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diff --git a/1278-0.txt b/1278-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0b4def --- /dev/null +++ b/1278-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3367 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1278 *** + +PENELOPE'S ENGLISH EXPERIENCES + +Being extracts from the commonplace book of Penelope Hamilton + +by Kate Douglas Wiggin. + + + + + To my Boston friend Salemina. + + No Anglomaniac, but a true Briton. + + + +Contents. + + Part First--In Town. + + I. The weekly bill. + II. The powdered footman smiles. + III. Eggs a la coque. + IV. The English sense of humour. + V. A Hyde Park Sunday. + VI. The English Park Lover. + VII. A ducal tea-party. + VIII. Tuppenny travels in London. + IX. A Table of Kindred and Affinity. + X. Apropos of advertisements. + XI. The ball on the opposite side. + XII. Patricia makes her debut. + XIII. A Penelope secret. + XIV. Love and lavender. + + Part Second--In the Country. + + XV. Penelope dreams. + XVI. The decay of Romance. + XVII. Short stops and long bills. + XVIII. I meet Mrs. Bobby. + XIX. The heart of the artist. + XX. A canticle to Jane. + XXI. I remember, I remember. + XXII. Comfort Cottage. + XXIII. Tea served here. + XXIV. An unlicensed victualler. + XXV. Et ego in Arcadia vixit. + + + + +Part First--In Town. + + + +Chapter I. The weekly bill. + + +Smith's Hotel, + +10 Dovermarle Street. + +Here we are in London again,--Francesca, Salemina, and I. Salemina is +a philanthropist of the Boston philanthropists limited. I am an artist. +Francesca is-- It is very difficult to label Francesca. She is, at her +present stage of development, just a nice girl; that is about all: the +sense of humanity hasn't dawned upon her yet; she is even unaware that +personal responsibility for the universe has come into vogue, and so she +is happy. + +Francesca is short of twenty years old, Salemina short of forty, I short +of thirty. Francesca is in love, Salemina never has been in love, I +never shall be in love. Francesca is rich, Salemina is well-to-do, I am +poor. There we are in a nutshell. + +We are not only in London again, but we are again in Smith's private +hotel; one of those deliciously comfortable and ensnaring hostelries in +Mayfair which one enters as a solvent human being, and which one leaves +as a bankrupt, no matter what may be the number of ciphers on one's +letter of credit; since the greater one's apparent supply of wealth, +the greater the demand made upon it. I never stop long in London +without determining to give up my art for a private hotel. There must be +millions in it, but I fear I lack some of the essential qualifications +for success. I never could have the heart, for example, to charge a +struggling young genius eight shillings a week for two candles, and +then eight shillings the next week for the same two candles, which the +struggling young genius, by dint of vigorous economy, had managed to +preserve to a decent height. No, I could never do it, not even if I were +certain that she would squander the sixteen shillings in Bond Street +fripperies instead of laying them up against the rainy day. + +It is Salemina who always unsnarls the weekly bill. Francesca spends an +evening or two with it, first of all, because, since she is so young, +we think it good mental-training for her, and not that she ever +accomplishes any results worth mentioning. She begins by making three +columns headed respectively F., S., and P. These initials stand for +Francesca, Salemina, and Penelope, but they resemble the signs for +pounds, shillings, and pence so perilously that they introduce an added +distraction. + +She then places in each column the items in which we are all equal, such +as rooms, attendance, fires, and lights. Then come the extras, which are +different for each person: more ale for one, more hot baths for another; +more carriages for one, more lemon squashes for another. Francesca's +column is principally filled with carriages and lemon squashes. You +would fancy her whole time was spent in driving and drinking, if you +judged her merely by this weekly statement at the hotel. + +When she has reached the point of dividing the whole bill into three +parts, so that each person may know what is her share, she adds the +three together, expecting, not unnaturally, to get the total amount of +the bill. Not at all. She never comes within thirty shillings of the +desired amount, and she is often three or four guineas to the good or to +the bad. One of her difficulties lies in her inability to remember +that in English money it makes a difference where you place a figure, +whether, in the pound, shilling, or pence column. Having been educated +on the theory that a six is a six the world over, she charged me with +sixty shillings' worth of Apollinaris in one week. I pounced on the +error, and found that she had jotted down each pint in the shilling +instead of in the pence column. + +After Francesca had broken ground on the bill in this way, Salemina, on +the next leisure evening, draws a large armchair under the lamp and puts +on her eye-glasses. We perch on either arm, and, after identifying our +own extras, we summon the butler to identify his. There are a good +many that belong to him or to the landlady; of that fact we are always +convinced before he proves to the contrary. We can never see (until he +makes us see) why the breakfasts on the 8th should be four shillings +each because we had strawberries, if on the 8th we find strawberries +charged in the luncheon column and also in the column of desserts and +ices. And then there are the peripatetic lemon squashes. Dawson calls +them 'still' lemon squashes because they are made with water, not with +soda or seltzer or vichy, but they are particularly badly named. 'Still' +forsooth! when one of them will leap from place to place, appearing +now in the column of mineral waters and now in the spirits, now in the +suppers, and again in the sundries. We might as well drink Chablis or +Pommery by the time one of these still squashes has ceased wandering, +and charging itself at each station. The force of Dawson's intellect is +such that he makes all this moral turbidity as clear as crystal while +he remains in evidence. His bodily presence has a kind of illuminating +power, and all the errors that we fancy we have found he traces to their +original source, which is always in our suspicious and inexperienced +minds. As he leaves the room he points out some proof of unexampled +magnanimity on the part of the hotel; as, for instance, the fact that +the management has not charged a penny for sending up Miss Monroe's +breakfast trays. Francesca impulsively presses two shillings into his +honest hand and remembers afterwards that only one breakfast was served +in our bedrooms during that particular week, and that it was mine, not +hers. + +The Paid Out column is another source of great anxiety. Francesca is a +person who is always buying things unexpectedly and sending them home +C.O.D.; always taking a cab and having it paid at the house; always +sending telegrams and messages by hansom, and notes by the Boots. + +I should think, were England on the brink of a war, that the Prime +Minister might expect in his office something of the same hubbub, +uproar, and excitement that Francesca manages to evolve in this private +hotel. Naturally she cannot remember her expenditures, or extravagances, +or complications of movement for a period of seven days; and when she +attacks the Paid Out column she exclaims in a frenzy, 'Just look at +this! On the 11th they say they paid out three shillings in telegrams, +and I was at Maidenhead!' Then because we love her and cannot bear to +see her charming forehead wrinkled, we approach from our respective +corners, and the conversation is something like this:-- + +Salemina. “You were not at Maidenhead on the 11th, Francesca; it was the +12th.” + +Francesca. “Oh! so it was; but I sent no telegrams on the 11th.” + +Penelope. “Wasn't that the day you wired Mr. Drayton that you couldn't +go to the Zoo?” + +Francesca. “Oh yes, so I did: and to Mr. Godolphin that I could. I +remember now; but that's only two.” + +Salemina. “How about the hairdresser whom you stopped coming from +Kensington?” + +Francesca. “Yes, she's the third, that's all right then; but what in the +world is this twelve shillings?” + +Penelope. “The foolish amber beads you were persuaded into buying in the +Burlington Arcade?” + +Francesca. “No, those were seven shillings, and they are splitting +already.” + +Salemina. “Those soaps and sachets you bought on the way home the day +that you left your purse in the cab?” + +Francesca. “No; they were only five shillings. Oh, perhaps they lumped +the two things; if seven and five are twelve, then that is just what +they did. (Here she takes a pencil.) Yes, they are twelve, so that's +right; what a comfort! Now here's two and six on the 13th. That was +yesterday, and I can always remember yesterdays; they are my strong +point. I didn't spend a penny yesterday; oh yes! I did pay half a crown +for a potted plant, but it was not two and six, and it was a half-crown +because it was the first time I had seen one and I took particular +notice. I'll speak to Dawson about it, but it will make no difference. +Nobody but an expert English accountant could find a flaw in one of +these bills and prove his case.” + +By this time we have agreed that the weekly bill as a whole is +substantially correct, and all that Salemina has to do is to estimate +our several shares in it; so Francesca and I say good night and leave +her toiling like Cicero in his retirement at Tusculum. By midnight she +has generally brought the account to a point where a half-hour's fresh +attention in the early morning will finish it. Not that she makes it +come out right to a penny. She has been treasurer of the Boston Band of +Benevolence, of the Saturday Morning Sloyd Circle, of the Club for the +Reception of Russian Refugees, and of the Society for the Brooding of +Buddhism; but none of these organisations carries on its existence by +means of pounds, shillings, and pence, or Salemina's resignation +would have been requested long ago. However, we are not disposed to be +captious; we are too glad to get rid of the bill. If our united thirds +make four or five shillings in excess, we divide them equally; if it +comes the other way about, we make it up in the same manner; always +meeting the sneers of masculine critics with Dr. Holmes's remark that a +faculty for numbers is a sort of detached-lever arrangement that can be +put into a mighty poor watch. + + + +Chapter II. The powdered footman smiles. + + + +Salemina is so English! I can't think how she manages. She had not been +an hour on British soil before she asked a servant to fetch in some +coals and mend the fire; she followed this Anglicism by a request for +a grilled chop, 'a grilled, chump chop, waiter, please,' and so on from +triumph to triumph. She now discourses of methylated spirits as if she +had never in her life heard of alcohol, and all the English equivalents +for Americanisms are ready for use on the tip of her tongue. She says +'conserv't'ry' and 'observ't'ry'; she calls the chambermaid 'Mairy,' +which is infinitely softer, to be sure, than the American 'Mary,' +with its over-long a; she ejaculates 'Quite so!' in all the pauses of +conversation, and talks of smoke-rooms, and camisoles, and luggage-vans, +and slip-bodies, and trams, and mangling, and goffering. She also eats +jam for breakfast as if she had been reared on it, when every one knows +that the average American has to contract the jam habit by patient and +continuous practice. + +This instantaneous assimilation of English customs does not seem to be +affectation on Salemina's part; nor will I wrong her by fancying that +she went through a course of training before she left Boston. From the +moment she landed you could see that her foot was on her native heath. +She inhaled the fog with a sense of intoxication that the east winds of +New England had never given her, and a great throb of patriotism swelled +in her breast when she first met the Princess of Wales in Hyde Park. + +As for me, I get on charmingly with the English nobility and +sufficiently well with the gentry, but the upper servants strike terror +to my soul. There is something awe-inspiring to me about an English +butler. If they would only put him in livery, or make him wear a silver +badge; anything, in short, to temper his pride and prevent one from +mistaking him for the master of the house or the bishop within his +gates. When I call upon Lady DeWolfe, I say to myself impressively, as +I go up the steps: 'You are as good as a butler, as well born and well +bred