  Why not let her go
+beforehand?  It's always very easy to get an odd girl."
+
+"That wouldn't do," Mrs Ffolliot said decidedly, "the child would be
+disappointed--besides I want her."
+
+Mr Ffolliot sighed.  "As you will, my dear," he said meekly, "but she'd
+better go directly it is over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE DREAM GOES ON
+
+"Aunt Susan, will you give me a bed on Thursday night?"
+
+Eloquent, who was spending the Easter recess at Marlehouse, had
+bicycled out to tea with Miss Gallup.
+
+"You know as I'm always pleased to give you a bed any time.  What do
+you want it then for?  Are you coming to stop a bit?"
+
+"Because," Eloquent took a deep breath and watched his aunt closely,
+"I'm dining at the Manor that night."
+
+"Then," said Miss Gallup sharply, "you don't have a bed here."
+
+"Why ever not?" and in his astonishment Eloquent dropped into the
+Garsetshire idiom he was usually so careful to avoid.
+
+"Because," Miss Gallup was flushed and tremulous, "no one shall ever
+say I was as a drag on you."
+
+"But, Aunt Susan, no one could say it, and if they did, what would it
+matter? and what in the world has that to do with giving me a bed?"
+
+"My dear," said Miss Gallup, "I know my place if you don't.  When you
+goes to dinner with Squire Ffolliot you must go properly from
+Marlehouse like anybody else--you must drive out, or hire a motor and
+put it up there, same as other people do, and go back again to your own
+house where you're known to be--it's in the paper.  There's no sort of
+use draggin' _me_ in.  I always knew as you'd get there some day, and
+now you've got there and no one's pleasder than me.  Do show me the
+invitation."
+
+Eloquent took a note from his breast-pocket and handed it to his aunt,
+who put on her spectacles and read aloud, slowly and impressively:--
+
+
+Dear Mr Gallup,--If you have no other engagement, will you come and
+dine with us on the twenty-first at eight o'clock.  It will give us
+great pleasure if you can.--Yours sincerely,
+
+MARGERY FFOLLIOT.
+
+
+"H'm, now that's not what I should have expected," Miss Gallup said in
+a disappointed tone.  "_I_ should have thought she'd 'a said, 'Mr and
+Mrs Ffolliot presents their compliments to Mr Gallup, and requests the
+pleasure of his company at a dinner-party'--I know there is a party,
+for Dorcas did tell Em'ly-Alice there was going to be one; only last
+night she was talking about it--it's downright blunt that note--I call
+it----"
+
+Eloquent laughed.  "All the same I've accepted, and now do explain why
+I can't sleep here instead of trailing all the way back into Marlehouse
+at that time of night."
+
+"If you can't _see_, why you must just take my word for it.  You and
+me's in different walks of life, and it's my bounden duty to see as you
+don't bemean yourself.  I'm always pleased to see you in a quiet way,
+but there's no use in strangers knowing we're relations."
+
+"What nonsense," Eloquent exclaimed hotly, "I've only got one aunt in
+the world, and I'm very proud of her, so let there be an end of this
+foolishness."
+
+Miss Gallup wiped her eyes.  "In some ways, Eloquent," she said
+huskily, "with all your politics an' that, you're no better than a
+child."
+
+"I'm hanged if I can see what you're driving at," Eloquent exclaimed in
+great irritation.  "Once more, Aunt Susan, will you give me a bed on
+Thursday?"
+
+"Don't ask me, my dear, don't ask me.  It's for your good as I refuse.
+_I_ can see the difference between us if you can't, and when you took
+on so with politics, and then your father left all that fortune so as
+you could leave the likes of the Golden Anchor, I said to myself, 'Now,
+Martha Gallup, don't you interfere.  Don't you go intrudin' on your
+brother's child.  If he sees fit to keep friendly it shows he's a good
+heart, but you keep your place.' . . .  An' I've kep' it; never have I
+been near you in Marlehouse, as you know--Not but what you've as't me,
+and very pleased I was to be as't . . ."
+
+"And very displeased I was that you would never come," Eloquent
+interrupted.
+
+"I know my place," Miss Gallup persisted.  "I don't mind the likes of
+the Ffolliots knowing we're related. . . .  They're bound to know, and
+they're not proud, none of 'em exceptin' Squire, that is to say, and he
+wouldn't think it worth while to be proud to the likes of me.  But I
+don't want to hang on and keep you down, and there's some as would
+think less of you for me bein' your aunt, so where's the use of
+flaunting an old-fashioned piece like me in their faces. . . .  If
+you'll come out next day and tell me all about the party, I'd take it
+most kind of you, Eloquent, that I should."
+
+"Why shouldn't I come here straight that night?  I shouldn't have
+forgotten anything by then."
+
+"No," Miss Gallup said firmly.  "I'd much rather you didn't come to me
+from that 'ouse nor go there from me.  You go back 'ome like a good
+boy.  It isn't as if you couldn't afford a chaise to bring you."
+
+Eloquent saw that she really meant what she said.  He was puzzled and
+rather hurt, for it had never occurred to him that his aunt was
+anything but his aunt: a kindly garrulous old lady who had always been
+extremely good to him, whom it was his duty to cherish, who looked upon
+him in the light of a son.
+
+He was a simple person and never realised that this simplicity and
+directness had a good deal to do with the undoubted cordiality of
+certain persons, who, apart from politics, were known to be very
+exclusive in the matter of their acquaintance; and that it was largely
+owing to the fact that he never showed the smallest false shame as to
+his origin, that members of his party who had at first consented to
+know him solely for political reasons, continued to know him when the
+Liberal Government was for a second time firmly established.  They
+perceived his primness, were faintly amused by his immense earnestness,
+and they respected his sincerity.
+
+The manner of his arrival on the fateful night was settled for him by
+Sir George Campion, who, meeting him in the street, offered him a seat
+in their motor.  Eloquent never knew that Mrs Ffolliot had asked Sir
+George to do this, thinking that it would make things easier and
+pleasanter for the guest who was the one stranger to the assembled
+party.
+
+On the night of the dinner Mary was dressed early and went to her
+mother's room to see if she could help her.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot was standing before her long glass and Sophia was shaking
+out the train of her dress, a soft grey-blue dress full of purple
+shadows and silvery lights.
+
+She turned and looked at her tall young daughter, critically, fondly,
+with the pride and fear and wonder a woman, above all a beautiful
+woman, feels as she realises that for her child everything is yet to
+come; the story all untold.
+
+"You may go, Sophia," she said gently.  "I think Miss Mary looks nice,
+don't you?  It's her first real evening frock, you know."
+
+Sophia looked from the one to the other and her severe face relaxed a
+little.  "It fits most beautiful," she vouchsafed.
+
+"Mother," Mary said when Sophia had gone, "I wanted to catch you just a
+minute--I've seen Mr Gallup since that night he came to tell us about
+Buz . . ."
+
+"You've met?" Mrs Ffolliot exclaimed, "where? and why have you never
+told me?"
+
+"It was while you were away.  Miss Gallup had been ill and I went to
+ask for her and he was there, and he walked home with me . . ."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot raised her eyebrows.
+
+"Oh, you think it funny too?  It couldn't be helped--old Miss Gallup
+seemed to think it was the proper thing and sent him--and father was
+waiting for me at the gate and was awfully cross. . . .  Mother, how
+_did_ you persuade him to let you ask Mr Gallup?"
+
+Mrs Ffolliot turned to her dressing-table and began to collect fan and
+handkerchief.  She looked in the glass and saw Mary behind her, eager,
+radiant, slim, upright, and gloriously young.  She began to see why
+father was so awfully cross.  There was more excuse than usual.
+
+"Why don't you answer me, mother? didn't you hear what I said?"
+
+"I heard, my darling.  Father needed no persuasion.  He simply changed
+his mind; but I can't think why you never told me you had met Mr Gallup
+already."
+
+Mary blushed.  The warm colour dyed forehead and neck and ears, and
+faded into the exceedingly white chest and shoulders, revealed to the
+world for the first time.
+
+Mrs Ffolliot saw all this in the glass, wondered if she could have
+imagined it, and turned to face her daughter.
+
+"Mother"--what honest eyes the child had, to be sure--"it wasn't the
+first time I'd spoken to him."
+
+"Really, Mary, you are very mysterious----"
+
+"I met him in the woods once before Christmas, and he was lost, and I
+showed him the way out, and father saw us . . . and was just as cross."
