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diff --git a/old/69495-0.txt b/old/69495-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9d2e719..0000000 --- a/old/69495-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5931 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The professor's experiment, Vol. 2 (of -3), by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The professor's experiment, Vol. 2 (of 3) - A novel - -Author: Margaret Wolfe Hungerford - -Release Date: December 7, 2022 [eBook #69495] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT, -VOL. 2 (OF 3) *** - - - - - - THE PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT - - - - - MRS. HUNGERFORD’S NOVELS - - ‘_Mrs. Hungerford has well deserved the title of being one of the most - fascinating novelists of the day. The stories written by her are the - airiest, lightest, and brightest imaginable, full of wit, spirit, and - gaiety; but they contain, nevertheless, touches of the most exquisite - pathos. There is something good in all of them._’—ACADEMY. - - =A MAIDEN ALL FORLORN=, and other Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated - boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. - -‘There is no guile in the novels of the authoress of “Molly Bawn,” nor -any consistency or analysis of character; but they exhibit a faculty -truly remarkable for reproducing the rapid small-talk, the shallow but -harmless “chaff” of certain strata of modern fashionable -society.’—_Spectator._ - - =IN DURANCE VILE=, and other Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated boards, - 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. - -‘Mrs. Hungerford’s Irish girls have always been pleasant to meet upon -the dusty pathways of fiction. They are flippant, no doubt, and often -sentimental, and they certainly flirt, and their stories are told often -in rather ornamental phrase and with a profusion of the first person -singular. But they are charming all the same.’—_Academy._ - - =A MENTAL STRUGGLE.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, - 2s. 6d. - -‘She can invent an interesting story, she can tell it well, and she -trusts to honest, natural, human emotions and interests of life for her -materials.’—_Spectator._ - - =A MODERN CIRCE.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. - 6d. - -‘Mrs. Hungerford is a distinctly amusing author.... In all her books -there is a “healthy absenteeism” of ethical purpose, and we have derived -more genuine pleasure from them than probably the most earnest student -has ever obtained from a chapter of “Robert Elsmere.”’—_Saturday -Review._ - - =MARVEL.= Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth, 2s. 6d. - -‘The author has long since created an imaginary world, peopled with more -or less natural figures; but her many admirers acknowledge the easy -grace and inexhaustible _verve_ that characterize her scenes of -Hibernian life, and never tire of the type of national heroine she has -made her own.’—_Morning Post._ - - =LADY VERNER’S FLIGHT.= Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d.; post 8vo., - illustrated boards, 2s.; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. - -‘There are in “Lady Verner’s Flight” several of the bright young -people who are wont to make Mrs. Hungerford’s books such very -pleasant reading.... In all the novels by the author of “Molly Bawn” -there is a breezy freshness of treatment which makes them most -agreeable.’—_Spectator._ - - =THE RED-HOUSE MYSTERY.= Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d. - -‘Mrs. Hungerford is never seen to the best advantage when not dealing -with the brighter sides of life, or seeming to enjoy as much as her -readers the ready sallies and laughing jests of her youthful personages. -In her present novel, however, the heroine, if not all smiles and mirth, -is quite as taking as her many predecessors, while the spirit of -uncontrolled mischief is typified in the American heiress.’—_Morning -Post._ - - =THE THREE GRACES.= 2 vols., crown 8vo., 10s. net. - -‘It is impossible to deny that Mrs. Hungerford is capable of writing a -charming love-story, and that she proves her capacity to do so in “The -Three Graces.”’—_Academy._ - -LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY. - - - - - THE - PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT - =A Novel= - - - BY - - MRS. HUNGERFORD - - AUTHOR OF - ‘MOLLY BAWN,’ ‘THE RED-HOUSE MYSTERY,’ ‘THE THREE GRACES,’ ‘LADY - VERNER’S FLIGHT,’ ETC. - -[Illustration] - - IN THREE VOLUMES - - VOL. II. - - - =London= - CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY - 1895 - - - - - THE - - PROFESSOR’S EXPERIMENT - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - ‘Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears - him on in security, either to meet no danger or to find matter of - glorious trial.’ - - -The girl seems powerfully affected by the determination she has come to, -so much so as to be almost on the point of fainting. Wyndham, catching -her by the arm, presses her back into the garden-chair. - -‘Not a word,’ says he. ‘Why should you tell me?’ - -‘I must, I will!’ She sits up, and with marvellous strength of will -recovers herself. ‘There is very little to tell,’ says she faintly. ‘I -have lived all my life in one house. As a little child I came to it. -Before that I remember nothing. If’—she looks at him—‘I tell you names -and places, you will keep them sacred? You will not betray me?’ Her -glance is now at once wistful and frightened. - -‘I shall certainly not do that,’ says he gravely. ‘But why speak if you -need not?’ - -‘I don’t know.’ She pauses, clasping her hands tightly together, and -then at last, ‘I want to tell you.’ - -‘Well, tell me,’ says Wyndham gently. - -‘The name of the people I lived with was Moore,’ says she, speaking at -once and rapidly, as if eager to get rid of what she has volunteered to -tell. ‘They called me Moore, too—Ella Moore—though I know, I am sure, I -did not belong to them.’ - -‘Ella?’ - -‘Yes, Ella; I think’—hesitatingly—‘that is my real Christian name, -because far, far back someone’—pressing her hand to her head, as though -trying to remember—‘used to call me Elly, someone who was not Mrs. -Moore. It was not her voice. And Moore—that is not my name, I know.’ Her -tone has grown quite firm. ‘Mrs. Moore always called herself my aunt; -but I don’t think she was anything to me. She was kind sometimes, -however, and I was sorry when she died. She had a husband, and I lived -with them ever since I can remember anything.’ - -‘Perhaps you were Mr. Moore’s niece.’ - -‘Oh, not that!’ She grows very pale, and makes a quick gesture of -repulsion with her hands. ‘Not that. No, thank God!’ She pauses, and he -can see that she has begun to tremble as if at some dreadful thought. -‘She, Mrs. Moore, died two months ago, and after that he—she was hardly -in her grave—and he—Oh, it is horrible!’—burying her face in her hands. -‘But he—he told me he wanted to marry me.’ She struggles with herself -for a moment, and then bursts into wild tears. One can see that the -tears are composed of past cruel memories, of outraged pride as well as -grief. - -‘Oh, monstrous!’ says Wyndham hurriedly. He begins to pace rapidly up -and down the walk, coming back to her when he finds her more composed. - -‘It is true, though,’ cries she miserably. ‘Oh, how I hate to think of -it!’—emphatically. ‘When I said no, that I’d rather die than marry -him—and I would—he was furious. A fortnight afterwards he spoke to me -again, saying he had ordered the banns to be called; and when I again -said I would never consent, he locked me in a room, and said he would -starve me to death unless I gave in. I’—clenching her small white -teeth—‘told him I would gladly starve in preference to that. And for -three nights and two days I did starve. He brought me nothing; but I did -not see him, and that kept me alive. On the third day he came again, and -again I defied him, and then—then—’ She cowers away from Wyndham, and -the hot flush of shame dyes her cheek. ‘Then—he beat me.’ - -‘The — scoundrel!’ says Wyndham between his teeth. - -‘He beat me,’ says the girl, dry sobs breaking from her lips, ‘until my -back and arms were blue and swollen; and then he asked me again if I -would give in and marry him, and I—’ - -Here she pauses, and stands back as if confronting someone. She is -looking past Wyndham and far into space. It is plain that that past -horrible, degrading scene has come back to her afresh. The gross -indignity, the abominable affront, is again a present thing. Again the -blows rain upon her slender arms and shoulders; again the brute is -demanding her submission; and again, in spite of hunger, and pain, and -fear, she is defying him. Her head is well upheld, her hands clenched, -her large eyes ablaze. It is thus she must have looked as she defied the -cowardly scoundrel, and the effect is magnificent. - -‘I said “No” again.’ The fire born of that last conflict dies away, and -she falls back weakly into the seat behind her. ‘That night I ran away. -I suppose in his rage he forgot to lock the door after him, and so I -found the matter easy. It was a wet night and very cold. I was tired, -half dead with hunger and with bitter pain. That was the night—’ - -She comes to a dead stop here, and turns her face away from him. A shame -keener than any she has known before, even in this recital made to him, -is filling her now. But still she determines to go on. - -‘That was the night your servant found me!’ - -‘Poor child!’ says Wyndham. His sympathy—so unexpected—coming on her -terrible agitation, breaks her down. She bursts into a storm of sobs. - -‘I would to God,’ says she, ‘that I had died before he found me! -Yes—yes, I would, though I know it was His will, and His alone, that -kept me alive, half dead from cold and hunger as I was. I can’t bear to -think of that night, and what you must have thought of me! It was -dreadful—dreadful! You shrank from me because I courted death so openly. -Yes—yes, you did’—combating a gesture on his part—‘but you did not know -how near I was to it at that moment. I was famished, bruised, homeless—I -was almost senseless. I knew only that I could not return to that man’s -house, and that there was no other house to go to. That was all I knew, -through the unconsciousness that was fast overtaking me. To die seemed -the best thing—and to die in that warm room. I was frozen. Oh, blame me, -despise me, if you like, but anyone would have been glad to die, if they -felt as homeless and as starving as I did that night!’ - -‘Who is blaming you?’ says Wyndham roughly. ‘Good heavens! is there a -man on earth who could blame you, after hearing so sad a story? Because -you have met one brute in your life, must you consider all other men -brutes?’ - -His manner is so vehement that Ella, thinking he is annoyed with her, -shrinks from him. - -‘Don’t be angry with me,’ says she imploringly. - -‘Angry with you!’ says he impatiently. ‘There is only one to be angry -with, and that is that devil. Where does he live?’ - -She gives him the road, and the number of the house where she had lived -with the Moores—a road of small houses, chiefly occupied by artisans and -clerks; a road not very far from the Zoological Gardens. - -‘But what are you going to do?’ asks she nervously. ‘You will not tell -him I am here?’ - -‘Of course not. But it is quite necessary that a fellow like that should -feel there is a law in the land.’ - -‘But if you say anything about me,’ says she in a tone now thoroughly -frightened, ‘he will search me out, no matter in what corner of the -earth I may be.’ - -‘I don’t think so, once I have spoken to him,’ says the barrister -grimly. - -‘You mean’—she looks at him timidly—‘you think that if—’ She breaks off -again. ‘He told me that his wife, who he said was my aunt, had made him -guardian over me, and that he would be my master for ever.’ - -‘Even supposing all that were true, and Mrs. Moore were your aunt—which -I doubt—and had left her husband guardian over you, still, there are -limits to the powers of guardians.’ - -‘Then if you see him, you think’—with trembling anxiety—‘you can tell -him that he has no hold over me?’ - -‘Yes, I think so.’ - -‘And I shall be free?’ - -‘Quite free.’ - -Ella leans forward. Her hands are upon her knees and are tightly -clenched. She is thinking. Suddenly a soft glow overspreads her face. -She lifts her eyes to his, and he can see that a wonderful -brilliance—the light of hope—has come into them. - -‘It is too good to be true,’ says she slowly. - -‘Oh no, I hope not. But I wish I had a few more particulars, Miss Moore. -I am afraid’—seeing a shade upon her face—‘I shall be obliged to call -you that until I have discovered your real name. And to do that you must -help me. Have you no memory that goes farther back than the Moores? You -spoke of someone who used to call you Elly—’ - -‘It was a woman,’ says she quickly. ‘Often—often in my dreams I see her -again. She used to kiss me—I remember that.’ - -It is such a sad little saying—once, long ago, so long ago that she can -scarcely remember it, some woman used to kiss her! But, evidently, since -that tender kisses had not fallen to the poor child’s lot. - -‘But she died. I saw her lying dead. I thought she was asleep. She was -very beautiful—I remember that, too. I don’t want to see anyone dead -again. Death,’ says she with a shudder, ‘is horrible!’ - -This, coming from one who had braved its terrors voluntarily so very -lately, causes Wyndham to look at her in some surprise. - -‘Yes!’ says he. ‘And yet that night when the Professor gave you -something that might have led to death, were you frightened then?’ - -‘I think I have explained that,’ says she, with a slight touch of -dignity. - -‘True.’ He continues the slow pacing to and fro upon the garden-path -that he has taken up occasionally during this interview. ‘There is -nothing more, then, that you can tell me? The lady of whom you speak, -who used to kiss you, was perhaps your mother?’ - -‘I think so—I believe it,’ says the girl. She turns to him a face -flushed and gratified. ‘Mr. Wyndham, it was kind of you to call her -that—a lady! To me, too, she seems a lady, and, besides that, an angel.’ - -A lady! Wyndham’s kindly instincts go out to this poor waif and stray -with an extreme sense of pity. A lady! Very likely, but perhaps no wife. -The mother, if a lady, has certainly left the gentle manners of good -birth to this poor child, but nothing else. A vindictive anger against -the vices of this life in which he lives, and a still greater anger -against the _bétises_ of society that would not admit this girl into -their ranks, however faultless she may be, because of a blot upon her -birth, stirs his soul. That she is one of the great unknown seems very -clear to him, but does not prevent his determination to hunt out that -scoundrel Moore and break his hold over the girl. In the meantime, it -would be well for her to mix with her kind. - -‘About a companion,’ says he. ‘You told me you were anxious to continue -your studies. I think I know a lady—elderly, refined, and gentle—who -would be able to help you. You could go out with her.’ - -‘I shall not go out of this house,’ says the girl. She has begun to -tremble again. ‘Mr. Wyndham, do not ask me to do that. Even’—slowly, but -steadily—‘if you did ask me, I should refuse. I will not go where I can -be found. This lady you speak of, if she will come and live with me, and -teach me—I should like that; but—’ - -‘You will require very little teaching, I think,’ says Wyndham, who has -been struck by the excellence of both her manners and her speech, -considering her account of her former life. - -‘I know nothing,’ says she calmly; ‘but, as I told you, I had read a -good deal, and for the past three years I used to go as nursery -governess to a Mrs. Blaquiere, who lived in Westmoreland Road. I used to -lunch with her and the children, and she was very kind to me; and she -taught me a good deal in other ways—society ways.’ - -‘You were an apt pupil,’ says he gravely, a little doubtfully, perhaps. - -‘I liked the way she talked, and it seemed to come very easy to me after -awhile,’ says the girl indifferently, not noticing his keen glance at -her. ‘But this governess—this companion?’ asks she. ‘Will she want to go -out—to be amused? If so, I could not have her. I shall never go out of -this place until—’ - -‘Until?’ asks he. - -‘You tell me that man has no longer any power over me. I’—she looks at -him, and again terror whitens her face—‘I am sure you are wrong, and -that he has the power to drag me away from this, if he finds me.’ - -‘I should advise you not to dwell on that until I have found him,’ says -Wyndham, a little stiffly. The successful barrister is a little thrown -back upon himself by being told that he will undoubtedly find himself in -the wrong. ‘But this Mrs. Blaquiere, who was so kind to you—why do you -not apply to her for protection?’ - -‘She and her husband and the children all went to Australia in the early -part of last spring, and so I lost sight of them.’ - -‘Lost your situation, too?’—regarding her carefully. - -‘Yes; and I had no time to look for another. Mrs. Moore grew ill then, -and I had to attend her day and night until she died. The rest I have -told you.’ - -‘I see,’ says Wyndham. ‘Tell me again this man Moore’s address.’ He -writes it now in his pocket-book, though it was written well into his -brain before; but he wished to see if she would falter about it the -second time. - -He bids her good-bye presently, refusing her timid offer of tea. - -At the gate he finds Mrs. Denis, presumably tying up a creeper, but most -undoubtedly on the look-out for him. - -‘Good-evening, yer honour.’ - -‘Good-evening’—shortly. Wyndham is deep in thought, and by no means in a -good temper. He would have brushed by her; but, armed with a garden -rake, a spade, and a huge clipper, Mrs. Denis is not lightly to be dealt -with. - -‘Askin’ yer pardon, sir, ’tis just a word I want wid ye. Miss Ella, the -crathure—ye’re going to let her stay here, aren’t ye?’ - -‘Yes,’ says Wyndham gruffly. - -‘The saints be praised!’ says Mrs. Denis piously. ‘Fegs! ’tis a good -heart ye have, sir, in spite of it all.’ What the ‘all’ is she leaves -beautifully indefinite. ‘An’, sure, ’twas meself tould Denis—that ould -raprobate of a fool o’ mine—that ye’d niver turn her out. “For where -would she go,” says I, “if he did—a born lady like her?” An’ there’s -plenty o’ room for her here, sir.’ - -‘I dare say,’ says Wyndham, feeling furious. ‘But for all that, I can’t -have all the young women in Ireland staying in my house just because -there is room for them.’ - -‘God forbid, yer honour! All thim young women would play the very divil -wid the Cottage, an’’—thoughtfully—‘aitch other too. Wan at a time, sir, -is a good plan, an’ I’m glad it’s Miss Ella has had the first of it.’ - -This remarkable speech is met by Wyndham with a stony glare that goes -lightly over the head of Mrs. Denis. That worthy woman is too much -elated with the news she has dragged out of him to care for glares of -any sort. Childless, though always longing for a child—and especially -for a daughter—Mrs. Denis’s heart had gone out at once to the pretty -waif that had been cast into her life in so strange a fashion. And now -she hastens back to the house to get ‘her Miss Ella a cup o’ tay, the -crathure!’ and wheedle out of her all the news about the ‘masther.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - - ‘Tell me how to bear so blandly the assuming ways of wild young - people! - - ‘Truly they would be unbearable if I had not also been unbearable - myself as well.’—GOETHE. - - -When Mr. Crosby had told the Barrys that he would come down next day for -a game of tennis, they had not altogether believed in his coming, so -that when they see him from afar off, through the many holes in the -hedge, walking towards them down the village street, surprise is their -greatest sentiment. - -‘Susan,’ says Dominick solemnly, pausing racket in hand, ‘it must be -you. I always told you your face was your fortune, and a very small one -at that. You’ll have to marry him, and then we’ll all go and live with -you for ever. That’ll be a treat for you, and will doubtless make up for -the fact that he is emulating the Great Methuselah. If I can say a good -word for you, I—Oh, how d’ye do, Mr. Crosby? Brought your racket, too, I -see. Carew, now we’ll make up a set: Mr. Crosby and—’ - -‘Miss Susan, if I may,’ says Crosby, looking into Susan’s charming face -whilst holding her hand in greeting. There are any amount of greetings -to be got through when you go to see the Barrys. They are all always _en -évidence_, and all full of life and friendliness. Even little Bonnie -hurries up on his stick, and gives him a loving greeting. The child’s -face is so sweet and so happily friendly that Crosby stoops and kisses -him. - -‘Certainly you may,’ says Susan genially; ‘but I’m not so good a player -as Betty. She can play like anything. But to-day she has got a bad cold -in her head. Well’—laughing—‘come on; we can try, and, after all, we can -only be beaten.’ - -They are, as it happens, and very badly, too, Mr. Crosby, though no -doubt good at big game, being rather a tyro at tennis. - -‘I apologize,’ says he, when the game is at an end, and they have all -seated themselves upon the ground to rest and gather breath; ‘I’m afraid -Su—Miss Susan—you will hardly care to play with me again.’ - -‘I told you you could call me Susan,’ says she calmly. ‘Somehow, I -dislike the Miss before it. Betty told you Miss Barry sounded like Aunt -Jemima, but I think Miss Susan sounds like Jane.’ - -‘Poor old Jane! And she’s got such an awful nose!’ says Betty. ‘I think -I’d rather be like Aunt Jemima than her.’ - -‘Susan hasn’t got an awful nose,’ says Bonnie, stroking Susan’s dainty -little Grecian appendage fondly. ‘It’s a nice one.’ - -‘Susan is a beauty,’ says Betty; ‘we all know that. Even James went down -before her. Poor James! I wonder what he is doing now.’ - -‘Stewing in the Soudan,’ says Carew. - -‘He was always in one sort of stew or another,’ says Dominick, ‘so it -will come kindly to him. And after Susan’s heartless behaviour—’ - -‘Dom!’ says Susan, in an awful tone. But Mr. Fitzgerald is beyond the -reach of tones. - -‘Oh, it’s all very well your taking it like that now,’ says he; ‘but -when poor old James was here it was a different thing.’ - -‘It was not,’ says Susan indignantly. - -‘Are you going to deny that he was your abject slave—that he sat in your -pocket from morning till night—well, very nearly night? That he followed -you from place to place like a baa-lamb? That you did not encourage him -in the basest fashion?’ - -‘I never encouraged him. Encourage him! That boy!’ - -‘Don’t call him names, Susan, behind his back,’ says Betty, whose -mischievous nature is now all afire, and who is as keen about the -baiting of Susan as either Carew or Dom. ‘Besides, what a boy he is! He -must be twenty-two, at all events.’ This seems quite old to Betty. - -‘What did you do with the keepsake he gave you when he was going away?’ -asks Carew. He is lying flat upon the warm grass, his chin upon his -palms, and looks up at Susan with judicial eyes. ‘What was it? I forget -now. A lock of his lovely hair?’ - -‘No,’ says Betty; ‘a little silver brooch—an anchor.’ - -‘That means hope,’ says Dominick solemnly. ‘Susan, he is coming back -next year. What are you going to say to him?’ - -‘Just exactly what everybody else is going to say to him,’ says Susan, -who is now crimson. ‘And I didn’t want that horrid brooch at all.’ - -‘Still, you took it,’ says Betty. ‘I call that rather mean, to take it, -and then say you didn’t want it.’ - -‘Well, what was I to do?’ - -‘Refuse it, mildly but firmly,’ says Mr. Fitzgerald. ‘The acceptance of -it was, in my opinion, as good as the acceptance of James. When he does -come back, Susan, I don’t see how you are to get out of being Mrs. -James. That brooch is a regular binder. How does it seem to you, Mr. -Crosby?’ - -‘You see, I haven’t heard all the evidence yet,’ says Crosby, who is -looking at Susan’s flushed, half-angry, wholly-delightful face. James, -whoever he is, seems to have been a good deal in her society at one -time. - -‘There’s no evidence,’ says she wrathfully, ‘and I wish you boys -wouldn’t be so stupid! As for the brooch, I hate it; I never wear it.’ - -‘Well, if ever anyone gives me a present I shall wear it every day and -all day long,’ says Betty. ‘What’s the good of having a lover if people -don’t know about it?’ - -‘Is that so?’ says Mr. Fitzgerald, regarding her with all the air of one -to whom now the road seems clear. ‘Then the moment I become a -millionaire—and there seems quite an immediate prospect of it just now—I -shall buy you the Koh-i-Noor, and you shall wear it on your beauteous -brow, and proclaim me as your unworthy lover to all the world.’ - -‘I will when I get it,’ says Betty, with tremendous sarcasm. - -‘The reason you won’t wear it,’ says Carew, alluding to Susan’s despised -brooch, ‘is plain to even the poor innocents around you. Girls, in spite -of all Betty has said, seldom wear their keepsakes. They get cotton wool -and wrap them up in it, and peep at them rapturously on Christmas Day or -Easter Sunday, or on the beloved one’s birthday, or some other sacred -occasion. What’s James’s birthday, Susan?’ - -‘I don’t know,’ says Susan; ‘and I don’t know, either, why you tease me -so much about him. He is quite as little to me as I am to him.’ Her -voice is trembling now. They have gone a little too far perhaps, or is -the memory of James ‘stewing in the Soudan’ too much for her? Whichever -it is, Mr. Crosby is growing anxious for her; but all the youngsters are -now in full cry, and the proverbial cruelty of brothers and sisters is -well known to many a long-suffering girl and boy. - -‘Oh, Susan,’ says Betty, ‘where does one go to when one tells -naughty-naughties? Dom; do you remember the evening just before James -went abroad, when he went into floods of tears because she wouldn’t give -him a rosebud she had in her dress? It took Dom, and me, and Carew, and -a pint of water to restore him.’ - -At this they all laugh, even Susan, though very faintly and very -shamefacedly. Her pretty eyes are shy and angry. - -‘He wanted a specimen to take out with him to astonish the natives,’ -says Carew. ‘You were the real specimen he wanted to take out with him, -Susan, but as that was impracticable just then (it will probably be -arranged next time), he decided on taking the rosebud instead.’ - -‘He wanted nothing,’ says Susan, whose face is now bent over Bonnie’s as -if to hide it. ‘He didn’t care a bit about me.’ - -‘Indeed he did, Susan.’ - -A fresh element has fallen into the situation. Everyone looks round. The -voice is the voice of Jacky—Jacky, who, up to this, has been as usual -buried in a book. This time the burial has been deeper than ever, as the -day before yesterday someone had lent him Mr. Stevenson’s enthralling -‘Treasure Island,’ from which no one can ever extract themselves until -the very last page is turned. Jacky, since he first began it, has been -practically useless, but just now a few fragments of the conversation -going on around him have filtered to his brain. - -Now, in his own peculiarly disagreeable way he adores Susan, and -something has led him to believe that those around her are now -depreciating her powers of attraction, and that she is giving in to them -for want of support. Well, he will support her. Poor old Jacky! he comes -nobly forward to her rescue, and as usual puts his foot in it. - -‘He liked you better than anyone,’ says he, in his slow, ponderous -fashion, glaring angrily at Betty, with whom he carries on an undying -feud. ‘Why, don’t you remember how he used to hunt you all over the -garden to kiss you!’ - -Tableau! - -Betty leads the way after about a moment’s awful pause, and then they -all go off into shrieks of laughter. Jacky, alone, sullen, silent, not -understanding, stands as if petrified. Susan has pushed Bonnie from her, -and has risen to her feet. Her face is crimson now; her eyes are full of -tears. Involuntarily Crosby rises too. - -‘He used not,’ says poor Susan. Alas! this assertion is not quite true. -‘And even if he did, you’—to the horrified Jacky—‘should not have told -it. You, Jacky’—trembling with shame—‘I wouldn’t have believed it of -you! It was hateful of you! You’—with a withering glance around—‘are all -hateful, and—and—’ - -She chokes, breaks down, and runs with swift-flying feet into the small -shrubbery beyond, where lies a little summer-house in which she can hide -herself. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - - ‘Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow.’ - - -An embarrassed silence falls upon the group she leaves behind her. It -had not occurred to them that she would care so much. They had often -chaffed her before. It must—it must have been Mr. Crosby’s being there -that had put her out like that. To tell the truth, they are all -penitent—Betty perhaps more than the others. But even her remorse sinks -into insignificance before Jacky’s. His takes the nature of a wrathful -attack upon the others, and ends in a storm of tears. - -‘You’ve been teasing her, you know you have—and she’s mad with me now. -And I didn’t mean anything. And she’s crying, I know she is. And you’re -all beasts—beasts!’ - -It is at this point that his own tears break forth, and, like Susan, he -flees from them—but, unlike Susan, howling. - -‘I didn’t know; I didn’t think she’d care,’ says Betty, in a frightened -tone. ‘We often teased her before;’ and she might have said more, but an -attack of sneezing lays her low. - -‘But before a stranger!’ says Carew anxiously. ‘I am afraid, Mr. Crosby, -it is because you were here.’ - -‘It isn’t a bit like Susan to care like that,’ says Dom. ‘I -say’—contritely—‘I’m awfully sorry. I wonder where she is, Betty.’ - -‘In the summer-house. She always goes there when she’s vexed or -worried.’ - -‘Why don’t you go to her, then?’ - -‘I can’t. I’ve a cold. I’ll wait awhile,’ says Betty, holding back. - -‘I think, as it has been my fault,’ says Crosby quietly, ‘that I had -better be the one to apologize. Where is this summer-house of which you -speak?’ - -‘Right round there,’ says Betty eagerly, pointing to the corner of the -house. - -‘Just behind the rose-trees,’ says Dom, giving him a friendly push -forward. - -‘You can’t miss her,’ says Carew, who is dying to give him an -encouraging clap on the shoulder. They are all evidently very anxious to -get the task of ‘making it up’ with Susan on to any other shoulders than -their own. - -‘Well, I think I’ll take a little hostage with me, or shall we say a -peace-offering?’ says Crosby, catching up Bonnie, and starting with him -for Susan’s hiding-place. ‘Any way, I’ve got a pioneer,’ says he. ‘He’ll -show me the way.’ - -The way is short and very sweet. Along a gravelled pathway, between -trees of glowing roses, to where in the distance is a tiny house, made -evidently by young, untutored hands, out of young and very unseasoned -timber. - -A slender figure is inside it—a figure flung miserably into one of the -corners, and crying perhaps, after all, more angrily than painfully. - -‘Now, what on earth are you doing that for?’ says Crosby. He seats -himself on the rustic bench beside her, and places Bonnie on her knee. -It seems to him that that will be the best way to bring down her hands -from her eyes. And he is not altogether wrong. It is impossible to let -her little beloved one fall off her knees, so quickly, if reluctantly, -she brings down her right hand so as to clasp him securely. - -‘What are you crying about?’ goes on Crosby, very proud of the success -of his first manœuvre. ‘Because somebody wanted to kiss you? You will -have a good deal of crying at that rate, Susan, before you come to the -end of your life.’ - -He is laughing a little now, and as Bonnie has climbed up on her knees, -and is pulling away the other hand from her face, Susan feels she may as -well make the best of a bad situation. - -‘It wasn’t so much that,’ says she. ‘Though’—anxiously—‘Jacky -exaggerated most dreadfully. As to my objecting to their teasing me -about James McIlveagh—you have not seen him, or you would understand me -better. It is not only that he is uninteresting, but that he is awful! -His nose is like an elephant’s trunk, and his eyes are as small as the -head of a pin. And his clothes—his trousers—I don’t know where he got -his trousers, but Dom used to say his mother made them in her spare -moments. Not that one would care about a person’s trousers, of course,’ -says Susan, with intense earnestness, ‘if he was nice himself; but James -wasn’t nice, and I was never more glad in my life than when he went -away.’ - -‘He’s coming back, however.’ - -‘Yes, I know, and I’m sorry for it, if they are going to tease me all -day long about him, as they are doing now. I think’—with a hasty glance -at him, born of the fact that she knows her eyes are disfigured by -crying—‘you might have tried to stop them.’ - -‘Well, you see, I hardly knew what to do at first,’ says Crosby, quite -entering into the argument. ‘And when I did, it was a little too late. -Of course it seemed to me a very possible thing that you might have -given your heart to this young man with the nose and the unfortunate -trousers who is stewing in the Soudan.’ - -‘You might have known by my manner that I hated them to tease me about -him,’ says Susan, very little appeased by his apology. - -‘I’ll know better next time,’ says Crosby humbly. ‘But when I heard he -had been following you about like a baa-lamb, and that you had taken -that anchor from him, and that he used to—’ - -He is checked by a flash from Susan’s eyes. There is a pause. Then -suddenly she presses her face into Bonnie’s flaxen hair, and bursts into -smothered laughter. - -‘Well, I don’t care! He did once, all round the gooseberry bushes; and I -threw a spade at him, and it hit him on the head, and I thought I had -killed him. I’—with another glance at Crosby, now from between Bonnie’s -curls—‘was dreadfully frightened then. But now I almost wish I had. Any -way, he never tried to—he never, I mean’—confusedly—‘hunted me again.’ - -‘I begin to feel sincerely sorry for James,’ says Crosby. ‘He seems to -me to have led but a sorry life before he started for the Soudan. When -he comes home next year, what will you do? He may be quite’—he looks at -her and smiles—‘a mighty hunter by that time.’ - -Susan laughs. - -‘Like you,’ says she. - -Crosby looks at her. It is a ready answer, and with another might convey -a certain meaning, but with Susan never. - -‘Ah, I’m afraid of gooseberry bushes,’ says he. ‘They have thorns in -them. James, you see, surpasses me in valour. Talking of valour reminds -me of those you have left behind you, and who have sent me here as their -plenipotentiary, to extract from you a promise of peace. They are all -very sorry they annoyed you so much about the redoubtable James; and -they desired me to say so. I was afraid to come by myself, so I brought -Bonnie with me. Bonnie, tell her to come back with me now, and say: -“Peace is restored with honour.” Say it for her, Bonnie.’ - -‘“Peace is restored with honour,”’ repeats Bonnie sweetly. - -‘There, that settles it,’ says Crosby. ‘He knows his lesson. So do you; -come back and forgive us all.’ - -‘Oh, I can’t,’ says Susan. ‘They would know I had been crying. Look at -my eyes; they are quite red.’ - -‘They are not, indeed,’ says Mr. Crosby, after an exhaustive -examination. ‘They are quite blue.’ - -‘Oh yes, that, of course’—impatiently. ‘But, well—really, how are they?’ -She leans towards him, and gazes at him out of the blue eyes with an -extraordinary calm. ‘Would they know I had been crying?’ - -‘They would not,’ says Crosby. ‘It is I alone who am in that secret. -And, by the way, Susan’—stopping her as they both rise—‘that is the -second secret we have between us; we are becoming quite fashionable—we -are growing into a society, you and I.’ - -‘I wish you would forget that first secret,’ says Susan, blushing a -little. ‘And, anyhow, I hope you won’t tell the others that you found -me—you know—crying.’ - -‘Ah, that makes me remember our first secret,’ says Crosby. ‘You know -that on that never-to-be-forgotten memorable occasion you said you -trusted me.’ - -‘Did I?’ Susan is blushing furiously now. ‘How can I recollect all the -silly things I said then? I have forgotten them all—and I’m sure you -have, too.’ - -‘Not one of them,’ says Crosby. ‘They are now classed with my most -priceless memories. “Go and steal no more,” you said—and I haven’t up to -this.’ - -Susan laughs in spite of herself. - -‘Well, at all events I can trust you, then, not to betray me to them.’ -She points to the late temple of her tears. - -‘You can trust me for that or anything else in the wide world,’ says -Crosby. - -He takes up Bonnie again, and they go slowly back to the others. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV. - - ‘So bright a tear in Beauty’s eye, - Love half regrets to kiss it dry.’ - - -As Susan appears, the guilty ones upon the tennis-ground move -simultaneously towards her, Betty with a shy little rush, and holding -out to her her racket. - -‘Come and have another game, Susan, and you, too, Mr. Crosby.’ - -‘Yes, do,’ says Carew. ‘Tea will be here in a moment.’ He evidently -holds this out as an inducement to Crosby to remain. Mr. Fitzgerald -nobly backs him up. - -‘Also Aunt Jemima!’ he says enthusiastically. - -This joke, if it is meant for one, is a dead failure. No one even -smiles. Susan, who is feeling a little shy, and is horribly conscious -that, in spite of Crosby’s assurances, her eyes are of a very tell-tale -colour, is fighting with her brain for some light, airy, amusing remark -that may prove to all present that she had only run away from them in -mere search of physical exercise, when suddenly the rather forced smile -dies upon her lips, and her eyes become fixed on some object over there -on her right. - -‘What is it, Susan—a ghost?’ asks Dom, who is equal to most occasions. - -‘No,’ says Susan, in a low voice. ‘But—this is the third time. And look -over there, at that sycamore-tree in the Cottage garden. Do you see -anything?’ - -‘See what? “Is there visions about?” asks Dom. ‘Really, Susan, you ought -to consider our nerves. Is it the “Bogie Man,” or—’ - -‘It is a girl,’ says Susan. ‘There, there again! Her face is between -those two big branches. Mr. Crosby’—eagerly—‘don’t you see her?’ - -‘I do,’ cries Carew suddenly. ‘Oh, what a lovely face!’ - -It may be remembered that the Rectory and the Cottage are only divided -by a narrow road and two high walls. At the farthest end of the Cottage -grounds some tall trees are standing—a beech, two elms, and a sycamore. -All these uprear themselves well above the walls, and cast their shadows -in summer, and their leaves in winter, down on the road beneath. They -can be distinctly seen from the Rectory tennis-court, and, indeed, add a -good deal of charm to it, the road being so narrow, and the walls so -much of a height, that strangers often think the trees on the Cottage -lawn are actually belonging to the Rectory. - -‘Yes, I see too,’ says Crosby, leaning forward. - -‘Yes, yes!’ cries Betty. ‘But is it a girl?’ - -And now a little silence falls upon them. - -Over there, peeping out between the leaves of the soft sycamore-tree, is -a face. There is nothing to tell if it be a boy’s or a girl’s face, as -nothing can be seen but the shapely head; and its soft abundant tresses -of chestnut hair are so closely drawn back into a knot behind that they -are hidden by the crowding branches. The eyes are gleaming, the lips -slightly parted. So might a Hamadryad look, peering through swaying -leaves. - -‘It’s the prisoner,’ says Jacky, in an awestruck tone. - -‘The apparition, you mean,’ corrects Mr. Fitzgerald severely. -‘Prisoners, as a rule, have bodies, spooks have none. Jacky, you lucky -creature, you have seen a ghost.’ - -‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ asks Betty in an anxious tone. - -‘A most pertinent question?’ says Fitzgerald, who is taking the -situation with anything but the seriousness that is so evidently -demanded of it. ‘But, as I have before remarked, there is no body to go -by, and naturally no clothes. It is therefore unanswerable.’ - -Crosby has said nothing. He is, indeed, deeply occupied with the face. -So this is Wyndham’s tenant. A very lovely one. - -Again a slight doubt arises in his mind about his friend. And yet -Wyndham had seemed thoroughly honest in his explanation. - -‘I know it’s a girl,’ says Susan, with decision. ‘Jacky has seen her; -and what a pretty one! Oh, there, she’s gone!’ And, indeed, the -Hamadryad, as if becoming suddenly conscious of the fact that they are -looking at her, draws back her head and disappears. ‘I’m afraid she saw -us,’ says Susan contritely. ‘She must have thought us very rude. I’ll -ask father to let me call on her, I think. She must be very lonely -there. And even if she is only Mrs. Moriarty’s niece, still, she must -have been educated to make her look like that.’ - -‘Perhaps,’ says Crosby, speaking with apparent carelessness, and looking -direct at Susan, ‘she might not like to be called upon. I have been -given to understand that she is not a niece of Mrs. Moriarty’s, and—’ - -‘No, but what, then?’ asks Carew. - -‘A tenant of Mr. Wyndham’s. He is a friend of mine, you know; and he -told me lately he had grown very tired of the Cottage, and was willing -to take a tenant for it. This lady is, I presume, the tenant.’ - -‘The more reason why we should call upon her,’ says Susan. - -‘But isn’t she very young,’ says Betty, ‘to be a tenant all by herself?’ - -This startling suggestion creates a slight pause. - -‘To be young is not to be beyond misfortune,’ says Crosby at last, in a -grave and very general tone. ‘No doubt this young lady has lost her -father and mother, and is obliged to—er—do without them.’ - -This is distinctly lame. - -‘Poor thing!’ says Susan sympathetically. - -‘We might ask her over here sometimes,’ says Carew. - -‘But if she has lost her parents lately,’ puts in Crosby hastily, ‘she -might, perhaps—one should not even with the best intentions force one’s -self upon people in such deep grief as hers.’ - -‘She wasn’t in mourning, any way,’ says Betty, who can always tell you -to a pin what anyone is wearing; ‘she had a little blue bow near her -neck.’ - -Crosby recovers from this blow with difficulty. - -‘At all events,’ says he, ‘I have heard through Wyndham that she desires -privacy at present. No doubt when she feels equal to receiving visitors -she will let us all know.’ - -‘No doubt,’ says Dominick, who has been studying Mr. Crosby closely, and -with covert amusement. - -‘I’ll ask Mr. Wyndham about her,’ says Susan. ‘I think she would be -happier if she could tell about her sorrow. One should be roused from -one’s griefs, father says. And even if out of mourning—I didn’t see any -blue bow, Betty—still, I am sure she must be sad at heart.’ - -‘Well, consult your father about it,’ says Crosby, as a last resource. -In spite of his affection for Wyndham, he has doubts about his tenant. - -At this point Jane appears, bringing a tray, on which are cups and -saucers, teapot and cream ewer, some bread-and-butter and sponge-cake. -Susan had spent the morning making the sponge-cake on the chance of Mr. -Crosby’s coming. They had decided in conclave that it would be better to -have tea out here on the pleasant grass (though there is no table on -which to put the tray) rather than in the small and rather stuffy -drawing-room. They had had a distinct fight over it with Miss Barry; but -Dominick, who can succeed in anything but his exams, overcame her, and -carried the day. - -‘Put the tray down here,’ says Betty, with quite an air, seeing that -Susan has given way a little beneath the want of the table—‘down here on -the grass near me. I’ll pour out the tea’—this with a withering glance -at Susan, who is slightly flushed, and apparently ashamed of herself. -‘We haven’t any rustic table yet, Mr. Crosby,’ says Betty, with immense -aplomb, ‘but were going to have one shortly’—this with all the admirable -assurance of a fashionable dame who has just been ordering a garden -tea-table from one of the best London houses. She nods and smiles at -him. ‘Dom is going to make it. Susan’—with a freezing glance at that -damsel—‘do you think you could manage to cut the sponge-cake?’ - -‘Cut it!’ says Jacky, who is sharp to see that the idolized Susan is -being sat upon, and who still feels that he owes her reparation of some -sort. ‘Why couldn’t she cut it? She made it.’ - -Susan bursts out laughing. It is too much, and they all follow suit. - -‘What! you made it?’ cries Crosby, taking up a knife and beginning a -vigorous attack upon it. ‘Why didn’t you make it bigger when you were -about it? The fact that it is your handiwork has, judging by myself, -made us all frightfully hungry. Thank Heaven, there is still -bread-and-butter, or I don’t know what would become of us.’ - -They are all laughing still—indeed, their merriment has quite reached a -height—when Susan, looking over her shoulder, nearly drops her cup and -saucer, and sits up as if listening. - -‘Someone is coming,’ says she. - -‘Aunt Jemima,’ indignantly declares Betty, who is sitting up too. - -Tramp, tramp, tramp comes a foot along the gravel path that skirts the -side of the house away from them. Tramp, tramp; evidently two of the -heaviest feet in Christendom are approaching. - -‘You’re right,’ whispers Dom; ‘’tis “the fa’ o’ her fairy feet.” Aunt -Jemima, to a moral.’ - -And Aunt Jemima it is, sweeping round the house with her head well up, -and the desire to impress, that they all know so fatally well, full upon -her. - -‘Don’t stir, Mr. Crosby; I really beg you won’t. This is a rather -_al-fresco_ entertainment, but I know you will excuse these wild -children.’ Here the wild children gave way silently, convulsively. - -‘It is the most charming entertainment I have been at for years,’ says -Crosby pleasantly. ‘Where will you sit? Here?’ He is quite assiduous in -his attentions, especially about the rug on which she is to sit—not his -rug, at all events; Susan has half of that. - -‘Thank you,’ says Miss Barry, ‘but I need not trouble you; I do not -intend to stay. I merely came out to see if these remarkably -ill-mannered young people were taking care of you.’ - -She speaks with a stiff and laboured smile upon her lips, but an evident -determination to be amiable at all risks. - -‘Won’t you have a cup of tea, Aunt Jemima?’ asks Susan timidly. - -‘No, thank you, my love. Pray don’t trouble about me. I’—with a crushing -glance at poor Susan—‘have no desire whatever to interfere with your -amusement. I hope’—turning to Crosby—‘later on I may be able to see more -of you, but to-day I am specially busy. I have many worries, Mr. Crosby, -that are not exactly on the surface.’ - -‘Like us all,’ says Crosby, nodding his head gravely. ‘Life is full of -thorns.’ - -‘Ah!’ says Miss Barry. She feels that she has now ‘impressed’ him -indeed, and is satisfied. - -‘We travel a thorny road,’ says she. - -Crosby sadly acquiesces. - -‘True,’ says he. - -‘Adieu,’ says she. She makes him an old-fashioned obeisance, and once -again rounds the corner and disappears. - -‘I don’t think it was very nice of you to make fun of her,’ says Susan -reproachfully to Crosby. - -‘Fun of her! What do you take me for?’ says he. ‘Make fun of your aunt -because I said life was full of thorns? Well’—with argument looming in -his eye—‘isn’t it?’ - -‘Thorns?’ She pauses, as if wondering. ‘Oh no,’ says she. It seems a -pity to disturb so sweet a faith; and Crosby, with a renunciatory wave -of his hand, gives up the impending argument. - -‘Awful lucky she went away so soon!’ says Carew, as the last bit of Aunt -Jemima’s tail disappears round the corner. ‘She’d have led us a life had -she stayed. She’s been on the prance all day on account of those -Brians.’ - -‘Yes, isn’t it awful?’ says Betty. - -‘Who are the Brians?’ asks Crosby. - -‘Farmers up on the hill over there’—pointing far away to the south. -‘Very well-to-do people, you know, with their sons going into the -Church, and their daughters at a first-class school in Birmingham. Aunt -Jemima, thinking to help them on their road to civilization, sent them a -bath—one of the round flat ones, you know—as a present last month, -hearing that they were expecting the girls home for their holidays, -and—’ - -Here Betty breaks off, and goes into what she calls ‘kinks’ of laughter. - -‘Well?’ says Crosby, naturally desirous of knowing where the laugh comes -in. - -‘Ah, that’s it!’ says Dom. ‘Really, Betty, I think you might hold on -long enough to finish your own story. It appears Aunt Jemima went up to -the farm yesterday, and found that they had taken the bath as an -ornament, and had nailed it up against the sitting-room wall with four -long tenpenny nails, and—’ Here, in spite of his lecture to Betty, Mr. -Fitzgerald himself gives way, and, falling back upon the grass, shouts -with laughter. - -‘They took it,’ gasps Carew, ‘as some curio from some barbarous -country—a sort of shield, you know; a savage weapon! They had never seen -a bath before. Oh my!’ He, too, has gone into an ecstasy of mirth. ‘I -expect they thought it was straight from South Africa.’ - -‘Poor Aunt Jemima!’ says Betty, when she can speak. ‘It must have been a -blow to her.’ - -‘Talking of blows,’ says Carew, turning to her sharply, and somewhat -indignantly, ‘I never knew anyone blow their nose like you, Betty; -you’ve been at it now since early dawn.’ - -‘Well, I can’t help it,’ says Betty, very rightly aggrieved, ‘if I have -got a cold in my head.’ - -‘I’ve a cold, too,’ says Jacky dismally—Jacky is always dismal—‘but it -isn’t as bad as Betty’s. My head is aching, but Betty’s nose is only -running.’ - -A frightful silence follows upon this terrific speech. Mr. Fitzgerald, -who can always be depended upon at a crisis, breaks it. - -‘Not far, I trust,’ says he, with exaggerated anxiety. ‘We could hardly -spare it. Betty’s nose is the one presentable member of that sort in the -family.’ - -Betty, between the pauses of this speech, can be heard threatening -Jacky. ‘No, no; never! I won’t give it now. You’re a little wretch! Even -if I promised to give it I don’t care. I’ll take it back. You shan’t -have it now.’ - -But all this is so distinctly not meant to be heard that no one takes -any notice of it, and any serious consequences are prevented by the fact -that Dominick, rising, throws himself between the puzzled Jacky and the -irate Betty. In the meantime, Crosby draws himself along the rug until -he is even closer to Susan, who now again is looking serious. - -‘What is troubling you, righteous soul?’ asks he lightly. - -‘How do you know I am troubled? I am not, really.’ - -‘Yet you are thinking, and very gravely, too.’ - -‘Ah, that is another thing. I was thinking,’ says Susan gently, ‘of the -girl in there’—nodding towards the Cottage. ‘It must be a very sad thing -to have no one belonging to you.’ - -‘Sad indeed! But you must not let your sympathy for her run too far -afield. If not a father or mother, she must have—other ties.’ - -‘Brothers, you mean, or sisters?’ - -‘Yes, just so—brothers or sisters. They’ll turn up presently, no doubt.’ - -He looks at her as if waiting for an inspiration, and then it comes to -him. - -‘What a sympathetic mind you have!’ says he. ‘And yet you don’t give me -a share of it. You have known me quite a long time now, and I have no -father or mother, yet you have not wept with me.’ - -‘I didn’t know,’ says Susan. ‘And, besides, there was no long time, -surely. Father told us you had no father or mother, but—have you’—with -hesitation—‘no people belonging to you, Mr. Crosby?’ - -‘One sister,’ says he. - -‘One sister! And why doesn’t she live with you?’ - -‘Ah, you must ask her that. Perhaps she wouldn’t care about it.’ - -‘I should think she would love to live with you,’ says Susan. She utters -this bold sentiment calmly, kindly, without so much as a blink of her -long lashes. - -Crosby looks at her. Is she real, this pretty child? His inclination to -laugh dies within him; and so dies, too, the inclination to utter the -usual society speech, that with most society girls would have been -considered the thing on an occasion like this. Both are done to death by -Susan’s eyes, so calm, so sweet, so earnest, and so entirely without a -second meaning of any sort. - -‘Well, you see, she doesn’t,’ says he. - -‘But why?’ asks Susan. She is feeling a little angry with the unknown -sister. To live with Carew, if he were well off enough to have her, -would, Susan thinks, be a most delightful arrangement. - -‘It seems she prefers to live with another fellow,’ says he. - -Susan stares at him. He nods back at her. - -‘Fact,’ says he. ‘Horrid taste on her part, isn’t it?’ - -‘Oh, I see,’ says Susan slowly. ‘She’s married.’ - -‘Very much,’ says Crosby. ‘At all events, her husband is. She doesn’t -give him much rope. However, you’ll see her soon, as she is coming to -stay with me. She always makes a point of coming to me for my birthday, -whenever I chance to be in Ireland or England for it. I suppose I must -be going now. I say, you two fellows’—turning to Carew and Dom—‘why are -you so lazy? Why don’t you come up and help me to shoot the rabbits? -They are getting beyond the keepers’ control.’ - -Dom and Carew glance at each other. - -‘Can we?’ says Carew. They seem a little tongue-tied. - -‘As often as ever you like. Look here, be up at six to-morrow morning, -and we’ll catch them feeding. And if you will stay and breakfast with -me, it will be a kindness to a solitary man.’ - -‘Oh, thank you!’ says Dominick rapturously. Carew, however, looks a -little crestfallen, whereupon Dom begins to whisper in his ear. The -words ‘every second shot’ reach Mr. Crosby. - -‘If either of you wants a gun, I can find you one,’ says he carelessly, -after which joy unruffled reigns. ‘I make only one stipulation,’ he -adds: ‘that you won’t shoot me.’ - -‘Oh, hang it, we are not such duffers as that!’ says Carew. - -They all laugh at this, and all, as usual, accompany him to the gate to -give him a kind send-off. - -As he disappears up the road past the little side-gate of the Cottage, -Dom makes a rush back to the house. ‘I must go and polish up the old -gun,’ says he. Betty follows him, with Tom and Jacky. - -‘How kind he is!’ says Susan, turning to Carew. Her tone is warm and -grateful. There is no doubt that Carew’s answer would have been equally -warm, but it never comes. - -A little sound—the creaking of a rusty hinge—at this moment attracts his -attention, and Susan’s also. They glance quickly towards the little -green gate of the Cottage. - -It is slowly opening! - -And now a face peeps out—very cautiously, very nervously. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV. - - ‘Dear, if you knew what tears they shed - Who live apart from home and friend, - To pass my house, by pity led, - Your steps would tend.’ - - -It is the face that had peeped out of the branches of the sycamore-tree -a little while ago. A charming face! The eyes glance down the little -lane, and then, suddenly seeing Susan, rest with a frightened expression -on her. As this is the first time in all Susan’s experience that anyone -has ever betrayed the smallest fear of her, she naturally gives herself -up to the contemplation of her new-born slave. Her eyes and those of the -mysterious stranger meet. - -‘Oh, how pretty!’ thinks Susan to herself, but she says nothing, being -lost in wonder and admiration; and the girl, peeping out of the doorway, -as if disheartened, draws back again, and will in another minute -disappear altogether, but for Carew. - -He makes a sharp gesture. - -‘Wait!’ cries he, in a low tone, though hardly conscious that he is -speaking at all. And again the pretty frightened head comes into sight -between the leaves of the luxuriant ivy that frames the gate. - -‘Susan!’ says Carew, in a voice of low and hurried entreaty; and Susan, -responding to it, speeds quickly up the road and into the little -gateway. - -‘Oh, come in—come in!’ breathes the stranger in a whisper, putting out -her hands and catching Susan’s in a soft grasp. ‘I have seen you so -often; I’—flushing and smiling timidly—‘have watched you from the -sycamore many a day. And it’s very lonely here. You will come in for a -moment, won’t you?’ - -Susan smiles back at her, and passes through the small green gate. Ella, -pleased and palpitating, glances back, to see Carew looking after them -like a young culprit at the door of a forbidden paradise. - -‘Won’t you come too?’ cries she, beneath her breath, in that soft, -curiously frightened sort of a way that seems to belong to her. ‘Hurry! -hurry!’ She looks anxious, and it is only, indeed, when Carew has come -inside the gate, and she has with her own fingers fastened and secured -it, that the brightness returns to her face. - -‘It’s very good of you,’ says she, smiling rather shyly at Susan. - -‘Oh no!’ cries Susan, with a charming courtesy that belongs to her; ‘it -is very good of you to let us come and see you. You know’—softly—‘we had -heard—understood—that you did not wish to be intruded on. That -is’—stammering faintly—‘that you didn’t wish to see people, and so—’ - -‘It is all quite true,’ says the girl distinctly. ‘I don’t want to see -people—not everyone, you know. But sometimes when I hear your voices -over there’—pointing towards the Rectory garden—‘laughing and talking, I -have felt a little lonely.’ She is looking at Susan, and Susan can see -that her eyes now are a little misty. ‘To-day’—wistfully—‘you were -laughing a great deal.’ - -‘Yes, yes; I wish we hadn’t been,’ says Susan, who is beginning to feel -distinctly contrite, until she remembers that, after all, some tears -were mingled with her mirth. ‘But now that we have met, you will come -and join us sometimes, won’t you?—and, indeed, to-day? I wish you had -come to-day. We should all have been glad to see you—shouldn’t we, -Carew?’ - -‘I am sure you know that,’ says Carew to Ella. A warm colour is dyeing -his handsome young face, and there is the tenderest, most reverential -expression in his voice. Carew is of that age when ‘the light that lies -in a lady’s eyes’ can mean heaven to him. - -‘I shall never leave this place,’ says Ella quickly. ‘All I want is to -stay here, in this lovely garden, by myself.’ - -‘Yet you said you felt lonely,’ says Susan anxiously. - -‘Yes—I know.’ She looks down, as if puzzled, uncertain how to go on. -‘Still, I would rather be lonely than go out into the world again.’ - -‘Poor thing!’ thinks Susan. ‘I was right; no doubt she has just lost -everyone that was dear to her.’ She glances at Ella, as if in search of -crape, but Ella’s navy-blue skirt and pretty pale-blue linen blouse seem -miles away from woe; and, yes, Betty had seen that blue bow near her -neck. - -‘I know this garden so well,’ says Susan, with a view to changing the -sad subject. ‘We used to come here often before you came. Mr. Wyndham -sometimes stayed here for weeks at a time, but now, of course, that is -all changed. Oh, I see you have planted out some asters in the round -bed. They will be lovely later on. I suppose’—thoughtfully—‘you like -gardening?’ - -‘I love it!’ says Ella, with enthusiasm. ‘Only I don’t know anything -about it. Mrs. Denis gives me hints.’ - -‘I love it, too,’ says Susan, ‘but for all that’—as if a little ashamed -of herself—‘I like to see people sometimes. I couldn’t live on gardening -alone, and you’ll find you can’t, either. In fact’—gaily—‘you have found -it out already. That’s why you called us in. Oh, you’ll have to come -over to our place. Do you like tennis?’ - -‘I have never played it.’ - -‘Golf, then?’ - -‘No.’ Her tone is very sad, and Carew turns sharply upon poor Susan, who -had only meant to do her best. - -‘There are other things in the world besides golf and tennis,’ says he. - -‘Oh, of course—of course,’ says Susan hastily. ‘It is only people who -live in the country who ever really care about things like that, and no -doubt you—’ - -‘I don’t believe I know anything at all,’ says Ella, very gently. - -‘Well, you know us now, at all events,’ says Carew very happily, with -the light and ready manner that belongs to all large families. His tone -is a little shy, perhaps—the tone of the boy to the lovely girl, when -first love’s young dream dawns upon him; but Susan and Ella take the -joke very kindly, and the laughter that follows on it clears the -atmosphere. - -‘You are Mr. Wyndham’s tenant, aren’t you?’ says Susan. - -‘Yes, now’—in a glad and eager voice—‘though at first I wasn’t.’ She -pauses here, drawing back, as it were. Has she said too much? Susan, -however, has evidently seen nothing in the small admission. - -‘I like Mr. Wyndham,’ says she. ‘We all do, indeed. What we are afraid -of now is that, as you have the Cottage, we shan’t see so much of him. -But perhaps’—gaily—‘you will put him up sometimes, and then we can renew -our acquaintance with him.’ - -Here Carew turns an awful crimson, and casts a glance, meant to -annihilate, upon the innocent Susan. - -‘I don’t know; I’m not sure,’ says Ella dejectedly. Evidently she has -seen as little in Susan’s suggestion as Susan herself. ‘He has only been -here once since I came, and Mrs. Denis seems to think he won’t come very -often. I wish he would come, and I’m glad you like him, because I like -him too.’ - -Carew here begins to wonder if he ever had liked Wyndham, and on the -whole thinks not. - -Ella has taken a step towards Susan. - -‘What is your name?’ asks she timidly, but very sweetly. - -‘Susan Barry.’ - -‘That sounds like the beginning of the Catechism,’ says Carew, who is, -as we know, a clergyman’s son, and therefore up to little points like -this. - -‘I knew it,’ says Ella, still very shyly, to Susan—‘I knew it in a way. -Mrs. Denis told me. But I wanted to be quite sure. You are Miss Barry?’ - -‘Oh no; only Susan,’ says the pretty proprietor of that name. ‘My aunt -is Miss Barry. But I hope you will call me Susan. It is’—mournfully—‘a -dreadfully ugly name, isn’t it?’ - -‘No, no; indeed, I like it.’ - -‘I hope you will like mine,’ says Carew, breaking into the conversation. -‘It is Carew. Susan and the others call it Crew, but that’s an -abbreviation of me to which I object. But your name,’ says he. ‘We -should like to know that.’ - -Has he thrown a bomb into the assembly? Something, at all events, has -stricken the stranger dumb. She shrinks backwards, playing with a branch -of the Wigelia rosea near her, as if to hide her embarrassment. What is -her name? She tells herself that she does not know, that she disbelieves -in the name forced upon her by those dreadful people she had lived with -after—After what? Even that is vague to her. Was it after her mother’s -death? Hints and innuendoes from the Moores had given her to believe -that Moore, at all events, was not her real name. But beyond that she -knows nothing. - -‘My name is Ella,’ says she, in a miserable tone. ‘Call me that if—you -will.’ - -‘Such a pretty name!’ says Susan. ‘Why did you think we shouldn’t like -it? So much nicer than Susan. Isn’t mine horrid? But what is your other -name?’ - -Here they all start. A loud ring at the big gate over there has taken -them from their own immediate concerns—to another. Ella turns deadly -white, and shows a distinct desire to get behind Susan. Mrs. Denis is to -be seen in the distance, flying towards the entrance-gate. - -Presently it is opened by her, and Wyndham walks in. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI. - - ‘“Mark ye,” he sings, “in modest maiden guise - The red rose peeping from her leafy nest; - Half opening, now half closed, the jewel lies: - More bright her beauty seems, the more represt.”’ - - -Wyndham pauses in the gateway, and then comes forward. His astonishment -at seeing the two Barrys here is unbounded, so unbounded, indeed, that -Ella, who has been the first to see him, and who therefore naturally has -been the first to notice it, is quite frightened. She goes quickly to -him. - -‘It was my fault. I asked them to come in. Do you mind?’ - -‘I mind? I quite understood that it was you who would mind,’ says he. -There is no time for any more. Susan has come forward. - -‘How d’ye do, Mr. Wyndham?’ says she. - -Wyndham gives her his hand mechanically, murmuring the usual -meaningless, but courteous, words of greeting that are expected of one, -no matter what worries lie on the heart, troubling and mystifying it. -And Wyndham, in spite of his reputation of being one of the smartest -barristers in Dublin, has, to tell the truth, been considerably -mystified of late. - -The day after he left Ella, he had gone to that part of Dublin described -by her as the place where the man Moore lived. A squalid place, though -still with an air of broken respectability about it, and with quite an -extraordinary number of ill-dressed urchins playing about the hall -doorsteps. They were of that class, that though their garments were -almost in rags they had still shoes and stockings, of sorts, on their -feet, and an attempt at a frayed collar round their necks. It gave -Wyndham a sense of disgust to think that the girl who was now living in -his dainty cottage had once lived in such an atmosphere as this; and -when he had gone down the hideous road twenty yards or so, the certainty -that had begun at the first yard—that she could never have lived -there—had deepened. But this idea gave him little comfort. If she had -ever lived here, it was only, to say the least of it, deplorable. If she -had not lived here, she had lied to him, and was an impostor. And if the -latter supposition was true, he had rented his cottage to an impostor, -and a clever one, too. She had taken him in, beyond all doubt. And he -was looked upon as rather a bright and shining light amongst his -_confrères_ at the Bar and at the University Club, and in the various -other resorts for rising young men in Dublin. - -When he knocked at the door of the house mentioned by her, he told -himself that of course he had come on a fool’s errand; yet, when the -woman who answered the door—a highly respectable person, and frightfully -dirty, in a respectable way—told him ‘that no Moores lived here,’ he -felt as though someone had struck him. He must have looked extremely -taken back, because the respectably-dirty lady roused herself -sufficiently from the dignity that seemed to cling to her as closely as -her grime, and condescended to say she had only been there a short time, -‘an’ p’raps Mrs. Morgan, nex’ door, could give him the information he -was lookin’ for.’ - -Wyndham had taken the hint—he scarcely knew why—and had gone ‘nex’ -door,’ to receive, as he honestly believed, the same answer. But no! -Mrs. Morgan, in a tight-fitting gown, draggled at the tail, and with her -sparse front locks in curl-papers (she said ‘curling-tongs an’ -methylated spirit played the very juice wid your hair’), gave him a very -handsome amount of news about the missing Moore. - -She was a very genial person, in spite of the curl-papers—or perhaps -because of them—and she invited Wyndham into her ‘best front’ in the -most cordial way—even though she knew he was not going to take it. - -Yes; of course she had known Mr. Moore. He used to live next door, but -some months ago his wife died, and he had seemed a little unsettled like -since. - -‘There was a girl?’ - -‘Oh yes—Ella Moore.’ - -‘Their daughter?’ - -‘Law, no, sir! Her niece, poor Mrs. Moore would call her at times, but I -don’t think she was even that. I don’t know the truth of it rightly; but -that girl was “quite the lady,” sir, round here. An’ she found some -people who took her up an’ had her as governess for their children—big -people out in some o’ the squares. Mrs. Moore had her with her when she -took the house nex’ door. Ella was a little creature then, an’ used to -be cryin’ always for someone—her mother, I used to say. But Mrs. Moore -was very dark, entirely, an’ never let out. Is it about Ella you’re -comin’, sir? I’d be glad to hear good of her. But I suppose you know she -fled out of Moore’s house one night, an’ was never seen again? Some said -as how Moore wanted to murder her, or did murder her; but he wasn’t a -man for that, I say. Any way, up he sticks, and disappears after a bit. -The police looked into it for a while, but nothin’ came of it. They do -say’—mysteriously—‘that Moore wanted to marry her, and that she’d have -nothin’ to do with him. But, law, some people would say anythin’! An’, -of course, he was old enough to be her father. You wouldn’t be likely to -know anythin’ of her, sir?’—in the wheedling tone of the confirmed -gossip. - -‘No,’ says Wyndham calmly. ‘What I want is the man Moore. You can tell -me nothing, then?’ - -‘No, sir.... Get out!’—to two or three little children who have appeared -on the threshold, anxious, no doubt, for their dinner, and wondering -what is keeping their mammy. ‘But if you did hear of Miss Ella—we all -used to call her “Miss Ella,” though she was, as it might be, one of -ourselves—I’d be glad to get a word from you. She was very good to my -little Katie, an’ she would come in of an evenin’ an’ give her a lesson, -just as if I could pay for it. There was very few like her, sir, an’ -that I tell you,’ says Mrs. Morgan, whose eyes, in spite of her -wonderful dirtiness, are handsome now because of the honest, kindly -tears that shine in them. ‘An’ it’s me own opinion,’ goes on the grimy -woman, ‘that she never belonged to them Moores at all—that she was -stolen like by Mr. Moore.’ - -‘Or by his wife?’ suggests Wyndham. - -‘Oh no, poor soul!’ says Mrs. Morgan. ‘She’—with delicate -phraseology—‘hadn’t a kick in her. But we often said—my husband and -I—that perhaps Mrs. Moore had been a servant in some great family, an’ -had taken a—a child, that—beggin’ yer pardon, sir—mightn’t be altogether -wanted.’ - -This view of Mrs. Morgan’s takes root in Wyndham’s mind. An illegitimate -child! An unacknowledged scion of some good family! Poor, poor child! -poor Ella! - -‘You may be right,’ he said. The interview was at an end. Seeing two of -Mrs. Morgan’s children peeping in again, hungry and disconsolate, he -beckons them to him, and after awhile they slowly, and with open -distrust, creep towards him. Was that the Katie—that little dark-eyed, -handsome child—that she used to teach? Wyndham caught her and drew her -towards him, and pressed half-a-sovereign into her hand, and then caught -the little boy hanging on her scanty skirts, and pressed another little -yellow piece into his soft but unwashed palm, after which he bid the -grateful Mrs. Morgan adieu, and walked out of their lives for ever. - -But what she had told him went with him. Who is this girl Ella -Moore—this girl who is now his tenant? He had insisted on her being his -tenant, on her paying him rent. That was as much to satisfy her as to -satisfy some scruples of his own. She was really, of course, no more to -him than any other tenant might be—and yet— - -For one thing, who is she? One does not, as a rule, rent one’s houses to -people, not only unknown and without a reference, but actually without a -name. - - * * * * * - -‘I quite understood it was you who would mind.’ There was rancour in the -voice that had spoken those few words, and the rancour had gone to -Ella’s heart. Was he angry with her?—displeased? Should she not have -asked the Barrys to come in? She loses her colour and shrinks back a -little, and Carew, glancing from her to Wyndham, whilst the latter is -murmuring his greetings to Susan, tells himself that Wyndham is a brute, -with a big, big B, and that in some way this mysterious girl—this lovely -girl—has her life made miserable by him. This is, as we know, manifestly -unfair, as it is really Wyndham whose life is being made distinctly -uncomfortable by this ‘lovely, mysterious girl.’ But Carew is too young -to see a second side to any question that has his sympathy. - -‘I think we must go now,’ says Susan, holding out her hand to her new -acquaintance. ‘It is very late—too late’—smiling—‘for a formal visit.’ -Wyndham winces. Is his informal? ‘But we shall pay that soon, now that -we know we may come. And, of course, you and your—’ - -She pauses, the thought coming to her that she really does not know if -Mr. Wyndham is actually this pretty girl’s landlord. And, besides, ‘your -landlord’—how badly it sounds! ‘You and your landlord!’ Oh, impossible! -She had been very near making a great mistake. - -So she hesitates, and Wyndham misinterprets her pause. He feels furious. -What was the word she was going to use? ‘Lover,’ no doubt, in the -innocence of her young and abominably stupid heart. He feels brutal even -towards the unconscious Susan just now. Yes, that is what all the small -world round here will think. His colour rises, and he feels all at once -guilty, as though the very worst facts could be laid to his charge, -whilst all the time he is innocent. Innocent! Oh, confound it! the -situation is absolutely maddening ... and if it comes to the old man’s -ears! Lord Shangarry is not one to be easily entreated, or to be -convinced, either.... An obstinate old man, who, if he once caught an -idea into his old brain, would find it very hard to let it go again. - -‘And, of course, you and Mr. Wyndham,’ says Susan now, hastily, not -understanding Wyndham’s frown, ‘have many matters to discuss.’ - -The speech is wound up very satisfactorily, after all. - -‘Certainly not. I beg you won’t go on my account,’ says Wyndham stiffly. - -‘Not for that,’ says Susan gaily, ‘but because father will be wondering -where we are.’ Wyndham, who has already heard a little of the gossip -that is beginning to circulate around the Cottage, almost groans aloud -here. Father would be wondering indeed if he only knew. ‘By-the-by, Mr. -Wyndham, now that’—she looks at Ella and holds out her hand to her—‘she -tells us she would like to see us here sometimes, we can come, can’t -we?’ - -She smiles delightfully at Wyndham, and the wretched man smiles back at -her in a way that should have moved her to tears had she seen him, but, -providentially, after a mere passing glance at him, she has given her -attention to Ella, who pleases her imagination immensely. - -‘Certainly, if Miss Moore wishes it,’ says he. ‘You know this place is -no longer mine. Miss Moore is my tenant now. She is, therefore, at -liberty to do what she likes with it. You must not ask me what she can -or cannot do. I am that most disagreeable of all things, a -landlord—nothing more.’ - -His tone is even colder than he means it to be. The Rector—what will he -say when he hears of this visit of Susan’s? The Rector, who is so -ultra-particular, and this girl without a name—so almost certainly -illegitimate! Fancy the Rector’s face when he hears of this thoughtless -visit of Susan’s! Mr. Barry is a good man, and charitable in his own -line, but to give his countenance to a friendship between his daughter -and a girl nameless—unknown! - -‘We are telling her,’ goes on Susan sweetly, ‘that she must come and see -us sometimes, too—just across the road, you know. But she says she will -not. Can’t you persuade her, Mr. Wyndham, though you are only her -landlord, as you say?’ Is there meaning in her tone? Does she think? -Wyndham glances at her suspiciously, and then knows he ought to be -ashamed of himself. ‘Still, landlords have weight, and you know father -would be so pleased if she would come to us sometimes.’ - -‘I dare say,’ says Wyndham, who can almost see Mr. Barry’s face when the -idea is suggested to him. The Rector, with his aristocratic tendencies, -that the very depths of poverty have not been able to subdue, would -think it monstrous, Susan’s being here at all with a girl so wrapped in -mystery—a girl so enveloped in the base gossip that already is arising -about her in the neighbourhood, because of her strange tenancy of the -Cottage—a gossip that must inevitably include him, Wyndham, too. How is -her coming here to be accounted for? Who will hold him guiltless of the -knowledge of her coming? - -‘If you are going,’ says he, turning suddenly to Susan, ‘I shall go with -you; I wish to speak to your father.’ He has made up his mind on the -moment to lay the whole affair open to the Rector. It seems the only -thing to be done, if his tenant has decided on knowing the Barrys. ‘You -tell me Miss Moore is anxious—’ - -‘Your name is Moore, then?’ says Susan gently, going a step towards her. - -‘It is not!’ says the girl almost passionately. - -There is a silence; Wyndham, feeling the water closing over him more and -more still, with the girl’s troubled eyes upon him, comes to the rescue. - -‘It is, at all events, the only name by which she is known at present,’ -says he to Susan. ‘I am looking into her affairs, and hope in time to be -able to unravel them. That is the good of being a barrister, you see. -And now—if you are ready?’ - -Susan bids good-bye again to Ella, who is looking a little subdued and -uncertain now; Carew does the same, holding her hand lingeringly, as if -wishing to say something sympathetic to her, but finding words fail him. -Wyndham, following him and Susan, would have passed through the gate -into the road outside, but that Ella, with a quick, softly-spoken word, -full of emotion, stops him. - -‘I have done something wrong,’ says she, in a breathless whisper. -‘Wait—do wait—one moment, and tell me, tell me—’ Tears are standing -thick within her eyes. - -‘There is much to tell you,’ says he impatiently. ‘But no time in which -to tell it.’ - -‘About—’ Her face pales, and she looks eagerly at him, laying even a -restraining hand upon his arm in her growing fear. - -‘Yes—about that fellow.’ - -‘Mr. Moore?’ - -‘Yes.’ - -‘Oh, you will stay—you will tell me!’ cries she, in low but panting -tones. ‘Oh, don’t leave me in suspense. Even if you can’t stay now, you -can come back again, if only for five minutes! Oh, do! You will? He—’ -She looks as if she were going to faint. - -‘There is no need for fear of that sort,’ says he quickly. ‘He knows -nothing of you, or where you are. Yes, if I can’—reluctantly—‘I will -come back.’ - -He follows the others now, and as he reaches Susan and Carew, they all -three distinctly hear the click of the lock of the garden-gate behind -them. - -Susan looks at Wyndham in a startled way. - -‘I—I think someone must have been very unkind to her,’ says she; ‘don’t -you? To lock herself up like that, and never to want to see anybody. Mr. -Wyndham, why don’t you try to find out her enemies?’ - -‘I am trying,’ says Wyndham, looking into the calm, earnest, intelligent -eyes raised to his. - -‘Father would help you,’ says Susan. ‘Was it because of that you wanted -to see him to-day?’ - -‘Yes,’ says Wyndham. - -There is no time for more. - -Mr. Barry is coming up the road. He had evidently seen them all come out -of the green gate of the Cottage. His face is grave and stern. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII. - - ‘Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun.’ - - -His greeting to Wyndham is of the coldest. He does not speak to him, but -turns at once to Susan. - -‘Your aunt wants you,’ says he severely. And the girl, a little chilled, -a little apprehensive, disappears within the Rectory gate, carrying -Carew, a most unwilling captive, with her. - -When she is gone, the Rector faces Wyndham. - -‘How is this, Wyndham?’ asks he quietly, yet with unmistakable -indignation. - -‘How is what?’ asks the young man a little haughtily. - -‘Was it you who took Susan into that cottage?’ - -‘No; but even if it had been, I see no cause for the tone you have -assumed towards me.’ - -‘That is what I suppose you call “carrying it off,”’ says the Rector, -his pale face betraying a fine disgust. - -‘Mr. Barry!’ says Wyndham, as if the other had struck him. - -He has flushed a dark red, and now turns as if to walk straight away up -the road and out of the Rector’s ken for ever. But suddenly he halts and -looks back, and Mr. Barry, who has seen many phases of life and is quick -to discern the truth, however deep in the well it lies, beckons to him -to return. If this young man cannot clear himself, he may still plead -circumstances. - -‘If you could explain, Wyndham.’ - -‘That’s what offends me,’ says Wyndham, with some passion. He has -refused to return an inch, so the Rector has had to go to him. It -wouldn’t do to shout his conversation, considering all the young people -who live on one side of the road behind the right-hand wall, and the one -‘young person’ (the Rector has the gravest suspicions) who lives on the -other side of it. What if they should all chance to hear? - -Wyndham is still talking. - -‘Why should I have to explain? You have known me many years, Mr. Barry. -Of what’—looking him fair in the face—‘do you accuse me?’ - -‘That hardly requires an answer,’ says Mr. Barry calmly. And all at once -Wyndham knows that the trouble he had dreamed of is already on him. -There is gossip rife in the neighbourhood about him and this mysterious -tenant of his cottage. People are talking—soon it will come to the old -man’s ears, and to his aunt’s, and to Josephine’s. The last idea is the -least troublesome. ‘You must surely have heard some rumours yourself. I -am willing, I am most anxious,’ says the Rector, with growing -earnestness, ‘to hear the truth of a story that seems, as it now stands, -to be disastrous to two people. You, Wyndham, are one of them. No, not a -word. Hear me first. I want to say just this: that if I was a little -harsh to you a moment ago, it was because of Susan. One’s daughter has -the first claim. And she—that child—to be—You tell me you did not take -her to see—’ - -‘I told you that,’ says Wyndham, ‘and I told you, too’—very -straightly—‘that if I had done so I should see no reason why I should be -ashamed of it. However, I had nothing to do with your daughter’s visit -to Miss Moore. It appears Miss Moore asked her to come into my—her—’ - -The Rector stops him with an impatient gesture. - -‘Whose is it, yours or hers?’ asks he. - -‘Mine, yet hers in a sense, too,’ begins and ends the fluent lawyer, -whose fluency has now, at his need, deserted him. - -‘I do not understand your evasions.’ - -‘If you will let me—’ - -‘I want no explanations,’ says the Rector coldly. ‘I want only one -answer to one plain question: Who is this Miss Moore?’ - -He looks straight at Wyndham. The extenuating circumstances he had -believed in grow smaller and smaller. - -Wyndham hesitates. Who is she, indeed? Who is this tenant of his? - -‘You hesitate, I see,’ says Mr. Barry. ‘You have the grace to do even so -much. But at all events you cannot deny that you permitted the presence -of my young daughter in that place beyond.’ - -‘I—’ - -‘A truce to subterfuges, sir!’ cries the Rector. ‘A plain answer I will -and must get. Who is this girl who lives in your house and refuses to -see or know anyone in her neighbourhood?’ - -‘I don’t know,’ says Wyndham sullenly, angered beyond control. - -‘I do,’ says the Rector, ‘and may God forgive you for your sin! She is—’ - -‘Be silent!’ cries Wyndham, interrupting him so imperiously that the -older man stops short. ‘She is my tenant—my tenant, I repeat, -and’—haughtily—‘no more.’ - -Silence follows upon this. The Rector, lost in thought, stands with -clasped hands behind his back and his eyes upon the ground. His silence -incenses Wyndham. - -‘You can believe me or not, as you like,’ says he, turning on his heel. - -He moves away. - -‘Stay, stay,’ cries Mr. Barry suddenly. ‘We must get to the end of this. -If I have wronged you, Wyndham, I regret it with all my heart; but there -has been some talk here, and Susan—she is very young, a mere child. I -could not stand that. You tell me there is nothing to be condemned in -all this business—that she, this girl in there, is only your tenant. But -landlords do not visit their tenants except on compulsion, so far as I -know; and you—what has brought you here to-day?’ - -‘Just that,’ says Wyndham, who is still at white heat—‘compulsion. If -you would condescend’—angrily—‘to listen to my explanation, I might, -perhaps, make you understand.’ - -‘I shall be only too glad to listen,’ says Mr. Barry, with dignity. - -‘But here—how can I explain here?’ says Wyndham, glancing round at the -open road and the walls. ‘Walls have ears.’ - -But Mr. Barry does not budge, and Wyndham gives way to rather sardonic -laughter. - -‘I suppose,’ says he, ‘you would not let me under your roof until this -is perfectly clear?’ - -The Rector still remains immovable. - -‘The roof of heaven is above us always,’ returns he. Whereupon Wyndham, -who has sympathy with determination, laughs again, but more naturally -this time, and forthwith tells him the whole story of his acquaintance -with Ella from that first strange night until to-day. - -‘Bless me!’ says the Rector, when the recital is at an end. He strokes -his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. ‘What an extraordinary tale!’ - -‘Not too extraordinary to be believed, I hope?’—stiffly. - -‘No, no. I believe you, Wyndham—I believe you thoroughly,’ says the -Rector gently. ‘I am indeed sorry for my late distrust of you; but you -will admit that there was cause. That poor girl! You have utterly -failed, then, to discover those people with whom she had been living -before that—that dreadful night?’ - -‘So far, yes. But the fact that they once did live there goes far to -establish the truth of her—’ He stammers a little, but Mr. Barry takes -him up: - -‘Her story? It entirely, in my opinion, establishes the truth of her -story.’ Wyndham’s stammer has added to the truth of his declaration so -far as the Rector is concerned. - -‘You have a more liberal mind than mine,’ says Wyndham. ‘I have told you -so much that I may as well make you my father confessor _in toto_.’ The -smile that accompanies this is rather strained. ‘As a fact, there was a -time when I did not believe in her story myself; and now, when I have -to—well, it makes me feel rather poor, you know.’ - -‘You have no occasion to feel anything,’ says the Rector, ‘except that -you have been a kind friend to her. Do you think you will be able to -trace that fellow Moore?’ - -‘I hope so. I have engaged a detective—one of the smartest fellows in -Dublin—and I depend upon him to run down that scoundrel in a month or -so.’ - -‘In the meantime I shall make it my business to explain to everybody how -matters really are,’ says the Rector. ‘To tell the people we know round -here that—’ - -‘I beg you won’t,’ says Wyndham hurriedly. ‘Have I not told you how she -desires privacy above all things, how she dreads her discovery by that -man? I know it all sounds mysterious, Mr. Barry—that it is asking a -great deal of your credulity to expect you to believe it all—but I still -hope you will believe me, and at all events I know her secret is safe in -your hands. I myself have thought of suggesting to her to face matters -bravely, and if Moore should prove troublesome, why, to fight it out -with him. I cannot believe he has any actual claim on her; but she has -such an almost obstinate determination not to risk the chance of meeting -him that I fear she will not be moved by what I say. This shutting of -herself up in that cottage seems a mania with her—such a mania that I -cannot but think her story true, and that she suffered considerably at -that fellow’s hands.’ - -‘It looks like it,’ says the Rector. - -‘Perhaps you will be able to combat her fears,’ says Wyndham rather -awkwardly. ‘I should be very glad if you could, as this mystery -surrounding her is—er—decidedly uncomfortable for me. You have seen -that.’ - -‘I wonder you ever consented to the arrangement.’ - -‘I never meant to, but she seemed so utterly friendless, and she seemed -to cling so to this place (a harbour of refuge it was to her, -evidently), that I found it would be almost brutal to refuse.’ - -‘It was a charitable deed,’ says the Rector. - -‘Not done in a spirit of charity, however. I assure you I regret it more -and more every day of my life,’ says Wyndham, with a short laugh. -‘However, in for a penny, in for a pound, you know, and I had promised -the Professor to look after her. I have now engaged a companion for her. -I think you may remember Miss Manning. She was a governess of the -Blakes’ some years ago. You used to know them.’ - -‘Manning? Oh, of course, of course,’ says the Rector—‘a most worthy -creature. I never knew what became of her after Mary Blake went to -India.’ - -‘Got another situation, and a most miserable one. Left it, and was found -in direst poverty by the person I got to hunt her up. Her delight at my -proposal to her to live with Miss Moore was unbounded. It will, at all -events, be a blessing to get her out of that stuffy room I found her in. -She looked so out of place in it. You know what a nice-looking woman she -was, and so well got up always. But yesterday ... I advanced her a -little of her salary at once—to—to get anything she might want, you -know; and I expect that next week she will come to the Cottage.’ - -The Rector has heard this rather halting recital straight through -without comment. Now he lifts his eyes. - -‘You are a good fellow, Wyndham,’ says he slowly. - -‘For heaven’s sake, Mr. Barry, not that,’ says Wyndham impatiently. ‘I -expect I’m about the most grudging devil on earth. And if you think I -enjoy helping this girl, or Miss Manning, or anyone else, you make a -mistake. What I really want is to be left alone, to run my life on my -own rails without the worry of being crossed or stopped by passengers, -or goods, or extras.’ - -‘Ah, we can none of us hope for that,’ says the Rector. ‘The most -selfish of us have to live, not only for ourselves, but for others. You -spoke of having seen Miss Manning yesterday. Have you—told the young -lady in there of her coming?’ - -‘Not yet. I had no time, indeed. When I found your daughter there, I -felt I ought to take her away as soon as possible, simply because you -did not know how matters were, and I had a hint—as to gossip. I must go -back now, however, and tell her before my train leaves.’ - -‘You have little time,’ says the Rector, glancing at his watch. ‘Go. -Make haste.’ - -‘There is one thing more,’ says Wyndham quickly, ‘and I think you should -hear it. She—I don’t know anything for certain—but I feel almost sure -that the poor girl is illegitimate. And, of course, you—’ - -‘I?’ - -‘You would not like an acquaintance between her and your daughters?’ - -‘You mistake me there,’ says the Rector; ‘a misfortune is not a fault. -And the fact that this poor girl has been the victim of others’ vices -should not be allowed to militate against her.’ - -‘Hardly a fact,’ says Wyndham quickly. ‘I speak only from very uncertain -data, and yet—’ - -‘I know. It seems, unhappily, only too likely, however. There, go; you -have little time.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII. - - ‘Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, - I have enough on even, and on morrow.’ - - -Ella is inside, waiting for him, when he returns. She has heard his -step, and has opened the little gate to let him in. - -‘Oh, you have come! How long you have been! I thought you would never -come!’ cries she, in her agitation. Then, frightened at her own -impatience: ‘I—I thought perhaps you had gone away—and forgotten.’ - -‘There were certain things that had to be said to Mr. Barry,’ says -Wyndham. He slams the gate carelessly behind him, but Ella, passing -rapidly by him, turns the key in the lock. - -‘It is very stupid of me, I know,’ says she, reddening at his glance of -surprise. ‘But the other day I thought’—paling—‘that I saw him.’ - -‘Moore?’ - -‘Yes.’ - -‘Where could you see him, as you never leave this?’ He is still feeling -a little sore about her determination to hold herself aloof from -everyone. - -‘I’—reddening—‘was up in that tree over there’—pointing to the sycamore. - -‘Up there! What on earth for?’ - -‘I wanted’—here poor Ella hangs her head—‘to see into the Rectory -garden. They—they were all laughing there, and I could hear them, and—’ - -She stops short in her somewhat dismal confession. - -‘I see,’ says Wyndham quickly, all his coldness suddenly dying away. -Poor child! this little picture of her climbing with difficulty into -that great tree to catch even a glimpse of the gaiety of others goes to -his heart. ‘Was it there that—’ - -‘Yes; it was there I thought I saw him. I may—I must’—anxiously—‘have -been mistaken—don’t you think I must have been mistaken?—but I did see a -man just like him turning up the corner of the road that leads to the -village street.’ - -‘I am sure you were mistaken,’ says Wyndham. ‘As a fact, I know he has -disappeared altogether. If he wanted to spy upon you here, if he thought -you were in the country anywhere, what would be more likely than that he -should live in his old house, and make expeditions round about Dublin -with a view to coming upon you sooner or later? But I have heard from -the woman who lived next door to him that—’ - -‘Mrs. Morgan?’ says Ella eagerly. - -‘Yes; Mrs. Morgan.’ He pauses, and is quite conscious of a glow of -satisfaction at her words. They are, indeed, ‘confirmation strong’ of -the truth of her story all through. She had known this Mrs. Morgan and -been known by her. ‘And,’ cries Ella eagerly, ‘she said—’ - -‘That he had left his house immediately after your disappearance. That -looks as if your going had frightened him, as if he thought he might be -made answerable to the law for your safety, as if he feared you had—that -is—’ He stammers here a little. - -‘I know,’ says the girl, interrupting him gently. ‘As if he feared—I had -put an end to my life. And’—painfully—‘as you know—I was willing to risk -the chance of losing it, at all events.’ - -‘Oh, there was no risk,’ says Wyndham hastily. ‘But what I want to say -is that I believe Moore fancied himself liable to prosecution if he -could not say what had become of you. He had treated you abominably, and -no doubt the neighbours were talking, and—’ He himself is talking quite -at random now. He has not yet got over his late ‘slip.’ ‘Any way, his -not being seen since points to the fact that he has gone abroad.’ - -‘No, no,’ says the girl, shaking her head with conviction. She is very -pale now. ‘To me it seems that he has left home to look for me. I know—I -know’—affrightedly—‘that he is looking for me.’ - -‘Just because you saw a fancied resemblance to him in a man going down -the road?’ - -‘Not that altogether, though that did give me a shock, and I still -fancy—’ - -‘Come, that is being absolutely morbid,’ says Wyndham, with a touch of -impatience. ‘The man is gone, believe me. And even if not, what claim -has he on you?’ - -‘That I don’t know, but he said he had a “hold on me” until I was -twenty-one, and I am only eighteen’—with a sigh that is evidently full -of a desire to wish away three good years of her young life. - -‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ says Wyndham promptly. ‘And in the -meantime, now that in my opinion he is well out of the way, why don’t -you try to enjoy your life—to see people, to—’ - -‘I am enjoying life. Oh’—with a sudden, quick, happy smile—‘if you only -knew how much!’ - -‘Yet you confess to loneliness—to a desire to see those around you.’ - -‘Yes.’ She colours and taps her foot on the ground, then laughs. ‘And -now I have seen them,’ says she, with a swift upward glance at him that -lasts only for a moment. - -‘The Barrys, yes; but there are others, and now you know the Barrys you -can easily know everyone else down here; you can make friends for -yourself, and go out, and pay visits, and—’ - -‘Oh no!’ cries she quickly, with a sudden terror, indeed; ‘no, -no’—putting up her hands—‘I can’t—I won’t—I’ll never go out. Mr. -Wyndham, don’t—don’t ask me to do that.’ - -It is in Wyndham’s mind to say to her that it would be of considerable -benefit to his social look-out if she would only consent to know people, -and make herself known, and break through this deplorable attitude of -secrecy that she has taken up; but a glance at her young frightened face -deters him. He shrugs his shoulders over his own ill-luck, and bears it. - -‘I—you are angry with me again,’ says Ella nervously; ‘but I can’t go -out of this place. I can’t, indeed, unless you could send me somewhere -across the sea where he could never find me. But to leave this!’ Her -lips quiver, and she turns aside. - -‘Nonsense! Who wants you to leave this?’ says Wyndham roughly. ‘But I -think you ought to have some common-sense about you. You have no one to -give you advice of any sort, and you are about the most headstrong girl -I ever met.’ - -‘I have taken your advice,’ says she, ‘always—always.’ Her face is still -turned away, and her voice sounds stifled. - -‘Always when it suited you; but not now, when it might be of some use. -Of course, I can see quite plainly that that old idiot Mrs. Moriarty is -backing you up in all your nonsensical fears, but there will soon be an -end to that. I have engaged a lady to come and live with you, and give -you lessons, and knock some sense into your head, I hope.’ - -‘A lady to live with me? You have found her, then? You meant it?’ - -‘Naturally I meant it, and I only hope she will be able to show you the -folly of your ways—a matter in which I have most signally failed.’ - -Wyndham has worked himself into quite a righteous fever of wrath against -her. Good heavens! what a row there is bound to be shortly with his aunt -about this obstinate recluse! He has gone a little too far. The girl -turns upon him, gently indeed, but with a certain dignity in her air. - -‘As I have told you, I can always leave this,’ says she; ‘but it will be -for a place where I can live alone, and where I shall never have to -leave my home, even though it be a garret. I—I have thought of a -convent’—her voice faltering—‘but I am a Protestant, and—’ She sighs -heavily. ‘Mr. Wyndham,’ cries she suddenly, ‘why do you want me to go -out—to know people? Why?’ - -Wyndham, who could have given one very excellent reason for his wish, -remains determinedly silent. - -‘You see,’ cries she triumphantly, ‘you have no reason at all, and I am -ever so much happier by myself! I don’t say but that, if I were somebody -else, I should not like to go into that garden there’—pointing towards -the Rectory—‘but as it is, it would frighten me to step outside the -gate.’ - -‘And how long is this state of things to go on?’ asks Wyndham—‘until you -are ninety?’ - -‘Ah, he can’t live till then,’ says she; ‘and, besides, long before that -I shall be old and ugly, and he won’t care. You know’—growing -crimson—‘what I told you.’ - -‘Yes.’ Wyndham frowns. ‘You told me enough to know he was a most -infernal scoundrel.’ - -‘I suppose he is that,’ says she thoughtfully. ‘Though I don’t think -really he would ever murder anybody. You see, he didn’t even murder me. -He only wanted to marry me! That was what made me so angry. If he had -made me marry him’—turning to Wyndham with a quick, sharp movement—‘you -think that would mean that I should have to live with him always?’ - -She pauses as if eager for an answer, and when he does not speak, she -says imperatively: - -‘Well?’ - -Wyndham nods his head. - -‘It wouldn’t, however,’ says she with angry emphasis. ‘I’d have run away -after I was married, just the same. Only I thought it better to do it -before.’ - -There is so much force, so much girlish venom, in her tone, that Wyndham -feels inclined to laugh; but the little air mutin she has taken sits so -curiously, and with such an unexpected charm, upon her, that somehow his -laughter dies within him. Something about her now, too, as she stands -there flushed and defiant, strikes him as familiar. Who is she like? - -‘For a young lady so very valiant, I wonder you are so afraid to face -the world,’ says he gravely. - -‘Ah, I am not afraid of the world, but of him!’ says she. ‘And’—she -draws closer to him, and now all her bravery has died away from her, and -she looks as greatly in want of courage as a mouse—‘I’m afraid of this -new lady, too! Is she—kind—nice? will she—be angry with me sometimes?’ - -‘Very likely,’ says Wyndham. He softens this disagreeable answer, -however, by a smile. ‘No—you must not be afraid of her. She is an old -friend of mine, and very charming. And she is quite prepared to love -you.’ - -‘Ah! Then you have said—’ - -‘The very prettiest things of you, of course’—sardonically—‘so keep up -your courage.’ - -‘She will come?’—nervously. - -‘On Thursday.’ - -‘And you?’ - -‘When you and she have reached the point of open war, I dare say she -will drop me a line, to come to her rescue.’ - -‘It will be to mine,’ says she, smiling, but very faintly. Tears are in -her eyes. ‘You—you will come with her, won’t you? Don’t let me have to -see her alone at first. You know her, and I don’t. And you—’ - -‘Very well, I’ll bring her,’ says Wyndham, with an inward groan. What -the deuce is going to be the end of it all? - -He does not leave by the little green gate this time, but going down at -a swinging pace (that has a good deal of temper in it) to the principal -entrance, meets there with Mrs. Moriarty, who has been on the look-out -for him for the past half-hour. - -‘An’ did ye hear what happened to Denis, yer honour?’ - -‘To Denis?’—abstractedly. Then, recovering himself, and with a good deal -of his late temper still upon him: ‘Of course I’ve been wondering all -day where he was. Not a soul to attend to me. He was drunk, as usual, I -suppose.’ - -‘Fegs, you’ve guessed it,’ says Mrs. Moriarty, clapping her hands with -unbounded admiration. ‘Dhrunk he was—the ould reprobate!’ - -‘Well, I hope he’ll turn up this evening, at all events,’ says Wyndham. -‘It is extremely uncomfortable, going on like this. If he can’t attend -to me, I’ll have to get another man. I have borne a good deal already, -and I hope you will let him fully understand that if he isn’t at my -rooms at seven I shall dismiss him.’ - -‘An’ who’d blame ye?’ says Mrs. Moriarty. ‘Faith, I’ve often thought of -dismissing him meself. But’—slowly—‘he can’t be at yer rooms at seven, -yer honour.’ - -‘And why not?’—angrily. - -‘He’s bruk his arm, sir.’ - -‘Broke his arm?’ - -‘Just that, sir, bad scran to him! An’ the docther says he never saw a -worse compound fraction in his life. ’Twas all through Timsey Mooney. -Timsey and him’s at war for a long time, an’ yestherday Timsey said he’d -break his head, an’ with that Denis said he’d have the life ov him; and -’twas the divil’s own row they had afther that, only’—with a regretful -air—‘it was Denis’s arm that got bruk, an’ not Timsey’s head.’ - -‘So Denis got his arm broken?’ - -‘Yes, sir. An’ that Timsey Mooney as sound as iver! Not a scratch on -him. I’ve alwas tould ye that there’s nayther luck nor grace wid Denis. -But what am I wastin’ words on him at all for? ’Tis about the young lady -I’m curious. She’s to stay, sir?’ - -‘Yes—yes. I told you that before. And I have arranged with a friend of -mine, a very accomplished lady, to come down here and live with her as a -companion.’ - -‘A companion is it?’ Mrs. Moriarty strokes her beard. ‘She’s been very -continted wid me,’ says she. - -‘I dare say. But this lady, Miss Manning, is to be a governess to her, -to teach her—to see to her manners, and—’ - -‘To tache her her manners is it? She’s got the purtiest manners I ever -yet see,’ says Mrs. Moriarty, with a smothered indignation. ‘Tache her, -indeed!’ - -It is plain that Mrs. Moriarty is already consumed with the pangs of -jealousy. - -‘She is coming, at all events,’ says Wyndham shortly. ‘And I request you -will treat her with every respect, as one of my oldest friends.’ - -‘She’s ould, thin?’—anxiously. - -‘She is not young.’ - -Mrs. Moriarty shakes her head with the air of one who would say: ‘We all -know what that means.’ - -‘Is she kind-hearted, sir? Miss Ella is terrible timid-like.’ - -‘Certainly she is kind. But, of course, she will expect “Miss Ella,” as -you call her, to follow her lead in most ways. I’—with meaning—‘shall -take care she is not interfered with in any way. I hope you quite -understand all this.’ - -‘I understhand, yer honour. She’s ould an’ cross, an’ Miss Ella is to -follow her about everywhere. But’—with a last lingering remnant of -hope—‘she won’t be comin’ for a while, sir, will she?’ - -‘She is coming on Thursday.’ - -‘Oh, murther!’ says Mrs. Moriarty _sotto voce_, as he shuts the gate -behind him. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX. - - ‘Ther is ful many a man that crieth, “Werre, werre,” that wat ful - litel what werre amounteth. Werre at his begynnyng hath so greet an - entre and so large, that everywight may entre when him liketh and - lightly find werre; but certes what ende schal falle thereof, it is - not lightly to knowe!’ - - -‘Nothing will do for these beastly hens, it seems, but the garden,’ says -Betty indignantly. ‘Susan, stand there, you—no, there!’—gasping. - -‘Oh, they’ve scratched up all the mignonette,’ cries Susan, rushing to -the point indicated—an escallonia bush in which three culprit hens are -lurking. ‘Were there ever such wretches? And plenty of food in the yard, -too! It isn’t as if they were starved. Cush! cush! Bother them! They -won’t come out. Have you got a stick, Betty?’ - -‘Here’s one. I declare I’m out of breath from hunting them. And the cock -is the worst of all. I hope I’ll live to see the broth he is made into; -not that I’d touch it—it would be too full of all malice and bitterness. -Hi! hi!’ with a frantic dab at the hens with her stick beneath the too -friendly escallonia—‘there is one of them, Susan; run—run to the gate! -She’s going that way. Ah! you’ve got that, any way.’ - -‘That,’ I regret to say, is a stone directed with unerring aim by Betty, -and received by the hen on her shoulder with a shock that makes her -bound, not only into the air, but ‘over the garden wall’ and into the -yard beyond, with a haste that perhaps she calls undue. And now Susan -has routed out the other two, and, with a cackling that would rouse the -dead, they rush after their companion towards that spot in the wall that -is easiest for the purposes of ingress and egress from the yard to the -garden. Susan races after them, ‘shoo-ing’ with all her might, -generously supported by Betty and her shower of small stones. So ardent, -so bloodthirsty, is the chase, it is matter for wonder that the hens, -having once gone through such an encounter, could ever brave it again. -But hens are amongst the bravest things living—Amazons in their own -line. It is indeed popularly supposed in our neighbourhood that the -souls of those defunct termagants have entered into them, and, at all -events, there does not rest a doubt now in the minds of Susan and Betty -that in half an hour’s time those hens will have returned to the charge, -as fresh as ever. - -‘We must get a wire netting put up along there,’ says Betty angrily. -‘What’s the good of our planting seeds and roots and things for the -amusement of those abominable hens? And why should they think there are -more grubs under a picotee than under a common daisy?’ - -‘I wish there was a netting put up,’ says Susan, who is distinctly -flushed. ‘But who’s going to do it? Father won’t. Wiring costs -something, and there would be a good bit of it to be put up -there’—pointing to the long wall. - -‘Maybe Dom would, when he gets his next half-year’s allowance.’ - -‘I don’t think you ought to ask him,’ says Susan. ‘He is not our -brother, you know.’ - -‘He’s nearly as good,’ says Betty. - -‘Still, he isn’t, and I, for one, wouldn’t ask him.’ - -‘I would. The only thing is that perhaps father wouldn’t like it.’ - -‘I know he wouldn’t.’ - -‘What’s to be done, then? Are we to spend our time hunting these blessed -hens until the day we die? If so’—tragically—‘I hope that day will come -full soon. Oh, I declare, there’s the cock! Run, Susan, run! Oh, the -villain! the ringleader! Catch him, Susan! Oh, there, he’s gone under -the laurels! Oh, the artful thing!’ - -‘No he isn’t,’ cries Susan; ‘he’s over there, near you. I see his leg. -This side—this side, Betty. Ah, now you have him! Hold him—hold him -tight.’ Betty has caught hold of the king of the yard, and is dragging -him ruthlessly from his hiding-place. There are yells from the cock, and -muttered execrations from Betty. But finally the cock has the best of -it. With a whir and a whoop he makes a last grand sprint, and once again -knows the splendours of freedom. - -Away he goes down the garden-path, and away go the girls after him. - -‘Squawk, squawk, squawk!’ cries the cock; and ‘Oh, if I catch you!’ -cries Betty, under her breath. Her breath is, indeed, running very -short. Susan’s has given way entirely. - -‘Oh, he is going to the tennis-ground!’ shrieks Betty distractedly; and, -indeed, the cock, with a view of circumventing the enemy, is making for -that broad course. - -At the rustic gateway, however, that leads to it from the garden, a -third enemy appears upon the scene—an enemy that takes off his hat, and -makes such a magnificent attack with it that the cock, disheartened, -gives way in turn, retreats, _chassés_ a little, and finally, with a -wild skirl, swoops over the garden wall after his wives, and is gone. - -‘It was a famous victory!’ cries Mr. Crosby, when the defeat of the cock -is beyond doubt. - -He is looking at Susan. Such a lovely, flushed, and laughter-filled -Susan! A Susan with soft locks flying into her beauteous eyes. A Susan -with soft parted lips, and breath coming in little merry gasps. - -‘You were just in time,’ cries she, running up to him, with happy -_camaraderie_ in her smile. ‘But for you, we should have been hunting -him all over the place. What lucky fortune brought you at this -moment?’—smiling blandly into his eyes and giving him her hand. ‘Just -happening to be passing by?’ - -‘No, I was coming to see you all,’ says Crosby. He has nearly stopped at -the ‘you,’ but she looks so young, so without a thought behind her, that -he feels it would be useless. She would not understand, and even if she -did it would only annoy her. A girl of the world—that would be -different. She would laugh at this suggestion of a flirtation; but -Susan— - -‘Well, come and see us all,’ says Betty gaily. ‘We’re all round the -corner, I fancy.’ - -And, indeed, most of them are, the children in the far distance chasing -butterflies with a net just constructed by Dom, whilst he and Carew are -listening with apparently engrossed interest to their aunt, who, with -curls shaking and an air of general excitement about her, is holding -forth. - -‘Is that you at last, Susan?’ says she, shaking her curls more -vigorously than ever. ‘Where have you been?—How d’ye do, Mr. Crosby?—I -must say, Susan, you are never to be found when wanted.’ - -‘The hens got into the garden,’ begins Susan, colouring a little beneath -this rebuke uttered before Crosby. - -‘Oh, hens! What are hens,’ cries Miss Barry tragically, ‘when human -beings are dying?’ - -‘Dying?’ - -‘Yes. I’ve just been to see poor dear Miss Blake, and I really believe -she is at death’s door.’ - -‘Oh, I am sorry!’ says Susan. - -‘She’s been at that uncomfortable portal for the past year,’ says Betty, -with distinct scorn. ‘In my opinion, it would take a lot of pushing to -make her pass it.’ - -‘Elizabeth, this frivolity is absolutely disgraceful,’ says Miss Barry, -directing a withering glance at Betty, who, it must be said, bears up -beneath it with the utmost fortitude. ‘Dr. Mulcahy was with her. I’ve -always thought him a distinctly vulgar person, and really, after what he -said of poor Miss Blake to-day, I feel justified in my opinion.’ - -‘What did he say, auntie?’ - -‘I hardly like to repeat it. An insult to a poor dying creature seems -impossible, doesn’t it, Mr. Crosby? But I heard him myself. After all, -why should not I speak? One ought to expose monsters. My dear’—to -Susan—‘Lady Millbank had called to ask how Miss Blake was—at least, I -suppose it was for that purpose—but she mumbles so, on account of those -false teeth of hers, no doubt, that I scarcely heard what she was -saying. But I did hear what Dr. Mulcahy said to her a moment afterwards. -He was speaking of poor dear Kate Blake, and I distinctly heard him say -she was “low”!’ Miss Barry pauses dramatically, but, beyond a smothered -sound from Dom, nothing is heard. - -‘Aren’t you shocked, Susan, or must I believe that the young people of -this generation are devoid of feeling. A Mulcahy to call a Blake “low”! -It struck me as so abominable a piece of impertinence that I went away -on the instant. I don’t know, of course, how Lady Millbank took it, but -I hope she put down that insolent man without hesitation. Fancy a Blake -being called “low”! Why, poor dear Kate! she is as well born as -ourselves.’ - -‘But, auntie—’ - -‘Nonsense, my dear! Don’t talk to me. You children would find an excuse -for anyone.’ - -‘It was only that I think he meant that she was not so very well—’ - -‘Born? Not so well born as the rest of us? You must be mad, Susan! A -creature like Dr. Mulcahy to talk of birth at all is absurd. Why, his -father was a draper in Dublin. But that he should cavil at Kate Blake’s -birth is outrageous. Why, the Blakes—’ She stops, as if overcome by -wrath, and Dom takes up the parable. - -‘I thought you knew, Susan,’ says he reproachfully, but in a cautious -tone, heard only by the youngsters of the party, ‘that it was poor Miss -Blake’s forefather who planted that tree of good and evil over which -Adam came such a cropper.’ - -After this it is a relief to everybody when Miss Barry, with a -singularly brief farewell to Crosby, betakes herself to the house. It is -quite as well she has gone so soon, as Carew and Dominick were in the -last stages of convulsive laughter, and could not certainly have held -out much longer. - -‘I say, isn’t Aunt Jemima a regular corker?’ says Dom presently, -addressing everybody in general. - -‘She didn’t understand,’ says Susan, who feels a little sorry that her -aunt should appear in so poor a light before a man like Crosby, who is, -of course, accustomed to a fashionable world and its ways. - -‘I think she has a very kind heart,’ says he promptly, seeing her -distress and smothering the laughter that is consuming him. ‘Of course, -she had no idea that the doctor was alluding to Miss Blake’s state of -health.’ - -‘You knew,’ says Susan, with a touch of indignation, turning to Carew. -‘Why didn’t you make it clear to her?’ - -‘Why, indeed?’ retorts he. ‘You tried to do it, and how did you come -off? Catch me explaining her mistakes to Aunt Jemima. More kicks than -ha’pence for my pains.’ - -Bonnie has come over to Susan, and, casting his crutches aside, has -slipped into her arms, his head upon her knee—a head that she strokes -softly, softly, until at last the little lad falls fast asleep. - -‘He had such a bad night,’ says Susan, as Crosby now comes up and seats -himself beside her. - -‘I expect that means that you had a bad night too.’ - -‘Oh no’—reddening—‘I—I’m all right. But he—’ - -‘It seems absurd,’ says Crosby suddenly, ‘that a child like that should -be a prey to rheumatism? Are you sure the doctors have told you all the -truth?’ - -‘I think so.’ - -‘But are they reliable authorities?’ - -‘I’m afraid so,’ says Susan, sighing. ‘But’—gently—‘don’t let me trouble -you with our sorrows; tell me of yourself. Your sister is coming, you -say.’ - -‘For my birthday. Yes, next month.’ - -‘Your birthday?’ - -‘I told you, didn’t I? It will be in a few days now.’ - -‘A few days!’ Susan’s voice is low, as usual, but primed with a -curiosity that she has much difficulty in suppressing. - -‘The third of August. It always makes me feel like Ah Sin, Bret Harte’s -Chinee—soft, you know. Katherine is coming for the great occasion. -That’s my sister’s name, Katherine. You will like her, I think.’ - -‘Is she like you?’ asks Susan. - - - - - CHAPTER XXX. - - ‘Ask not her name: - The light winds whisper it on every hand.’ - - -‘Not a bit,’ says he, shaking his head. ‘Just the reverse. She is young -and skittish, whilst I am old and dull.’ - -‘Not dull,’ says Susan. - -‘Lazy, then. That comes of age, too, you know.’ - -‘You weren’t too lazy to hunt the hens just now,’ says Susan, as if -combating some disagreeable remembrances; ‘and you weren’t too lazy to -mount a ladder a month or so ago.’ - -‘Ah, Susan, that’s unkind! You shouldn’t hold up my past misdeeds to me. -If you do, I’ll hold up your indiscretions to you—your lengthened -conversation with a thief, for example. You know you did think me a -thief then.’ - -Susan makes a gesture. - -‘Oh yes, you did; there is no getting out of that. You even made me -promise never to steal again. And I haven’t, not so much as the -proverbial pin. That’s good of me, isn’t it? Shows signs of grace, eh? -Really, Susan, I think you might say something. Give me one word of -encouragement. But perhaps you don’t believe in my reformation. I know -ever since that day when I was stealing the cherries you have had the -lowest opinion of me.’ - -‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,’ says Susan, her charming brows -drawing together; ‘it is very stupid of you, and you know you don’t mean -a word of it. Stealing! How could you steal your own cherries? What -nonsense it all is! If you have nothing better to say than that, -you’—with a sudden and most unusual discourtesy—‘had better go away.’ - -‘Never; wild horses wouldn’t draw me from this,’ says Crosby. ‘I’ll say -something “better” at once. I’m sure you have the highest opinion of me. -Will that do, and may I stay now?’ - -Susan gives him a glance from under her long lashes that is still a -little resentful—a very little—but she says nothing. - -‘Must I go, then?’ says Crosby. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it of you, -Susan, to send a poor lonely creature adrift like this.’ - -‘You are not so very lonely,’ says she. She gives him another lovely, -half-angry glance. - -‘I am indeed. There is not a soul to speak to me when I go back to my -silent home, and hours must elapse before I can with any decency go to -bed. Susan, be merciful. Let me stay here and talk to you of—’ He stops. - -‘Of what?’ says Susan, still eminently distrustful. ‘What are you going -to talk about? That last thing—’ - -‘I’ll never mention cherries again.’ - -‘You must keep to that. And now’—lifting her face and smiling at him in -a little fugitive way—‘go on about your sister. You haven’t told me -anything about her except her name. Katherine, is it not?’ - -‘Katherine Forster.’ - -‘Mrs. Forster?’ - -‘No, Lady Forster. She married one of the Forsters of Berkshire. The -eldest one, George Forster, is a very good chap; you’ll like him too.’ - -Susan had grown thoughtful. Dim recollections of the Forsters as being -extraordinarily wealthy people have come home to her. - -‘I think I told you that Katherine is coming here to celebrate my -birthday?’ says Crosby. - -‘Yes; but your birthday—when is it?’ asks Susan, anxious to know when -these alarming visitors are to arrive. - -‘The third of August. Didn’t I tell you? Katherine likes to think she is -coming here to do me honour on that day; that’s how she puts it in -words. To turn my house upside down, however, is what she really means. -But I submit. The old house will stand it. She isn’t half bad, really, -and certainly not more than half mad. I think I told you you would like -her?’ - -‘Yes,’ says Susan, who has begun to quake at the brother’s description -of his sister. ‘And she will be here—’ - -‘In about ten days’ time. George—that’s her husband—is a first-class -shot, and this place has been pretty well preserved, in spite of its -absentee landlord. I hope he will enjoy himself. Katherine is bringing a -lot of her friends with her.’ - -‘Hers?’ Susan’s tone is a little faint. If only this big society dame’s -friends—what is going to happen? Mr. Crosby is so kind that he will be -sure to make his sister ask her up to the Hall. And how could she -(Susan) hold her own with these clever people of the world, people who— - -Crosby breaks into her silent fears. - -‘Hers principally; but some of them are mine, too, in a way. I really am -so little at home that I haven’t time to cultivate lifelong friendships; -but Lady Muriel Kennedy I have known all my life, and liked. I -hope’—suddenly—‘when Katherine comes, you will spare her a little of -your time.’ - -‘You are very kind. If you would care to have me,’ falters Susan -disjointedly. Her eyes are on the ground. To spare Lady Forster a little -of her time! As if Lady Forster would even care to know her! How could -she (Susan) make herself at home with people like that—people who had -lived in fashionable circles all their days—frivolous people like Lady -Forster, and lovely people like Lady Muriel Kennedy? Had he called Lady -Muriel lovely? - -‘That is begging the question,’ says he, laughing. ‘Who wouldn’t care to -have you? How silent you are, Susan! Not a word out of you. I’ll begin -to think you are in love presently. People in love are always silent, -dwelling on the beloved absent, no doubt.’ - -‘I am not in love,’ says Susan, with singular distinctness. - -‘Not even with “James”? I forget his other name. He would be a beloved -absent, wouldn’t he?’ - -‘Absent or present, he would not be beloved by me,’ says Susan calmly. -She pauses. Her head is slightly turned from Crosby, so that only the -perfect profile can be seen. The fingers of her right hand are lying -tenderly on Bonnie’s sleeping head. The fingers of the left are plucking -idly at the grass by her side. - -All at once she turns her glance straight on Crosby. - -‘Were you ever in love?’ asks she. - -‘Susan,’ says Crosby seriously, ‘I don’t think you ought to spring -things upon one like that. My heart may be weak, for all you know; and, -really, I begin to think of late that it is.’ He pauses. Susan remaining -sternly unsympathetic, however, over this leading speech, he goes on. -‘What was your question?’ asks he. - -This sounds like basest subterfuge, and Susan casts a glance of scorn at -him. - -‘I asked you if you had ever been in love. Please don’t answer if you -don’t want to. After all, I am sure I should not have asked you.’ - -‘You can ask me anything you like,’ says Crosby with resignation. ‘Yours -is to command, mine to obey. Yes’—comfortably, if surreptitiously, -disposing himself on the tail of Susan’s gown—‘I acknowledge it. I have -had my little disappointment. It was a frightful affair. I don’t believe -anyone was ever so much in love as I was—then. I was just twenty-one, -and she was just—something or other. It’s bad to remember a lady’s age. -Any way, I know I loved her—I loved her,’ says Crosby, rising now to -tragedy, ‘like anything. I can’t even at this hour speak of it without -tears.’ - -‘Oh, nonsense! you’re laughing,’ says Susan, with fine disgust. - -‘I am not, indeed. It is hysterics. If only you had gone through half -what I have, I might expect a little sympathy from you. However, to -continue. She was lovely, Susan, and she was tall—taller than you. She -had coal-black eyes, and a nose that I have always considered Roman. I -adored her. I used to walk about o’ nights looking at the moon (when -there was one), and telling myself it was the image of her.’ - -‘The image of her! I must say I think you were hardly complimentary,’ -says Susan, who seems to be on the look-out for slips. ‘There is nothing -in the moon but a man, and a hideous one too—just like the clown at the -circus.’ - -‘True’—reflectively. ‘Then it couldn’t have been the moon I compared her -to. Perhaps’—thoughtfully—‘it was a star. Ah!’—joyfully—‘that’s it—my -own particular star. See?’ - -‘No,’ says Susan contemptuously; and then: ‘I don’t believe you ever -compared her to anything.’ - -‘I did—I did indeed, even quite lately,’ says Crosby. But this ambiguous -speech receiving no recognition, he goes on: ‘If, as your contemptuous -silence evidently means, Susan, you think me incapable of love, you are -greatly in the wrong. I assure you I did compare her to that star. There -was one special one; but somehow I can’t find it lately. It must have -been removed, I think. And besides the star, I remember quite well being -under a hallucination that led me to believe that the wettest day under -heaven was full of sunshine when she was present; and that when she -wasn’t present, no matter how brilliant the sky might be, that the sun -never shone. Come, now, Susan; be just. That was real love, wasn’t it?’ - -‘I really don’t know,’ says Susan. There is a slight pause; then: ‘Go -on.’ - -‘Go on?’ - -‘Did she die?’ - -‘Die? Not much,’ says Crosby cheerfully. ‘Though of course’—relapsing -into very suspicious gloom—‘she was dead to me. She’—with deep -melancholy—‘thought I couldn’t furnish a house up to her form, so she -threw me over.’ - -‘What an odious girl!’ says Susan. For the first time a spark of sorrow -for him lights her eyes. She flushes softly with most genuine -indignation. Crosby looks at her. - -‘She was a very pretty girl,’ says he. - -‘For all that’—quickly—‘you must hate her.’ - -‘On the contrary, I think I love her.’ - -‘Still?’ - -Susan’s face grows disdainful. - -‘Even more than ever I did.’ - -‘You are very constant.’ - -‘That’s the first compliment you ever paid me. But to end my tale—I saw -her in town last March.’ - -‘Yes?’ Susan has lifted her flower-like face, and is gazing at him. - -‘You met her? And she—she—’ - -‘Was a widow.’ - -‘A widow; and so you and she.... It is quite a romance!’ says Susan, in -her soft voice, speaking hurriedly, almost stammering, indeed, in what -is perhaps her joyful excitement over this beautiful ending to a sad -love-story. ‘And she was as beautiful as ever?’ - -‘Well, hardly,’ said Crosby slowly, as if recalling a late picture to -mind. ‘She is now, I am sorry to say, all angles. She was once plump. -Her nose struck me as anything but Roman now; and her eyes were blacker -than ever—I wonder who blacks them?’ - -‘Yet when you saw her, you must have thought of the past. You must -have—’ - -‘You are quite right: I thought strongly of the past. I thought of -nothing else. I said to myself: “At this moment this woman might have -been your wife, but for—” I forget the rest—I believe I fainted. When I -recovered I knew I loved her as I had never loved her before. She had -refused me!’ - -‘I suppose that’s what people call cynicism?’ says Susan, regarding him -with open distrust. - -‘I don’t know what any other fellow would call it,’ says Crosby mildly. -‘I only know that I call it a blessed relief. I felt quite kindly -towards her, and went forthwith and bought her tickets for something or -other, and sent them to her with a line, saying I was going to Africa -for ten years. But there’s no more animosity. I look upon her now as a -woman who has done me a really good turn.’ - -‘I don’t think,’ says Susan, with sweet seriousness, ‘that you ought to -speak of her like that. I dare say she was really very fond of you, but -if you were both very poor how could you be married?’ - -‘Is that the view you take of it?’ says Crosby. ‘What a mercenary one! -And from a child like you! Susan, I’m ashamed of you!’ - -‘Oh no, you know what I mean,’ says Susan, blushing divinely whilst -making her defence. ‘There might be unkind people behind her, you know, -forbidding her to marry you.’ - -Crosby stops, and his thoughts run swiftly to the mysterious ‘James.’ -Were there unkind people behind her when that gallant youth declared his -passion? - -‘Might there? And if there were, should she listen, do you think?’ - -‘Ah, some would,’ says Susan, speaking out of the great wealth of -worldly lore that can be gathered from eighteen years of life. ‘But -others’—thoughtfully—‘wouldn’t.’ - -‘To which section do you belong?’ - -‘Oh, me! I don’t know,’ says Susan, growing suddenly very shy. ‘I -shouldn’t do anything—I—I should wait.’ - -‘Would you?’ says Crosby. There is something in the girl’s soft young -face, now lowered and turned from him, so full of gentle strength that -he wonders at it. Yes, she would wait for her lad—‘Though father, an’ -mither, an’ a’ should go mad.’ Is she waiting for James? - -‘I’m afraid, after all, I must destroy your illusion,’ says he -presently. ‘I don’t think she could have been in love with me. Not -overpoweringly, I mean. She had a little money of her own, and I had a -little of mine, so that we should not have been altogether paupers. But -she was dreadfully addicted to diamonds, and man milliners, and bibelots -of all kinds. I have other reasons, too, Susan, for thinking she did not -really love me. She never gave me a keepsake! Now you—you have had a -keepsake.’ - -‘Mr. Crosby!’ Susan’s face is crimson. ‘I wish—’ - -‘I know. I beg your pardon. Of course I should not have mentioned it. -But you and I are old friends now, Susan; and somehow it is permissible -for me to confide to you the hollow fact that no one ever gave me a -silver brooch with—’ - -Susan lifts Bonnie’s head gently, and shows a dignified, but most -determined, desire to rise. - -‘Don’t,’ says Crosby quickly. ‘You’ll wake him.’ He points to Bonnie’s -lovely little head, and Susan pauses in her flight. ‘Besides, I shan’t -say another word—not one. I swear it. What I really wanted was your -compassion. I have never had a keepsake given me in all my life, save -one.’ - -‘Surely one is enough,’ says Susan slowly. Curiosity, after a moment, -overcomes her dignity, and she says unwillingly: ‘Is it a nice one?’ - -‘I desire no nicer,’ says he. He pulls his watch from his pocket, and on -the chain close to it—on a tiny silver ring of its own—hangs a silver -sixpence. - -‘That! Only a sixpence!’ Susan’s voice is rather uncertain. What -sixpence is that? She—she didn’t— ‘Of course,’ says she, ‘I know a -broken sixpence is a very usual thing between lovers. But this— It is -not broken, and—and not old, either. I must say when she gave you a -keepsake she—’ - -‘She hardly gave it,’ says Crosby. ‘She only laid it on the last rung of -a ladder that led up to some—’ - -That sentence is never finished. Bonnie’s head is now lying on Susan’s -rug. But Susan herself is already far over there, her head very high -indeed, and her rage and her indignation even higher. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI. - - ‘My love is like the sky— - As distant and as high. - Perchance she’s fair and kind and bright, - Perchance she’s stormy, tearful quite— - Alas! I scarce know why.’ - - -‘Is this Susan?’ - -Crosby, standing at the little gate leading into the Rectory garden, -feels a spasm of doubt. He has come down this morning to make it up with -her, as the children say, after that slight quarrel of yester eve—a -quarrel that was all on her side. Her remorseless refusal to bid him -good-bye had left him a little desolate. - -Is that really the sedate Susan, that slender nymph flying over there in -the distance—racing, rather—with Tommy, as a willing prey, running -before her? - -Crosby has, through time, grown accustomed to think of Susan as a demure -maiden, slightly Puritan in type, though no doubt with a latent -wilfulness lying beneath the calm exterior. But now that the latent -wilfulness has broken loose, he finds himself unprepared for it. Susan -running there in the sunshine, with her hair, apparently just out of the -tub and hardly yet dry, floating behind her, is another creature -altogether. And such hair, too! Such glorious waves on waves glinting -golden in the sun’s bright rays, with Susan’s face peeping out of it now -and then. How wild, how mad, how soft, the bright hair looks, and how -sweet are the ringing cries that come from Susan’s parted lips! - -‘The bear has you, Tommy. He’s coming. He’—making a dab at the excited -Tommy—‘will have you soon. In another moment he’ll be on you, tearing -you—’ Quite a sprint here on the part of Tommy, and increased speed -accordingly on Susan’s part. ‘And his claws are sharp—sharp!’ - -Tommy, in his flight, turns terrified eyes on Susan over his shoulder. - -‘Oh, Susan, don’t, don’t!’ shrieks he, filled with joy and terror. The -terror constitutes three-fourths of the joy. And now he flies again for -his life, the deadly bear, the ruthless pursuer, dashing after him with -relentless energy. - -Crosby, watching, tells himself, with a somewhat grim smile, that it is -Tommy alone who would flee from such a delightful enemy. Perhaps his -thoughts are touched with a tinge of disappointment at finding Susan in -this mad mood. Yesterday she had seemed to him angered and disturbed -when she left him so abruptly; and he had gone home with a growing sense -of contrition strong upon him. It had been strong enough to bring him -down this morning with half a dozen apologies, to find that she has -forgotten all about this offence and—him. - -Here lies the real sting. The Susan he had imagined as being a little -out of joint with her world—just a very little daintily offended with -him—is not the Susan who is here now, and who is running round the -garden in merry pursuit of her little brother, with her eyes gleaming -like diamonds, and evidently as gay as a lark. - -She is close on Tommy now. She has put out a hand to grasp him, but -Tommy is full of enterprise, doubles like a hare, and is now rushing -frantically towards the gate on which Crosby is leaning. - -This brings Susan, who is still in hot pursuit of him, with her face -towards Crosby. Now more distinctly he can see her. What a lovely, -perfect child she is, with her loose hair floating behind her, like that -of the immortal ‘Damosel,’ and the little soft gasping laughs coming -from her open lips! _Joie de vivre_ is written in every line of her face -and every curve of her lissom body. - -All at once, even as he watches her, this joy dies out of her face. ‘She -has seen me,’ says Crosby to himself; and forthwith he opens the gate -and advances towards her. Tommy, in his race, has reached him, and now, -breathless, flings himself into his arms, turning to look, with affected -fright, at the coming of Susan. - -It is a very slow coming, and has evidently something to do with her -hair—as can be seen through the branches of a big escallonia on Crosby’s -left. He determines to give her time to struggle with that beautiful -hair. ‘Tommy, you ought to fall on the gravel and embrace your -preserver’s knees,’ says he. ‘I have evidently saved you from an -untimely death, if all I heard was true. I think, however, that you -might have warned me that bears were about.’ - -He is quite conscious, whilst speaking, that Susan is still making -frantic, but ineffectual, efforts to do up her hair; so he goes on. - -‘Where’s your particular bear?’ asks he. - -‘Here,’ says Susan, as she steps in the most unexpected fashion from -behind the tree. He can see that she is greatly disconcerted, and that -she would never have come from behind it if remaining there was any -longer possible. But she had seen and heard him, as he had seen and -heard her. - -She advances now, her expression cold and unkindly, and her hands still -struggling with her hair, in her desire to reduce it to some sort of -reason. - -‘Why trouble yourself about it?’ says Crosby. ‘It is the prettiest thing -I ever saw as it is.’ - -‘It is not pretty to me,’ says Susan crushingly. Her arms are still -above her head, and, as she speaks to him, she weaves into a superb coil -the loose strands of her soft hair. In spite of this, however, the -little locks around her brows, loosened and softened by the late -washing, are straying wildly, flying here and there of their own sweet -will, and making an aureole round Susan’s head, out of which her eyes -gleam at Crosby with anything but friendship in them. - -‘How d’ye do?’ says he blandly. - -‘How d’ye do?’ says Susan in return. She lets her hand rest in his for -the barest moment, then withdraws it. - -Crosby regards her reproachfully. ‘You are angry with me still,’ says -he. ‘And after a whole night of reflection.’ - -‘I am not angry at all,’ says Susan. ‘Why should you think so?’ - -‘Yes, you are,’ says Crosby. ‘I can see it in your eyes. Your very hair -is bristly. And all because—’ He stops, as if afraid to go on. - -‘Because what?’ asks Susan, with a touch of severity. - -‘Because I once got sixpence out of you!’ He is not able to resist it. - -‘Tommy,’ says Susan, ‘your collar is dirty, and you must come back to -the house with me to get another.’ As she speaks she catches Tommy, who -has not yet got to the years of civilization, and who hates clean -collars, and prepares to march him off. - -‘Tommy,’ says Mr. Crosby, ‘wait a minute; your sister won’t, but perhaps -you will. There is a photographer in town to-day; he has come down from -Dublin. And your aunt says she would like to have some of you -photographed.’ Here there is a distinct slowing in Susan’s march past, -though she disdains to turn her head, or show further mark of interest. -‘Don’t you want to be photographed, Tommy? I do, badly.’ - -‘What is it?’ asks Tommy, whose views of amusement as a rule mean -lollipops, and those only, and who has no knowledge of cameras or -kodaks. - -‘It’s painful, as a rule,’ says Crosby. ‘But children seldom suffer. -It’s only people of my age who come out with their noses twisted. Did -you ever have your nose twisted, Tommy? It hurts awfully, I can tell -you. But’—with a glance at Susan—‘other things hurt worse. You ought to -speak to Susan, Tommy—to tell her that prolonged cruelty sometimes ends -in the death of the victim.’ - -At this Susan faces round. ‘What I think is,’ says she, ‘that you ought -to give me back that horrid sixpence.’ - -‘It isn’t horrid.’ - -‘You should give it back, at all events.’ - -‘Oh, Susan, anything but that—my life even.’ - -‘What’—with mounting indignation—‘can you want it for, except to annoy -me?’ - -‘Is thy servant a slave? I want it as a memento of the only occasion on -record on which I was called a “kind, kind man,” and a “good” and an -“honest” one besides. You did call me all that, Susan. And yet, now—’ - -Heaven alone knows what would have been the end of all this, but for the -providential appearance of Miss Barry and Betty upon the scene. - -‘My dear Susan, have you heard? But, of course, Mr. Crosby has told you. -Good gracious! what is the matter with your head, child?’ - -And, indeed, Susan’s hair has again found freedom, and is flowing down -her back in happy, shining waves. - -‘I have just washed it,’ says Susan shamefacedly. - -‘An admirable deed,’ says Miss Barry, who is in too great a state of -delight to lecture with her usual fluency, and who, indeed, feels -inclined to be lenient. ‘But you should not come into publicity, my dear -child, until it is dry and carefully dressed again. However’—beaming -upon Crosby, who begins to quite like her—‘youth will be youth, you -know. And what do you think, Susan? There is a man down from the best -photographer’s in Dublin—from Chancellor’s, I believe. And I am thinking -of having our pictures taken, if only to send some copies to your uncle -in Australia—my brother, you know, my dear. He will be so pleased to get -them; and, really, it is a grand opportunity. Of course, you, Mr. -Crosby, have had yours taken in every quarter of the globe, but we -country mice seldom get the chance of seeing ourselves as others see -us.’ - -‘I haven’t been photographed for quite ten years,’ says Crosby, ‘and I -feel now as if it were my duty to sit again. Miss Barry, if you are -going to be photographed to-day, will you take me under your wing?’ - -‘I shall be pleased indeed,’ says Miss Barry, with much dignity. - -‘Won’t it be fun!’ cries Betty, clapping her hands. - -‘And the hour?’ asks Crosby. - -‘About two. What do you think, Susan? Two would be a good hour, eh?’ - -‘Yes, a good hour,’ says Susan, without interest. Then, suddenly: -‘Is—are you going to have Bonnie taken?’ - -‘My dear Susan’—Miss Barry flushes the dull pink of the old when -shamed—‘why should we send all our pictures to your uncle at once? It—it -would probably confuse him. Another time we may think of that,’ says -Miss Barry, who has counted up all her available shillings this morning, -to see if it would be possible to send all the children, but had found -they fell decidedly short. She would have died, however, rather than -confess this to a stranger. ‘Just mine and yours, and—but I am afraid -your father will never consent to be taken—and Betty’s and Carew’s—just -the eldest ones. You can see, Mr. Crosby, that just the eldest ones will -be those most acceptable to their uncle.’ - -‘Yes, I see,’ says Crosby. He has seen it all, indeed. As if in a dream, -Miss Barry’s purse has been laid open to him and the contents made bare. -The two shillings for herself, and the two for Susan, and for Betty, and -for Carew—eight shillings in all—and after that nothing. He has seen, -too, the pride of the poor lady, who would not acknowledge the want of -means wherewith to provide photos of the younger children for their -uncle abroad, but put her objection to their being taken on the grounds -of their youth. He has seen, too, Susan’s face as she hears that Bonnie -is not to be taken. Oh, the quick, pained disappointment of it! - -‘At two, then,’ says he, ‘we shall meet at the photographer’s.’ - -‘Yes; two sharp,’ says Miss Barry, who seems quite excited. ‘Susan, I -think I shall wear my new lace cap.’ - -‘I think you ought to wear your hair just as it is now,’ says Crosby to -Susan in a low tone, as he bids her good-bye. It is impossible for her -to refuse him her hand with her aunt looking on; and though Crosby is -aware of this, it is to his shame, I confess, that he takes it and holds -it in a warm clasp before he lets it go. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXII. - - ‘But I know best where wringeth me my shoe.’ - - -‘Betty, was I looking frightful?’ asks Susan, drawing her sister away as -soon as Crosby is out of sight. ‘Tell me quite the truth. Don’t gloss -things over just to please me.’ - -‘I won’t,’ says Betty, giggling. ‘I’ll be as honest as the sun. You -looked’—pausing wickedly—‘something between Meg Merrilees and a wild -Indian, with a bias toward the latter. But that needn’t put you out. -He’s accustomed to wild Indians; and when one has lived with people -fifty years or so, one gets to admire them. I shouldn’t wonder if he -admired you. You must have taken him back to the good old days. Why -didn’t you sing “Way down upon the Swannee River” for him? That would -have finished the conquest.’ - -‘You don’t seem to know what wild Indians are,’ Susan remonstrates -calmly. ‘They live in North America, and couldn’t sing a nigger song to -save their lives. You don’t seem to know, either, that it was in Africa -that Mr. Crosby spent most of his time, and that the blacks there aren’t -niggers at all.’ - -‘Oh, it’s all the same,’ says Betty airily. ‘A black’s a black for a’ -that; and if they don’t sing one thing, they sing another. And any way, -I could see by the gleam in Mr. Crosby’s eye, as he looked at you and -your flowing locks, that he loves wildness in every form.’ - -Susan is silent for a time; then: - -‘Betty’—in a low tone—‘how old do you think he is?’ - -‘I don’t think he has beaten Methuselah yet, if you mean that.’ - -‘No; but really, I mean how old, eh?’ - -‘Well’—carefully—‘allowing him the fifty years he spent with his blacks, -and the fact that he told us that he started at twenty-three on an -adventurous career, he must be now well into the seventies.’ - -Susan’s laugh—so evidently expected here—sounds to herself a little -forced, though why she could not have explained. - -‘Oh, not so old as that!’ - -‘Well, perhaps not, by a year or so,’ says Betty, as if determined on -being absolutely fair and accurate to a fraction. - -‘Do you know,’ says Susan, a little reluctantly, but as though she must -say it, ‘I—of course, I know he is ever so much older than any of us, -but, for all that, somehow, he doesn’t seem to me to be—well, old, you -know.’ - -Betty nods, and Susan, encouraged by this treacherous sign, rashly takes -a further step. - -‘It has even sometimes seemed to me,’ says she nervously, ‘that he is -quite young.’ - -‘That reminds me of something I read this morning,’ says Betty, who is -beginning to enjoy herself. ‘It ran like this: “On the whole, I consider -him one of the youngest men of my acquaintance.”’ - -‘Where did you read that?’ asks Susan, with open suspicion. - -‘In a book’—smartly. - -‘Well, I suppose so. And what book, and who said it?’ - -‘A frisky duchess.’ - -‘She was young, of course?’ - -‘Not very,’ Betty grins. ‘Eighty-two or thereabouts.’ - -‘Oh, well, then, no doubt she was alluding to a mere boy of her -acquaintance.’ - -‘Not at all. To another frisky person of the opposite sex—a young thing -of one hundred and five or so.’ - -‘What do you mean, Betty? You don’t suppose that Mr. Crosby is a hundred -and five or so?’ - -‘I don’t indeed. I put him in the seventies, if you remember. That would -make him quite a babe to the duchess I speak of. She said her -centenarian had the brightest, the most engaging manners, and, of -course, that reminded me of Mr. Cros— Where are you going now, Susan?’ - -‘I want to put fresh cuffs on Bonnie’s shirts,’ says Susan. Her tone is -a little reserved, and there is a deepening of dignity in the delicate -lightness of her steps, as she turns away, that tells Betty she is in -some way offended. - -Betty, stricken, but with a conscience clear, runs after her and tucks -her arm into hers. - -‘Have I vexed you?’ asks she. - -‘Vexed me?’ Susan’s tone is rather exaggerated. ‘No. How could you have -vexed me?’ - -‘That’s true,’ says Betty comfortably, who never gets deeper than the -actual moment. ‘Then I’ll come with you.’ - -‘But why should I bring you in?’ asks Susan, who has a new queer fancy -to be alone. - -‘To do your hair, for one thing,’ says the tease of the family with -delightful _bonhomie_. ‘Really, Susan, you can’t appear in public like -this twice; and you know we are going to be photographed in— What is the -hour now? Good gracious! it’s growing very late. We must run. Bonnie’s -shirts can’t be done to-day, but I’ll help you with them to-morrow. Oh, -there’s auntie—’ - -‘Susan, you must make haste,’ cries Miss Barry, hurrying round the -corner. ‘There is no time to be lost. And, my dear, your hair! How -fortunate you washed it to-day! When neatly done up it will look -beautiful. Betty, I have been thinking of having you taken with your hat -on. Your best hat—’ - -‘Oh, auntie!’ says poor Betty. - -‘No; well, perhaps not. What do you think, Susan?’ - -‘I think she would look nicer without it,’ says Susan, in answer to an -agonized glance from Betty. ‘And you, auntie? I think we ought to put a -fresh bow in your cap; that side one is always falling down. You have a -little bit of ribbon, haven’t you?’ - -‘Yes, I think so; in the top drawer,’ says Miss Barry. -‘Susan’—suddenly—‘how could you ask such an uncomfortable question -before Mr. Crosby!’ - -‘What question?’ asks Susan, turning very red. - -‘Why, as to whether I was going to have Bonnie photographed. I was quite -taken aback,’ says Miss Barry, shaking her curls; ‘and, indeed, it was -only the natural _savoir faire_ that belongs to me’—to give Miss Barry’s -Parisian accent would pass the wit of man—‘that enabled me to conquer -the situation. You might be quite sure, Susan, that if I had the money -Bonnie and Tommy too should have been sent to their dear uncle.’ - -‘I see, auntie. I am sorry,’ says Susan, with honest, deep regret. - -‘I suppose,’ says Miss Barry, with the air of one addressing a forlorn -hope, ‘that you and Betty have nothing?’ - -It is plain that the poor lady had set her heart originally on having a -‘full set’ to send to the uncle abroad, but that reasons financial have -crushed her hopes. - -‘I have only sixpence,’ says Susan sadly. ‘You, Betty?’ - -‘I spent the twopence I had yesterday,’ says Betty, ‘on hairpins.’ - -‘Hairpins!’ cries Miss Barry indignantly. ‘And your hair not up yet!’ - -‘They were for Susan,’ explains Betty angrily, who had, indeed, bought -them for Susan, but who, nevertheless, had spent an enjoyable hour with -them, doing up her own hair, and seeing how she would look next year -when ‘grown up.’ - -‘Well, that’s the end of it,’ says Miss Barry, with the courage of -despair. ‘I certainly won’t ask your father for a penny, as I know he -hasn’t one to spare this month; and, indeed’—sighing—‘I only hope that -those reports about that bank in Scotland are untrue. It is in that he -has invested the £500 he has laid aside for Carew—for his crammer, you -know, and his outfit, and all the rest of it. I dare say the scare will -come to nothing; but, at all events, he is a little pressed just now, so -that for a mere luxury like this I think we had better not ask him for -anything.’ - -‘Of course not,’ says Susan. ‘But, auntie’—slowly and a little -nervously—‘would you mind very much if—if Bonnie had his picture taken -instead of me? I have always so longed for one of his. He is so -delicate, and—’ She stops suddenly, a terrible feeling in her throat -forbidding another word. - -‘My dear Susan! And you the eldest! Why, it would be quite an insult to -your dear uncle. No, no,’ says Miss Barry; ‘we must depend upon another -time to get Bonnie and Tom taken.’ - -Susan turns away. Will there ever be ‘another time’ for Bonnie? So frail -in the warm summer-time, how will it be with him when the snows and the -frosts set in? - -‘At all events, I think I will take him down with me to see the rest of -us taken,’ she says presently in a depressed voice. ‘It will amuse and -interest him. You know how clever he is.’ - -‘Yes, by all means, and I’ll take Tommy,’ says Betty, ‘though goodness -knows if after that we shall any of us come out alive.’ - - * * * * * - -Susan has started very early (it is only ten minutes after one), so as -to give Bonnie plenty of time to get down to the village without -fatigue. Miss Ricketty will give him a seat in her place; a penny out of -the last sixpence will buy him a cake or some sweets; and then, with a -little rest, he can easily go on to the room rented to the photographer -by Mr. Salter, the hardware Methodist. - -She has now reached Miss Ricketty’s, and has been welcomed by that -excellent if slightly eccentric spinster with open arms. Bonnie is -literally in her arms—and now is ensconced in the cosiest corner of this -cosy little shop, behind the tiny gateway. Indeed, Miss Ricketty is -preparing in a surreptitious manner to bring down a jar of unspeakably -beautiful bull’s-eyes for Bonnie’s delectation, when Susan intervenes. - -‘No—no indeed, dear Miss Ricketty. He has a penny of his own to-day. And -he loves buying. Don’t you, Bonnie? Another day, perhaps. And I think a -cake would be better for him, don’t you? You would rather have a Queen -cake, Bonnie darling, wouldn’t you?’—appealingly. - -‘Yes,’ says Bonnie, out of the sweetness of his nature, seeing she -desires it, though his soft eyes are dwelling on the lollipops. But that -he can’t have both is a foregone conclusion, as Susan tells herself with -a sigh. The remaining fivepence will have to do many things until next -week, when father will give her her tiny weekly allowance again. -Besides, a cake is ever so much better for him than bull’s-eyes. Thus -Susan consoles herself. - -‘Are you goin’ to be took, Miss Susan?’ asks Miss Ricketty, settling -herself, as she calls it, for a good chat. - -Susan laughs. - -‘Not by the sergeant, any way,’ says she. - -‘Ah, ye will have yer joke now. An’, sure, I’m a silly old fool. But -ye’re goin’ to have yer picture done, aren’t ye? Fegs, ’twould be a -shame if ye didn’t. ’Tis a mighty purty picture would be lost to the -world if you held back. Why, all the world is crowdin’ to that man’s -door. I saw Lady Millbank go in just now. An’ at her time o’ life! Law, -the vanity o’ some folk! D’ye know what me brother said to me to-day?’ - -‘What?’ asks Susan, who is growing interested. - -‘Whether I wouldn’t like to see me own face on a card. An’ I tould him -as I had seen it for sixty years in a lookin’-glass, an’ that was good -enough for me.’ - -‘But, Miss Ricketty,’ says Susan, seeing with her delicate sense of -sympathy beneath the veil that conceals Miss Ricketty’s real desire to -be ‘seen on a card,’ ‘why not be taken? It would not give you pleasure, -perhaps, but see what pleasure it would give to others. And as for me, I -should love a photograph of you.’ - -‘Oh now, Miss Susan! Sure, ye know, ye wouldn’t care for a picture of -the likes of me.’ - -‘I should like it more than I can say,’ says Susan. ‘Miss Ricketty’—with -pretty entreaty— ‘you really must make up your mind to it.’ - -‘Well, I’ll be thinkin’—I’ll be thinkin’,’ says Miss Ricketty, who is -all agog with excitement and flattery. ‘I suppose, Miss Susan dear, that -shawl they sent me from America would be too bright?’ - -‘The very thing,’ says Susan. ‘It would be lovely. And your people in -America will certainly recognise it, and it will give them great -pleasure to know that you treasure it so highly.’ - -‘There’s a lot in that,’ says Miss Ricketty, musing—she muses -considerably. ‘Well, perhaps—’ Here she pauses again. ‘It may be,’ says -she at last. She might, perhaps, have condescended to explain this last -oracular speech, but that her bright eye catches sight of three young -ladies going past her window. ‘There they go! there they go! Look at -them, Miss Susan, my dear! Did ye ever see such quare crathures? May the -Vargin give them sense! Look at their hats, an’ the strut o’ them! -They’ve a power o’ money, I’m tould. “Articles of virtue” Mr. Connor -called them the last day he was in here; but, faith, where the virtue -comes in—they do say— But that’s not talk for the likes o’ you or me, -dear. But tell me now, Miss Susan, what of Mr. Crosby? I’ve heard that -he— Oh, murdher! talk of the divil—’ - -Miss Ricketty retires behind a huge jar of sweets as Crosby comes into -the shop. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIII. - - ‘Read in Senec, and read eke in Boece, - There shall ye see express, that it no drede is, - That he is gentle that doth gentle deedes.’ - - -Crosby looks a little surprised at finding Susan here. - -‘How d’ye do?’ again says he. - -Susan, without enthusiasm, gives him her hand. She is busy wondering -what could have brought him in here, of all places. Fond of chocolates, -perhaps. - -‘Why, there you are, Bonnie,’ says Mr. Crosby gaily. ‘No wonder I didn’t -see you in that nice big chair. How d’ye do, Miss Ricketty? I hope you -have been behaving yourself properly since last I saw you.’ - -‘Oh, Mr. Crosby!’ The old maid shakes her head at him with delight. - -‘No fresh flirtations, I trust.’ - -‘Oh, hear to him!’ Miss Ricketty is laughing like a girl. - -‘And how is the giant?’ - -‘Me brother is very well, thank you, sir. An’ he wants to see ye badly -about that cricket match in the park. They say that Tim Murphy is goin’ -to be very troublesome over it.’ - -‘Not a bit of it. Tell your brother that I’ve squared the militant Tim, -and that he will turn up all right. What charming sweets, Bonnie! I love -sweets; don’t you?’ - -He has made a sign to Miss Ricketty, who is now making up a splendid -parcel. - -‘Bonnie has had a cake,’ says Susan. She would have said a great deal -more if Tommy had been in question. Indeed, then she would have refused -distinctly; but Bonnie’s little lovely smiling face, and the joy she -knows it will give the gentle child to share Mr. Crosby’s gift with his -little brother, stops her. She says nothing more, though it is actual -pain to her to have to accept these sweets for her brother from Crosby. -It is a debt she owes to Bonnie to suffer thus. But, then, what does she -not owe Bonnie? - -‘L’appétit vient en mangeant,’ says Crosby. ‘Miss Ricketty, don’t be in -such a hurry to tie up that parcel. Bonnie and I want something out of -it first.’ He puts a delightful box of chocolate creams on Bonnie’s knee -as he speaks, then turns to Susan. - -‘I suppose I daren’t offer you anything,’ says he, in a low tone. Miss -Ricketty becomes at once absorbed in a bottle of bull’s-eyes. - -‘No,’ says Susan gently, ‘thank you.’ - -‘Not even an apology?’ - -Susan glances quickly at him, and then hesitates. Perhaps she would have -said something, but at this moment Miss Barry, with Betty and Dom and -Carew, enter the shop. - -‘We saw you through the window,’ cries Betty; and suddenly Susan’s -thoughts run riot. Had he seen her through the window? ‘And so we came -in. We must hurry, Susan; all the world is going to have its picture -taken—even Lady Millbank, though goodness alone knows why. And such a -guy as she looks in that velvet mantle—that heavy thing—’ - -‘A regular overmantle,’ says Dom. - -‘Bless me!’ says Miss Barry suddenly, breaking off her conversation with -Miss Ricketty over the proper treatment of young fowls when they come to -be three months old. ‘Susan, you and Betty are wearing the same frocks.’ - -‘Yes, it was I who arranged that,’ says Betty calmly. ‘In some way, -Susan and I have never worn these frocks together before, and I have -heard that those old Murphy girls—’ - -‘Not the Murphys, Betty—the Stauntons,’ says Susan. - -‘It doesn’t matter; they are all old maids alike,’ says Betty lightly. -‘Any way, I have heard that some of the weird women of Curraghcloyne -have said that we were short of clothes, because Susan and I had only -one dress between us. This’—smoothing down her pretty serge frock—‘is -the one in question. So I’m going to be photographed with Susan in it, -if only to upset their theories, and give them some bad half-hours with -their cronies; cronies never spare one.’ - -‘You and Susan are going to be photographed together!’ says Miss Barry, -who is getting a stormy look in her eyes. ‘You will not, then, be taken -separately?’ - -‘Oh yes,’ says Betty airily. ‘Separately, too. I hate double pictures as -a rule, but when duty calls—’ - -Miss Barry is now making wild pantomimic signs to Susan. ‘Stop her!’ her -lips are saying—‘stop her at all risks, or we shall be eternally -disgraced!’ - -And, indeed, the poor lady had not another penny to spend beyond what -she had already arranged for. If this double picture that the rash and -reckless Betty speaks of becomes an accomplished fact, who is to pay for -it? Not Miss Barry, certainly, because she has nothing with which to -pay. And, naturally, the photographer will demand his just fees, and -then all will come out, and— - -She is on the point of appealing to Miss Ricketty, when Dom nudges her. - -‘It’s all right,’ whispers he. ‘I have enough for that. I’ve settled it -with Betty.’ - -Miss Barry gives him a grateful look, greatly interspersed with rebuke. -Such a throwing away of good money! As if that conceited child could not -be satisfied with one representation of her face! She must really speak -to Dom about his folly later—a little later—on. - -It doesn’t seem folly at all to Dominick, who is a most generous youth, -if extravagant, and who would give a great deal more to this -photographic business if it was in his power. But a great deal has been -spent of late on cartridges for the murdering of Mr. Crosby’s rabbits—so -much, indeed, that cigarettes have grown scarce and pipes a luxury, -spite of even the small sums that Carew has thrown into the common fund. -Carew has generally a shilling or two in his pockets, the Rector deeming -it advisable to give to his eldest son, out of his terribly inadequate -income, a certain amount of pocket-money, to prepare him for the time -when he will be thrown on his own resources; to teach him to economize -now, so that when he is gazetted, and has to rely on his own slender -allowance, he will be able to understand how to make money go as far as -it can. - -All through the boy’s educational course, he had felt it a sort of -madness to put him into the army at all—a boy who must necessarily live -entirely on his pay—a forlorn arrangement in these fast days, and one -out of which only ten per cent. rise successfully. But the last wish of -his dying wife had been that Carew should enter the army. She had come -of a good fighting stock herself, poor soul! to which she remained -faithful, having fought her own fight with poverty most bravely until -she died; and the Rector, who had cared less and less for earthly things -since she had gone to heaven, had not the heart or the strength to -refuse that dying wish. - -‘You’re sure you have it?’ whispers back Miss Barry to Dom. - -‘Certain.’ - -‘Then’—sharply—‘it would have been much more to your credit if you had -kept it.’ - -‘To my credit, yes,’ says Dom. - -‘A more disgraceful display of extravagance—’ Miss Barry, either from -the forced whispering or indignation, here grows hoarse, and coughs a -little, whereupon Miss Ricketty, who is now intensely interested, and is -listening with all her might, holds out to her a jar of jujubes; but -Miss Barry waves them off. - -‘I suppose it is the last penny?’ asks she, still addressing Dom in a -whisper, but with a magisterial air. - -‘Yes—nearly,’ says he. - -The ‘nearly’ is a concession to the truth. He has, indeed, three -shillings left out of his monthly allowance, but these are already -accounted for. They are to buy three copies of Betty for his own special -apartment—one to be hung up over his gun, one over his bookcase, and one -over his study table. - -‘That’s the one you’ll never see,’ Betty had said to him tauntingly, and -most ungratefully, when he told her of the decision he had come to about -his last three shillings. - -Miss Barry, now turning away from him with a heart decidedly heavy, -directs her conversational powers on Crosby. - -‘I congratulate you on being in good time,’ says she. ‘When Betty and I -started, we had great trouble in getting Carew and Dominick to come with -us. They were dreadfully late, and we said then—Betty and I—that you -would surely be late. But you’—smiling and wagging her curls—‘have -behaved splendidly. I do appreciate a young man who can be punctual.’ - -Susan glances quickly at her. ‘Young man!’ Is she in earnest, and after -all that Betty had said? - -‘Young man!’ Is he a young man? Well, she has often thought so—she had -even told Betty so. Here she glances at Betty, but Betty is now enjoying -a word-to-word dispute with Dominick. - -Any way, she had told her. But Betty—what does she know? She has -declared a man once over thirty, old. But Aunt Jemima thinks otherwise. -And really, when one comes to think of it, Aunt Jemima at times is very -clever—almost deep, indeed; and certainly very clever in her -conclusions. - -‘Look! there are the Blakes coming out,’ cries Betty suddenly; she is -standing on tiptoe at the window, which commands a fine view of the -entrance to the photographer’s. ‘Auntie, Susan, let us go, before any -other people come.’ - -With this they all in a body cross the road, Carew having caught up -Bonnie, who is all eagerness to see this wonderful thing that will put -Susan’s face on paper. - -Upstairs they march in a body, to find themselves presently in a most -evil-smelling corridor, out of which the studio opens. Here they wait -perforce, until at last the studio door opens, and some people of the -farming class, and very flurried and flushed, walk nervously down the -little lane between them. - -‘Now is your time!’ says Betty, who is really quite irrepressible -to-day. She takes the lead, and they all swarm after her into the -studio, to find there an emaciated man in highly respectable clothes -regarding them with a melancholy eye. Collodion seems to have saturated -him. - -‘Aunt Jemima, you first,’ says Susan. - -‘Yes, certainly,’ says Dom. ‘First come, first served. And, you know, in -spite of Betty’s well-meant endeavours, you entered the room first.’ - -‘Besides which it is the part of the young to give way to their elders,’ -says Miss Barry, striving to keep up her dignity, whilst dying with -terror. The photographer and the great big thing over there with dingy -velvet cloth over it have subdued her almost out of recognition. - -‘Now, auntie, come on. He’s looking at you.’ ‘He’ is the photographer, -who has now, indeed, turned a lack-lustre eye on Miss Barry. - -‘We are rather pressed for time,’ says he in a lugubrious tone. ‘Which -lady wishes to be taken first?’ - -‘Answer him, auntie,’ says Susan. - -‘What impertinence, hurrying us like this!’ says Miss Barry. She has -recovered something of her old courage now, though still frightened, and -turns a freezing eye upon the photographer, who is so accustomed to all -sorts of eyes that it fails to affect him in any way. - -‘Really, auntie, you ought to have yours taken first,’ says Dominick -seriously, ‘and as soon as possible. There’s murder in that man’s eye. -Don’t incense him further.’ - -The photographer is now standing in an adamantine attitude, but his eye, -entreating, cries: ‘Come on, come on!’ - -But no one stirs. - -‘A most insolent creature,’ says Miss Barry, who has unfortunately taken -a dislike to him. ‘Look at him; one would think we had to have our -pictures taken by law rather than by choice. Susan, did you ever see so -villainous a countenance? No, my dear, I—I really feel—I couldn’t have -my picture sent to your uncle if taken by an assassin like that.’ She -holds back. - -‘Nonsense, Miss Barry!’ says Crosby gaily. ‘You have too much spirit to -be daunted by a mere cast of countenance. And we—we have no spirit at -all—so we depend upon you to give us a lead.’ - -‘I assure you, Mr. Crosby, had it been any other man but this.... -However, I submit.’ - -Whereupon, with much outward dignity and many inward quakings, she -approaches the chair before the camera and seats herself upon it. - -‘A little more this way, please, ma’am,’ says the photographer. - -‘Which way?’ asks Miss Barry, in a distinctly aggressive voice. - -‘If you would pose yourself a little more like this,’ and the -photographer throws himself into a sentimental attitude. - -‘Mercy! what ails the man?’ says Miss Barry, turning to Crosby. ‘Do you, -my dear Mr. Crosby—do you think the wretched being has been imbibing too -freely?’ - -‘No, no, not at all,’ says Crosby reassuringly. ‘You must sit like -this’—coming to the photographer’s help with a will—‘just a little bit -round here, d’ye see, so as to make a good picture. That will give a -better effect afterwards; and of course he is anxious to make as good a -photograph of you as he can.’ - -At this Miss Barry condescends to move a little in the way directed. She -clutches hold of Susan, however, during the placing of her, and whispers -thrillingly: - -‘I don’t believe in him, Susan. Look at his eye. It squints! Could a -squinter give one a good photograph?’ - -‘Now, madam!’ says the camera man, in a dying tone. He has heard -nothing, but is annoyed in a dejected fashion by the delay. ‘If you are -quite ready.’ - -‘Are you?’ retorts Miss Barry. - -‘Yes, ma’am.’ He comes forward to rearrange her draperies and herself, -her short colloquy with Susan having been sufficiently lively to disturb -the recent pose. He pulls out her gown, then steps back to further study -her, and finally takes her head between his hands, with a view to -putting that into the right position also. - -If the poor man had only known the consequences of this rash act, he -would, perhaps, rather have given up his profession than have committed -it. - -‘How dare you, sir!’ cries Miss Barry, pushing him back, and making -frightful passes in the air as a defence against another attack of his -upon her maiden cheek. - -‘Carew, where are you? Dominick! Susan, Susan, do you see how I have -been outraged?’ - -‘Dear auntie,’ says Susan, in a low tone, Carew and Dominick being -incapacitated for service, ‘you mistake him. He only wants to arrange -you for your picture. It is always done. Don’t you see?’ - -‘I don’t,’ says Miss Barry stoutly. ‘I see only that you are all a silly -set of children, who do not understand the iniquity of man! This -creature—’ She points to the photographer, who has gone back in a -melancholy way to his slides, and is pulling them in and out, by way of -exercise, perhaps. ‘However, Susan, I’ll go through with it, insolent -and depraved as this creature evidently is; coming from a huge -metropolis like Dublin, he scarcely knows how to behave himself with -decent people. I must request you to tell him, however, that I -refuse—absolutely refuse—to let him caress my face again!’ - -Thus peace is restored with honour, for the time being. And the unlucky -man who has been selected by an unkind Providence to transmit Miss -Barry’s face to futurity, once again approaches her. - -‘Now, ma’am, if you will kindly sit just so, and if you will look at -this—a little more pleasantly, please’—holding up a photograph of Lord -Rosebery that he has been carrying about to delight the Irish people. -‘Ah, that’s better; that earnest expression will—’ - -‘Who’s that?’ cries Miss Barry, springing to her feet. ‘Is that the -Radical miscreant who has taken old Gladstone’s place? God bless me, -man! do you think I’m going to be pleasant when I look at him?’ - -The wretched photographer, now utterly dumfounded, casts a despairing -glance at Crosby, who is certainly the oldest, and therefore probably -the most sensible, of the rest. The noise of the feet of impatient -customers in the passage outside is rendering the poor man miserable. -Yet it is impossible to turn this terrible old woman out, when there are -so many with her waiting to be taken, and to pay their money. - -‘I assure you, sir, I thought that picture would please the lady. I’m -only lately from England, and they told me—’ - -‘A lot of lies. Ah yes, that’s of course,’ says Crosby, interrupting him -sympathetically. ‘But what they didn’t teach you was that there are two -opinions, you know. You can show Lord Rosebery to the people who have -not a shilling in the world, and not a grandfather amongst them; but I -think you had better show Miss Barry a photograph of Lord Salisbury, and -if you haven’t that, one of the Queen. She’s quite devoted to the -Queen.’ - -‘I wish I’d been told, sir,’ says the photographer, so wearily that -Crosby decides on giving him a substantial tip for himself when the -sittings are over. - -‘Now, ma’am,’ says the photographer, returning to the charge with -splendid courage, seeing Miss Barry has reseated herself in the chair, -after prolonged persuasion from Carew and Susan. Betty and Dominick, it -must be confessed, have behaved disgracefully. Retiring behind a huge -screen, and there stifling their mirth in an extremely insufficient -manner, gurgles and, indeed, gasps, have come from between its joints to -the terrified Susan. - -‘And now, ma’am, will you kindly turn a little more this way?’ The poor -man’s voice has grown quite apologetic. ‘Ah, that’s better! Thank you, -ma’am. And if I might pull out your dress? Yes, that’s all right. And -your elbow, ma’am, please.’ - -‘Good gracious! why can’t he stop,’ thinks poor Susan, who sees wrath -growing again within Miss Barry’s eye. - -‘It is just a little, a very little, too pointed. Ah, yes. There! And -your foot, ma’am—under your dress, if you please.’ - -Here Miss Barry snorts audibly, and the photographer starts back; but -hearing is not seeing, and he rashly regains his courage and rushes to -his destruction. - -‘That’s well, very well,’ says he, not being sufficiently acquainted -with Miss Barry to note the signs of coming war upon her face; ‘and if -you will now please shut your mouth—’ - -Miss Barry rises once more like a whirlwind. - -‘Shut your own, sir!’ cries she, shaking her fist at him. - -There is one awful moment, a moment charged with electricity; then it is -all over. The worst has come, there can be nothing more. Miss Barry is -again pressed into her chair. The photographer, having come to the -comforting conclusion that she is a confirmed lunatic, takes no more -pains over her, refuses to adjust her robe, to put her face into -position or revise her expression, and simply takes her as she is. The -result is that he turns out the very best photograph he has taken for -many a year. - -After this things go smooth enough, until at last even Betty—who has -proved a troublesome customer, if a very charming one—declares herself -satisfied. - -‘No more, sir?’ says the photographer to Crosby, whom he has elected to -address as being the principal member of the party. To speak to Miss -Barry would have been beyond the poor man. - -‘Oh yes, one more,’ says Crosby. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIV. - - ‘If Sorrow stole - A charm awhile from Beauty, Beauty’s self - Might envy well the charm that Sorrow lent - To every perfect feature.’ - - -He draws Bonnie forward—Bonnie, who has been sitting so quietly in his -corner for the past thirty minutes, enchanted with the strange scene. He -has cared nothing for his aunt’s eccentricities; he has thought only of -the wonderful things that were done behind that dingy black velvet -curtain. Oh, if he could only get behind it too, and find out! The -sickly child’s frame was weak, but his mind was fresh and strong, and -ran freely into regions far beyond his ken. - -With the boy’s hand in his, Crosby turns courteously to Miss Barry. - -‘I hope you will let me have this charming face taken, if only for my -own gratification,’ says he. ‘I have long wished it. And as he is -here—if you will allow me. It is quite an ideal type, you know—I may -have him photographed?’ - -‘Yes—yes,’ says Miss Barry, with slow acquiescence, uttered with a pause -between. And then all at once, as if she has come to the end of her -hesitation, ‘Yes, certainly.’ She looks at Susan as if for approval, but -Susan does not return her glance. She has cast down her eyes, and is -distinctly pale. - -Poor Susan! So delighted at the thought of having a picture of her -Bonnie given her, yet so sorry for the occasion of it. She has lowered -her eyes so that no one may see what she is thinking about, or what she -is suffering; the quick beating of her heart is also a secret known only -to herself. - -The throbs run like this: Oh, how good of him! Oh, no matter what he is -or whom he loves, he will surely give her one of Bonnie’s pictures—a -picture of her lovely, pretty Bonnie! - -Meantime, Bonnie is being taken by the photographer, and so still, so -calm a little subject he is, that his picture is, perhaps, the best of -all, after Miss Barry’s, which is unique. Just Bonnie’s head—only that. -But so sweet, so perfect, and the earnest eyes— - -The photographer tells them that they shall have them all in a week or -so. The photographer’s ‘week or so’ is so well understanded of the -people, that the Barrys tell themselves in whispers in the little studio -that if they get them in a fortnight they may thank their lucky stars. - -‘A fortnight with that man!’ says Miss Barry, with ill-subdued wrath. ‘A -month, you mean. I tell you he’s got the evil eye.’ - -Having thus relieved herself, and the photographer having vanished into -a room beyond, she rises into happier ways. - -‘Any way, in spite of him,’ says she, pointing towards the dark doorway -into which he has vanished, ‘this must be called a most happy -occasion—an auspicious one even, indeed.’ Miss Barry is always on -immense terms with her dictionary. ‘I really think’—with sudden -sprightliness—‘we should all exchange photos. I hope, Mr. -Crosby’—turning pleasantly to him—‘that you will give us one of yours.’ - -‘I shall give you one with pleasure, Miss Barry,’ says Crosby, ‘and feel -very proud about your wanting to have it. I shall, however, demand one -of yours in return. As to your suggestion about a general exchange, I -think it delightful.’ He turns suddenly to Susan. ‘I hope you will give -me one of yours,’ says he. - -Susan hesitates. To give her picture to him, when he thinks Lady Muriel -Kennedy so lovely? Why, if he thinks a girl is so very lovely—she has -described Lady Muriel to herself as a mere girl—why should he want a -photograph of herself? - -Miss Barry has noticed Susan’s hanging back, and, wondering that she -should refuse her photograph to so good a friend, comes quickly forward. - -‘Susan, I really think you might give Mr. Crosby your picture. You know, -Mr. Crosby, I have always kept the girls a little strict, and perhaps -Susan thinks—’ - -‘I don’t,’ says Susan, with sudden vehemence. She has shrunk back a -little; her lovely eyes have suddenly grown shamed. ‘It—isn’t that, -auntie.’ - -‘Oh, my dear, if it isn’t that—’ says Miss Barry; and being now called -by Dominick, she turns away. - -‘Auntie takes such queer views of things,’ says Susan, pale and unhappy. -‘It seems, however, that she would like me to give you my photograph. -Well’—grudgingly—‘you can have it.’ - -‘I didn’t want it on those terms,’ says Crosby. ‘And yet’—quickly—‘I do -on any terms.’ - -‘Oh no,’ says Susan; ‘auntie is right. Why should I refuse it to you?’ - -‘Susan,’ says he, ‘is the feud so strong as all that? Will you refuse me -your picture?’ - -‘No, I shall give it,’ says she, faintly smiling; ‘but I shall make a -bargain with you. If you will give me one of Bonnie’s, you shall have -one of mine.’ - -‘I gain, but you do not,’ says he; ‘for you should have had one of -Bonnie all the same. But what has come between us, Susan? I thought I -was quite a friend of yours. Why am I to be dismissed like this, without -even a character? You must remember one great occasion when you said -that anyone who was allowed to go through my grounds would be sure to -treat me with respect, or something like that. Now, you have often gone -through my grounds, Susan, and is this respect that you are offering -me?’ - -‘I thought,’ says Susan gravely, ‘that you promised never to speak of -that again.’ - -‘Of what—respect?’ - -‘No, of that’—reluctantly—‘that day in the garden.’ The dawn of a blush -appears upon her face, and her eyes rest on him reproachfully. ‘You are -not to be depended on,’ says she. - -‘Oh, Susan!’ - -His air is so abject that, in spite of herself, Susan laughs, and -presently she holds out her hand to him with the sweetest air. ‘Any way, -I have to thank you a thousand times for having had my Bonnie’s picture -taken,’ says she. ‘And I know you knew that I wished for it.’ She gives -him her hand. Tears rise to her eyes. ‘You could never know how I wished -for it,’ says she. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXV. - - ‘Words would but wrong the gratitude I owe you; - Should I begin to speak, my soul’s so full - That I should talk of nothing else all day.’ - - -‘Now, Miss Manning,’ says Wyndham, in his quick, alert, business-like -way. He steps back, and motions her to go through the gateway that Mrs. -Denis had opened about three inches a minute ago. - -Miss Manning, a tall, thin, rather nervous-looking lady of very decided -age, steps inside the gate, and glances from Wyndham to Mrs. Denis and -back again interrogatively. - -‘This is Miss Moore’s housekeeper, cook, and general factotum,’ says -Wyndham, making a hasty introduction, and with a warning glance towards -Mrs. Denis, who has dropped a rather stiff curtsy. ‘Yours too. She will -remove all troubles from your shoulders, and will take excellent care of -you, I don’t doubt.’ He pauses to give Mrs. Denis—who is looking glum, -to say the least of it—room for one of her always only too ready -speeches, but nothing comes. ‘Eh?’ says he, in a sharp metallic voice -that brings Mrs. Denis to her senses with a jump. - -‘Yes, sir,’ says she, and no more—no promises of obedience. - -Wyndham hurries Miss Manning past her. - -‘The other maid you can manage,’ says he, in a low tone, ‘and no doubt -Mrs. Denis after awhile. She is a highly respectable woman, if a little -unreasonable, and a little too devoted to your pupil. About the -latter’—hastily—‘you know everything—her whole history—that is, so far -as I know it—even to her peculiarities. You quite understand that she -refuses to leave these grounds, and you know, too, her reasons for -refusing—reasons not to be combated. They seem absurd to me, as I don’t -believe that fellow has the slightest claim upon her; but she thinks -otherwise. And—well, they are her reasons’—he pauses—‘and therefore to -be respected.’ - -‘Certainly,’ says Miss Manning, in a low, very gentle voice, ‘and I -shall respect them.’ Her voice is charming. Wyndham tells himself that -he could hardly have made a better choice of a companion for this -strange girl who has been so inconveniently flung into his life. Miss -Manning’s face, too, is one to inspire instant confidence. Her eyes are -earnest and thoughtful; her mouth kind, if sad. That she has endured -much sorrow is written on every feature; but troubles have failed to -embitter a spirit made up of Nature’s sweetest graces. And now, indeed, -joy is lighting up her gentle eyes, and happy expectancy is making warm -her heart. A month ago she had been in almost abject poverty—scarce -knowing where to find the next day’s bread—when a most merciful God had -sent her Paul Wyndham to lift her from her Slough of Despond to such a -state of prosperity as she had never dared to dream of since as a child -she ran gaily in her father’s meadows. - -‘I am sure of that,’ says Wyndham heartily. ‘I am certain I can give her -into your hands in all safety. I know very little of her, but she seems -a good girl, not altogether tractable, perhaps, but I hope you will be -able to get on with her. If, however, the dulness, the enforced -solitude, becomes too much for you, you must let me know.’ - -‘I shall never have to let you know that,’ says Miss Manning, in a low, -tremulous tone. ‘A home in the country, a young companion, a garden to -tend—for long and very sad years I have dreamt of such things, but never -with a hope of seeing them. And now, if I have seemed poor in my thanks, -Paul—’ - -She breaks off, turning her head aside. - -‘Yes, yes; I understand,’ says Wyndham hurriedly, dreading, yet feeling -very tenderly towards her emotion. Once again he congratulates himself -on having thought of this sweet woman in his difficulty. - -‘And for myself,’ says she, calmly now again, ‘I should never like to -stir from this lovely garden.’ They are walking by one of the paths -bordered with flowers. ‘I have been so long accustomed to solitude that, -like my pupil, I shrink from breaking it. To see no one but her -and’—delicately—‘you occasionally, I hope, is all I ask.’ - -‘You may perhaps have to see the Barrys now and then—the Rector’s -people. They live over the way,’ says Wyndham, pointing towards where -the Rectory trees can be seen. ‘I found the last time I was here that -Susan, the eldest girl, had come in, or been brought in here by Miss -Moore, so that there is already a slight acquaintance; and with girls,’ -says the barrister, somewhat contemptuously, ‘that means an immediate, -if not altogether undying, friendship.’ - -‘Yes,’ says Miss Manning. She feels a faint surprise. ‘It is not so -much, then, that she does not desire to know people, as that she refuses -to stir out of this place?’ - -‘That is how I take it. I wanted her very much to move about, to let -herself be known. Honestly’—colouring slightly—‘it is rather awkward for -me to have a tenant so very mysterious as she seems bent on being. I -urged her to declare herself at once as my tenant and wait events; but -she seemed so terrified at the idea of leaving these four walls that I -gave up the argument. Perhaps you may bring her to reason, or perhaps -the Rector and his youngsters may have the desired effect of putting an -end to this morbidity. By-the-by, I am going over to the Rectory after I -have introduced you to—’ - -‘Ella’ was on the tip of his tongue, but he substitutes ‘Miss Moore’ in -time. - -The very near slip renders him thoughtful for a moment or two. Why -should he have called her Ella? Had he ever thought of her as Ella? Most -positively never. - -He is so absorbed in his introspection that he fails to see a slight, -timid figure coming down the steps of the Cottage. Miss Manning touches -his arm. - -‘Is this Miss Moore?’ cries she, in an excited whisper. ‘Oh, what a -charming face!’ - -And, indeed, Ella is charming as she now advances—very pale, as if -frightened, and with her dark eyes glancing anxiously from Wyndham to -the stranger and back again. She has no hat on her head, and a sunbeam -has caught her chestnut hair and turned it to glistening gold. - -‘I hope you received my letter last night,’ says Wyndham, calling out to -her and hastening his footsteps. ‘You see’—awkwardly—‘I have -brought—brought you—’ He stops, waiting for Miss Manning to come up, and -growing hopelessly embarrassed. - -‘Your friend, my dear, I trust,’ says Miss Manning gently, taking the -girl’s hand in both her own and regarding her with anxious eyes. - -Ella flushes crimson. She has so dreaded, so feared, this moment, and -now this gentle, sad-eyed woman, with her soft voice and pretty -impulsive speech! Tears rise to the girl’s eyes. Nervously, yet eagerly, -she leans forward and presses her lips to Miss Manning’s fair, if -withered, cheek. - -Wyndham, congratulating himself on the success of his latest enterprise, -takes himself off presently to inspect a farm five miles farther out in -the country, that had been left to him by his mother, with the Cottage. -He has determined on taking the Rectory on his way back to meet the -evening train—to enlist further Mr. Barry’s sympathy for his tenant. He -tells himself, with a glow of self-satisfaction, that he is uncommonly -good to his tenant; but so, of course, he ought to be, that dying -promise to the Professor being sacred; and if it were not for the -affection he had always felt for that great dead man, he would beyond -doubt never have thought of her again.... There is much moral support in -this conclusion. - -Yes, he will spend half an hour at the Rectory. He can get back from the -farm in plenty of time for that, and Miss Manning being an old friend of -the Rector’s, the latter will be even more inclined to take up her -pupil, which will be a good thing for the poor girl. He repeats the -words ‘poor girl,’ and finds satisfaction in them. They seem to show how -entirely indifferent he is to her and her fortunes. That mental slip of -his awhile ago had alarmed him slightly. But ‘poor girl,’ to call her -that precludes the idea of anything like—pshaw! - -He dismisses the ‘poor girl’ from his mind forthwith, and succeeds -admirably in getting rid of her, whilst blowing up his other tenants on -the farm. But on his way back again to Curraghcloyne her memory once -more becomes troublesome. - -To-day, so far, things have gone well. She has seemed satisfied with -Miss Manning, and Miss Manning with her. And as for the fear of an -immediate scandal, that seems quite at rest. But in time the old worry -is sure to mount to the surface again. For example, when Mrs. Prior -hears of her—he wishes now, trudging grimly over the uneven road, that -he had not led that astute woman to believe his tenant was a man—as she -inevitably must, there will be a row on somewhere that will make the -welkin ring; and after that, good-bye to his chances with Lord -Shangarry, who has very special views about the right and the wrong. - -If only this silly girl could be persuaded to come out of her shell and -mingle with her kind, all might be got over after a faint wrestle or -two. But no! Angrily he tells himself that there is no chance of that. -Soft as she looks, and gentle, and lov—h’m—he kicks a stone out of his -way—and pleasant-looking, and all that, he feels absolutely sure that -nobody will be able to drag her out of her self-imposed imprisonment. - - * * * * * - -After this diatribe, it is only natural that he should, on entering the -Rectory garden, feel himself a prey to astonishment on seeing, amongst a -turbulent group upon the edges of the tennis-court, the ‘poor girl’ -laughing with all her heart. - -He stands still, within the shelter of the laurels, to ask himself if -his eyesight has failed him thus early in life. But his eyesight still -continues excellent, and when he sees the ‘poor girl’ pick up Tommy and -plant him on her knee, he knows that all is well with his visual organs. - -The fact is that, almost as he left the Cottage by the front-gate, Susan -had run across the road and hammered loudly at the little green one. -This primitive knocking had become a signal now with the Barrys and -Ella, and soon the latter had rushed to open the door. There had been -entreaties from Susan that she would come over now—now, at once—and have -a game of tennis with them. She did not know tennis. All the more reason -why she should begin to learn; and Aunt Jemima was quite pining to know -her. - -‘Yes, do come!’ - -‘No—no, I can’t. I have said I would never leave this place.’ - -‘Oh, that, of course; but—oh!—’ - -Here Susan breaks off abruptly. Who is that pretty, tall lady coming -down the path? It is Miss Manning, and Ella very shyly introduces Susan -to her. - -‘Miss Manning, tell her to come and play tennis with us this afternoon,’ -says Susan. ‘Not a soul but ourselves, and she’s very lonely here. -Father says she ought to see people.’ - -‘I think as your father does,’ says Miss Manning gently. - -‘And will you come too?’ asks Susan. ‘Aunt Jemima’—with born -courtesy—‘will come and see you to-morrow, but in the meantime—’ - -‘I am afraid I have some unpacking to do,’ says Miss Manning, smiling, -having fallen in love with Susan’s soft, flushed face and childish air. -‘But if you can persuade Ella—I know, my dear’—to Ella, who has turned a -sad face to hers, a face that has yet the longing for larger life upon -it—‘that you wish never to leave this place. But to go just across the -road.... And there is no one there, Miss Barry tells you; and it is only -a step or two, and’—smiling again—‘if you wish it, I’ll go over in an -hour and bring you back again.’ - -‘No, don’t do that,’ says Ella. ‘You are tired.’ She hesitates, then -looks out of the gateway, and up and down the lane. It is quite empty. -‘Well, I’ll come,’ says she, giving her hand to Susan. - -It is evidently a desperate resolve. Even as she says it, she makes a -last drawback, but Susan clings to her hand, and pulls her forward, and -together the girls run down the lane to the Rectory gate and into it, -Ella all the time holding Susan tightly, as if for protection. - -This was how it happened that Ella first left the shelter of the -Cottage. She was most kindly received by the Rector, who spared a moment -from his precious books to welcome her—and even agreeably by Aunt -Jemima. Ella had gone through the ordeal of these two introductions -shyly but quietly. She had, however, been a little startled at finding -that, added to the Barrys congregated on the lawn (a goodly number in -themselves), there was a strange gentleman. Crosby struck her at first -sight as being formidable—an idea that, if the young Barrys had known -it, would have sent them into hysterics of mirth. - -Crosby had strolled down early in the afternoon, and now Wyndham, -standing gazing amongst the shrubberies, can see him turn from Susan to -say something or other to Ella. - -Wyndham, in his voluntary confinement, feels a sharp pang clutch at his -breast. He stands still, as if unable to go on, watching the little -pantomime. - -Tommy is speaking now. The child’s voice rings clear and low. - -‘I’ll tell you a story.’ He has put up a little fat hand, and is -pinching Ella’s cheek. Ella has caught the little hand, and is kissing -it. How pretty! - -‘Silence!’ cries Crosby gaily. ‘Tommy is going to tell Miss Moore a -story.’ - -There seems something significant to Wyndham in his tone. Why should he -demand silence in that imperative manner, just because Miss Moore wishes -a story to be told to her? He hesitates no longer. He comes quickly -forward and up to the group. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVI. - - ‘To feel every prompting of pleasure, - To know every pulsing of pain; - To dream of Life’s happiest measure, - And find all her promises vain.’ - - -Susan sees him first, and, pushing Bonnie gently from her, rises to meet -him. - -‘How do you do?’ says she. - -‘That you, Wyndham?’ cries Crosby. ‘You are just in time to hear Tommy’s -story. Miss Moore has promised to lend him her support during the -recital.’ - -For all Crosby’s lightness of tone, there is a strange, scrutinizing -expression in his clever eyes as he looks at Wyndham. He knows that Ella -Moore’s presence here must prove a surprise to him; and how will he take -it? The girl seems well enough, but—And if Wyndham has been capable of -placing so close to this family of young, young people someone who— - -He is studying Wyndham very acutely. But all that he can make out of -Wyndham’s face is surprise, and something that might be termed -relief—nothing more. As for the girl, she is the one that looks -confused. She rises, holding Tommy by her side, and looks appealingly at -Wyndham. She would have spoken, perhaps, but that the Rector, who has -not yet gone back to his study, takes up the parable. - -‘We are very glad to have persuaded Miss Moore to come here to-day,’ -says he, in a tone to be heard by everyone. ‘She has told me that you -came down this morning, bringing Miss Manning with you. That will be a -source of pleasure to us all, I am quite sure.’ - -He bows his courteous old head as amiably as though Miss Manning over -the road could hear him. It is a tribute to her perfections. After this -he buttonholes Wyndham, and draws him apart a bit. - -‘She’s a nice girl, Wyndham—a nice girl, I really think. A most -guileless countenance! But not educated, you know. Betty and Susan—mere -children as they are—could almost teach her.’ - -The Rector sighs. He always regards his girls as having stood still -since his wife’s death. Children they were then, children they are now. -He has not seemed to live himself since her death. Since that, indeed, -all things have stood still for him. - -‘Yes. But she seems intelligent—clever,’ says Wyndham, a little coldly. - -‘I dare say. And now you have secured Miss Manning for her! That is a -wise step,’ says the Rector thoughtfully. ‘She owes you much, Wyndham. I -was glad when Susan persuaded her to come over here to-day. But I doubt -if she will consent to go further. She seems terrified at the thought of -being far from your—her home. Have you not yet discovered any trace of -that scoundrel Moore? The bond between them might surely be broken.’ - -‘There is no bond between them. Of that I am convinced,’ says Wyndham. - -‘I trust not—I trust not,’ says the Rector. He makes a little gesture of -farewell, and goes back to his beloved study, his head bent, his hands -clasped behind his back, as usual. - -‘We’re waiting for you, Mr. Wyndham,’ calls out Betty, arching her -slender neck to look over Dominick’s shoulder. The wind has caught her -fair, fluffy hair, and is ruffling it. - -‘Yes; come along, Wyndham,’ says Crosby. ‘Tommy’s story is yet to tell.’ - -‘Better have one from you instead, Mr. Crosby,’ says Susan hastily. She -knows Tommy. ‘You can tell us all about lions and niggers and things. -You’d like to hear of lions and niggers, Tommy’—in a wheedling -tone—‘wouldn’t you?’ - -Wyndham by this time has joined the group, and, scarcely knowing how, -finds himself sitting on half of a rug, the other half of which belongs -to his tenant. - -‘I want to tell my own story,’ says Tommy with determination. He is -evidently a boy possessed of much firmness, and one not to be ‘done’ by -anyone if he can help it. - -‘But, Tommy,’ persists Susan, who has dismal reasons for dreading his -literary efforts, ‘I think you had better not tell one just now. We—that -is—’ - -‘Oh, do let him tell it!’ says Ella softly. - -‘My dear Susan,’ says Crosby, ‘would you deprive us of an entertainment -so unique—one we may never enjoy again?’ - -‘Well, go on, Tommy,’ says Susan, resigning herself to the worst. - -‘There once was a man,’ begins Tommy; and pauses. Silence reigns around. -‘An’ he fell into a big bit of water.’ The silence grows profounder. -‘’Twas as big as this’—making a movement of his short arms a foot or so -from the ground. At this there are distinct groans of fear. ‘An’ he was -drownded—a little fish ate him.’ - -‘Oh, Tommy!’ says Susan, in woeful tones. She can now pretend to be -frightened with a free heart. Evidently Tommy’s story this time is going -to be of the mildest order. ‘He didn’t really eat him?’ - -‘He did—he did!’ says Tommy, delighted at Susan’s fright. ‘He ate him -all up—every bit of him!’ - -Here Susan lets her face fall into her hands, and Tommy relents. - -‘But he wasn’t killed,’ says he. He looks anxiously at Susan’s bowed -head. ‘No, he wasn’t.’ Susan lifts her head, and shakes it at him -reproachfully. ‘Well, he wasn’t, really,’ says Tommy again. This -repetition is not only meant as a help to Susan to mitigate her extreme -grief, but to give him pause whilst he makes up another chapter. - -‘Oh, are you sure?’ asks Susan tragically. - -‘I am. The fish swallowed him, but he came up again.’ - -‘Who gave the emetic?’ asks Dominick; but very properly no one attends -to him. - -‘Yes; well, what’s after that?’ asks Betty. - -‘Well—’ Tommy stares at the earth, and then, with happy inspiration, -adds: ‘The nasty witch got him.’ - -‘Poor old soul!’ says Carew. - -‘The witch, Tommy? But—’ - -‘Yes, the witch’—angrily. ‘An’ then the goat said—’ - -‘Goat! What goat?’ asks Ella very naturally, considering all things. - -‘That goat,’ says Tommy, who really is wonderful. He points his lovely -fat thumb down to where, in the distant field, a goat is browsing. His -wandering eye had caught it as he vaguely talked, and he had at once -embezzled it and twisted it into his imagination. - -‘Yes?’ says Susan, seeing the child pause, and trying to help him. ‘The -goat?’ - -‘The goat an’ the witch—’ Long pause here, and plain incapacity to -proceed. Tommy has evidently come face to face with a _cul de sac_. - -‘Hole in the ballad,’ says Dominick to Betty in a low tone. - -‘Go on, Tommy,’ says Susan encouragingly. Really, Tommy’s story is so -presentable this time that she quite likes to give him a lift, as it -were. - -‘Well, the witch fell down,’ says Tommy, goaded to endeavour, ‘an’ the -goat sat on her.’ - -‘Not on her,’ says Susan, with dainty protest. ‘You know you frightened -me once, Tommy, but now—’ - -‘Yes, they did, Susan—they did.’ In his excitement he has duplicated the -enemy. ‘They all sat down on her—every one of them, twenty of them.’ - -‘But, Tommy, you said there was only one goat.’ - -This is rash of Susan. - -‘I don’t care,’ cries Tommy, who is of a liberal disposition. ‘There was -twenty of them. An’ they all sat down on her, first on her stomach, -an’’—solemnly turning himself and clasping both his fat hands over the -seat of his small breeches—‘an’ then on her here.’ He lifts his hands -and smacks them down again. He indeed most graphically illustrates his -‘here.’ - -There is an awful silence. Susan, stricken dumb, sits silent. She knew -how it would be if she let that wretched child speak. - -Shamed and horrified, she draws back, almost praying that the earth may -open and swallow her up quick. She casts a despairing glance at Crosby, -to see how he has taken this horrible fiasco, before following Dathan -and Abiram; but what she sees in his face stops her prayers, and, in -fact, reverses them. - -Crosby is shaking with laughter, and now, as she looks, catches Tommy in -his arms and hugs him. - -Another moment and Betty breaks into a wild burst of laughter, after -which everyone else follows suit. - -‘I’m going to publish your story, Tommy, at any price,’ says Mr. Crosby, -putting Tommy back from him upon his knee, and gazing with interest at -that tiny astonished child. ‘There will be trouble with the publishers. -But I’ll get it done at all risks to life and limb. I don’t suppose I -shall be spoken to afterwards by any respectable person, but that is of -little moment when a literary gem is in question.’ - -Tommy, not understanding, but scenting fun, laughs gaily. - -‘I don’t think you ought to encourage him like that,’ says Susan, whose -pretty mouth, however, is sweet with smiles. - -‘One should always encourage a genius,’ says Crosby, undismayed. - -There is a little stir here. Tommy has wriggled out of Crosby’s lap and -has gone back to Ella, who receives him with—literally—open arms. - -Wyndham is watching her curiously. Her manner all through Tommy’s -absorbingly interesting tale has been a revelation to him. He has found -out for one thing that he has never heard her laugh before—at all -events, not like that. No, he has never heard her really laugh before, -and, indeed, perhaps poor Ella, in all her sad young life, has never -laughed like that until now. It has been to the shrewd young barrister -as though he has looked upon her for the first time to-day after quite -two months of acquaintance—he who prides himself, and has often been -complimented, on his knowledge of character, his grasp of a client’s -real mind from his first half-hour with him or her. - -Her mirth has astonished him. She, the pale, frightened girl, to laugh -like that! There has been no loudness in her mirth, either; it has been -soft and refined, if very gay and happy. She has laughed as a girl might -who has been born to happiness in every way—to silken robes and delicate -surroundings, and all the paraphernalia that go to make up the life of -those born into families that can count their many grandfathers. - -Once or twice he has told himself half impatiently—angry with the charge -laid upon his unwitting shoulders—that the girl is good-looking. Now he -tells himself something more: that she is lovely, with that smile upon -her face, as she sits—all unconscious of his criticism—with Tommy in her -arms, and - - ‘Eyes - Upglancing brightly mischievous, a spring - Of brimming laughter welling on the brink - Of lips like flowers, small caressing hands - Tight locked,’ - -around the lucky Tommy’s waist. - -But now she puts Tommy (who has evidently fallen a slave to her charms, -and repudiates loudly her right to give him away like this) down on his -sturdy feet, and comes a little forward to where Susan is standing. - -‘I’m afraid I must go now,’ says she. - -‘Oh, not yet,’ says Susan; ‘there is plenty of time. It isn’t as if you -had to drive five miles to get to your home.’ - -‘Still—I think—’ She looks so anxious that Susan, who is always -charming, understands her. - -‘If you must go,’ whispers she sweetly—‘if you would rather—well, then, -do go. But to-morrow, and every other day, you must come back to us. -Carew—’ - -‘I’m here,’ says Carew, coming up, and blushing as well as the best of -girls as he takes Ella’s hand. ‘I’ll see you home,’ says he. - -‘I don’t think it will be necessary,’ says Wyndham shortly. Then he -stops, confounded at his own imprudence, considering all the -circumstances. Yet the words have fallen from him without volition of -his own. ‘The fact is,’ says he quickly, ‘I too am going now, and will -be able to see Miss Moore safely within her gate.’ - -Carew frowns, and Susan comes to the rescue. - -‘We’ll all go,’ cries she gaily. - -‘The very thing,’ says Crosby. ‘That will give me a little more of your -society, as I also must drag myself away.’ - -The ‘your’ is so very general that nobody takes any notice of it, and -they all go up the small avenue together. - -‘You were surprised to see me here?’ says Ella in a nervous whisper to -Wyndham, who has doggedly taken possession of her, in spite of the -knowledge that such a proceeding will in the end tell against him. - -‘I confess I was’—stiffly. - -‘You are displeased?’ - -‘On the contrary, you know I always advised you to show yourself—to defy -your enemies. You can defy them, you know.’ - -‘Yes; but—I mean that, after all I said to you about my dislike, my -fear, of leaving the Cottage, you must think it queer of me to be here -to-day.’ - -‘I do not, indeed. I think it only natural that you should break through -such a melancholy determination. Besides, no doubt’—with increasing -coldness—‘you had an inducement.’ - -‘Yes, yes; I had,’ says she quickly. - -‘Ah!’ A pause. ‘Someone you have seen lately?’ - -‘Quite lately.’ - -Second pause, and prolonged. - -‘I suppose you will soon see a way out of all your difficulties?’ - -No doubt she had fallen in love with Crosby, and he with her, and— - -‘No; I don’t think there is any chance of that,’ says she mournfully. -‘But when Su—Miss Barry asked me to come here, I couldn’t resist it. You -can see for yourself what an inducement she is.’ - -Susan! is it only Susan? He pulls himself up sharply. Well, and if so, -where is the matter for rejoicing? Of course, being left in a sense her -guardian by the Professor, he is bound to feel an interest in her; but a -vague interest such as that should not be accompanied by this quick -relief, this sudden sensation of—of what? - -Dominick, just behind him, is singing at the top of his lungs—sound -ones: - - ‘As I walked out wid Dinah, - De other afternoon, - De day could not be finer, - Ho! de ring-tailed coon!’ - -He is evidently pointing this nigger melody at Betty, who has been rash -enough to go walking out with him. She has gone even farther. She has -condescended to sing a second to his exceedingly loud first, a stroke of -genius on her part, as it has taken the wind out of his sails so far as -his belief in his powers of teasing her (on this occasion, at all -events) are concerned. - -Mr. Wyndham takes the opportunity of the second verse coming to a -thrilling conclusion to break off his conversation with Ella. And now, -indeed, they are all at the little green gate, and are saying their -adieus to her. And presently they have all gone away again, and Ella, -standing inside, feels as if life and joy and all things have been shut -off from her with the locking of that small green gate. - - * * * * * - -‘Isn’t she pretty?’ cries Susan enthusiastically, when they have bidden -good-bye to Crosby and Wyndham too, and are back again on their own -small lawn. - -‘She’s a regular bud,’ says Dom, striking a tragic attitude. He doesn’t -mean anything really, but Carew, with darkling brow, goes up to him. - -‘I think you ought to speak more respectfully of her,’ says he. ‘It -isn’t because she is alone in the world that one should throw stones at -her.’ - -‘Betty, I appeal to you,’ says Dominick. ‘Did I throw a stone? Come, -speak up. I take this as a distinct insult. The man who would throw a -stone at a woman—He’s gone!’ says Mr. Fitzgerald, staring at Carew’s -disappearing form. ‘Well, I do call that mean. And I had arranged a -peroration that would have astonished the natives. Anyway, -Susan’—turning—‘what did I say to offend him? Called her a bud. Isn’t a -bud a nice thing? I declare he’s as touchy about her as though she were -his best girl.’ - -‘What’s a best girl?’ asks Betty. - -‘The one you like best.’ - -‘Well, perhaps she’s his’—growing interested. ‘Susan, I do believe he is -in love with her.’ - -‘Do you?’ says Susan thoughtfully. And then: ‘Oh no! Boys never fall in -love.’ - -‘Dom thinks they do,’ says Betty, turning a saucy glance on Fitzgerald. -She flings a rose at him. ‘Who’s your best girl?’ asks she. - -‘Need you ask?’ returns that youth with his most sentimental air. - -‘I don’t think I quite approve of her,’ says Miss Barry, joining in the -conversation at this moment, and shaking her curls severely; ‘I thought -her a little free this afternoon.’ - -‘Oh, auntie!’ - -‘Certainly, Susan! Most distinctly free.’ - -‘I thought her one of the gentlest and quietest girls I ever met,’ says -Carew, who has strolled back to them after his short ebullition of -temper—unable, indeed, to keep away. - -‘What do you know of girls?’ says Miss Barry scornfully. - -‘I’m sure she’s gentle,’ says Dominick, who is so devoted to Carew that -he would risk a great deal—even his friendship—to keep him out of -trouble, ‘and very, very good; because she is beyond all doubt most -femininely dull.’ - -‘Pig!’ says Betty, in a whisper. She makes a little movement towards -him, and a second later gets a pinch and a wild yell out of him. - -‘What I say I maintain,’ says Miss Barry magisterially. ‘She may be a -nice girl, a gentle girl, the grandest girl that was ever known—I’m the -last in the world to depreciate anyone—but who is she? That’s what I -want to know. And no one knows who she is. Perhaps of the lower classes, -for all we know. And, indeed, I noticed a few queer turns of speech. And -when I said she was free, Susan, I meant it. I heard her distinctly call -that child’—pointing to him—‘“Tommy.” Now, if she is, as I firmly -believe—your father is a person of no discrimination, you know—a person -of a lower grade than ourselves, didn’t it show great freedom to do -that? Yes, she distinctly said “Tommy.”’ - -‘Well, she didn’t say “Hell and Tommy,” any way,’ says Dominick, who -sometimes runs over to London to see the theatres. - -‘If she had,’ says Miss Barry with dignity—she has never seen the -outside of a theatre—‘I should have had no hesitation whatsoever in -sending for the sergeant and giving her in charge.’ - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVII. - - ‘She is outwardly - All that bewitches sense, all that entices, - Nor is it in our virtue to uncharm it.’ - - -It is a week later, and the village is now stirred to its depth. Such -gaieties! Such gaddings to and fro! Such wonderful tales of what Lady -Forster wore and Sir William said, and how Miss Prior looked. Gossip is -flowing freely, delightfully, and Miss Ricketty, whose shop is a general -meeting-place, is doing a roaring business in buns and biscuits. - -The Park, in fact, is full of guests. - -‘Every corner,’ says Miss Blake to Mrs. Hennessy, in a mysterious -whisper, ‘is full to overflowing. I hear that some of the servants have -to be accommodated outside the house, and that Mr. Crosby has painted -and papered and done up the loft over the stables in the latest Parisian -style for the maids and valets.’ - -‘My dear!’ says Mrs. Hennessy, in an awful tone—very justly shocked; -then, ‘You forget yourself, Maria!’ - -‘Faith I did,’ says Miss Blake, bursting into an irrepressible giggle. -‘Law, how funny y’are! But they’re safely divided, I’m told, one at one -side o’ the yard, the other at this, as it were. Like the High churches -we hear of in England. The goats and the sheep—ha, ha!’ - -‘But where are the maids?’ - -‘Over the stables at the western side, some of them.’ - -‘You don’t say so!’ says Mrs. Hennessy. ‘Bless me, but they wouldn’t -like—you know, the—er—the atmosphere!’ - -‘Oh, there’s ways of doing away with that too,’ says Miss Blake, with a -knowing air. ‘But you’ll come in for a cup of tea, won’t you? Jane’s -dyin’ to have a chat with you.’ - -Miss Blake is hardly to be trusted in matters such as these, her -imagination being extraordinarily strong. And, indeed, the idea of those -stables rose alone from her great mind. But although there are still -corners in the splendid old Hall to let, it must be confessed that it is -pretty full at present. - -Guests at the Park! Such a thing had not been heard of for many years. -Not for the last eight years, at all events. - -Then Crosby, who was about twenty-five, came home from Thibet, and his -sister Katherine, who was quite a girl—being six years his junior—had -been brought over from England by her aunt to freshen up her old love -for him, and to stay with him for his birthday. Not longer. The birthday -came off within the week of their arriving. Lady Melland was a woman of -Society, who hated earwigs, and early birds, and baa-lambs, and insisted -on bringing quite a big company ‘on tour’ with her on this -re-introduction of the brother to the sister, and had organized a -distinct rout at the Hall during her memorable stay. It had created a -fearful, if pleasurable, impression at the time, and people are -beginning now to wonder in this little village if Lady Forster will be a -worthy representative of her aunt. Or if perchance the aunt will again -take up the deal; for Lady Melland has, they say, come here with her. - -However, for once ‘they say’ is wrong. Katherine Crosby had married Sir -William Forster two years after the termination of that remarkable -visit, and nothing had been seen of her since that, until now. She had, -however, in between shaken off Lady Melland. - -She has brought an innumerable company in her train, thus justifying the -idea of Curraghcloyne that she would probably follow in her aunt’s -footsteps, and, as I have said, the village has waked to find itself no -longer deserted, but the centre of a very brilliant crowd. - -Yesterday was the first of August, Saturday, and a most unendurable one -on the small platform of the railway-station. Possibly during its brief -existence so many basket-trunks have never been laid upon its modest -flags before. To-day is Sunday, and possibly also the parish church has -never had so large a congregation within its whitewashed walls. Even the -Methodists, quite a large portion of the Curraghcloyne people, have -deserted their chapel for the orthodox church. Even Miss Ricketty has -been heard to say with distinct regret that she ‘wished she was a -Protestant for once.’ - -The Hall pews, which number four, and for which Mr. Crosby, during all -his wanderings, has paid carefully, are all filled, and the three seats -behind them again, that have vacant sittings in them, are all filled -also with the servants of the people in the four front seats. Never was -there such a display in the small church of Curraghcloyne! And it was -acknowledged afterwards by everyone in the town that though the Rector -did not ‘stir a hair,’ the curate was decidedly ‘onaisy.’ The curate was -unnerved beyond a doubt. He grew fatter and stouter as the service went -on, and he does not know to this day how he got through his sermon. He -says now, that people oughtn’t to spring people on one without a word of -preparation. - -Susan tried to keep her eyes off the Hall pews, but in spite of herself -her eyes wandered. Betty did not try to keep her eyes off at all, so -they wandered freely. She was able, half an hour later, to tell Susan -not only the number of guests Mr. Crosby had, but the exact colour of -each gown the women wore, and she told Susan privately that she thought, -if ever she were a rich woman, she would never let her servants wear red -ribbons in their bonnets in church. - -Mr. Haldane rushes through his sermon at the rate of an American liner, -and presently the service is over, and all move, with the cultivated -leisurely steps that are meant to hide the desire to run, towards the -open door. - -Some of the other Rectory people have gone through the side-door, and, -with Bonnie’s hand fast clasped in hers, Susan is following after them, -when a well-known voice calls to her: - -‘Susan, my sister wants very much to know you. Will you let me introduce -you to her?’ - -Susan turns her face, now delicately pink, and she sees a small, dainty, -pretty creature holding out her hand to her with the prettiest smile in -the world. - -Is this Mr. Crosby’s sister? - -‘How d’ye do?’ says Lady Forster, in a very clear if low voice. ‘George -was chanting your praises all last night, so naturally I have been -longing to see you. George’s friends, as a rule, are frauds; but—’ - -She pauses, evidently amused at the girl’s open surprise, not so much at -her words as at her appearance. - -‘I’m not a bit like George, am I?’ says she. - -No, she is not. Crosby is a big man, if anything, and she is the tiniest -creature. Her features are tiny too, but exquisitely moulded. The -coquettish mouth, the nose ‘tip-tilted like a flower,’ the well-poised -dainty head, the hands, the feet—all are small, and her figure slender -as a fairy’s. She is wonderfully pretty in a brilliant fashion, and her -bright eyes are alight with intelligence. She is altogether the last -person in the world Susan would have imagined as Crosby’s sister. And -yet there is certainly a likeness between them—a strange likeness—but, -of course, his sister should have been large and massive, not a little -thing like this. Susan has always told herself that she should be -dreadfully afraid of his sister—but to be afraid of this sister! - -Lady Forster, indeed, is one of those women who look as if they ought to -be called ‘Baby’ or ‘Birdie,’ but in reality she was named Katherine at -her birth, with a big and a stern K, not a C—which we all know is much -milder—and never did Susan hear her called anything less majestic by -anyone. Not even by her brother or her husband. And this was probably -because, beneath her charming butterfly air, there lay a good deal of -character and a strength of will hardly to be suspected in so slight a -creature. - -‘No,’ says Susan shyly. She smiles, and involuntarily tightens her -fingers on those she is holding—Lady Forster’s fingers. ‘But—’ A still -greater shyness overcomes her here, and she grows quite silent. The -‘but,’ however, is eloquent. - -‘You see, George! She thinks I am infinitely superior to you. How lovely -of her!’ She laughs at Susan and pats her hand. ‘You will come up and -lunch with us to-morrow, won’t you? It is George’s birthday. And -considering the slap you have given him just now, you can hardly refuse. -It will be a little sop to his pride, and that’s frightful! He thinks -himself a perfect joy! I’m told that in Darkest Africa the belles—’ - -Here Crosby gives her a surreptitious but vigorous nudge, and she breaks -off her highly-spiced and distinctly interesting, if slightly -unveracious, account of his doings in Uganda. - -‘What’s the matter with you?’ asks she, whispering, of her brother, who -whispers back to her many admonitory things. She turns again to Susan: -‘We shall expect you to-morrow, then. It will be a charity to enliven -us, as we hardly know what to do with ourselves, being strangers in a -strange land.’ - -‘Thank you,’ says Susan faintly. How on earth can she ever summon up -courage enough to go and lunch up there with all these fashionable -people? It is she who will be the stranger in a strange land. - -‘That is settled then,’ says Crosby quickly. Had he feared she would go -on to say something more—to say that she had an engagement? ‘I will call -for you at twelve.’ - -‘Oh no,’ says Susan. ‘I’—confusedly—‘I can walk up. It—it is too much -trouble.’ - -‘George doesn’t think so,’ says Lady Forster, with a faint grimace. ‘Is -this your brother?’ - -She bends in her quick way, and turns up Bonnie’s beautiful little face -and looks at it earnestly. - -‘What a face!’ cries she. ‘Is everyone beautiful down here? I shall come -and live here, George—no use in your putting me off! I’m determined. It -is a promise, then’—to Susan, smiling vivaciously—‘that you will come -to-morrow, and another day. We must arrange another day—you will bring -me up this small Adonis,’ patting Bonnie’s cheek as he smiles at her -(children love all things pretty) ‘to see me?’ - -‘I shall be very glad,’ says Susan tremulously. Then Lady Forster trips -away to rejoin her friends, who are standing beside the different -carriages, and quarrelling gaily as to who shall go home with whom, and -for a second Crosby is alone with Susan. - -‘You said it was a promise.’ - -‘Yes,’ says Susan, ‘but—I have not known any very—very—’ - -‘Smart folk,’ says Crosby, laughing. ‘Well, you’ll know them to-morrow, -and I expect you’ll be surprised how very little smart they are.’ - -‘But—’ - -‘There shan’t be a “but” in the world.’ - -‘It is only this’—miserably—‘that I shall be shy, and—’ - -‘Not a bit of it. And even if you are’—he looks at her—‘you may depend -on me. I’ll pull you through. But don’t be too shy, Susan. Extremes are -attractive things—fatally attractive sometimes.’ He pauses. ‘Well, so -much for the shyness, but what did your “and” mean?’ - -‘It meant,’ says Susan, with deep depression, ‘that they will all hate -me.’ - -‘I almost wish I could believe that.’ He laughs again as he says this, -and gives Bonnie’s ear a pinch, and follows his sister. Two minutes -later, as Susan rejoins her own people at the little gate that leads by -a short-cut to the Rectory, she sees him again, talking gaily, and -handing into one of the carriages a tall and very handsome girl, dressed -as Susan had never seen anyone dressed in all her life. It seems the -very perfection of dressing. She lingers a moment—a bare moment—but it -is long enough to see that he has seated himself beside the handsome -girl, and that he is still laughing—but this time with her—over some -reminiscence, as the carriage drives away. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVIII. - - ‘Anxiety is the poison of human life.’ - - -‘I suppose I’ll have to go,’ says Susan, who is evidently terrified at -the idea, crumpling up a small note between her fingers—a most courteous -little note sent by Lady Forster this morning, Monday, the third of -August, to ask Miss Barry’s permission for Susan to lunch at the Park. -She—Lady Forster—had met her charming niece yesterday, and had induced -her to promise to come to them on this, her brother’s birthday. And she -hoped Miss Barry had not quite forgotten her, but would remember that -she was quite an old friend, and let her come and see her soon. - -It is a pretty little note, and delights Miss Barry; yet Susan finds no -pleasure in it, and now sits glum and miserable. - -‘Go!’ cries Betty. ‘I should think so. Oh, you lucky girl!’ - -‘Would you like to go, Betty, if it were your case?’—this wistfully. Oh -that it were Betty’s case! - -‘Is there anything on earth that would keep me away?’ cries Betty -enthusiastically. ‘What fun you will have there! I know by Lady -Forster’s eyes that you are safe to have a good time. I -think’—gloomily—‘she might have asked me too.’ - -‘I wish she had,’ says Susan fervently. ‘If—I had one of you with me, I -should not feel half so nervous.’ - -‘What makes you nervous?’ asks Carew. - -‘Well, they are all strangers, for one thing—and besides’—rather -shamefacedly—‘they will be very big people, of course, and at luncheon -there will be entrées, and dishes, and things I have never even heard -of, and’—almost tearfully now—‘I shan’t know what to do.’ - -‘There are only two things to be remembered really,’ says Mr. Fitzgerald -slowly but forcibly. ‘One is not to pick your teeth with your fork, and -the other is even more important: for goodness’ sake, Susan, whatever -you do, don’t eat your peas with your knife. All that sort of thing has -gone out—has been unfashionable for quite a year or more.’ - -‘Oh, it’s all very well for you to make fun of it,’ says Susan -resentfully. ‘You haven’t to go there.’ - -‘And is that what you call “well for me”? I wish I was going there, if -only to look after your manners, which evidently, by your own account of -them, leave a great deal to be desired. By-the-by, there is one thing -more I should like to impress upon you before you start: never, Susan—no -matter how sorely tempted—put your feet on the table-cloth. It is quite -a solecism nowadays, and—’ - -‘If you won’t go away, I shall,’ says Susan, rising with extreme -dignity. But he leans forward, and catching the tail of her gown just as -she is gaining her feet, brings her with a jerk to her sitting position -again. After which they all laugh irrepressibly, and the _émeute_ is at -an end. - -‘What a lot of servants they had in church!’ says Betty, alluding to the -all-absorbing guests at the Park. ‘I suppose that tall woman was Lady -Forster’s maid?’ ‘Yes, and the little woman was Mrs. Prior’s. By the -way, that squares matters. Mrs. Prior has grown several yards since last -year.’ - -‘It seemed to me that each maid sat behind her own mistress.’ - -‘So as to keep her eye on her. And very necessary too, no doubt.’ - -‘Did you see that pale young man, ever so thin and wretched-looking, but -so conceited? His hair was nearly down to his waist, and he hadn’t any -chin to speak of.’ - -‘Oh, that!’ cries Betty eagerly. ‘That’s the poet. Yes, he is, Susan. -He’s a real poet. Miss Ricketty told me about him yesterday. He has -written sonnets and whole volumes of things, and is quite a poet. Miss -Ricketty says that’s why his hair grows like that.’ - -‘Samson must have been the laureate of his time,’ says Dominick -thoughtfully. - -‘So that was the poet,’ says Susan, who had heard of his coming from -Crosby. ‘Well, he certainly looked queer enough for anything. I -wonder’—nervously—‘who was the tall girl sitting next to Mr. Crosby?’ - -This was the tall girl with whom Crosby had driven away. - -‘I don’t know,’ says Betty. ‘Wasn’t she pretty? And wasn’t she -beautifully dressed? Oh, Susan, didn’t you want to see yourself in a -gown like that?’ - -‘No,’ says Susan shortly. - -‘Well, I did. I wanted to know how I’d look.’ - -‘As if you didn’t know,’ says Dominick encouragingly. ‘Like Venus -herself!’ - -‘I never heard she had her frocks from Paris,’ says Betty, hunching up -an unkind little shoulder against him. - -‘You’ve heard so little, you see,’ says Dom, with gentle protest. ‘Now, -as a fact, Venus had her frocks made by—’ - -‘Well?’ with a threatening air. - -‘Miss Fogerty,’ naming Betty’s own dressmaker. - -‘Pshaw!’ says that slim damsel contemptuously. ‘However, Susan, that -girl was pretty, any way. I wonder who she was? Had she a maid, I -wonder? There was a dark-looking woman amongst the servants farther on, -just behind the poet. Perhaps it was hers.’ - -‘Oh no,’ says Dom gravely, ‘that was his.’ - -‘His?’ - -‘The poet’s. Yes.’ - -‘Nonsense!’ says Betty. ‘What would he want a maid for?’ - -‘To comb his locks and copy his sonnets,’ says Dom, without blinking. - -‘Nonsense! Men don’t have maids,’ says Betty, who seems to know all -about it. - -‘Oh, here is someone from the Park,’ cries Jacky suddenly. - -‘Is it Mr. Crosby or Lady Forster?’ asks Susan anxiously. - -‘Both of ’em,’ says Jacky, in his own sweet laconic style. - -The smart little cart, with its wonderful pair of ponies, rattled up to -the door, and Miss Barry, who had known that someone would come to fetch -Susan, and had therefore put on her best bib and tucker, emerged from -the flower-crowned porch of the Rectory to receive Lady Forster, her old -face wreathed in smiles. It was sweet to her to see Susan accepted and -admired by the Park people. ‘Our own sort of people’ proudly thought the -poor old maid, who had struggled with much poverty all her life. - -And Lady Forster was quite charming to her, insisting on going to see -the old garden again, ‘which she quite remembered.’ Lady Forster had -never stuck at a tarradiddle or two, and was, after seeing it, genuinely -enthusiastic over its old-fashioned charms. Might she bring her friends -to see it? They had never, never seen anything so lovely! It would be a -charity to show them something human, these benighted town-people. To -hear her, one would imagine she despised the town herself, whereas, as a -fact, she could never live for six months out of it. - -Miss Barry was elated—so elated, indeed, that she took a dreadful step. -She invited Lady Forster and all her friends to tea the next Friday, -without a thought as to the consequences—until afterwards! Lady Forster -accepted the invitation with effusion. There was no getting out of it, -Miss Barry felt during that dreadful ‘afterwards.’ - -Meantime Susan had found herself, comparatively speaking, alone with -Crosby, when she came downstairs after putting on her best gown and hat. -She had brought something with her besides the best gown and hat; a -little silken bag, made out of a bit of lovely old brocade she had -begged from Miss Barry a month ago. She had cut it out, and stitched it, -and filled it with lavender-seeds, and worked on it at odd moments when -no one but Betty could see her (she was afraid of the boys’ jokes) the -words: ‘Mr. Crosby, from Susan.’ - -At first she had thought of buying something for him—something at Miss -Ricketty’s, who really had, at times, quite wonderful things down from -Dublin, but her soul revolted from that. What could she buy him that he -would care for? And besides, to buy a thing for a person one liked, and -one who had been so good to Bonnie! No; she could not. It seemed cold, -unkind. So she decided on the little bag that was to lie in his drawer -and perfume his handkerchiefs, and tell him sometimes of her—yes, her -love for him! Because she did love him, if only for his goodness to the -children, and to her Bonnie first of all. - -She had been afraid to run the gauntlet of the boys’ criticisms, but -Betty she clung to. A confidante one must have sometimes, or die. - -‘You know he told me, Betty, when his birthday would be.’ - -‘Yes. So clever of him!’ said Betty, who, if she were at the point of -death, could not have refrained from a joke. - -‘Well, he has been good to the chicks, hasn’t he? To darling Bonnie -especially.’ - -‘Oh, he has—he has indeed,’ Betty declared remorsefully, melting at the -thought of the little crippled brother who is so inexpressibly dear to -them all. - - * * * * * - -Betty had hurried up with Susan to get her into her best things, and -then had given her sound advice. - -‘Give it to him now, Susan. Lady Forster’—glancing out of the window—‘is -talking to Aunt Jemima. Hurry down and give it to him at once. It is the -sweetest bag. No one’—giggling—‘can say less than that for it. It’s -quite crammed with lavender.’ - -‘Yes, I will,’ says Susan valiantly. - -She doesn’t, however. She hesitates, and is, as usual, lost. She tries -and tries to take that little bag out of her pocket and give it to him, -but her courage fails her. And presently Lady Forster carries her off, -and now the Park is reached, and she finds herself in the lovely, sunny -drawing-room, and after a while in the dining-room, and still that -little fragrant bag lies perdu. - -Susan glances shyly round her. Sir William Forster, a tall young man -with a kindly eye, takes her fancy at once, and there is a big girl over -there and a big woman here (they must be mother and daughter), who make -her wonder a great deal about their strange garments. Mrs. Prior is -here, too, and Miss Prior—Mr. Wyndham’s people. And at the opposite side -of the table Mr. Wyndham himself. Beside him sits the poet, a lachrymose -young man with long hair and a crooked eye, and the name of Jones. No -wonder he looks depressed! - -He has got his best eye fixed immovably on Susan, who seems to appeal -even to his high ideal of beauty—and, indeed, throughout the day she -suffers a good deal, off and on, from his unspoken, but quite open, -adoration of her. Poets never admire: they adore. And for a simple -country maiden this style is somewhat embarrassing. On Mr. Crosby’s -right hand is sitting the tall and beautiful girl, with the pale roses -near her throat, with whom he had driven home from church on Sunday. It -seems all quite clear to Susan. Yes, this is the girl he is going to -marry. But a girl so beautiful as that could make anyone happy. She had -heard someone call her Lady Muriel. Rank and beauty and sweetness—all -are for him. And surely he deserves them all; and that is why she is at -his right hand. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIX. - - ‘Thou didst delight mine ear, - Ah! little praise; thy voice - Makes other hearts rejoice, - Makes all ears glad that hear, - And shout my joy. But yet, - O song, do not forget.’ - - -Susan is seated beside a very fashionably-dressed girl with an extremely -good-humoured face, and Captain Lennox—a man of about thirty or -thereabouts—who seems to find pleasure in an every two minutes’ -contemplation of her young and charming face. In this, the good-humoured -looking girl—Miss Forbes—is not a whit behind Captain Lennox, she too -seeming to be delighted with Susan. And, indeed, everyone seems to have -fallen in love with pretty Susan, for presently the stately young beauty -sitting next to Crosby, who has come in a little late for luncheon, -whispers something to him, and then looks smilingly at Susan. Crosby, in -answer to her words, says quietly: - -‘Susan—Lady Muriel Kennedy is very anxious to know you. Miss Barry, Lady -Muriel.’ - -‘I went past your charming old home yesterday,’ says Lady Muriel, in -tones barely above a whisper, but which seem to carry a long distance. -‘I quite wanted to go in, but I was afraid.’ - -‘Well, you’ll be able to satiate your curiosity on Friday,’ says Lady -Forster, ‘as we have been asked to tea on that day at the Rectory.’ - -‘How delightful!’ says Lady Muriel. - -‘Your house is quite close to the Cottage, is it not, Miss Barry?’ asks -Mrs. Prior. ‘My nephew’s place, you know’—nodding at Wyndham, who -changes colour perceptibly. Good heavens! what is going to happen next? - -‘Yes,’ says Susan; ‘only the road divides us.’ - -‘Then you can tell us about Mr. Wyndham’s new tenant. You’—smiling -archly—‘are quite an old friend of my nephew’s, eh?’ It is quite safe to -make a jest of the friendship with this insignificant little country -girl, as, of course, Paul, or any other man of consequence, would not -waste a thought over her. - -‘Almost, indeed,’ says Susan. ‘But as to the tenant—’ - -Crosby drops a spoon, and Susan, a little startled, turns her head. It -is not on him, however, her eyes rest, but on Wyndham, who is looking at -her with a strange expression. Is it imploring, despairing, or what? It -checks her, at all events. - -‘I know very little,’ she murmurs faintly. - -‘Been flirting with him,’ thinks Mrs. Prior promptly. ‘All country girls -are so vulgar. Any new man.... And I dare say this tenant of Paul’s is -by no means a nice man either.’ - -There might have been a slight awkwardness here, but providentially Lady -Forster, who is never silent for two minutes together, breaks into the -gap. - -‘What’s this, George?’ asks she, peering into a dish before her. ‘Are -you prepared to guarantee it? It’s your cook, you know, not mine. Looks -dangerous, and therefore tempting; and any way, one can only die once. -Oh! is that you?’—to a late man who has strolled in. ‘Been losing -yourself as usual? Come over here and sit beside me, you innocent -lamb’—patting the empty chair near her—‘and I’ll look after you. I’ll -give you one of these’—pointing to the dish—‘I hate to die alone. What -on earth are they?’—glancing at the little brown curled-up things that -seem filled with burnt crumbs. ‘Will they go off, George? Bombs, eh?’ - -Here the butler murmurs something to her in a discreet tone. - -‘Oh, mushrooms! Good gracious, then why don’t they try to look like -them!’ - -‘Have you any brothers?’ asks Miss Forbes, turning to Susan. - -‘Don’t answer,’ says Captain Lennox. ‘She’s always asking after one’s -brothers. Tell me, instead, how many sisters you have. Much more -interesting. I love people’s sisters.’ - -‘I’m George’s sister,’ says Lady Forster, glancing at him thoughtfully. - -‘And my wife!’ says Sir William, with such an over-assumption of marital -authority that they all laugh, and his wife throws a pellet of bread at -him. - -Susan grows thoughtful, filled with a slight amazement. She had been -nervous, almost distressed, at the idea of having to lunch at the Park. -Its habitués, she told herself, would be very grand folk, and clever, -and learned, and would talk very far above her little countrified head. -And now how is it? Why, after all, they are more like Dom in his -queerest moods than anything else. - -‘What shall we do after luncheon?’ says Lady Forster. ‘I am willing to -chaperon anybody.’ She glances at Lady Muriel, and Susan intercepts the -glance. - -Is it Lady Muriel and Mr. Crosby she is thinking of chaperoning? - -‘Oh, I like your idea of supervision,’ says the Guardsman who has come -in late, and who is called Lord Jack by everybody, only because, as -Susan discovers afterwards, his name is Jack Lord. This, naturally, is -inevitable. ‘You once undertook to chaperon me, and let me in for about -the most _risqué_ situation of my life. I came out of it barely alive, -and very nearly maimed.’ - -‘Yes—I don’t think Katherine would make a very excellent chaperon,’ says -Mrs. Prior, who likes Crosby, but cordially detests his sister. - -‘What a slander!’ cries Lady Forster; ‘easy to see you don’t understand -me! I’m a splendid chaperon—a born one. Always half a mile ahead—or else -in the rear. One should always be ahead if possible, as it gives the -poor creatures a chance of getting up to you in an honourable way, if -the enemy should come in sight. Whereas the turning and running back -business always looks so bad. No, better be in front of them. I’m going -to write a little treatise on the art of chaperoning for all -right-minded married women—and I hope you will accept a copy, dear Mrs. -Prior.’ - -‘I don’t expect I shall get one,’ says Mrs. Prior, with a distinct -sneer. - -‘Oh, you shall indeed, “honest Injun,”’ says Lady Forster. ‘You’ll be -delighted with it.’ - -‘I feel sure of that,’ says Captain Lennox in an aside to Miss Forbes. - -‘But really what shall we do this afternoon, George?’ asks his sister; -‘ride—drive?’ She has left her seat, and has perched herself on the arm -of the handsome old chair in which her husband is sitting at the foot of -the table. - -‘What about the Abbey, Bill?’ asks Crosby, addressing his -brother-in-law. - -‘No use in asking “Billee Barlow” anything,’ says that young man’s wife. -‘He hasn’t an idea on earth. Have you, Billee? And the Abbey is miles -off, and— Do you ride, Susan? I am going to call you Susan, if I may.’ - -She pauses just long enough to give Susan time to smile a pleased, if -shy, assent. - -‘Susan is so pretty,’ says Captain Lennox absently. - -‘Eh?’ says Crosby quickly, and with a suspicion of a frown. - -‘Very, very pretty,’ repeats Lennox fervently. - -Crosby glances at Susan. This absurd joke, this jest on her name—with -anyone else here it would be a jest only, but Susan—would she.... Her -colour is faintly, very faintly accentuated, and she is looking straight -at Lennox. - -‘My name?’ says she, taking up the meaning he had not meant. ‘Do you -really think it pretty? The boys and Betty despise it.’ - -Her gentle dignity goes home to all. Crosby is indignant with Lennox, -and, indeed, so is Sir William. Sir William’s wife, however, I regret to -say, is convulsed with laughter. - -‘It is certainly not a name to be despised,’ says Lennox courteously, -who is now a little ashamed of himself. - -‘I like to be called by my Christian name,’ says a singularly -young-looking married woman. ‘Puts people out so. They never know -whether you are married or not for the first half-hour, at all events.’ - -They are now in a body strolling into the drawing-rooms, and Miss Forbes -has gone back to her cross-examination of Susan. - -‘Four brothers? So many? And all grown up?’ - -‘Oh no! Carew is the eldest, and he is only seventeen. But we have a -cousin living with us, and he is twenty.’ - -‘What lovely ages!’ cries Lady Forster. ‘George, why didn’t you tell me -about Susan’s boys? You know I adore boys. Susan, you must bring them up -to-morrow. Do you hear?’ - -‘They will be so glad,’ says Susan; ‘do you know’—blushing shyly and -divinely—‘they were quite envious of me because I was coming here -to-day.’ - -‘Oh! why didn’t you bring them with you? Seventeen and twenty—the nicest -ages in the world!’ - -‘Certainly not the nicest,’ says Lennox, who is a born tease. ‘You, Miss -Barry’—looking at Susan—‘are thirteen, aren’t you?’ - -‘Oh no; much, much more than that!’ says Susan, laughing. Strangely -enough, she has begun to feel quite a liking for her tormentor, divining -with the wisdom of youth that his saucy sallies are filled with mischief -only, and no venom. ‘I was eighteen last May.’ - -‘How very candid!’ says Miss Prior, whose own age is growing uncertain, -and who is feeling a little bitter over the attention paid to Susan. If -Paul should prove inconstant, there is always the master of the Park to -fall back upon, or so she has fondly hoped till now. But there is no -denying the fact that Crosby has been very anxious all this afternoon -about Susan’s happiness. - -‘Nonsense!’ says Lennox. ‘Tell that to—well, to somebody else.’ - -‘But that’s what I am really,’ says Susan, who is secretly disgusted at -being thought thirteen. ‘I was born in—’ - -‘Don’t tell that,’ says Lady Forster, putting up her finger. ‘It will be -fatal twenty years hence.’ - -‘Still, I’m not thirteen,’ says Susan, with gentle protest. ‘And I think -anyone could see that I’m not.’ - -‘I could, certainly,’ says Crosby, coming to the rescue. ‘In my opinion, -anyone that looked at you would know at once that you were forty.’ - -At this they laugh, and Susan casts her so very unusual ire behind her. - -‘You will bring up the boys to-morrow, then?’ says Lady Forster, who is -always chattering. ‘And we’ll go for a long drive, and have a gipsy tea. -That will be better than nothing. And as we go Susan shall show us the -bits. No use in depending on George for that. He knows nothing of the -scenery round here, or any other scenery for the matter of that, except -African interiors, kraals, and nasty naked nigger women, and that. So -immodest of him! He’ll come to grief some day. We can go somewhere for a -gipsy tea to-morrow, can’t we, George? I’m dying to light a fire.’ - -‘What, another!’ says Lord Jack, regarding her with a would-be -woe-begone air. He lays his hand lightly on his heart. - -‘It’s going to rain, I think,’ says Sir William presently; he is -standing in one of the windows. - -‘“Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!”’ exclaims Miss Forbes. ‘What a thing -to say!’ - -‘It always rains in Ireland, doesn’t it?’ asks Lady Muriel, in her soft, -low voice. - -‘Oh no—no indeed!’ cries Susan eagerly. ‘Does it, Mr. Crosby?’ - -‘Certainly not. Lady Muriel must prolong her stay here’—smiling at the -beautiful girl leaning in a picturesque attitude against the -window-shutter—‘and take back with her a more kindly view of our -climate.’ - -Yes; it is quite settled, thinks Susan. He loves her, and she—of course -she loves him. And he wants her to prolong her stay, most naturally. And -most naturally, too, he would like her to take back to England a kindly -impression of her future home, of her future climate. Oh, how pretty, -how lovely she is! - -Heavily, heavily beat the raindrops on the window-pane. - -‘Never mind,’ says Lady Forster, whom nothing daunts; ‘we’ll have a -dance. You love dancing, Susan, don’t you? Come along, then. Take your -partners all, and let’s waltz into the music-room.’ - -In a second Susan finds Captain Lennox’s arm round her waist, and -through the halls and the library they dance right into the music-room -beyond. After her comes Crosby with Lady Muriel, and after them Lady -Forster with—no, not Lord Jack, after all, but Sir William. - -And now the big woman whom Susan had noticed at luncheon has seated -herself at the piano, and the poet has caught up a fiddle, and if the -big woman can do nothing else on earth, she can at least play dance -music to perfection, and the poet, ‘poor little fellow,’ as Susan calls -him to herself—if he could only have heard her!—does not make too many -false notes on the fiddle, so that she dances very gaily, feeling as if -her feet are treading on air, and answering Captain Lennox’s whispered -honeyed words with soft smiles and hurried breathing. Oh, how lovely it -all is! And, oh, how happy Lady Muriel is going to be! - -The waltz has come to an end, and now Crosby is standing before her. And -now his arm is round her waist, and he—oh yes, there is no doubt of -it—he dances even better than Captain Lennox, and it is good of him, -too, to spare so much time from the lovely Lady Muriel. - -‘Susan,’ says Crosby, as they pause at the end of the room, ‘I consider -your conduct distinctly immoral! The way you have been going on—’ - -‘Who—I?’ - -‘Yes, you! Don’t attempt to deny it. Your open flirtation with Lennox—’ - -‘What?’ Susan lifts her dewy eyes to his. Suddenly she breaks into the -merriest laughter. ‘You’re too funny for anything,’ says she. - -‘Not for another dance, I hope.’ He laughs too, and so gaily. And again -his arm is round her, and away they go once more, dancing to the big -lady’s happiest strains. There is a conservatory off the music-room, and -into this he leads her presently. - -‘You have no flowers,’ says he. ‘I must give you some. These roses will -suit you.’ - -‘They suit Lady Muriel too,’ says Susan, remembering. - -‘Yes? Oh yes! I gave them to her this morning. Well, it shan’t be roses, -then. These pink begonias?’ - -‘I should like those better,’ says Susan; she takes them tranquilly. It -is, of course, quite right that he should wish to give her flowers -different from those he has just given his _fiancée_. She had reminded -him just in time. - -Crosby is thankful for her suggestion, but for very different reasons. -He had forgotten about Lady Muriel’s roses, and to give her the same— - -‘The rain is clearing away,’ says he, looking out of the window. -‘Still’—as if to himself—‘I think we had better take an umbrella.’ - -‘An umbrella?’ - -‘On our way home.’ - -‘Mr. Crosby’—eagerly—‘you need not take me home. You must not. There is -really no necessity. Oh!’—anxiously, thinking of Lady Muriel and his -desire to be with her—‘I hope you won’t come.’ - -‘That is not very civil, Susan, is it?’ says he, smiling. He pauses and -looks suddenly at her, a new expression growing in his eyes. ‘Of course, -if you have arranged to go home with anyone else—’ - -‘No—no indeed. But to take you away from your guests—’ - -‘My guests will live without me for half an hour, I have no doubt.’ His -tone is quite its old joyous self again. ‘And I promised your aunt to -see that you got safely back to her, and, as the children say, “a -promise is a promise.” Here are your begonias. Shall I fasten them in -for you?’ - -He arranges them under her pretty chin, she holding up her head to let -him do it, and then they go back to the music-room, where Sir William -catches him and carries him off for something or other. Susan, sinking -into a chair, finds Josephine Prior almost immediately beside her. - -‘Those pretty begonias!’ says she. ‘How they suit you, though hardly -your frock! Of course’—with elephantine archness—‘I need not ask who -gave them to you. Mr. Crosby is always showering little favours on his -women friends. Those roses to Lady Muriel’—Susan holds her breath a -moment—‘and these begonias to you, and opera-tickets to others, and last -night such a delicious box of _marron glaces_ to me.’ She forgets to add -that he gave a similar box to each of his lady guests, having run up to -Dublin in the morning and brought them back with him from Mitchell’s. - -‘I declare the sun is coming out at last,’ says Lady Forster. ‘It is -going to be a glorious evening. What a swindle! We have been quite done -out of our day. I do call that maddening. Never mind, we must make up -for it to-night. We will have—what shall we have, Dolly?’—to Miss -Forbes. ‘A pillow scuffle? Yes; that will be the very thing. And, Susan, -you shall stay and sleep and help us. And we’ll get the boys up. They -would be splendid at it, and give even us points, I shouldn’t wonder.’ - -‘I have promised Miss Barry,’ says Crosby, in a distinct tone, ‘to take -Susan home this evening at six, and I’m afraid it is rather after that -now. Will you go and put on your hat, Susan?’ - - - END OF VOL. II. - - - BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - 3. 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