as a butler, even more intelligent than a butler. Now, simply +because he has an unapproachable haughtiness of demeanour, which you can +respectfully admire, but can never hope to imitate, do not cower beneath +the polar light of his eye; assert yourself; be a woman; be an American +citizen!' All in vain. The moment the door opens I ask for Lady DeWolfe +in so timid a tone that I know Parker thinks me the parlour-maid's +sister who has rung the visitors' bell by mistake. If my lady is within, +I follow Parker to the drawing-room, my knees shaking under me at +the prospect of committing some solecism in his sight. Lady DeWolfe's +husband has been noble only four months, and Parker of course knows it, +and perhaps affects even greater hauteur to divert the attention of the +vulgar commoner from the newness of the title. + +Dawson, our butler at Smith's private hotel, wields the same blighting +influence on our spirits, accustomed to the soft solicitations of the +negro waiter or the comfortable indifference of the free-born American. +We never indulge in ordinary democratic or frivolous conversation when +Dawson is serving us at dinner. We 'talk up' to him so far as we are +able, and before we utter any remark we inquire mentally whether he is +likely to think it good form. Accordingly, I maintain throughout +dinner a lofty height of aristocratic elegance that impresses even the +impassive Dawson, towards whom it is solely directed. To the amazement +and amusement of Salemina (who always takes my cheerful inanities +at their face value), I give an hypothetical account of my afternoon +engagements, interlarding it so thickly with countesses and +marchionesses and lords and honourables that though Dawson has passed +soup to duchesses, and scarcely ever handed a plate to anything less +than a baroness, he dilutes the customary scorn of his glance, and +makes it two parts condescending approval as it rests on me, Penelope +Hamilton, of the great American working class (unlimited). + +Apropos of the servants, it seems to me that the British footman has +relaxed a trifle since we were last here; or is it possible that he +reaches the height of his immobility at the height of the London season, +and as it declines does he decline and become flesh? At all events, I +have twice seen a footman change his weight from one leg to the other, +as he stood at a shop entrance with his lady's mantle over his arm; +twice have I seen one stroke his chin, and several times have I observed +others, during the month of July, conduct themselves in many respects +like animate objects with vital organs. Lest this incendiary statement +be challenged, levelled as it is at an institution whose stability and +order are but feebly represented by the eternal march of the stars in +their courses, I hasten to explain that in none of these cases cited was +it a powdered footman who (to use a Delsartean expression) withdrew will +from his body and devitalised it before the public eye. I have observed +that the powdered personage has much greater control over his muscles +than the ordinary footman with human hair, and is infinitely his +superior in rigidity. Dawson tells me confidentially that if a footman +smiles there is little chance of his rising in the world. He says a +sense of humour is absolutely fatal in that calling, and that he has +discharged many a good footman because of an intelligent and expressive +face. + +I tremble to think of what the powdered footman may become when he +unbends in the bosom of the family. When, in the privacy of his own +apartments, the powder is washed off, the canary-seed pads removed from +his aristocratic calves, and his scarlet and buff magnificence exchanged +for a simple neglige, I should think he might be guilty of almost any +indiscretion or violence. I for one would never consent to be the wife +and children of a powdered footman, and receive him in his moments of +reaction. + + + +Chapter III. Eggs a la coque. + + + +Is it to my credit, or to my eternal dishonour that I once made a +powdered footman smile, and that, too, when he was handing a buttered +muffin to an earl's daughter? + +It was while we were paying a visit at Marjorimallow Hall, Sir Owen +and Lady Marjorimallow's place in Surrey. This was to be our first +appearance in an English country house, and we made elaborate +preparations. Only our freshest toilettes were packed, and these were +arranged in our trunks with the sole view of impressing the lady's-maid +who should unpack them. We each purchased dressing-cases and new +fittings, Francesca's being of sterling silver, Salemina's of triple +plate, and mine of celluloid, as befitted our several fortunes. Salemina +read up on English politics; Francesca practised a new way of dressing +her hair; and I made up a portfolio of sketches. We counted, therefore, +on representing American letters, beauty, and art to that portion of the +great English public staying at Marjorimallow Hall. (I must interject a +parenthesis here to the effect that matters did not move precisely as we +expected; for at table, where most of our time was passed, Francesca had +for a neighbour a scientist, who asked her plump whether the religion +of the American Indian was or was not a pure theism; Salemina's partner +objected to the word 'politics' in the mouth of a woman; while my +attendant squire adored a good bright-coloured chromo. But this is +anticipating.) + +Three days before our departure, I remarked at the breakfast-table, +Dawson being absent: “My dear girls, you are aware that we have ordered +fried eggs, scrambled eggs, buttered eggs, and poached eggs ever since +we came to Dovermarle Street, simply because we do not know how to eat +boiled eggs prettily from the shell, English fashion, and cannot break +them into a cup or a glass, American fashion, on account of the effect +upon Dawson. Now there will certainly be boiled eggs at Marjorimallow +Hall, and we cannot refuse them morning after morning; it will be +cowardly (which is unpleasant), and it will be remarked (which is +worse). Eating them minced in an egg-cup, in a baronial hall, with the +remains of a drawbridge in the grounds, is equally impossible; if we do +that, Lady Marjorimallow will be having our luggage examined, to see +if we carry wigwams and war-whoops about with us. No, it is clearly +necessary that we master the gentle art of eating eggs tidily and +daintily from the shell. I have seen English women--very dull ones, +too--do it without apparent effort; I have even seen an English infant +do it, and that without soiling her apron, or, as Salemina would say, +'messing her pinafore.' I propose, therefore, that we order soft-boiled +eggs daily; that we send Dawson from the room directly breakfast is +served; and that then and there we have a class for opening eggs, lowest +grade, object method. Any person who cuts the shell badly, or permits +the egg to leak over the rim, or allows yellow dabs on the plate, or +upsets the cup, or stains her fingers, shall be fined 'tuppence' and +locked into her bedroom for five minutes.” + +The first morning we were all in the bedroom together, and, there +being no blameless person to collect fines, the wildest civil disorder +prevailed. + +On the second day Salemina and I improved slightly, but Francesca had +passed a sleepless night, and her hand trembled (the love-letter mail +had come in from America). We were obliged to tell her, as we collected +'tuppence' twice on the same egg, that she must either remain at home, +or take an oilcloth pinafore to Marjorimallow Hall. + +But 'ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil,' and it is only a +question of time and desire with Americans, we are so clever. Other +nations have to be trained from birth; but as we need only an ounce +of training where they need a pound, we can afford to procrastinate. +Sometimes we procrastinate too long, but that is a trifle. On the third +morning success crowned our efforts. Salemina smiled, and I told an +anecdote, during the operation, although my egg was cracked in the +boiling, and I question if the Queen's favourite maid-of-honour could +have managed it prettily. Accordingly, when eggs were brought to the +breakfast-table at Marjorimallow Hall, we were only slightly nervous. +Francesca was at the far end of the long table, and I do not know how +she fared, but from various Anglicisms that Salemina dropped, as she +chatted with the Queen's Counsel on her left, I could see that her nerve +was steady and circulation free. We exchanged glances (there was the +mistake!), and with an embarrassed laugh she struck her egg a hasty +blow. + +Her egg-cup slipped and lurched; a top fraction of the egg flew in +the direction of the Q.C., and the remaining portion oozed, in yellow +confusion, rapidly into her plate. Alas for that past mistress of +elegant dignity, Salemina! If I had been at Her Majesty's table, I +should have smiled, even if I had gone to the Tower the next moment; +but as it was, I became hysterical. My neighbour, a portly member of +Parliament, looked amazed, Salemina grew scarlet, the situation was +charged with danger; and, rapidly viewing the various exits, I chose the +humorous one, and told as picturesquely as possible the whole story of +our school of egg-opening in Dovermarle Street, the highly arduous +and encouraging rehearsals conducted there, and the stupendous failure +incident to our first public appearance. Sir Owen led the good-natured +laughter and applause; lords and ladies, Q.C.'s and M.P.'s joined in +with a will; poor Salemina raised her drooping head, opened and ate a +second egg with the repose of a Vere de Vere--and the footman smiled! + + + +Chapter IV. The English sense of humour. + + + +I do not see why we hear that the Englishman is deficient in a sense of +humour. His jokes may not be a matter of daily food to him, as they are +to the American; he may not love whimsicality with the same passion, nor +inhale the aroma of a witticism with as keen a relish; but he likes fun +whenever he sees it, and he sees it as often as most people. It may +be that we find the Englishman more receptive to our bits of feminine +nonsense just now, simply because this is the day of the American +woman in London, and, having been assured that she is an entertaining +personage, young John Bull is willing to take it for granted so long as +she does not try to marry him, and even this pleasure he will allow her +on occasion,--if well paid for it. + +The longer I live, the more I feel it an absurdity to label nations with +national traits, and then endeavour to make individuals conform to the +required standard. It is possible, I suppose, to draw certain broad +distinctions, though even these are subject to change; but the habit of +generalising from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious +essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public mind. Nothing, +for instance, can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and +exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small +geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite +people, fond of dancing and light wines.' + +One young Englishman whom I have met lately errs on the side of +over-appreciation. He laughs before, during, and after every remark +I make, unless it be a simple request for food or drink. This is an +acquaintance of Willie Beresford, the Honourable Arthur Ponsonby, +who was the 'whip' on our coach drive to Dorking,--dear, delightful, +adorable Dorking, of hen celebrity. + +Salemina insisted on my taking the box seat, in the hope that the +Honourable Arthur would amuse me. She little knew him! He sapped me +of all my ideas, and gave me none in exchange. Anything so unspeakably +heavy I never encountered. It is very difficult for a woman who doesn't +know a nigh horse from an off one, nor the wheelers from the headers (or +is it the fronters?), to find subjects of conversation with a gentleman +who spends three-fourths of his existence on a coach. It was the more +difficult for me because I could not decide whether Willie Beresford was +cross because I was devoting myself to the whip, or because Francesca +had remained at home with a headache. This state of affairs continued +for about fifteen miles, when it suddenly dawned upon the Honourable +Arthur that, however mistaken my speech and manner, I was trying to be +agreeable. This conception acted on the honest and amiable soul like +magic. I gradually became comprehensible, and finally he gave himself up +to the theory that, though eccentric, I was harmless and amusing, so we +got on famously,--so famously that Willie Beresford grew ridiculously +gloomy, and I decided that it could not be Francesca's headache. + +The names of these