+
+Mrs Ffolliot felt more in sympathy with her husband than usual.  But
+all she said was, "Well, well, it's evident you don't need an
+introduction.  I forgot you'd seen him when he called.  I'm glad you
+told me in time to prevent it, or he would have thought it so
+odd--come, my child, we must go down."
+
+"_You_ aren't cross, are you, mother?" Mary asked wistfully.
+
+"Cross!" Mrs Ffolliot repeated, "at your first party.  What is there to
+be cross about?  Yes, my child, that dress is quite charming--father
+was right, you can stand that dead white--but it's trying to some
+people--come."
+
+The Campions called for Eloquent, and he found himself seated side by
+side with Sir George on one of the little seats, while Lady Campion and
+a pretty niece called Miss Bax sat opposite.  Miss Bax was disposed to
+be friendly and conversational, but to Eloquent the fact that he was
+going to Redmarley was no ordinary occurrence, and he would infinitely
+have preferred to have driven out alone, or, better still, to have
+walked through the soft spring night from his aunt's house to the
+Manor, which still held something of the glamour that had surrounded it
+in his childhood.
+
+For him it was still "the Manshun," immense, remote, peopled by
+inhabitants fine and strange, and far removed from ordinary life.  A
+house whose interior common folk were, it is true, occasionally allowed
+to see, walking on tiptoe, speaking in whispers, led and instructed by
+an important rustling old lady who wore an imposing cap and a silk
+apron; a strange, silent house where none save servants ever seemed to
+come and go.  He had not yet quite recovered from the shock it was to
+him to hear voices and laughter in that old panelled hall which he had
+known in childhood as so vast and shadowy.  He liked to remember all
+this, and to feel that he was going there as THEIR guest, to be with
+THEM on intimate friendly terms.  It was wonderful, incredible; it was
+part of the dream.
+
+". . . don't you think so, Mr Gallup?" asked Miss Bax, and Eloquent
+woke with a start to realise that he had not heard a word his pretty
+neighbour was saying.  He was thankful that the motor was dark and that
+the others could not notice how red he was.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said loudly, leaning forward, "I didn't catch
+what you said."
+
+"Is the man deaf?" Miss Bax wondered, for the motor was a Rolls-Royce
+and singularly smooth and noiseless.  "I was saying," she went on
+aloud, "that it will probably be my lot to go in to dinner with Grantly
+Ffolliot, and that cadets as a class are badly in need of snubbing;
+don't you agree with me?"
+
+"I haven't met any except young Mr Ffolliot," Eloquent said primly,
+"and I must say he did not strike me as a particularly conceited young
+man."
+
+"He isn't," Sir George broke in, "he's an exceedingly nice boy, they
+all are.  Their mother has seen to that."
+
+"Boys are so difficult to talk to," Miss Bax lamented; "their range is
+so limited, and my enthusiasm for football is so lukewarm."
+
+"Try him on his profession," Lady Campion suggested.
+
+"That would be worse.  Cadets do nothing but tell you how hard they are
+worked, and what a fearful block there is in the special branch of the
+army they are going in for.  Is young Ffolliot going to be a Sapper by
+any chance? for they're the worst of all--considering themselves, as
+they do, the brains of the army."
+
+"I don't think so," said Sir George; "he's not clever enough.  He's
+only got moderate ability and an uncommonly pretty seat on a horse.
+He'll get Field all right.  But why are you so sure, my dear, that
+he'll be your fate?  Why not Gallup here? and you could try and convert
+him to your views on the Suffrage question?  He'd be some use, you
+know.  He _has_ a vote."
+
+Again Eloquent blessed the darkness as he coloured hotly and brought
+his mind back to the present with a violent wrench.  He knew he ought
+to say something, but what?  He fervently hoped they would not assign
+him to this severe self-possessed young lady who thought cadets
+conceited and had political views.  Heavens! she might be another
+Elsmaria Buttermish with no blessed transformation later on into
+something human and approachable.
+
+"I'm afraid"--he heard Miss Bax talking as it were an immense way off
+as he floated away on the wings of his dream--"that my views would
+startle Mr Gallup."
+
+The motor turned in at the drive gates, they had reached the door.
+
+Eloquent was right in the middle of his dream.
+
+He followed Lady Campion and Miss Bax across the hall and down a
+corridor to a room he had never been in when he was a child.
+
+Fusby threw open a door and announced loudly, "Sir George and Lady
+Campion, Miss Bax, Mr Gallup."
+
+They were the last of the guests.
+
+For a little while he was less conscious of his dream.  This light,
+bright room with white panelled walls and furniture covered with gay
+chintzes, soft blurred chintz in palest pinks and greens, with pictures
+in oval frames, and people, ordinary people that he had seen before,
+all talking and laughing together.  This was not the Redmarley that he
+knew, grave and beautiful and old.
+
+This was not the Redmarley of his dream.  It came back to him as Mrs
+Ffolliot gave him her hand in welcome, presenting him to her husband
+and one or two other people.  It left him as she turned away and
+Grantly came forward and greeted him.  Grantly, tall and irreproachably
+well dressed, cheerful withal and quite at his ease.
+
+Sir George had pulled Mary into the very middle of the room and held
+her at arm's length with laughing comments.  How could men find the
+courage for that sort of thing?  He heard him ask what she had done
+with her sash, and then Mrs Ffolliot said, "I think you know my
+daughter, Mr Gallup; will you take her in to dinner?"
+
+And once more he was well in the middle of his dream, for he found
+himself in the corridor he knew, side by side with Mary, part of a
+procession moving towards the dining-room.
+
+Her hand was on his arm, but the exquisite moment was a little marred
+by the discovery that she was quite an inch taller than he.
+
+Eloquent had been to a good many public dinners; he had even dined with
+certain Cabinet Ministers, but always when there were only men.  He had
+never yet dined with people of the Ffolliots' class in this intimate,
+friendly way, and he found everything a little different from what he
+expected.  He had read very little fiction, and such mental pictures as
+he had evolved were drawn from his inner consciousness.  As always, he
+wondered how they contrived to be so gay, to talk such nonsense, and to
+laugh at it.  Seated between Mary and witty Mrs Ward, whose husband was
+one of his ardent supporters in the county, he did his best to join in
+the general conversation, but he found it hard.  Miss Bax, whose
+premonition regarding her fate was justified, seemed to have overcome
+her objection to cadets.  She and Grantly were just opposite to him,
+and he noticed with regret that Grantly was drinking champagne.  It
+would have been better, Eloquent thought, if the boy had abstained
+altogether after his experience at the election.  Mary, too, drank
+champagne, but Eloquent condoned this weakness in her case, she drank
+so little.  Everyone drank champagne except Sir George, who preferred
+whisky, and Eloquent himself, who drank Apollinaris.
+
+"Do you suffer from rheumatism?" Mary asked innocently.  "Do you think
+it would hurt you once in a way?"
+
+"I am not in the least rheumatic," Eloquent protested, "but I have
+never tasted anything intoxicating."
+
+"Then you don't know whether you'd like it or not.  Why not try some
+and see?" Mary suggested hospitably.
+
+Eloquent shook his head.  "Better not," he said, "you don't know what
+effect it might have on me."
+
+He ate whatever was put before him, wholly unaware of its nature, and
+in spite of Mary's efforts to keep the conversational ball rolling
+gaily, he was very silent.
+
+The dream had got him again, for he knew this room with the dark oak
+panelling and great old portraits of departed Ffolliots, some of them
+with eyes that followed you.  He knew the room, but as he knew it, the
+long narrow table, like the table in a refectory, was bare and polished
+and empty; or with a little cloth laid just at one end for old Mr
+Ffolliot.
+
+What did they think of it now, these solemn pictured people?--this
+long, narrow strip of brilliant light and flowers and sparkling glass
+and silver, surrounded by well-dressed cheerful persons, all,
+apparently, laughing and talking at the same time.
+
+They had reached dessert, and he was handing Mary a dish of sweets; she
+took four.  "Do take some," she whispered, "take lots, and what you
+don't want give to me; you can put them in my bridge-bag under the
+table, I want them for the children.  I promised Ger."
+
+Bewildered, but only too happy to do anything she asked him, Eloquent
+helped himself largely.
+
+"Now," Mary whispered, holding a little white satin bag open under the
+table, "and if they come round again, take some more."