English streets are a never-failing source of delight +to me. In that one morning we drove past Pie, Pudding, and Petticoat +Lanes, and later on we found ourselves in a 'Prudent Passage,' which +opened, very inappropriately, into 'Huggin Lane.' Willie Beresford said +it was the first time he had ever heard of anything so disagreeable as +prudence terminating in anything so agreeable as huggin'. When he had +been severely reprimanded by his mother for this shocking speech, I said +to the Honourable Arthur:-- + +“I don't understand your business signs in England,--this 'Company, +Limited,' and that 'Company, Limited.' That one, of course, is quite +plain” (pointing to the front of a building on the village street), +“'Goat's Milk Company, Limited'; I suppose they have but one or two +goats, and necessarily the milk must be Limited.” + +Salemina says that this was not in the least funny, that it was +absolutely flat; but it had quite the opposite effect upon the +Honourable Arthur. He had no command over himself or his horses for some +minutes; and at intervals during the afternoon the full felicity of +the idea would steal upon him, and the smile of reminiscence would flit +across his ruddy face. + +The next day, at the Eton and Harrow games at Lord's cricket-ground, he +presented three flowers of British aristocracy to our party, and asked +me each time to tell the goat-story, which he had previously told +himself, and probably murdered in the telling. Not content with +this arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some of my +international episodes to a literary friend who writes for Punch. I +demurred decidedly, but Salemina said that perhaps I ought to be +willing to lower myself a trifle for the sake of elevating Punch! This +home-thrust so delighted the Honourable Arthur that it remained his +favourite joke for days, and the overworked goat was permitted to enjoy +that oblivion from which Salemina insists it should never have emerged. + + + +Chapter V. A Hyde Park Sunday. + + + +The Honourable Arthur, Salemina, and I took a stroll in Hyde Park one +Sunday afternoon, not for the purpose of joining the fashionable throng +of 'pretty people' at Stanhope Gate, but to mingle with the common herd +in its special precincts,--precincts not set apart, indeed, by any +legal formula, but by a natural law of classification which seems to be +inherent in the universe. It was a curious and motley crowd--a little +dull, perhaps, but orderly, well-behaved, and self-respecting, with +here and there part of the flotsam and jetsam of a great city, a ragged, +sodden, hopeless wretch wending his way about with the rest, thankful +for any diversion. + +Under the trees, each in the centre of his group, large or small +according to his magnetism and eloquence, stood the park 'shouter,' +airing his special grievance, playing his special part, preaching his +special creed, pleading his special cause,--anything, probably, for +the sake of shouting. We were plainly dressed, and did not attract +observation as we joined the outside circle of one of these groups after +another. It was as interesting to watch the listeners as the speakers. +I wished I might paint the sea of faces, eager, anxious, stolid, +attentive, happy, and unhappy: histories written on many of them; others +blank, unmarked by any thought or aspiration. I stole a sidelong look at +the Honourable Arthur. He is an Englishman first, and a man afterwards +(I prefer it the other way), but he does not realise it; he thinks he is +just like all other good fellows, although he is mistaken. He and Willie +Beresford speak the same language, but they are as different as Malay +and Eskimo. He is an extreme type, but he is very likeable and very +well worth looking at, with his long coat, his silk hat, and the white +Malmaison in his buttonhole. He is always so radiantly, fascinatingly +clean, the Honourable Arthur, simple, frank, direct, sensible, and he +bores me almost to tears. + +The first orator was edifying his hearers with an explanation of the +drama of The Corsican Brothers, and his eloquence, unlike that of the +other speakers, was largely inspired by the hope of pennies. It was a +novel idea, and his interpretation was rendered very amusing to us +by the wholly original Yorkshire accent which he gave to the French +personages and places in the play. + +An Irishman in black clerical garb held the next group together. He was +in some trouble, owing to a pig-headed and quarrelsome Scotchman in the +front rank, who objected to each statement that fell from his lips, thus +interfering seriously with the effect of his peroration. If the Irishman +had been more convincing, I suppose the crowd would have silenced the +scoffer, for these little matters of discipline are always attended to +by the audience; but the Scotchman's points were too well taken; he +was so trenchant, in fact, at times, that a voice would cry, 'Coom up, +Sandy, an' 'ave it all your own w'y, boy!' The discussion continued +as long as we were within hearing distance, for the Irishman, though +amiable and ignorant, was firm, the 'unconquered Scot' was on his native +heath of argument, and the listeners were willing to give them both a +hearing. + +Under the next tree a fluent Cockney lad of sixteen or eighteen years +was declaiming his bitter experiences with the Salvation Army. He had +been sheltered in one of its beds which was not to his taste, and it had +found employment for him which he had to walk twenty-two miles to get, +and which was not to his liking when he did get it. A meeting of +the Salvation Army at a little distance rendered his speech more +interesting, as its points were repeated and denied as fast as made. + +Of course there were religious groups and temperance groups, and groups +devoted to the tearing down or raising up of most things except the +Government; for on that day there were no Anarchist or Socialist +shouters, as is ordinarily the case. + +As we strolled down one of the broad roads under the shade of the noble +trees, we saw the sun setting in a red-gold haze; a glory of vivid +colour made indescribably tender and opalescent by the kind of luminous +mist that veils it; a wholly English sunset, and an altogether lovely +one. And quite away from the other knots of people, there leaned against +a bit of wire fence a poor old man surrounded by half a dozen children +and one tired woman with a nursing baby. He had a tattered book, which +seemed to be the story of the Gospels, and his little flock sat on the +greensward at his feet as he read. It may be that he, too, had been a +shouter in his lustier manhood, and had held a larger audience together +by the power of his belief; but now he was helpless to attract any but +the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of +shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me, I +know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me +that that quavering voice of the past spoke with the truest note. + + + +Chapter VI. The English Park Lover. + + + +The English Park Lover, loving his love on a green bench in Kensington +Gardens or Regent's Park, or indeed in any spot where there is a green +bench, so long as it is within full view of the passer-by,--this English +public lover, male or female, is a most interesting study, for we have +not his exact counterpart in America. He is thoroughly respectable, I +should think, my urban Colin. He does not have the air of a gay deceiver +roving from flower to flower, stealing honey as he goes; he looks, on +the contrary, as if it were his intention to lead Phoebe to the altar +on the next bank holiday; there is a dead calm in his actions which +bespeaks no other course. If Colin were a Don Juan, surely he would be +a trifle more ardent, for there is no tropical fervour in his +matter-of-fact caresses. He does not embrace Phoebe in the park, +apparently, because he adores her to madness; because her smile is +like fire in his veins, melting down all his defences; because the +intoxication of her nearness is irresistible; because, in fine, he +cannot wait until he finds a more secluded spot: nay, verily, he +embraces her because--tell me, infatuated fruiterers, poulterers, +soldiers, haberdashers (limited), what is your reason? For it does not +appear to the casual eye. Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the +Park Lover, for 'the rains of Marly do not wet' when one is in love. +By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage +an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine +macintosh is well known to be ill adapted to the purpose, and a +continuous drizzle would dampen almost any other lover in the universe. + +The park embrace, as nearly as I can analyse it, seems to be one part +instinct, one part duty, one part custom, and one part reflex action. I +have purposely omitted pleasure (which, in the analysis of the ordinary +embrace, reduces all the other ingredients to an almost invisible +faction), because I fail to find it; but I am willing to believe that +in some rudimentary form it does exist, because man attends to no +purely unpleasant matter with such praiseworthy assiduity. Anything +more fixedly stolid than the Park Lover when he passes his arm round his +chosen one and takes her crimson hand in his, I have never seen; unless, +indeed, it be the fixed stolidity of the chosen one herself. I had not +at first the assurance even to glance at them as I passed by, blushing +myself to the roots of my hair, though the offenders themselves never +changed colour. Many a time have I walked out of my way or lowered my +parasol, for fear of invading their Sunday Eden; but a spirit of inquiry +awoke in me at last, and I began to make psychological investigations, +with a view to finding out at what point embarrassment would appear in +the Park Lover. I experimented (it was a most arduous and unpleasant +task) with upwards of two hundred couples, and it is interesting to +record that self-consciousness was not apparent in a single instance. +It was not merely that they failed to resent my stopping in the path +directly opposite them, or my glaring most offensively at them, nor that +they even allowed me to sit upon their green bench and witness their +chaste salutes, but it was that they did fail to perceive me at +all! There is a kind of superb finish and completeness about their +indifference to the public gaze which removes it from ordinary +immodesty, and gives it a certain scientific value. + + + +Chapter VII. A ducal tea-party. + + + +Among all my English experiences, none occupies so important a place as +my forced meeting with the Duke of Cimicifugas. (There can be no harm in +my telling the incident, so long as I do not give the right names, +which are very well known to fame.) The Duchess of Cimicifugas, who is +charming, unaffected, and lovable, so report says, has among her chosen +friends an untitled woman whom we will call Mrs. Apis Mellifica. I met +her only daughter, Hilda, in America, and we became quite intimate. It +seems that Mrs. Apis Mellifica, who has an income of 20,000 pounds a +year, often exchanges presents with the duchess, and at this time she +had brought with her from the Continent some rare old tapestries with +which to adorn a new morning-room at Cimicifugas House. These tapestries +were to be hung during the absence of the duchess in Homburg, and were +to greet her as a birthday surprise on her return. Hilda Mellifica, +who is one of the most talented amateur artists in London, and who has +exquisite taste in all matters of decoration, was to go down to the +ducal residence to inspect the work, and she obtained permission from +Lady Veratrum (the confidential companion of the duchess) to bring me +with her. I started on this journey to the country with all possible +delight, little surmising the agonies that lay in store for me in the +mercifully hidden future. + +The tapestries were perfect, and Lady Veratrum was most amiable and +affable, though the blue blood of the Belladonnas courses in her veins, +and her great-grandfather was the celebrated Earl of Rhus Tox, who +rendered such notable service to his sovereign. We roamed through the +splendid apartments, inspected the superb picture-gallery, where scores +of dead-and-gone Cimicifugases (most of them very plain) were glorified +by the art of Van Dyck, Sir Joshua, or Gainsborough, and admired the +priceless collections of marbles and cameos and bronzes. It was about +four o'clock when we were conducted to a magnificent apartment for a +brief rest, as we were to return to London at half-past six. As Lady +Veratrum left us, she remarked casually, 'His Grace will join us at +tea.' + +The door closed, and at the same moment I fell upon the brocaded satin +state bed and tore off my hat and gloves like one distraught. + +“Hilda,” I gasped, “you brought me here, and you must rescue me, for I +absolutely decline to drink tea with a duke.” + +“Nonsense, Penelope, don't be absurd,” she replied. “I have never +happened to see him myself, and I am a trifle nervous, but it cannot be +very terrible, I should think.” + +“Not to you, perhaps, but to me impossible,” I said. “I thought he was +in Homburg, or I would never have entered this place. It is not that I +fear nobility. I could meet Her Majesty the Queen at the Court of St. +James without the slightest flutter of embarrassment, because I know +I could trust her not to presume on my defencelessness to enter into +conversation with me. But this duke, whose dukedom very likely dates +back to the hour of the Norman Conquest, is a very different person, +and is to be met under very different circumstances. He may ask me my +politics. Of course I can tell him that I am a Mugwump, but what if he +asks me why I am a Mugwump?” + +“He will not,” Hilda answered. “Englishmen are not wholly devoid of +feeling!” + +“And how shall I address him?” I went on. “Does one call him 'your +Grace,' or 'your Royal Highness'? Oh for a thousandth-part of the +unblushing impertinence of that countrywoman of mine who called your +future king 'Tummy'! but she was a beauty, and I am not pretty enough to +be anything but discreetly well-mannered. Shall you sit in his presence, +or stand and grovel alternately? Does one have to curtsy? Very well, +then, make any excuses you like for me, Hilda: say I'm eccentric, say +I'm deranged, say I'm a Nihilist. I will hide under the scullery table, +fling myself in the moat, lock myself in the keep, let the portcullis +fall on me, die any appropriate early English death,--anything rather +than curtsy in a tailor-made gown; I can kneel beautifully, Hilda, if +that will do: you remember my ancestors were brought up on kneeling, and +yours on curtsying, and it makes a great difference in the muscles.” + +Hilda smiled benignantly as she wound the coil of russet hair round her +shapely head. “He will think whatever you do charming, and whatever you +say brilliant,” she said; “that is the advantage in being an American +woman.” + +Just at this moment Lady Veratrum sent a haughty maid to ask us if we +would meet her under the trees in the park which surrounds the house. +I hailed this as a welcome reprieve to the dreaded function of tea with +the duke, and made up my mind, while descending the marble staircase, +that I would slip away and lose myself accidentally in the grounds, +appearing only in time for the London train. This happy mode of issue +from my difficulties lent a springiness to my step, as we followed a +waxwork footman over the velvet sward to a nook under a group of copper +beeches. But there, to my dismay, stood a charmingly appointed tea-table +glittering with silver and Royal Worcester, with several liveried +servants bringing cakes and muffins and berries to Lady Veratrum, who +sat behind the steaming urn. I started to retreat, when there +appeared, walking towards us, a simple man, with nothing in the least +extraordinary about him. + +“That cannot be the Duke of Cimicifugas,” thought I, “a man in a +corduroy jacket, without a sign of a suite; probably it is a Banished +Duke come from the Forest of Arden for a buttered muffin.” + +But it was the Duke of Cimicifugas, and no other. Hilda was presented +first, while I tried to fire my courage by thinking of the Puritan +Fathers, and Plymouth Rock, and the Boston Tea-Party, and the battle of +Bunker Hill. Then my turn came. I murmured some words which might have +been anything, and curtsied in a stiff-necked self-respecting sort of +way. Then we talked,--at least the duke and Lady Veratrum talked. Hilda +said a few blameless words, such as befitted an untitled English virgin +in the presence of the nobility; while I maintained the probationary +silence required by Pythagoras of his first year's pupils. My idea was +to observe this first duke without uttering a word, to talk with the +second (if I should ever meet a second), to chat with the third, and to +secure the fourth for Francesca to take home to America with her. + +Of course I know that dukes are very dear, but she could afford any +reasonable sum, if she found one whom she fancied; the principal +obstacle in the path is that tiresome American lawyer with whom +she considers herself in love. I have never gone beyond that first +experience, however, for dukes in England are as rare as snakes in +Ireland. I can't think why they allow them to die out so,--the dukes, +not the snakes. If a country is to have an aristocracy, let there be +enough of it, say I, and make it imposing at the top, where it shows +most, especially since, as I understand it, all that Victoria has to do +is to say, 'Let there be dukes,' and there are dukes. + + + +Chapter VIII. Tuppenny travels in London. + + + +If one really wants to know London, one must live there for years and +years. + +This sounds like a reasonable and sensible statement, yet the moment it +is made I retract it, as quite misleading and altogether too general. + +We have a charming English friend who has not been to the Tower since +he was a small boy, and begs us to conduct him there on the very next +Saturday. Another has not seen Westminster Abbey for fifteen years, +because he attends church at St. Dunstan's-in-the-East. Another says +that he should like to have us 'read up' London in the red-covered +Baedeker, and then show it to him, properly and systematically. Another, +a flower of the nobility, confesses that he never mounted the top of +an omnibus in the evening for the sake of seeing London after dark, but +that he thinks it would be rather jolly, and that he will join us in +such a democratic journey at any time we like. + +We think we get a kind of vague apprehension of what London means from +the top of a 'bus better than anywhere else, and this vague apprehension +is as much as the thoughtful or imaginative observer will ever arrive +at in a lifetime. It is too stupendous to be comprehended. The mind +is dazed by its distances, confused by its contrasts; tossed from +the spectacle of its wealth to the contemplation of its poverty, the +brilliancy of its extravagances to the stolidity of its miseries, +the luxuries that blossom in Mayfair to the brutalities that lurk in +Whitechapel. + +We often set out on a fine morning, Salemina and I, and travel twenty +miles in the day, though we have to double our twopenny fee several +times to accomplish that distance. + +We never know whither we are going, and indeed it is not a matter of +great moment (I mean to a woman) where everything is new and strange, +and where the driver, if one is fortunate enough to be on a front +seat, tells one everything of interest along the way, and instructs one +regarding a different route back to town. + +We have our favourite 'buses, of course; but when one appears, and we +jump on while it is still in motion, as the conductor seems to prefer, +and pull ourselves up the cork-screw stairway,--not a simple matter in +the garments of sophistication,--we have little time to observe more +than the colour of the lumbering vehicle. + +We like the Cadbury's Cocoa 'bus very much; it takes you by St. +Mary-le-Strand, Bow-Bells, the Temple, Mansion House, St, Paul's, and +the Bank. + +If you want to go and lunch, or dine frugally, at the Cheshire Cheese, +eat black pudding and drink pale ale, sit in Dr. Johnson's old seat, +and put your head against the exact spot on the wall where his +rested,--although the traces of this form of worship are all too +apparent,--then you jump on a Lipton's Tea 'bus, and are deposited +at the very door. All is novel, and all is interesting, whether it be +crowded streets of the East End traversed by the Davies' Pea-Fed Bacon +'buses, or whether you ride to the very outskirts of London, through +green fields and hedgerows, by the Ridge's Food or Nestle's Milk route. + +There are trams, too, which take one to delightful places, though the +seats on top extend lengthwise, after the old 'knifeboard pattern,' +and one does not get so good a view of the country as from the 'garden +seats' on the roof of the omnibus; still there is nothing we like better +on a warm morning than a good outing on the Vinolia tram that we pick up +in Shaftesbury Avenue. There is a street running from Shaftesbury Avenue +into Oxford Street, which was once the village of St. Giles, one of the +dozens of hamlets swallowed up by the great maw of London, and it still +looks like a hamlet, although it has been absorbed for many years. We +constantly happen on these absorbed villages, from which, not a century +ago, people drove up to town in their coaches. + +If you wish to see another phase of life, go out on a Saturday evening, +from nine o'clock on to eleven, starting on a Beecham's Pill 'bus, and +keep to the poorer districts, alighting occasionally to stand with the +crowd in the narrower thoroughfares. + +It is a market night, and the streets will be a moving mass of men and +women buying at the hucksters' stalls. Everything that can be sold at +a stall is there: fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, crockery, tin-ware, +children's clothing, cheap toys, boots, shoes, and sun-bonnets, all in +reckless confusion. The vendors cry their wares in stentorian tones, +vying with one another to produce excitement and induce patronage, while +gas-jets are streaming into the air from the roofs and flaring from the +sides of the stalls; children crying, children dancing to the strains of +an accordion, children quarrelling, children scrambling for the refuse +fruit. In the midst of this spectacle, this din and uproar, the women +are chaffering and bargaining quite calmly, watching the scales to see +that they get their full pennyworth or sixpennyworth of this or that. To +the student of faces, of manners, of voices, of gestures; to the person +who sees unwritten and unwritable stories in all these groups of men, +women, and children, the scene reveals many things: some comedies, many +tragedies, a few plain narratives (thank God!) and now and then--only +now and then--a romance. As to the dark alleys and tenements on the +fringe of this glare and brilliant confusion, this Babel of sound and +ant-bed of moving life, one can only surmise and pity and shudder; +close one's eyes and ears to it a little, or one could never sleep for +thinking of it, yet not too tightly lest one sleep too soundly, and +forget altogether the seamy side of things. One can hardly believe that +there is a seamy side when one descends from his travelling observatory +a little later, and stands on Westminster Bridge, or walks along the +Thames Embankment. The lights of Parliament House gleam from a hundred +windows, and in the dark shadows by the banks thousands of coloured +discs of light twinkle and dance and glow like fairy lamps, and are +reflected in the silver surface of the river. That river, as full of +mystery and contrast in its course as London itself--where is such +another? It has ever been a river of pageants, a river of sighs; a river +into whose placid depths kings and queens, princes and cardinals, have +whispered state secrets, and poets have breathed immortal lines; a +stream of pleasure, bearing daily on its bosom such a freight of youth +and mirth and colour and music as no other river in the world can boast. + +Sometimes we sally forth in search of adventures in the thick of a +'London particular,' Mr. Guppy's phrase for a fog. When you are once +ensconced in your garden seat by the driver, you go lumbering through +a world of bobbing shadows, where all is weird, vague, grey, dense; and +where great objects loom up suddenly in the mist and then disappear; +where the sky, heavy and leaden, seems to descend bodily upon your head, +and the air is full of a kind of luminous yellow smoke. + +A Lipton's Tea 'bus is the only one we can see plainly in this sort +of weather, and so we always take it. I do not wish, however, to be +followed literally in these modest suggestions for omnibus rides, +because I am well aware that they are not sufficiently specific for the +ordinary tourist who wishes to see London systematically and without any +loss of time. If you care to go to any particular place, or reach that +place by any particular time, you must not, of course, look at the most +conspicuous signs on the tops and ends of the chariots as we do; you +must stand quietly at one of the regular points of departure and try to +decipher, in a narrow horizontal space along the side, certain little +words that show the route and destination of the vehicle. They say +that it can be done, and I do not feel like denying it on my own +responsibility. Old Londoners assert that they are not blinded or +confused by Pears' Soap in letters two feet high, scarlet on a gold +ground, but can see below in fine print, and with the naked eye, +such legends as Tottenham Court Road, Westbourne Grove, St. Pancras, +Paddington, or Victoria. It is certainly reasonable that the omnibuses +should be decorated to suit the inhabitants of the place rather than +foreigners, and it is perhaps better to carry a few hundred stupid souls +to the wrong station daily than to allow them to cleanse their hands +with the wrong soap, or quench their thirst with the wrong (which is to +say the unadvertised) beverage. + +The conductors do all in their power to mitigate the lot of unhappy +strangers, and it is only now and again that you hear an absent-minded +or logical one call out, 'Castoria! all the w'y for a penny.' + +We claim for our method of travelling, not that it is authoritative, but +that it is simple--suitable to persons whose desires are flexible and +whose plans are not fixed. It has its disadvantages, which may indeed +be said of almost anything. For instance, we had gone for two successive +mornings on a Cadbury's Cocoa 'bus to Francesca's dressmaker in +Kensington. On the third morning, deceived by the ambitious and +unscrupulous Cadbury, we mounted it and journeyed along comfortably +three miles to the east of Kensington before we discovered our mistake. +It was a pleasant and attractive neighbourhood where we found ourselves, +but unfortunately Francesca's dressmaker did not reside there. + +If you have determined to take a certain train from a certain station, +and do not care for any other, no matter if it should turn out to be +just as interesting, then never take a Lipton's Tea 'bus, for it is the +most unreliable of all. If it did not sound so learned, and if I did not +feel that it must have been said before, it is so apt, I should quote +Horace, and say, 'Omnibus hoc vitium est.' There is no 'bus unseized by +the Napoleonic Lipton. Do not ascend one of them supposing for a moment +that by paying fourpence and going to the very end of the route you will +come to a neat tea station, where you will be served with the cheering +cup. Never; nor with a draught of Cadbury's cocoa or Nestle's milk, +although you have jostled along for nine weary miles in company with +their blatant recommendations to drink nothing else, and though you may +have passed other 'buses with the same highly-coloured names glaring at +you until they are burned into the grey matter of your brain, to remain +there as long as the copy-book maxims you penned when you were a child. + +These pictorial methods doubtless prove a source of great financial +gain; of course it must be so, or they would never be prosecuted; but +although they may allure millions of customers, they will lose two in +our modest persons. When Salemina and I go into a cafe for tea we ask +the young woman if they serve Lipton's, and if they say yes, we take +coffee. This is self-punishment indeed (in London!), yet we feel that +it may have a moral effect; perhaps not commensurate with the physical +effect of the coffee upon us, but these delicate matters can never be +adjusted with absolute exactitude. + +Sometimes when we are to travel on a Pears' Soap 'bus we buy beforehand +a bit of pure white Castile, cut from a shrinking, reserved, exclusive +bar with no name upon it, and present it to some poor woman when we +arrive at our journey's end. We do not suppose that so insignificant a +protest does much good, but at least it preserves one's individuality +and self-respect. + + + +Chapter IX. A Table of Kindred and Affinity. + + + +On one of our excursions Hilda Mellifica accompanied us, and we alighted +to see the place where the Smithfield martyrs were executed, and to +visit some of the very old churches in that vicinity. We found hanging +in the vestibule of one of them something quite familiar to Hilda, but +very strange to our American eyes: 'A Table of Kindred and Affinity, +wherein whosoever are related are forbidden in Scripture and our Laws to +Marry Together.' + +Salemina was very quiet that afternoon, and we accused her afterwards of +being depressed because she had discovered that, added to the battalions +of men in England who had not thus far urged her to marry them, there +were thirty persons whom she could not legally espouse even if they did +ask her! + +I cannot explain it, but it really seemed in some way that our chances +of a 'sweet, safe corner of the household fire' had materially decreased +when we had read the table. + +“It only goes to prove what Salemina remarked yesterday,” I said: “that +we can go on doing a thing quite properly until we have seen the rule +for it printed in black and white. The moment we read the formula we +fail to see how we could ever have followed it; we are confused by its +complexities, and we do not feel the slightest confidence in our ability +to do consciously the thing we have done all our lives unconsciously.” + +“Like the centipede,” quoted Salemina:-- + + “'The centipede was happy quite + Until the toad, for fun, + Said, “Pray, which leg goes after which?” + Which wrought his mind to such a pitch, + He lay distracted in a ditch + Considering how to run!'” + +“The Table of Kindred and Affinity is all too familiar to me,” sighed +Hilda, “because we had a governess who made us learn it as a punishment. +I suppose I could recite it now, although I haven't looked at it for ten +years. We used to chant it in the nursery schoolroom on wet afternoons. +I well remember that the vicar called one day to see us, and the +governess, hearing our voices uplifted in a pious measure, drew him +under the window to listen. This is what he heard--you will see how +admirably it goes! And do not imagine it is wicked: it is merely the +Law, not the Gospel, and we framed our own musical settings, so that we +had no associations with the Prayer Book.” + +Here Hilda chanted softly, there being no one in the old churchyard:-- + +“A woman may not marry with her Grandfather. Grandmother's Husband, +Husband's Grandfather.. Father's Brother. Mother's Brother. Father's +Sister's Husband.. Mother's Sister's Husband. Husband's Father's +Brother. Husband's Mother's Brother.. Father. Step-Father. Husband's +Father.. Son. Husband's Son. Daughter's Husband.. Brother. Husband's +Brother. Sister's Husband.. Son's Son. Daughter's Son. Son's Daughter's +Husband.. Daughter's Daughter's Husband. Husband's Son's Son. Husband's +Daughter's Son .. Brother's Son. Sister's Son. Brother's Daughter's +Husband.. Sister's Daughter's Husband. Husband's Brother's Son. +Husband's Sister's Son.” + +“It seems as if there were nobody left,” I said disconsolately, “save +perhaps your Second Cousin's Uncle, or your Enemy's Dearest Friend.” + +“That's just the effect it has on one,” answered Hilda. “We always used +to conclude our chant with the advice:-- + +“And if there is anybody, after this, in the universe. left to. marry.. +marry him as expeditiously. as you. possibly. can.. Because there are +very few husbands omitted from this table of. Kindred and. Affinity.. +And it behoveth a maiden to snap them up without any delay. willing or +unwilling. whenever and. wherever found.” + +“We were also required to learn by heart the form of Prayer with +Thanksgiving to be used Yearly upon the Fifth Day of November for the +happy deliverance of King James I. and the Three Estates of England from +the most traitorous and bloody-intended Massacre by Gunpowder; also the +prayers for Charles the Martyr and the Thanksgiving for having put an +end to the Great Rebellion by the Restitution of the King and Royal +Family after many Years' interruption which unspeakable Mercies were +wonderfully completed upon the 29th of May in the year 1660!” + +“1660! We had been forty years in America then,” soliloquised Francesca; +“and isn't it odd that the long thanksgivings in our country must all +have been for having successfully run away from the Gunpowder Treason, +King Charles the Martyr, and the Restituted Royal Family; yet here we +are, you and I, the best of friends, talking it all over.” + +As we jog along, or walk, by turns, we come to Buckingham Street, +and looking up at Alfred Jingle's lodgings say a grateful word of Mr. +Pickwick. We tell each other that much of what we know of London and +England seems to have been learned from Dickens. + +Deny him the right to sit among the elect, if you will; talk of his +tendency to farce and caricature; call his humour low comedy, and +his pathos bathos--although you shall say none of these things in my +presence unchallenged; the fact remains that every child, in America +at least, knows more of England--its almshouses, debtors' prisons, and +law-courts, its villages and villagers, its beadles and cheap-jacks and +hostlers and coachmen and boots, its streets and lanes, its lodgings and +inns and landladies and roastbeef and plum-pudding, its ways, manners, +and customs,--knows more of these things and a thousand others from +Dickens's novels than from all the histories, geographies, biographies, +and essays in the language. Where is there another novelist who has so +peopled a great city with his imaginary characters that there is hardly +room for the living population, as one walks along the ways? + +O these streets of London! There are other more splendid shades in +them,--shades that have been there for centuries, and will walk beside +us so long as the streets exist. One can never see these shades, save +as one goes on foot, or takes that chariot of the humble, the omnibus. I +should like to make a map of literary London somewhat after Leigh +Hunt's plan, as projected in his essay on the World of Books; for to the +book-lover 'the poet's hand is always on the place, blessing it.' One +can no more separate the association from the particular spot than one +can take away from it any other beauty. + +'Fleet Street is always Johnson's Fleet Street' (so Leigh Hunt says); +'the Tower belongs to Julius Caesar, and Blackfriars to Suckling, +Vandyke, and the Dunciad...I can no more pass through Westminster +without thinking of Milton, or the Borough without thinking of Chaucer +and Shakespeare, or Gray's Inn without calling Bacon to mind, or +Bloomsbury Square without Steele and Akenside, than I can prefer +brick and mortar to wit and poetry, or not see a beauty upon it beyond +architecture in the splendour of the recollection.' + + + +Chapter X. Apropos of advertisements. + + + +Francesca wishes to get some old hall-marked silver for her home +tea-tray, and she is absorbed at present in answering advertisements of +people who have second-hand pieces for sale, and who offer to bring them +on approval. The other day, when Willie Beresford and I came in from +Westminster Abbey (where we had been choosing the best locations for +our memorial tablets), we thought Francesca must be giving a 'small and +early'; but it transpired that all the silver-sellers had called at the +same hour, and it took the united strength of Dawson and Mr. Beresford, +together with my diplomacy, to rescue the poor child from their +clutches. She came out alive, but her safety was purchased at the cost +of a George IV. cream-jug, an Elizabethan sugar-bowl, and a Boadicea +tea-caddy, which were, I doubt not, manufactured in Wardour Street +towards the close of the nineteenth century. + +Salemina came in just then, cold and tired. (Tower and National Gallery +the same day. It's so much more work to go to the Tower nowadays than +it used to be!) We had intended to take a sail to Richmond on a penny +steamboat, but it was drizzling, so we had a cosy fire instead, slipped +into our tea-gowns, and ordered tea and thin bread-and-butter, a basket +of strawberries with their frills on, and a jug of Devonshire cream. +Willie Beresford asked if he might stay; otherwise, he said, he should +have to sit at a cold marble table on the corner of Bond Street and +Piccadilly, and take his tea in bachelor solitude. + +“Yes,” I said severely, “we will allow you to stay; though, as you are +coming to dinner, I should think you would have to go away some time, +if only in order that you might get ready to come back. You've been here +since breakfast-time.” + +“I know,” he answered calmly, “and my only error in judgment was that I +didn't take an earlier breakfast, in order to begin my day here sooner. +One has to snatch a moment when he can, nowadays; for these rooms are +so infested with British swells that a base-born American stands very +little chance!” + +Now I should like to know if Willie Beresford is in love with Francesca. +What shall I do--that is what shall we do--if he is, when she is in love +with somebody else? To be sure, she may want one lover for foreign and +another for domestic service. He is too old for her, but that is always +the way. When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life, +took a bride in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose +Hebe. + +I wonder why so many people call him 'Willie' Beresford, at his age. +Perhaps it is because his mother sets the example; but from her lips +it does not seem amiss. I suppose when she looks at him she recalls +the past, and is ever seeing the little child in the strong man, mother +fashion. It is very beautiful, that feeling; and when a girl surprises +it in any mother's eyes it makes her heart beat faster, as in the +presence of something sacred, which she can understand only because she +is a woman, and experience is foreshadowed in intuition. + +The Honourable Arthur had sent us a dozen London dailies and weeklies, +and we fell into an idle discussion of their contents over the teacups. +I had found an 'exchange column' which was as interesting as it was +novel, and I told Francesca it seemed to me that if we managed wisely we +could rid ourselves of all our useless belongings, and gradually amass +a collection of the English articles we most desired. “Here is an +opportunity, for instance,” I said, and I read aloud--“'S.G., of +Kensington, will post “Woman” three days old regularly for a box of cut +flowers.'” + +“Rather young,” said Mr. Beresford, “or I'd answer that advertisement +myself.” + +I wanted to tell him I didn't suppose that he could find anything too +young for his taste, but I didn't dare. + +“Salemina adores cats,” I went on. “How is this, Sally, dear?