+
+"It was my grandfather began it," she explained; "he used always to
+save sweets for us when we stayed with him, and now it's a rule--if we
+dine downstairs--if there are any--there aren't always, you know--and
+Fusby's so stingy, if there are any left he takes them and locks them
+up in a box till next time.  You watch Grantly, he's got some too, but
+he hasn't got anywhere to put them, like me.  I must go round behind
+him when mother collects eyes, then I'll nip up to Ger, for he'll never
+go to sleep till I've been . . ."
+
+"You see," she went on confidentially, "they will take them to Willets
+to-morrow.  He loves good sweets and he never gets any unless they take
+them to him.  They'll make a party of it, and Mrs Willets will give
+them each a weeny glass of ginger-wine.  They'll have a lovely time--do
+you know Willets?"
+
+"By sight, I think . . . he's your keeper, isn't he?  From all I can
+hear to-night he seems a very remarkable person, everyone is talking
+about him."
+
+"Oh, you ought to know him, he's the greatest dear in Redmarley.
+Everyone who knows us knows Willets, and dukes and people have tried to
+get him away, he's such a good sportsman, but he won't leave us.  We
+love him so much we couldn't bear it.  He couldn't either.  He's been
+keeper here nearly twenty-three years.  Before mother came he was here,
+and now there's all of us he'll never leave."
+
+"Have you got enough?  Won't they want some for themselves as well as
+Willets?"
+
+"Thanks to you, I've got a splendid lot.  One can't always ask people,
+you know, but I thought you wouldn't mind."
+
+"Shall I demand some more in a loud voice? there are some at the end of
+the table," Eloquent murmured; "I'm very shy, but I can be bold in a
+good cause."
+
+Mary looked at him in some surprise.  "Would you really?  Ah, it's too
+late, there's mother----"
+
+Eloquent watched her with breathless interest as she "went round the
+longest way" and received new spoils from Grantly as she passed.  How
+curious they were about their servants these people, where Fusby seemed
+to control the supplies and the children of the house secretly saved
+sweets for the keeper.
+
+The men did not sit long over their wine, and it was to the hall they
+went and not to the white-panelled room that Eloquent unconsciously
+resented as an anachronism; and in the hall bridge-tables were set out.
+
+This was a complication Eloquent had not foreseen.  Among his father's
+friends cards were regarded as the Devil's Books, and he did not know
+the ace of spades from the knave of hearts.
+
+Would they force him to play, he wondered.  Would he cover himself with
+shame and ignominy? and what if he said it was against his principles
+to play for money?
+
+He braced himself to be faithful to the traditions in which he had been
+trained, only to find that on his saying he never _had_ played bridge
+no one expressed the smallest desire that he should do so.
+
+In fact it seemed to him that three tables were arranged with almost
+indecent haste, cryptic remarks about "cutting in" were bandied about,
+and in less than five minutes he was sitting on the oak settle by the
+fire with Mrs Ffolliot, who talked to him so delightfully that the
+dream came back.
+
+Here on the high-backed settle he found courage to tell her how clearly
+he remembered that first time he had seen her in his father's shop; and
+plainly she was touched and interested, and drew him on to speak of his
+queer lonely childhood and the ultimate goal that had been kept ever
+before his eyes.
+
+He was very happy, and it seemed but a short time till somebody at one
+of the tables exclaimed "game and rub," and Mary came over to the
+settle saying, "Now, mother, you must take my place.  I've been awfully
+lucky, I've won half a crown."
+
+She sat down beside him on the settle asking, "Would you care to watch,
+or shall we just sit here and talk--which would you rather?"
+
+What Eloquent wanted to do was to stare: to gaze and gaze at the
+gracious young figure sitting there in gleaming white flecked with
+splashes of rosy light from the dancing flames, but he could hardly say
+this.
+
+"I'm afraid it would be of no use for me to watch; I have never played
+cards, and don't understand them in the least."
+
+"You mean you don't know the suits?"
+
+"What are suits?"
+
+"This must be seen to," said Mary; "you don't smoke, you drink nothing
+festive, you don't know one card from another; you can't go through
+life like this.  It's not fair.  We won't waste another minute, I'll
+teach you the suits now."
+
+She made him fetch a little table, she produced a pack of cards.  She
+spread them out and she expounded.  He was a quick study.  By the time
+Mr Ffolliot came to take Mary's place he knew all the suits.  By the
+time Mr Ffolliot had thoroughly confused him by a learned disquisition
+on the principles of bridge, Lady Campion's motor was announced, and he
+departed in her train.
+
+"Surely Mr Gallup is a very absent-minded person," Miss Bax remarked to
+her aunt when they had deposited Eloquent at his door.
+
+"I expect he's shy," said Lady Campion, who was sleepy and not
+particularly interested; "but wasn't Mary nice to him?--I do like that
+girl--she's so natural and unaffected."
+
+"She always strikes me as being a mere child," said Miss Bax, "so very
+unformed; is she out yet, or is she still in the schoolroom?"
+
+Sir George chuckled.  "She's on her way out," he said, "and, I fancy,
+on her way to an uncommonly good time as well.  That girl is a sight to
+make an old man young."
+
+"She certainly is handsome," said Miss Bax.
+
+Sir George chuckled again.  "Unformed," he repeated, "there's some of
+us likes 'em like that."
+
+Eloquent sat long in his orderly little dining-room where the glass of
+milk and tray of sandwiches awaited him on the sideboard.  His head was
+in a whirl.  She drank champagne.  She gambled.  She seemed to think it
+was perfectly natural and right to do these things.  It probably was if
+she thought so.  She . . .
+
+Heavens! what an adorable wife she would be for a young Cabinet
+Minister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+WILLETS
+
+Had Eloquent ever taken the smallest interest in country pursuits he
+must have come across Willets, for in that part of the Cotswolds
+Willets was as well known as the Marle itself.
+
+A small thick-set man with a hooky nose, and with bright, long-sighted
+brown eyes and strong, sensitive hands, wrists tempered and supple as a
+rapier, and a tongue that talked unceasingly and well.
+
+Sporting people wondered why Willets, with his multifarious knowledge
+of wood and river craft, should stay at Redmarley: a comparatively
+small estate, whose owner was known to preserve only because it was a
+tradition to do so, and not because he cared in the least about the
+sport provided.  Willets was wasted, they said, and it is possible that
+at one time Willets, himself, agreed with them.
+
+He came originally of Redmarley folk, and his wife from a neighbouring
+village.  He "got on" and became one of the favourite keepers on a
+ducal estate in the North, much liked both by the noble owner and his
+sporting friends; a steady, intelligent man with a real genius for the
+gentle craft.  He could charm trout from water where, apparently, no
+trout existed; he could throw a fly with a skill and precision
+beautiful to behold, and he was well read in the literature of his
+pursuits.  Much converse with gentlemen had softened the asperities of
+his Cotswold speech, he expressed himself well, wrote both a good hand
+and a good letter, and was very popular with those he served.  Life
+looked exceedingly rosy for Willets--for he was happy in his marriage
+and a devoted father to his three little girls--when the hand of fate
+fell heavily upon him.  There came a terribly severe winter in that
+part of Scotland, and one after another the little girls got bronchitis
+and died; the three in five months.
+
+He and his wife could bear the place no longer, and came South.  The
+Duke was really sorry to lose him, and took considerable trouble to
+find him something to do in the Cotswold country whence he came.
+
+It happened that just then old Mr Ffolliot was looking for a keeper who
+would see after things in general at the Manor, and the fishing in
+particular; so Willets accepted the situation merely as a make-shift
+for a short time, till something worthier of his powers should turn up.
+
+It was pleasant to be in the old county once more.  There was help and
+healing in the kind grey houses and the smiling pastoral country.  His
+wife was pleased to be near her people, and his work was of the
+lightest.  But Willets was not yet forty, he had ambitions, and the
+wages were much smaller than what he had been getting.  It would do,
+perhaps, for a year or two, and he knew that whenever he liked, his
+late master would be glad to have him back and would give him a post in
+the Yorkshire dales.
+
+Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Hilary, reigned in his stead.
+Willets announced to his wife that their time in Redmarley would be
+short.
+
+The young Squire married and in the bride's train came General Grantly
+with all the patience and enthusiasm and friendly anecdotal powers of
+your true angler; and in his train came like-minded brother officers to
+whom, it must be conceded, Hilary Ffolliot was always ready to offer
+hospitality.