-- +'A handsome orange male Persian cat, also a tabby, immense coat, +brushes and frills, is offered in exchange for an electro-plated +revolving covered dish or an Allen's Vapour Bath.'” + +“I should like the cat, but alas! I have no covered dish,” sighed +Salemina. + +“Buy one,” suggested Mr. Beresford. “Even then you'd be getting a +bargain. Do you understand that you receive the male orange cat for the +dish, and the frilled tabby for the bath, or do you get both in exchange +for either of these articles? Read on, Miss Hamilton.” + +“Very well, here is one for Francesca--“'A harmonium with seven stops +is offered in exchange for a really good Plymouth cockerel hatched in +May.'” + +“I should want to know when the harmonium was hatched,” said Francesca +prudently. “Now you cannot usurp the platform entirely, my dear Pen. +Listen to an English marriage notice from the Times. It chances to be +the longest one to-day, but there were others just as remarkable in +yesterday's issue. + +“'On the 17th instant, at Emmanuel Church (Countess of Padelford's +connection), Weston-super-Mare, by the Rev. Canon Vernon, B.D., Rector +of St. Edmund the King and Martyr, Suffolk Street, uncle of bride, +assisted by the Rev. Otho Pelham, M.A., Vicar of All Saints, Upper +Norwood, Dr. Philosophial Konrad Rasch, of Koetzsenbroda, Saxony, +to Evelyn Whitaker Rake, widow of the late Richard Balaclava Rake, +Barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple and Bombay, and third surviving +daughter of George Frederic Goldspink, C.B., of Sydenham House, Craig +Hill, Commissioner of Her Majesty's Customs, and formerly of the War +Office.'” + +By the time this was finished we were all quite exhausted, but we +revived like magic when Salemina read us her contribution:-- + +“'A NAME ENSHRINED IN LITERATURE AND RENOWNED IN COMMERCE,--Miss +Willard, Waddington, Essex. Deal with her whenever you possibly can. +When you want to purchase, ask her for anything under the canopy of +heaven, from jewels, bijouterie, and curios to rare books and high-class +articles of utility. When you want to sell, consign only to her, from +choice gems to mundane objects. All transactions embodying the germs +of small profits are welcome. As a sample of her stock please note: +A superlatively exquisite, essentially beautiful, and important lace +flounce for sale, at a reasonable price. Also a bargain of peerlessly +choice character.--Six grandly glittering paste cluster buttons, of +important size, emitting dazzling rays of incomparable splendour and +lustre. Don't readily forget this or her name and address,--Clara (Miss) +Willard (the Lady Trader), Waddington, Essex. Immaculate promptitude and +scrupulous liberality observed: therefore, on these credentials, ye must +deal with her; it is the duty of intellect to be reciprocal.'” + +Just here Dawson entered, evidently to lay the dinner-cloth, but, seeing +that we had a visitor, he took the tea-tray and retired discreetly. + +“It is five-and-thirty minutes past six, Mr. Beresford,” I said. “Do you +think you can get to the Metropole and array yourself and return in less +than an hour? Because, even if you can, remember that we ladies have +elaborate toilets in prospect,--toilets intended for the complete +prostration of the British gentry. Francesca has a yellow gown which +will drive Bertie Godolphin to madness. Salemina has laid out a soft, +dovelike grey and steel combination, directed towards the Church of +England; for you may not know that Sally has a vicar in her train, Mr. +Beresford, and he will probably speak to-night. As for me-” + +Before these shocking personalities were finished Salemina and Francesca +had fled to their rooms, and Mr. Beresford took up my broken sentence +and said, “As for you, Miss Hamilton, whatever gown you wear, you are +sure to make one man speak, if you care about it; but, I suppose, you +would not listen to him unless he were English”; and with that shot he +departed. + +I really think I shall have to give up the Francesca hypothesis, and, +alas! I am not quite ready to adopt any other. + +We discussed international marriages while we were at our toilets, +Salemina and I prinking by the light of one small candle-end, while +Francesca, as the youngest and prettiest, illuminated her charms with +the six sitting-room candles and three filched from the little table in +the hall. + +I gave it as my humble opinion that for an American woman an English +husband was at least an experiment; Salemina declared that for that +matter a husband of any nationality was an experiment. Francesca ended +the conversation flippantly by saying that in her judgment no husband at +all was a much more hazardous experiment. + + + +Chapter XI. The ball on the opposite side. + + + +We are all three rather tired this morning,--Salemina, Francesca, and +I,--for we went to one of the smartest balls of the London season last +night, and were robbed of half our customary allowance of sleep in +consequence. + +It may be difficult for you to understand our weariness, when I confess +that the ball was not quite of the usual sort; that we did not dance +at all; and, what is worse, that we were not asked, either to tread a +measure, or sit out a polka, or take 'one last turn.' + +To begin at the beginning, there is a large vacant house directly +opposite Smith's Private Hotel, and there has been hanging from its +balcony, until very lately, a sign bearing the following notice:-- + + + THESE COMMANDING PREMISES + WITH A SUPERFICIAL AREA OF + 10,000 FT. AND 50 FT. + FRONTAGE TO DOVERMARLE ST. + WILL BE SOLD BY AUCTION + ON TUESDAY, JUNE 28TH, BY + MESSRS. SKIDDY, YADDLETHORPE AND SKIDDY + LAND AGENTS AND SURVEYORS + 27 HASTINGS PLACE, PALL MALL. + +A few days ago, just as we were finishing a late breakfast, an elderly +gentleman drove up in a private hansom, and alighted at this vacant +house on the opposite side. Behind him, in a cab, came two men, who +unlocked the front door, went in, came out on the balcony, cut the wires +supporting the sign, took it down, opened all the inside shutters, +and disappeared through some rear entrance. The elderly gentleman went +upstairs for a moment, came down again, and drove away. + +“The house has been sold, I suppose,” said Salemina; “and for my part I +envy the new owner his bargain. He is close to Piccadilly, has that bit +of side lawn with the superb oak-tree, and the duke's beautiful gardens +so near that they will seem virtually his own when he looks from his +upper windows.” + +At tea-time the same elderly gentleman drove up in a victoria, with a +very pretty young lady. + +“The plot thickens,” said Francesca, who was nearest the window. “Do you +suppose she is his bride-elect, and is he showing her their future home, +or is she already his wife? If so, I fear me she married him for his +title and estates, for he is more than a shade too old for her.” + +“Don't be censorious, child,” I remonstrated, taking my cup idly across +the room, to be nearer the scene of action. “Oh, dear! there is a slight +discrepancy, I confess, but I can explain it. This is how it happened: +The girl had never really loved, and did not know what the feeling was. +She did know that the aged suitor was a good and worthy man, and her +mother and nine small brothers and sisters (very much out at the toes) +urged the marriage. The father, too, had speculated heavily in consorts +or consuls, or whatever-you-call-'ems, and besought his child not to +expose his defalcations and losses. She, dutiful girl, did as she was +bid, especially as her youngest sister came to her in tears and said, +'Unless you consent we shall have to sell the cow!' So she went to the +altar with a heart full of palpitating respect, but no love to speak of; +that always comes in time to heroines who sacrifice themselves and spare +the cows.” + +“It sounds strangely familiar,” remarked Mr. Beresford, who was with us, +as usual. “Didn't a fellow turn up in the next chapter, a young nephew +of the old husband, who fell in love with the bride, unconsciously and +against his will? Wasn't she obliged to take him into the conservatory, +at the end of a week, and say, 'G-go! I beseech you! for b-both our +sakes!'? Didn't the noble fellow wring her hand silently, and leave her +looking like a broken lily on the-” + +“How can you be so cynical, Mr. Beresford? It isn't like you!” exclaimed +Salemina. “For my part, I don't think the girl is either his bride or +his fiancee. Probably the mother of the family is dead, and the father +is bringing his eldest daughter to look at the house: that's my idea of +it.” + +This theory being just as plausible as ours, we did not discuss it, +hoping that something would happen to decide the matter in one way or +another. + +“She is not married, I am sure,” went on Salemina, leaning over the back +of my chair. “You notice that she hasn't given a glance at the kitchen +or the range, although they are the most important features of the +house. I think she may have just put her head inside the dining-room +door, but she certainly didn't give a moment to the butler's pantry or +the china closet. You will find that she won't mount to the fifth floor +to see how the servants are housed,--not she, careless, pretty creature; +she will go straight to the drawing-room.” + +And so she did; and at the same instant a still younger and prettier +creature drove up in a hansom, and was out of it almost before the +admiring cabby could stop his horse or reach down for his fare. She flew +up the stairway and danced into the drawing-room like a young whirlwind; +flung open doors, pulled up blinds with a jerk, letting in the sunlight +everywhere, and tiptoed to and fro over the dusty floors, holding up her +muslin flounces daintily. + +“This must be the daughter of his first marriage,” I remarked. + +“Who will not get on with the young stepmother,” finished Mr. Beresford. + +“It is his youngest daughter,” corrected Salemina,--“the youngest +daughter of his only wife, and the image of her deceased mother, who +was, in her time, the belle of Dublin.” + +She might well have been that, we all agreed; for this young beauty was +quite the Irish type, such black hair, grey-blue eyes, and wonderful +lashes, and such a merry, arch, winsome face, that one loved her on the +instant. + +She was delighted with the place, and we did not wonder, for the +sunshine, streaming in at the back and side windows, showed us rooms +of noble proportions opening into one another. She admired the balcony, +although we thought it too public to be of any use save for flowering +plants; she was pleased with a huge French mirror over the marble +mantle; she liked the chandeliers, which were in the worst possible +taste; all this we could tell by her expressive gestures; and she +finally seized the old gentleman by the lapels of his coat and danced +him breathlessly from the fireplace to the windows and back again, while +the elder girl clapped her hands and laughed. + +“Isn't she lovely?” sighed Francesca, a little covetously, although she +is something of a beauty herself. + +“I am sorry that her name is Bridget,” said Mr. Beresford. + +“For shame!” I cried indignantly. “It is Norah, or Veronica, or +Geraldine, or Patricia; yes, it is Patricia,--I know it as well as if I +had been at the christening.