+
+Things livened up a bit at Redmarley, and Willets decided to stay a
+little longer.
+
+Margery Ffolliot liked the Willets and was passionately sorry for them
+about the little girls; but it was the Ffolliot children who wove about
+Willets an unbreakable charm, binding him to his native village.
+
+One by one, with toddling steps and high, clear voices, they stormed
+the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive.
+
+Saving only their mother, Willets had a good deal more to do with the
+upbringing of the young Ffolliots in their earliest years than anybody
+else.  Singly and collectively, they adored him, tyrannised over him,
+copied him, learnt from him, and wasted his time with a prodigality a
+more sporting master than the Squire might have resented seriously.
+
+Thus it fell out that offers came to Willets, good offers from places
+far more important than Redmarley, where there were possibilities both
+in the way of sport and of tips--there was a sad scarcity of tips at
+Redmarley--and yet he passed them by.
+
+Sometimes his wife would be a little reproachful, pointing out that
+they were saving nothing and he was throwing away good money.
+
+Willets had always some excellent reason for not leaving just then.
+
+Redmarley had possibilities; it would be a nice place by the time
+Master Grantly was grown up and brought his friends.  No one else would
+take quite the same interest in it that he did; he was proud of the
+children, and money wasn't everything, and so Willets stayed on.
+
+With the arrival of the Kitten his subjugation was completed, and a
+seal was set upon the permanence of his relations with the Manor House.
+From the days when the Kitten in a white bonnet and woolly gaiters
+would struggle out of her nurse's arms to be taken by Willets, sitting
+on his knee and gazing at him with wine-coloured bright eyes not unlike
+his own, occasionally putting up a small hand encased in an absurd
+fingerless glove to turn his face that she might see it better, Willets
+was her infatuated and abject slave.  When on these occasions he
+attempted to restore her to her nurse she would clutch him fiercely and
+scream, so that it ended in his carrying her up to the house and up the
+backstairs to the nursery, whence he only escaped by strategy.
+
+No day passed without a visit from the Kitten and although he was not
+wholly blind to the defects in her character, he was sure she was the
+"peartest, sauciest, cleverest little baggage in the British Isles."
+
+Of course the fact that Eloquent had been asked to dine at the Manor
+House was much canvassed in the village.  Miss Gallup trumpeted the
+matter abroad, and naturally it was discussed exhaustively by what Mr
+Ffolliot would have called his "retainers."
+
+Willets was not sure that he approved.  "I've no doubt," he said
+leniently to Mrs Willets as they were sitting at tea, "that he's a
+smart young chap and he's got on wonderfully, but I don't altogether
+trust that pushing kind myself, and he's that sort.  Why, I saw him,
+with my own eyes, walk past this house with our Miss Mary as bold as
+brass.  I'll warrant if Squire had seen him he'd have been put out."
+
+"He was her partner at dinner last night," Fusby was saying, "and
+what's more," here Mrs Willets lowered her voice mysteriously, "he says
+as he looked at her that loving, he's sure he's after her."
+
+"After your grandmother!" Willets said rudely, his hawk's eyes bright
+with anger.  "As if Miss Mary would so much as look at him!  Let him
+seek a mate in his own class."
+
+"That's just what he won't do; Miss Gallup--she's that set-up and silly
+about him--says he must marry a lady, one who'll be able to help him
+now he's got so high up.  I'm surprised, I own it, at Squire--but
+probably it was the Mistress, she's all for friendliness always.  But
+I'll warrant they'd both be in a pretty takin' if they thought he was
+after Miss Mary."
+
+"I tell you he's nothing of the kind," Willets shouted, thumping the
+table so violently that he hurt his hand.  "It's scandalous to say such
+things, and so I'll tell Fusby the first time I see him--gossiping old
+silly."
+
+"Now, William, it's no good going on against Fusby.  He was as upset as
+you could be yourself, an' he only told me when he looked in this
+afternoon because he felt worried like.  He wouldn't care a bit if it
+wasn't that she seems taken with 'im.  He says he saw them whisperin'
+at dinner, and young Gallup he give something to Miss Mary under the
+table.  Fusby _saw_ them."
+
+"I don't believe it," Willets said stoutly.  "It's all some foolishness
+Fusby's gone and made up.  I don't hold with such cackle, and I'm
+surprised at you, my dear, allowing him to say such things."
+
+"How could I stop him?  He was worried, I tell you.  You talk to him
+about it yourself and see what he says."
+
+"I'm not going to talk about Miss Mary to anyone, let alone Fusby.
+There's nothing but mischief happens when people begins talking about a
+young lady.  I've seen it over and over again.  If, which I can't
+believe, young Gallup's got the cheek to be after our Miss Mary, he'll
+be choked off, and pretty quick too."
+
+"Who's going to do the chokin'?  He's in parlyment, he's got plenty
+money, there's nothing against him as I know of, and they've asked him
+to their house.  Who's going to do the chokin?"
+
+Mrs Willets paused, breathless and triumphant.  She seemed to take a
+malicious delight in considering the possibility of such a courtship.
+
+Willets looked at her steadily.  "We shan't have far to seek," he said,
+"and that old fool Fusby's got a maggot in his head.  Why, the fellow's
+gone to London; Parliament meets to-morrow, I saw it in the paper."
+
+Mrs Willets nodded, as who should say "I could an' I would"--aloud she
+remarked, "And Miss Mary's going to London to her granpa for a long
+visit, beautiful new clothes she's gettin', and going to see the King
+and Queen and all, so they're certain to meet.  It's quite like a story
+book."
+
+Willets frowned.  He had once spent two days in London.  He realised
+what a big place it was, but he also remembered that during those two
+days he had met seven people he knew in other parts of the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CROSS CURRENTS
+
+Reggie kept his word as to not interfering with Mary till such time as
+she should have seen a little more of the world.  How much of the world
+in general, and the male portion of it in particular, he was willing
+she should see, he could not make up his mind.  Sometimes he thought a
+very little would sufficiently salve his conscience and make a definite
+course of action possible.  Reggie was not one of those who feared his
+fate.  He was always eager to put it to the touch.  Inaction was
+abhorrent to him.  To desire a thing and to do nothing to obtain it
+seemed to him sheer foolishness.  Whether any amount of effort would
+get for him what he desired just now was on the knees of the gods.  But
+it was the waiting that tried him far more than the uncertainty.  He
+was not conceited.  He was confident, ready to take risks and to accept
+responsibility, but that is quite another thing.
+
+Just before her birthday he sent her a little necklet under cover to
+Mrs Ffolliot, asking that it might be put with Mary's other presents on
+her plate that morning.  And she had written to thank him for it, but
+he did not answer the letter.  He had always been by way of writing to
+her from time to time; letters, generally embellished with comic
+sketches and full of chaff and nonsense, which were shared by the
+family.  Lately he had not felt in the mood to write such letters.  He
+wanted to see her with an unceasing ache of longing intense and
+persistent; and if he wrote he wanted to write, not a love
+letter--Reggie did not fancy he'd be much of a hand at love
+letters--but something intimate and revealing that would certainly be
+unsuitable for "family reading."
+
+Then he got two letters from Redmarley that seemed to him to need an
+answer.
+
+These were the letters:--
+
+
+REDMARLEY,
+  _Tuesday._
+
+DEAR REGGIE,--We were all very excited to see it in the _Gazette_ this
+morning, though of course we knew it was coming.  The children took the
+_Times_ down to Willets at tea-time, and Fusby was at special pains to
+ask mother after lunch if there was any chance of Captain Peel coming
+down soon.  Is there?  You won't find me here unless it's very soon,
+for I'm actually to be allowed to stay with grannie for quite a long
+time.  After swearing that I should only go up for the drawing-room,
+and that it was nonsense to talk of my going out at all till mother
+could take me, the _pater_ has suddenly veered round, and I am to go up
+to Woolwich on May-Day, and what's more, he is taking me up himself.
+At first I thought I was to go with Grantly when he went back to the
+Shop, but that wouldn't do seemingly, Grantly wasn't enough chaperon,
+so father's coming just for one night.
+
+Last night we had a dinner-party and the Liberal member took me in.  He
+is such an odd little man.  Very, very good, I should think; very
+kind--not hard-hearted and ruthless like some people who write cruel
+stories about war--he is a nonconformist of sorts and doesn't do any of
+the usual things, so it's a little difficult to talk to him, but mother
+managed it--to make him talk, I mean.  I heard him murmuring away like
+anything while we were playing bridge.  She likes him too.  He has an
+odd way of looking at you as if you were a picture and not a person.