--Dawson, take the tea-things, please; and +do you know the name of the gentleman who has bought the house on the +opposite side?” + +“It is Lord Brighton, miss.” (You would never believe it, but we find +the name is spelled Brighthelmston.) “He hasn't bought the 'ouse; he has +taken it for a week, and is giving a ball there on the Tuesday evening. +He has four daughters, miss, and two h'orphan nieces that generally +spends the season with 'im. It's the youngest daughter he is bringing +out, that lively one you saw cutting about just now. They 'ave no +ballroom, I expect, in their town 'ouse, which accounts for their +renting one for this occasion. They stopped a month in this 'otel last +year, so I have the honour of m'luds acquaintance.” + +“Lady Brighthelmston is not living, I should judge,” remarked Salemina, +in the tone of one who thinks it hardly worth while to ask. + +“Oh, yes, miss, she's alive and 'earty; but the daughters manages +everythink, and what they down't manage the h'orphan nieces does. The +'ouse is run for the young ladies, but m'ludanlady seems to enjoy it.” + +Dovermarle Street was so interesting during the next few days that we +could scarcely bear to leave it, lest something exciting should happen +in our absence. + +“A ball is so confining!” said Francesca, who had come back from the +corner of Piccadilly to watch the unloading of a huge van, and found +that it had no intention of stopping at Number Nine on the opposite +side. + +First came a small army of charwomen, who scrubbed the house from top +to bottom. Then came men with canvas for floors, bronzes and jardinieres +and somebody's family portraits from an auction-room, chairs and sofas +and draperies from an upholsterer's. + +The night before the event itself I announced my intention of staying in +our own drawing-room the whole of the next day. “I am more interested in +Patricia's debut,” I said, “than anything else that can possibly happen +in London. What if it should be wet, and won't it be annoying if it is a +cold night and they draw the heavy curtains close together?” + +But it was beautiful day, almost too warm for a ball, and the heavy +curtains were not drawn. The family did not court observation; it was +serenely unconscious of such a thing. As to our side of the street, I +think we may have been the only people at all interested in the affair +now so imminent. The others had something more sensible to do, I fancy, +than patching up romances about their neighbours. + +At noon the florists decorated the entrance with palms, covered the +balcony with a gay awning, and hung the railing with brilliant masses +of scarlet and yellow flowers. At two the caterers sent silver, tables, +linen, and dishes, and a Broadwood grand piano was installed; but at +half-past seven, when we sat down to dinner, we were a trifle anxious, +because so many things seemed yet to do before the party could be a +complete success. + +Mr. Beresford and his mother were dining with us, and we had sent +invitations to our London friends, the Hon. Arthur Ponsonby and Bertie +Godolphin, to come later in the evening. These read as follows:-- + + Private View + The pleasure of your company is requested + at the coming-out party of + The Hon. Patricia Brighthelmston + July --- 189- + On the opposite side of the street. + Dancing about 10-30. 9 Dovermarle Street. + +At eight o'clock, as we were finishing our fish course, which chanced +to be fried sole, the ball began literally to roll, and it required the +greatest ingenuity on Francesca's part and mine to be always down in our +seats when Dawson entered with the dishes, and always at the window when +he was absent. + +An enormous van had appeared, with half a dozen men walking behind it. +In a trice, two of them had stretched a wire trellis across one wall +of the drawing-room, and two more were trailing roses from floor to +ceiling. Others tied the dark wood of the stair railing with tall +Madonna lilies; then they hung garlands of flowers from corner to corner +and, alas! could not refrain from framing the mirror in smilax, nor +from hanging the chandeliers with that same ugly, funereal, and +artificial-looking vine,--this idea being the principal stock-in-trade +of every florist in the universe. + +We could not catch even a glimpse of the supper-rooms, but we saw a man +in the fourth story front room filling dozens of little glass vases, +each with its single malmaison, rose, or camellia, and despatching them +by an assistant to another part of the house; so we could imagine from +this the scheme of decoration at the tables.--No, not new, perhaps, but +simple and effective. + +By the time we had finished our entree, which happened to be lamb +cutlets and green peas, and had begun our roast, which was chicken and +ham, I remember, they had put wreaths at all the windows, hung Japanese +lanterns on the balcony and in the oak-tree, and transformed the house +into a blossoming bower. + +At this exciting juncture Dawson entered unexpectedly with our sweet, +and for the first and only time caught us literally 'red-handed.' Let +British subjects be interested in their neighbours, if they will (and +when they refrain I am convinced that it is as much indifference as good +breeding), but let us never bring our country into disrepute with an +English butler! As there was not a single person at the table when +Dawson came in, we were obliged to say that we had finished dinner, +thank you, and would take coffee; no sweet to-night, thank you. + +Willie Beresford was the only one who minded, but he rather likes cherry +tart. It simply chanced to be cherry tart, for our cook at Smith's +Private Hotel is a person of unbridled fancy and endless repertory. She +sometimes, for example, substitutes rhubarb for cherry tart quite out +of her own head; and when balked of both these dainties, and thrown +absolutely on her own boundless resources, will create a dish of stewed +green gooseberries and a companion piece of liquid custard. These +unrelated concoctions, when eaten at the same moment, as is her +intention, always remind me of the lying down together of the lion and +the lamb, and the scheme is well-nigh as dangerous, under any other +circumstances than those of the digestive millennium. I tremble to think +what would ensue if all the rhubarb and gooseberry bushes in England +should be uprooted in a single night. I believe that thousands of cooks, +those not possessed of families or Christian principles, would drown +themselves in the Thames forthwith, but that is neither here nor there, +and the Honourable Arthur denies it. He says, “Why commit suicide? Ain't +there currants?” + +I had forgotten to say that we ourselves were all en grande toilette, +down to satin slippers, feeling somehow that it was the only proper +thing to do; and when Dawson had cleared the table and ushered in the +other visitors, we ladies took our coffee and the men their cigarettes +to the three front windows, which were open as usual to our balcony. + +We seated ourselves there quite casually, as is our custom, somewhat +hidden by the lace draperies and potted hydrangeas, and whatever we saw +was to be seen by any passer-by, save that we held the key to the whole +story, and had made it our own by right of conquest. + +Just at this moment--it was quarter-past nine, although it was still +bright daylight--came a little procession of servants who disappeared +within the doors, and, as they donned caps and aprons, would now and +then reappear at the windows. Presently the supper arrived. We did +not know the number of invited guests (there are some things not even +revealed to the Wise Woman), but although we were a trifle nervous about +the amount of eatables, we were quite certain that there would be no +dearth of liquid refreshment. + +Contemporaneously with the supper came a four-wheeler with a man and a +woman in it. + +Sal. “I wonder if that is Lord and Lady Brighthelmston?” + +Mrs. B. “Nonsense, my dear; look at the woman's dress.” + +W.B. “It is probably the butler, and I have a premonition that that is +good old Nurse with him. She has been with family ever since the birth +of the first daughter twenty-four years ago. Look at her cap ribbons; +note the fit of the stiff black silk over her comfortable shoulders; you +can almost hear her creak in it!” + +B.G. “My eye! but she's one to keep the goody-pot open for the +youngsters! She'll be the belle of the ball so far as I'm concerned.” + +Fran. “It's impossible to tell whether it's the butler or paterfamilias. +Yes, it's the butler, for he has taken off his coat and is looking at +the flowers with the florist's assistant.” + +B.G. “And the florist's assistant is getting slated like one o'clock! +The butler doesn't like the rum design over the piano; no more do I. +Whatever is the matter with them now?” + +They were standing with their faces towards us, gesticulating wildly +about something on the front wall of the drawing-room; a place quite +hidden from our view. They could not decide the matter, although the +butler intimated that it would quite ruin the ball, while the assistant +mopped his brow and threw all the blame on somebody else. Nurse came in, +and hated whatever it was the moment her eye fell on it. She couldn't +think how anybody could abide it, and was of the opinion that his +ludship would have it down as soon as he arrived. + +Our attention was now distracted by the fact that his ludship did +arrive. It was ten o'clock, but barely dark enough yet to make the +lanterns effective, although they had just been lighted. + +There were two private carriages and two four-wheelers, from which +paterfamilias and one other gentleman alighted, followed by a small +feminine delegation. + +“One young chap to brace up the gov'nor,” said Bertie Godolphin. “Then +the eldest daughter is engaged to be married; that's right; only three +daughters and two h'orphan nieces to work off now!” + +As the girls scampered in, hidden by their long cloaks, we could +not even discover the two we already knew. While they were divesting +themselves of their wraps in an upper chamber, Nurse hovering over them +with maternal solicitude, we were anxiously awaiting their criticisms of +our preparations. + + + +Chapter XII. Patricia makes her debut. + + + +For three days we had been overseeing the details. Would they approve +the result? Would they think the grand piano in the proper corner? Were +the garlands hung too low? Was the balcony scheme effective? Was our +menu for the supper satisfactory? Were there too many lanterns? Lord and +Lady Brighthelmston had superintended so little, and we so much, that we +felt personally responsible. + +Now came musicians with their instruments. The butler sent four +melancholy Spanish students to the balcony, where they began to tune +mandolins and guitars, while an Hungarian band took up its position, we +conjectured, on some extension or balcony in the rear, the existence of +which we had not guessed until we heard the music later. Then the +butler turned on the electric light, and the family came into the +drawing-rooms. + +They did admire them as much as we could wish, and we, on our part, +thoroughly approved of the family. We had feared it might prove dull, +plain, dowdy, though wellborn, with only dear Patricia to enliven it; +but it was well-dressed, merry, and had not a thought of glancing at the +windows or pulling down the blinds, bless its simple heart! + +The mother entered first, wearing a grey satin gown and a diamond crown +that quite established her position in the great world. Then girls, and +more girls: a rose-pink girl, a pale green, a lavender, a yellow, +and our Patricia, in a cloud of white with a sparkle of silver, and a +diamond arrow in her lustrous hair. + +What an English nosegay they made, to be sure, as they stood in the back +of the room while paterfamilias approached, and calling each in turn, +gave her a lovely bouquet from a huge basket held by the butler. + +Everybody's flowers matched everybody's frock to perfection; those of +the h'orphan nieces were just as beautiful as those of the daughters, +and it is no wonder that the English nosegay descended upon +paterfamilias, bore him into the passage, and if they did not kiss +him soundly, why did he come back all rosy and crumpled, smoothing his +dishevelled hair, and smiling at Lady Brighthelmston? We speedily named +the girls Rose, Mignonette, Violet, and Celandine, each after the colour +of her frock. + +“But there are only five, and there ought to be