+Don't you think it's fun to be going to town on May-Day and to have
+proper dinner every night whether there are people or not.  I hope
+there will be lots of people.  Do come to Woolwich while I'm there, and
+mind you treat me with great respect.
+
+When is the new story coming out?  I wish they'd hurry up.  It will be
+so exciting to hear people talk about it and to think I know who wrote
+it and they don't.  Clara Bax came with the Campions last night--do you
+remember her?  She is _very_ pretty and so clever, understands all
+about politics and things like that.  Fancy, she sells newspapers in
+the street for the Cause.  She asked me if I'd help her, and I thought
+it would be great fun, but father--you know how he pounces--heard from
+the other end of the table, and though just a minute before he'd been
+ever so sympathetic with Miss Bax, at once interfered, and said I was
+much too ignorant to take any active part as yet, and Grantly frowned
+at me across the table.  Would you buy a newspaper from me, I wonder?
+
+When father pounces I always feel that I could almost marry an
+impossible person just to annoy him; but the worst of it is that I
+should have the impossible person always, and I might get rather tired
+of it.  Why should Miss Bax steal a horse and father beam and pay her
+compliments, and yet if I so much as look over the fence he shoos me
+away with a pitch-fork.
+
+I wonder if you will get out to India, as you wish?  In a way I hope
+you won't, because you'd go out in the autumn, wouldn't you? and if you
+are stationed anywhere at home you could come sometimes for a few days'
+hunting; but of course if you want it very much I want you to have it.
+
+This is a very long letter.  Good-bye, Reggie, and heaps of grats.  You
+a captain and me grown up: we are coming on.--Yours: affectionately,
+
+MARY B. FFOLLIOT.
+
+P.S.--Some fiend in human shape sent Ger a little red book, trumpet,
+and bugle notes for the army, and he makes Miss Glover play them and
+then practises.  There's one thing, it's a little change from the
+eternal "cook-house door," but it's very dreadful all the same.
+
+
+BRIDGE HOUSE, REDMARLEY,
+  _27th. April._
+
+DEAR SIR,--Excuse the liberty I take in writing to offer you my
+congratulations on the announcement in the paper yesterday.  Master Ger
+and Miss Kitten came to tea with my wife, and the mistress, with her
+usual kindness, sent me the paper.  When I first knew you, sir, you
+were very much the size Master Ger is now, and yet it seems but
+yesterday when I was teaching you to throw a fly just beyond the bridge
+here.  I always look on you as one of our young gentlemen, for you've
+come amongst us so many years now and always been so free and pleasant,
+and I hope I may have the pleasure of going out with you often in the
+future, though Master Ger did say he'd heard that you were thinking of
+India.  If that is so, I hope you'll make a point of coming down for a
+few days early in June, when the fly will be at its best.  If this mild
+weather continues we ought to get some very sizeable fish.
+
+It's funny to me to think how I've been here twenty-three years come
+Michaelmas, and when the present Squire came I never thought I should
+stop, he not being fond of sport.  If I may say so, you, sir, had a
+good deal to do with me stopping on that first summer, me being very
+fond of children, and then when they came at the Manor House and the
+mistress always sent them down to be shown to us as soon as ever they
+went out, I began to feel I'd taken root here, and so I suppose I have.
+
+Master Ger is becoming a first-rate performer on the bugle, he played
+for us yesterday, quite wonderful it was.  My wife begs to join with me
+in respectful congratulations.--Your obedient servant,
+
+WILLIAM WILLETS.
+
+
+He wrote to Willets at once, promising to come down at the end of May
+for a week-end, even if he couldn't get more.  He was frightfully busy,
+for he was one of the instructors at Chatham, and had many other irons
+in the fire as well.  He waited till he knew Mary was in Woolwich and
+then he wrote to her:--
+
+
+It was nice of you to send me such pretty grats, and I am truly
+appreciative.  I also had the jolliest letter from old Willets.  He
+promises good sport very shortly, and I shall make a point of turning
+up at Redmarley when the fly is on the water, if only for a couple of
+nights, for when Willets foretells "sizeable fish" you know you're in
+for a first-class thing.  It will be queer to be at the Manor House and
+you away.  Only once has that happened to me, the year you were at
+school, and now "all that's shuv be'ind you" and you're out and dancing
+about.  I shall certainly have urgent private affairs in Woolwich
+during the next month.  Talk of respect!  When was I ever anything but
+grovelling?  And once I have gazed upon your portrait in train and
+feathers I shall be reduced to such a state of timidity you won't know
+me.
+
+The other day I met your friend Clara Bax selling _Votes for Women_ at
+the Panton Street corner of Leicester Square, and she hadn't at all a
+Hurrah face on.  I greeted her and bought one of the beastly little
+papers, and went on my way.  But something caused me to look back, and
+I beheld Miss Bax seemingly in difficulties with two young
+feller-me-lads, who evidently had no intention of going on.  There was
+no policeman handy--besides, there's a coolness at present between
+members of the force and the fair militants--so I went back and dealt
+faithfully with Miss Bax's admirers, and they departed, I regret to
+say, blaspheming.
+
+Miss Bax seemed rather shaken, the type was evidently new to her, and I
+suggested that she should quit her pitch for the moment and come and
+have lunch with me; so we went together to the _Petit Riche_, where we
+consumed an excellent omelette; and the bundle of papers, which I,
+Mary, had nobly carried through the streets of London, sat on a chair
+between us and did chaperon.
+
+Personally, I see no reason why women should not have votes if they
+want 'em, but I see every reason why no woman, and above all no young
+woman, should sell papers anywhere, more especially in Leicester
+Square.  I'd like to give the Panks, and the Peths, and the Hicemen a
+bit of my mind on the subject.  The mere thought of you ever indulging
+in such unseemly vagaries fills me with horror unspeakable.  Talk of
+the Squire!  Pouncing and pitchforks wouldn't be in it with me, I can
+tell you, and yet Miss Bax isn't an orphan.
+
+That very day I met a lugubrious procession of females, encased in
+large sandwich-boards proclaiming a meeting somewhere.  They were
+dismally dodging the traffic, and looked about as dejected as they
+could look--ladies every one of them.  I begin to think old England's
+no place for women when they're reduced to that sort of thing--what do
+you say to India for a change?
+
+The story will be out next month, but you won't like it--too technical.
+
+I hope young Grantly's doing some work.  This term counts a lot, and he
+mustn't pass out low for the honour of the family.
+
+My salaams to the General and Mrs Grantly, and to you--my remembrances.
+Do you, by the way, remember "our last ride together" in January?  When
+shall we have another?  Would the General let us ride in the park one
+day if I could get off?--Yours,
+
+REGGIE.
+
+P.S.--Why the kind and blameless member for Marlehouse?  Has the Squire
+changed his politics?  It's all very well for you to say the young man
+looked at you as if you were a picture.  We've another name for that
+sort of sheep's eyes where I come from.  He'd better not let me catch
+him at it.
+
+
+Eloquent came to the conclusion that it is very difficult to pay court
+to a girl who belongs to what his father was wont to call "the
+classes."  He wondered how they managed it.  Such girls, it seemed to
+him, were never left alone for a minute.  One's only chance was to see
+them at parties in a crowd, and if you did dine at their houses, there
+was always bridge directly after dinner, when conversation was
+restricted to "I double hearts," or "with you," or "No."  He studied
+the rules of bridge industriously, for he found on inquiry that even
+Cabinet Ministers did not disdain it as a recreation.  Therefore Dalton
+shared with blue-books the little table by his bed.
+
+It's a far cry from Westminster to Woolwich, and in spite of
+indefatigable spade-work on his part, it was well on in the third week
+in May before he so much as caught a glimpse of Mary Ffolliot.
+
+Then one morning he saw her in Bond Street with her grandmother.  She
+was on the opposite side of the street rather ahead of him, but he knew
+that easy strolling walk, the flat back, and proud carriage of the
+head: that head with its burnished hair coiled smoothly under a
+bewitching hat.  They stopped to look in at Asprey's window, and he
+dashed across the road in the full stream of traffic.  Two indignant
+taxi-drivers swore, and he reached the curb breathless, but uninjured,
+just as they went into the shop.
+
+He stood staring at the window, keeping at the same time a sharp
+look-out on the door.
+
+What an age they were!
+
+He had just decided that the only thing to do was to go in and buy
+something, when they came out.
+
+Mary saw him at once, and his round face looked so wistful that she
+greeted him with quite unnecessary warmth.  She recalled him to Mrs
+Grantly, who, remembering vaguely that he was a young man who had
+"risen from the ranks," was also more cordial than the occasion
+demanded.
+
+He walked up Bond Street with them, piloted them across Piccadilly, and
+turned with them down Haymarket, so plainly delighted to see them, so
+nervous, so pathetically anxious to please, that Mrs  Grantly's
+hospitable instincts, fatally easy to rouse where pity played a part,
+overcame her discretion.  Her husband and her daughter used to declare
+that she had a perfect genius for encumbering herself with impossible
+people--and repenting afterwards.  With dismay she realised that
+Eloquent had, apparently, attached himself to them.  Short of cruelly
+wounding his feelings, she saw herself walking about London all day,
+accompanied by this painfully polite young man.  It seemed impossible
+to call a taxi, and leave him desolate there on the pavement
+unless . . .  Mrs Grantly's heart was hopelessly soft where animals
+were concerned, and just then Eloquent reminded her of nothing so much
+as an affectionate dog, allowed to frisk gaily to the front door, and
+cruelly shut in on the wrong side, as she said--
+
+"We've got to meet my husband at the Stores, Mr Gallup, perhaps you'll
+kindly get us a taxi, as I'm rather tired."
+
+His woebegone face was too much for her, and she added, "We're always
+at home on Sunday afternoons."
+
+Mary rather wondered at her grannie.
+
+The taxi drove away and Eloquent walked down Haymarket as though he
+were treading on air.  To-day was Friday.  Sunday, oh blessed day! was
+the day after to-morrow.
+
+There were clovers nodding in her hat, a wide-brimmed fine straw hat
+that threw soft shadows over her blue eyes and turned them dark as the
+clear water underneath Redmarley Bridge.  And he would see her again on
+Sunday.
+
+That lady, that handsome portly lady, he had been afraid of her at
+first, she looked so large and imposing, but how kind she was!  How
+wonderfully kind and hearty she had been.  It was she who had invited
+him.  "We are always at home on Sundays," she said.  Surely that meant
+he might go more than once?
+
+That night he made his maiden speech in the House.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Reggie went down to Redmarley at the beginning of June from Saturday
+afternoon till Sunday evening.  The Squire had a bad cold and was
+confined to the house.  His nerves vibrated, so did the tempers of
+other people, but Reggie did not care.  He joined Willets at the river
+and fished till dinner-time.  Directly after dinner he went out again
+and they had splendid sport till nearly ten.  Willets walked with him
+back to the house, and Reggie had a curious feeling that Willets wanted
+to tell him something and couldn't come to the point.  So strong was
+this feeling that as they parted he said, "I shan't go to bed yet,
+Willets.  It's such a perfect night--may stroll down to the bridge, and
+if you're still up we might have a cigar together."
+
+He went into the house, chatted a while to Mrs Ffolliot and the Squire,
+and when they went to bed let himself out very quietly and strolled
+down the drive and out of the great gates to the bridge.  The perfect
+peace of the warm June night, the yellow moonlight on the quiet water,
+the wide-spanned bridge, the long straggling street of irregular gabled
+houses so kindly and so sheltering with their overhanging eaves, the
+dear familiar charm of it all seemed to grip Reggie by the throat and
+caused an unwonted smarting in his eyes.
+
+The village was absolutely deserted save for one motionless figure
+sitting on the wall at the far end of the bridge.
+
+"Hullo, Willets," Reggie called, "not in bed yet?"
+
+"I'm always a bit wakeful when the fly's up, sir; the river seems to
+draw me, and I can't leave it."
+
+"Have a cigar," said Reggie, and sat down beside him.
+
+They smoked in silence for a few minutes till Willets said--
+
+"Seen anything of Miss Mary up there, sir?"
+
+"No, Willets, I haven't been able to get away for a minute till now,
+but I may manage to run down to Woolwich next week just to buck to the
+General about my catch.  You'll have him down then post haste--I
+bet----"
+
+"I suppose, sir," said Willets, with studied carelessness, "you never
+happened to come across the young man that's member for these parts?"
+
+"What, young Gallup?  I believe I saw him once.  He's making quite a
+name for himself I hear, his maiden speech was in all the papers.  By
+the way though, I _did_ hear of him the other day in a letter I had
+from Miss Mary.  They'd all been to dine at the House of Commons with
+him, and had no end of a time."
+
+"Well I _am_ damned!" said Willets.
+
+He said it seriously, almost devoutly, and Reggie turned right round to
+stare at him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, but I really was fairly
+flabbergasted."
+
+He stood up sturdy and respectful in a patch of moonlight, and his keen
+brown eyes raked Reggie's as though they would read his very soul.
+
+It wasn't an easy soul to read, and Reggie knew that Willets had
+something on his mind, so he waited.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," Willets said again.  He had never got over
+the feeling that Reggie was one of the young gentlemen, and that it
+behoved him to be careful of his language in front of him.
+
+Reggie Peel laughed.  "Look here, Willets," he said, "what's your
+objection?  Why shouldn't they go to the House of Commons to dine with
+Gallup if it amuses them?"
+
+"I don't know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback.  An' in a small
+place like this it's certain to make talk.  That old Miss Gallup, now,
+she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her
+nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house,
+and for us as _belongs_ to the house--well, we don't relish it.  I
+hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll
+make it convenient to go up and see after Miss Mary?"
+
+The hawk's eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Reggie's face, so lean and
+sallow and set; the moonlight accentuated the rather hollow cheeks.
+and cast black shadows round his eyes, which looked green and sinister.
+
+Suddenly he smiled, and when Reggie smiled, his whole face altered.
+
+"Out with it, Willets," he said, "what maggot have you got in your head
+now?  You're worried about something; you may as well tell me.  I'm
+safe as a church."
+
+"I'd like to know, sir," Willets remarked in a detached impersonal
+tone, "what's your opinion of mixed marriages?"
+
+"_What_ sort of marriages?"
+
+"Well marriages where one of the parties has had a different bringing
+up to the other.  Now suppose, sir--do you know Miss Shipway--over to
+Marlehouse; her father's got that big shop top of the market-place full
+of bonnets and mantles and such--good-looking girl she is----"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't know the lady, Willets; why?"
+
+"Well, sir, it's this way.  She'll have a tidy bit of money when old
+Shipway dies; her mother was cook at the Fleece, but they've got on.
+Well now, sir, suppose you was to go after Miss Shipway-----"
+
+Reggie's eyes twinkled.  "It might be a most sensible proceeding on my
+part--a poor devil like me--if as you say she's a nice girl and will
+have a lot of money.  Will you give me an introduction?"
+
+"I'm not jokin', sir, nor taking the liberty to propose anything of the
+sort; it's only----"
+
+"A hypothetical case?"
+
+"That's it, sir.  I mean suppose a gentleman like yourself was to marry
+a girl like her, do you think you'd be happy?"
+
+"Surely it would all depend on whether they liked each other--and liked
+the same things----"
+
+"Ah, sir, that's it.  _Would_ you like the same things, do you suppose?"
+
+"Well, Willets, I don't see that you've any cause to worry.
+Unfortunately I don't know the young lady, so I can't see how I'm to
+get any forrader."
+
+"Suppose, sir, a young _lady_, like what the Mistress was, should marry
+a man in quite a different rank from herself, do you think _they'd_ be
+happy?"
+
+"It depends," said Reggie, "what sort of a chap he was.  People rise,
+you know."
+
+"Well, suppose he did, would they happy?"
+
+"I couldn't say, Willets, I'm sure.  Is it any particular young lady
+you're worried about?"
+
+ Willets sat down on the wall.  "In my time,"
+he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me
+to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own
+class.  But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."
+
+For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you
+think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"
+
+"I think so.  I shall try anyway."
+
+"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd
+better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fishing."
+
+"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets.  I suppose we must go to bed.
+Many thanks for the splendid sport.  I have to get back to Chatham
+to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a
+time."
+
+"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for
+but one night."
+
+Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.
+
+He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.
+
+The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket
+and read it easily:
+
+"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter.  I'm glad you
+rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or
+carrying sandwich boards.  I'm much too busy having a lovely time.  Oh
+_never_ have I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both
+Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie.  She is
+having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member.  It's
+all very well for her to say she is forming him.  She is undermining
+all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist
+constituents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have
+him again.
+
+"She has taught him auction: he played with her last _Sunday_ afternoon
+because it was too wet to be out in the garden.  She has sent him to
+lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she
+talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories.  She
+tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he
+can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate
+what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful
+and delightfully amusing--you know Grannie's way--that the poor young
+man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply
+follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads.  He gave a dinner
+for us in the House the other night and got Ganpy a seat in the
+Stranger's Gallery.  He couldn't get us into the Ladies' Gallery
+because of the silly rule about only wives and sisters or near
+relations made since the suffragette fusses, but he showed us all about
+and it was simply fascinating.  Of course Grannie met lots of members
+she knew, and we enjoyed ourselves awfully.  We are going to tea on the
+Terrace next week.  The dance at the Shop was ripping, and you needn't
+think I only danced with cadets.  I danced with majors and colonels,
+and a beautiful captain in the Argyle and Sutherland, but I've come to
+the conclusion that the jolliest thing is to be Ganpy's wife on these
+occasions.  You never saw such court as gets paid to Grannie.  She
+never has a dull minute.
+
+"Grantly went home on Sat. just for the night, and he says it's all too
+beautiful for words.  Sometimes I feel wicked to be missing it, and I
+get homesick for mother and the children; but I do enjoy it all.  When
+are you coming up to play about too?  You stern, industrious young man."
+
+Reggie folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.
+
+"So that's what old Willets was driving at," he thought.  He leaned out
+again to shake the ash out of his pipe.  In the far east there was a
+pearly streak.  "Daylight," he muttered, "--and by Jove I see it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"MEN'S MEAL, FIRST CALL"
+
+Mrs Grantly was interested in Eloquent.  He was quite unlike any of the
+innumerable young men she had had to do with before.  His simplicity
+and directness appealed to her; she admired his high seriousness even
+while she seemed to deride it, and though violently opposed to his
+party, she shared that party's belief in his political future.
+
+The General shook his head; not over what he and Mary called "Grannie's
+infatuation for Mr Gallup," but over the possible results of this
+friendliness and intimacy to Mr Gallup.  For the General saw precisely
+the same possibilities that Mr Ffolliot had seen, and didn't like what
+he saw one whit better than did the Squire.
+
+Eloquent never saw Mary alone.  Generally he was wholly taken
+possession of by Mrs Grantly, or such friends of hers as would be
+bothered with him.  Yet his golden dream was with him continually, and
+in the dear oasis of his fancy he walked in an enchanted garden with
+Mary.  In his waking moments, his sane practical moments, he would
+realise that it was sheer absurdity to imagine that she ever could care
+for him.  He did not expect her to care, but--and here he drifted
+across the desert of plain possibilities into the merciful mirage of
+things hoped for--if she would condescend to let him serve her, he
+might take heart of grace.
+
+He watched her carefully.
+
+It did not seem to him that there was anybody else.  There were crowds:
+crowds of dreadful, well-dressed, good-looking, cheerful men, who
+chaffed and laughed and quaffed any drinks that happened to be going;
+but he did not fear the enemy in battalions, and so far it appeared
+that her besiegers always attacked in companies.
+
+Sometimes he was sure that she knew how he felt, and was trying in
+gentle, delicately pitiful ways to show him that it was of no use.
+Then again he would dismiss this thought as absurd and conceited.  How
+should Mary know?  How could she try to show him she didn't care when
+he had never shown her that he did?  How could he show her?
+
+It was this desire to show her, this hope of familiarising her with the
+idea that caused Eloquent to resort to every possible place where he
+might see her.  He went down to Woolwich as often as decency would
+permit, which wasn't often.  He inundated Mrs Grantly with invitations
+to the House, and he haunted the theatres, generally in vain, in the
+hope of seeing her at the play.  He would often reflect bitterly how
+easy things were for the young shopman in these matters.  He met his
+girl and took her for a walk, and no one thought any the worse of
+either of them.  There was none of this nerve-racking, heartrending
+uncertainty, this difficulty of access, this sense of futility, in
+their relations.
+
+Of the many mysterious attributes of the "classes," there was none to
+be so heartily deplored as their entire success in secluding their
+young women, while apparently they gave them every possible opportunity
+for amusement of all kinds.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Reggie went down to Woolwich once while Mary was with her grandparents,
+but it was not, from her point of view, a very satisfactory visit.
+Reggie was grumpy, and looked very tired and overworked.  Moreover,
+Mary, though she could not have confessed it for the world, was just a
+trifle hurt that he never reminded her of that last ride together.
+
+Just as he was leaving on the Sunday night, and they were all in the
+garden, he walked with her a little way down a winding path that hid
+them from the others, saying abruptly--
+
+"Shall I let you know directly if they are going to send me to the
+Shiny?"
+
+"Of course I should like to know, but . . .  India is a long way off,
+Reggie, why do you want to go so far?"
+
+"Because, my dear, it means work and promotion, and one's chance, and
+lots of things; one being quite decent pay.  Besides, I like India, I
+shall be glad to go back, if . . ."
+
+They had followed the path, and it led them out to the lawn again,
+where the others were standing.  He didn't finish his sentence--
+
+"Say you want me to get out there, Mary."
+
+"Of course I want you to go if you really wish it."
+
+"I'll let you know then.  I shall know myself early in July, I
+fancy . . . perhaps I'll run down to Redmarley; you'll be back then?"
+
+They joined the others; Reggie made his farewells and left.
+
+Mary went and took her grandfather's arm, and made him walk round the
+garden with her.  She developed an intelligent interest in geography,
+and made searching inquiries as to the healthiness of India generally.
+
+It was comforting to walk arm and arm with grandfather.  She didn't
+know why, but she felt a little frightened, a little homesick.  How
+clearly one can see some people's faces when they are not there.  What
+unusual eyes Reggie had, so green in some lights.  He was looking
+dreadfully thin, poor boy, downright ill he looked, and yet everyone
+said he was very strong.  No one else shook hands quite like Reggie: he
+had nice hands, strong and gentle; thin, but not hard and nubbly.  Why
+is a summer night often so sad?  Night-scented stock has a sad smell,
+though it is so sweet.  He shouldn't work so hard.  He was overdoing
+it.  Surely if he went to India they'd give him some leave . . . it
+might be years before he came back.  Three years he was away once.
+
+Mary clasped both her hands over her grandfather's arm.  "I do love you
+so, Ganpy," she said; "there's nobody like you in the world, no one at
+all."
+
+The General smiled in the twilight, and pressed the arm in his against
+his side.  He said nothing at all, yet Mary felt vaguely comforted.
+
+In the beginning of July she went back to Redmarley, and everyone was
+very glad to see her again.  One Saturday morning when the Squire and
+Mrs Ffolliot had started in the victoria to lunch with neighbours on
+the other side of Marlehouse, Mary called Parker and went to walk in
+the woods.  It was a grey morning, warm and sunless and still.  She
+wandered about quite aimlessly.  She was restless and unsettled, and
+had a good deal to think over.
+
+Just before she left Woolwich, Eloquent Gallup had called one afternoon
+when both the General and Mrs Grantly were out; but he asked boldly for
+Mary.  She was at home, and he was shown into the cool, shady garden,
+where she was lying in a hammock reading a novel.
+
+This was Eloquent's chance and he took it.  He did not stay long.  He
+left before tea, but during the time he did stay he contrived to let
+Mary see . . . what it must be confessed she had already suspected.  He
+said nothing definite.  He was immensely distant in his reverence, but
+a much humbler girl than Mary could hardly have mistaken his meaning.
+He was so pathetically diffident it was impossible to snub him, and she
+had no desire to snub him.  Always she was immensely sorry for
+him--why, she did not know.
+
+He was plain.  He was insignificant.  He was not a gentleman by birth,
+but he was--and Mary's standard was fairly high--so far as she could
+see, a thorough gentleman in feeling and in action.  Moreover, he had
+ability, and an immense capacity for hard work, both of them qualities
+that appealed to Mary.
+
+So she allowed herself to dally vaguely with the idea.  It was very
+pleasant to be set in a shrine; to be worshipped; to be served in a
+prayerful attitude of adoration.  To be able by a kind word, a kind
+glance, to raise a fellow creature to a dizzy height of happiness.  How
+could anyone be unkind to that excellent little man?  Suppose . . .
+this was a daring supposition, and Mary grew hot all over as she
+entertained it--suppose, in the dim and distant future, when
+Reggie . . .  Reggie had never written after he went back to Chatham,
+nothing had happened then about India; but suppose he did go for years
+and years, and forgot her . . . perhaps he had never wanted to remember
+her in that particular way, and she had magnified quite little things
+that meant nothing at all. . . .  Suppose she ultimately, years hence,
+could bring herself to marry Mr Gallup.  How angry her father would be!
+But that was a prospective contingency that only amused Mary.  He would
+be angry whoever she married.  He would be exceedingly angry if she got
+engaged to . . . that young man at Chatham who was so taciturn and
+neglectful . . . who didn't seem to want to get engaged to anyone.
+Clara Bax said it would be dreadfully dull to marry anyone you'd known
+all your life.  Would it?  Clara Bax said it would be tiresome in the
+extreme to marry anybody.  But about that Mary was not sure.
+
+Westminster is certainly the nicest part of London; there are bits of
+it that remind one of Redmarley.  It would be pleasant to be rich and
+important, and feel that you are helping to pull the wires that control
+destinies; helping to make history.  Ah, that was what Reggie called
+it.  He would do it.  She was sure of that; but Reggie's wife would
+have no hand in it.
+
+With clear intuition she saw that of these two men, only one could be
+influenced by his wife in anything that concerned his work.  Reggie's
+wife would be outside all that.  Eloquent's wife, _if she were the
+right woman_, would share everything: and at that moment Parker began
+to bark, and Mary found that she had walked into a part of the wood
+called the Forty Firs, and that Eloquent Gallup was standing right on
+the very same spot, where seven months ago she had assisted him to rise
+from a puddle.
+
+Parker didn't like Eloquent upright a bit better than he had liked
+Eloquent prone, and he made a great yapping and growling and bouncing
+and skirmishing around about the two of them, until he finally subsided
+into suspicious sniffing at Eloquent's ankles.
+
+"Has Parliament risen then?" Mary asked, when she had soothed Parker to
+quiescence.
+
+"No, Miss Ffolliot, I came down"--Eloquent's eyes were fixed hungrily
+on her face, and she noticed that his was nothing like so round as it
+used to be, and that he was very pale--"because I couldn't keep away."
+
+Mary said nothing.  There seemed nothing to say.
+
+"Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent said again, "I think you must know why I have
+come down, what I feel about you, what I have felt about you since the
+first minute I saw you in this very place, when I was so ridiculous and
+you so beautiful and kind.  I have travelled a good way since then, but
+I know that in caring for you as I do I am still ridiculous, and it is
+only because you are so beautiful and kind, although you are so far
+above me, that I dare to tell you what I feel . . . but I would like
+your leave to think about you.  Somehow, without it, it seems an
+impertinence, and, God knows, no man ever felt more worship for a woman
+than I feel for you.  Do you give me that leave?"
+
+Mary was very much touched, very much shaken.  Eloquent's power lay in
+his immense earnestness.  She no longer saw him small and insignificant
+and common.  She saw the soul of him, and recognised that it was a
+great soul.  For one brief moment she wondered if she could . . .
+
+Through the woods rang the notes of a bugle.  Ger was playing "Come to
+the cook-house door."  Mary's heart seemed to leap up and turn right
+over.
+
+"Come to the cook-house door" is not by any means one of the most
+beautiful of the bugle sounds of the British Army.  It is rather jerky
+at the best of times, and as performed by Ger it was wheezy as well.
+But for Mary just then it was a clear call to consciousness.
+
+Pity and sympathy and admiration are not love: and Mary knew it, and in
+that moment she became a woman.
+
+Eloquent had taken her hand, taken it with a respect and gentleness
+that affected her unspeakably.  She gave a little sob.  She did not try
+to draw it away.  "Oh dear," she sighed, "I am so sorry, for it's all
+no use," and the tears ran down her cheeks.
+
+Eloquent lifted her hand and kissed it.
+
+"Don't cry, my dear," he said, "don't cry.  I'm glad I've known you and
+loved you. . . ."
+
+Again through the woods there rang that "first call" so dear to the
+heart of Ger.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr Gallup, I mustn't stay . . . try to forgive me, and . . ."
+
+"Forgive," Eloquent repeated scornfully, "what have I to forgive?
+_That_ is for you."
+
+Mary turned and walked swiftly away, and Eloquent watched her till she
+was out of sight.
+
+Parker kept close at her side, but every now and then he jumped up and
+tried to lick her face.  Parker knew all was not right with Mary and he
+was uneasy.
+
+Mary knew full well that it was to no comfortable cook-house door that
+Ger had summoned her.  That wheezy bugle called her to the outposts of
+the world; to a life of incessant acerbating change, where there was no
+certainty, no stability, no sweet home peace, or that proud fixity of
+tenure that is the heritage of those who own the land on which they
+live.  She had no illusions.  Not in vain had she lived with her
+grandmother at Woolwich and heard the lamentations of the officers'
+wives when plans were changed at the last moment, and the fair prospect
+of a few years at home was blotted out by the inexorable orders for
+foreign service.  And the Sappers were worst of all, for except at a
+very few stations they hadn't even a mess, and there was not the
+friendly fellowship of "the Regiment" to count upon.
+
+The yard was quite deserted, for the men had gone to dinner.  She
+paused at the gate and looked long and lovingly at the clustering
+chimneys, and lichened, grey-green roofs she loved: and as she looked a
+new sound broke the stillness.  Three loud reports and then the
+touf-touf, spatter-dash-spatter-dash of a motor bicycle.
+
+Mary opened the gate, went through, shut it behind her and leant
+against it, for her knees were as water.
+
+The noise came on, it passed the house, turned into the back drive,
+came round, and someone in overalls, covered with dust from head to
+foot, swept into the deserted yard; saw Mary, pulled up short, and
+pushed the bike against a wall.
+
+This dusty person tore off his goggles.  It was Captain Reginald Peel,
+R.E., and he came across the yard towards her.
+
+"Hullo, Mary," he said, "I told you I'd let you know whenever I heard.
+The A.A.G.'s a brick, I'm going to India.  Marching orders came last
+night."
+
+Mary's lips trembled and her voice died in her throat.  Reggie took out
+a large silk handkerchief and mopped his dusty face.
+
+He came on towards her and took both her hands.
+
+"Mary," he said, "can you leave all this?  Can you face it?  Will you
+come with me and help me to build bridges and make roads and dig
+drains. . . .  Will you come so that we can have the rest of our
+lives . . . together?"
+
+They looked straight into one another's eyes.
+
+"I will," said Mary, and she said it as solemnly as if she were
+repeating a response in the Marriage Service.
+
+Reggie loosed one of her hands.  Again he polished his face.
+
+"I should like awfully to kiss you," he said, "but I'm so fearfully
+dusty--do you mind?"
+
+"I think," said Mary, with a queer choky laugh, "that I'd rather like
+it."
+
+And just at that moment Willets appeared at a gate leading from the
+garden.  He didn't see them, and opened the gate, which squeaked
+abominably, came through and let it shut with a clang, but they,
+apparently, heard nothing.
+
+Willets stood transfixed, for he saw the motor-bike and the dusty young
+man in overalls, and clasped close in the arms of the said dusty young
+man was Miss Mary!
+
+Willets gave one quick glance, smote his hands softly together, and
+turned right round with his back to them.  He leaned on the gate and
+gazed steadfastly into the distant garden.  It was a squeaky gate, that
+gate.  If he opened it, it might disturb them, and bless you, they were
+but young, and one is only young once.
+
+So kindly Willets stared, with eyes that were not quite so keen as
+usual, at the bit of garden he could see; and there, delphiniums were
+blooming.  The sun came out just at that moment, and they looked
+particularly blue and tall and splendid.
+
+It seemed to Willets that he admired those delphiniums for hours and
+hours, but it was really only a few minutes till he heard a rather
+husky voice behind him saying, "It's all right, Willets, you may turn
+round and congratulate us."
+
+And there they were both standing "as bold as brass" he said
+afterwards, and the delphiniums he had just been studying so closely
+were not as blue as Mary's eyes.
+
+
+
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