six,” whispered +Salemina, as if she expected to be heard across the street. + +“One--two--three--four--five, you are right,” said Mr. Beresford. “The +plainest of the lot must be staying in Wales with a maiden aunt who has +a lot of money to leave. The old lady isn't so ill that they can't give +the ball, but just ill enough so that she may make her will wrong if +left alone; poor girl, to be plain, and then to miss such a ball as +this,--hello! the first guest! He is on time to be sure; I hate to be +first, don't you?” + +The first guest was a strikingly handsome fellow, irreproachably dressed +and unmistakably nervous. + +“He is afraid he is too early!” + +“He is afraid that if he waits he'll be too late!” + +“He doesn't want the driver to stop directly in front of the door.” + +“He has something beside him on the seat of the hansom.” + +“The tissue paper has blown off: it is flowers.” + +“It is a piece! Jove, this IS a rum ball!” + +“What IS the thing? No wonder he doesn't drive up to the door and go in +with it!” + +“It is a HARP, as sure as I am alive!” + +Then electrically from Francesca, “It is Patricia's Irish lover! I +forget his name.” + +“Rory!” + +“Shamus!” + +“Michael!” + +“Patrick!” + +“Terence!” + +“Hush!” she exclaimed at this chorus of Hibernian Christian names, “it +is Patricia's undeclared impecunious lover. He is afraid that she won't +know his gift is a harp, and afraid that the other girls will. He feared +to send it, lest one of the sisters or h'orphan nieces should get it; it +is frightful to love one of six, and the cards are always slipping off, +and the wrong girl is always receiving your love-token or your offer of +marriage.” + +“And if it is an offer, and the wrong woman gets it, she always accepts, +somehow,” said Mr. Beresford; “It's only the right one who declines!” + and here he certainly looked at me pointedly. + +“He hoped to arrive before any one else,” Francesca went on, “and put +the harp in a nice place, and lead Patricia up to it, and make her +wonder who sent it. Now poor dear (yes, his name is sure to be Terence), +he is too late, and I am sure he will leave it in the hansom, he will be +so embarrassed.” + +And so he did, but alas! the driver came back with it in an instant, +the butler ran down the long path of crimson carpet that covered the +sidewalk, the first footman assisted, the second footman pursued Terence +and caught him on the staircase, and he descended reluctantly, only +to receive the harp in his arms and send a tip to the cabman, whom of +course he was cursing in his heart. + +“I can't think why he should give her a harp,” mused Bertie Godolphin. +“Such a rum thing, a harp, isn't it? It's too heavy for her to 'tote,' +as you say in the States.” + +“Yes, we always say 'tote,' particularly in the North,” I replied; “but +perhaps it is Patricia's favourite instrument. Perhaps Terence first +saw her at the harp, and loved her from the moment he heard her sing the +'Minstrel Boy' and the 'Meeting of the Waters.'” + +“Perhaps he merely brought it as a sort of symbol,” suggested Mr. +Beresford; “a kind of flowery metaphor signifying that all Ireland, in +his person, is at her disposal, only waiting to be played upon.” + +“If that is what he means, he must be a jolly muff,” remarked the +Honourable Arthur. “I should think he'd have to send a guidebook with +the bloomin' thing.” + +We never knew how Terence arranged about the incubus; we only saw that +he did not enter the drawing room with it in his arms. He was well +received, although there was no special enthusiasm over his arrival; but +the first guest is always at a disadvantage. + +He greeted the young ladies as if he were in the habit of meeting them +often, but when he came to Patricia, well, he greeted her as if he could +never meet her often enough; there was a distinct difference, and even +Mrs. Beresford, who had been incredulous, succumbed to our view of the +case. + +Patricia took him over to the piano to see the arrangement of some +lilies. He said they were delicious, but looked at her. + +She asked him if he did not think the garlands lovely. + +He said, “Perfectly charming,” but never lifted his eyes higher than her +face. + +“Do you like my dress?” her glance seemed to ask. + +“Wonderful!” his seemed to reply, as he stealthily put out his hand and +touched a soft fold of its white fluffiness. + +I could hear him think, as she leaned into the curve of the Broadwood +and bent over the flowers-- + + 'Have you seen but a bright lily grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you marked but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutched it? + Have you felt the wool of beaver? + Or swan's down ever? + Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier? + Or the nard i' the fire? + Or have tasted the bag of the bee? + Oh, so white! oh, so soft! oh, so sweet is she!' + +A footman entered, bearing the harp, which he placed on a table in the +corner. He disclaimed all knowledge of it, having probably been well +paid to do so, and the unoccupied girls gathered about it like bees +about a honeysuckle, while Patricia and Terence stayed by the piano. + +“To think it may never be a match!” sighed Francesca, “and they are such +an ideal pair! But it is easy to see that the mother will oppose it, and +although Patricia is her father's darling, he cannot allow her to marry +a handsome young pauper like Terence.” + +“Cheer up!” said Bertie Godolphin reassuringly. “Perhaps some +unrelenting beggar of an uncle will die of old age next and leave him +the title and estates.” + +“I hope she will accept him to-night, if she loves him, estates or +no estates,” said Salemina, who, like many ladies who have elected +to remain single, is distinctly sentimental, and has not an ounce of +worldly wisdom. + +“Well, I think a fellow deserves some reward,” remarked Mr. Beresford, +“when he has the courage to drive up in a hansom bearing a green harp +with yellow strings in his arms. It shows that his passion has quite +eclipsed his sense of humour. By the way, I am not sure but I should +choose Rose, after all; there's something very attractive about Rose.” + +“It is the fact that she is promised to another,” laughed Francesca +somewhat pertly. + +“She would make an admirable wife,” Mrs. Beresford +interjected--absent-mindedly; “and so of course Terence will not choose +her, and similarly neither would you, if you had the chance.” + +At this Mrs. Beresford's son glances up at me with twinkling eyes, and +I can hardly forbear smiling, so unconscious is she that his choice is +already made. However, he replies: “Who ever loved a woman for her solid +virtues, mother? Who ever fell a victim to punctuality, patience, +or frugality? It is other and different qualities which colour the +personality and ensnare the heart; though the stodgy and reliable traits +hold it, I dare say, when once captured. Don't you know Berkeley says, +'D--n it, madam, who falls in love with attributes?'” + +Meantime Violet and Celandine have come out on the balcony, and seeing +the tinkling musicians there, have straightway banished them to another +part of the house. + +“A good thing, too!” murmured Bertie Godolphin, “making a beastly row in +that 'nailing' little corner, collecting a crowd sooner or later, don't +you know, and putting a dead stop to the jolly little flirtations.” + +The Honourable Arthur glanced critically at Celandine. “I should make up +to her,” he said thoughtfully. “She's the best groomed one of the whole +stud, though why you call her Celandine I can't think.” + +“It's a flower, and her dress is yellow, can't you see, man? You've got +no sense of colour,” said the candid Bertie. “I believe you'd just as +soon be a green parrot with a red head as not.” + +And now the guests began to arrive; so many of them and so near together +that we hardly had time to label them as they said good evening, and +told dear Lady Brighthelmston how pretty the decorations were, and how +prevalent the influenza had been, and how very sultry the weather, and +how clever it was of her to give her party in a vacant house, and what a +delightful marriage Rose was making, and how well dear Patricia looked. + +The sound of the music drifted into the usually quiet street, and by +half-past eleven the ball was in full splendour. Lady Brighthelmston +stood alone now, greeting all the late arrivals; and we could catch a +glimpse now and then of Violet dancing with a beautiful being in a white +uniform, and of Rose followed about by her accepted lover, both of them +content with their lot, but with feet quite on the solid earth. + +Celandine was a bit of a flirt, no doubt. She had many partners, walked +in the garden with them impartially, divided her dances, sat on the +stairs. Wherever her yellow draperies moved, nonsense, merriment, and +chatter followed in her wake. + +Patricia danced often with Terence. We could see the dark head, darker +and a bit taller than the others, move through the throng, the diamond +arrow gleaming in its lustrous coils. She danced like a flower blown by +the wind. Nothing could have been more graceful, more stately. The bend +of her slender body at the waist, the pose of her head, the line of +her shoulder, the suggestion of dimple in her elbow--all were so many +separate allurements to the kindling eye of love. + +Terence certainly added little to the general brilliancy and gaiety of +the occasion, for he stood in a corner and looked at Patricia whenever +he was not dancing with her, 'all eye when one was present, all memory +when one was gone.' + + + +Chapter XIII. A Penelope secret. + + + +Shortly after midnight our own little company broke up, loath to +leave the charming spectacle. The guests departed with the greatest +reluctance, having given Dawson a half-sovereign for waiting up to +lock the door. Mrs. Beresford said that it seemed unendurable to leave +matters in such an unfinished condition, and her son promised to come +very early next morning for the latest bulletins. + +“I leave all the romances in your hands,” he whispered to me; “do let +them turn out happily, do!” + +Salemina also retired to her virtuous couch, remembering that she was to +visit infant schools with a great educational dignitary on the morrow. + +Francesca and I turned the gas entirely out, although we had been +sitting all the evening in a kind of twilight, and slipping on our +dressing-gowns sat again at the window for a farewell peep into the +past, present, and future of the 'Brighthelmston set.' + +At midnight the dowager duchess arrived. She must at least have been a +dowager duchess, and if there is anything greater, within the bounds of +a reasonable imagination, she was that. Long streamers of black tulle +floated from a diamond soup-tureen which surmounted her hair. Narrow +puffings of white traversed her black velvet gown in all directions, +making her look somewhat like a railway map, and a diamond fan-chain +defined, or attempted to define, what was in its nature neither +definable nor confinable, to wit, her waist, or what had been, in early +youth, her waist. + +The entire company was stirred by the arrival of the dowager duchess, +and it undoubtedly added new eclat to what was already a fashionable +event; for we counted three gentlemen who wore orders glittering on +ribbons that crossed the white of their immaculate linen, and there was +an Indian potentate with a jewelled turban who divided attention with +the dowager duchess's diamond soup-tureen. + +At twelve-thirty Lord Brighthelmston chided Celandine for flirting too +much. + +At twelve-forty Lady Brighthelmston reminded Violet (who was a h'orphan +niece) that the beautiful being in the white uniform was not the eldest +son. + +At twelve-fifty there arrived an elderly gentleman, before whom the +servants bowed low. Lord Brighthelmston went to fetch Patricia, who +chanced to be sitting out a dance with Terence. The three came out on +the balcony, which was deserted, in the near prospect of supper, and the +personage--whom we suspected to be Patricia's godfather--took from his +waistcoat pocket a string of pearls, and, clasping it round her white +throat, stooped gently and kissed her forehead. + +Then at one o'clock came supper. Francesca and I had secretly provided +for that contingency, and curling up on a sofa we drew toward us a +little table which Dawson had spread with a galantine of chicken, some +cress sandwiches, and a jug of milk. + +At one-thirty we were quite overcome with sleep, and retired to our +beds, where of course we speedily grew wakeful. + +“It is giving a ball, not going to one, that is so exhausting!” yawned +Francesca. “How many times have I danced all night with half the fatigue +that I am feeling now!” + +The sound of music came across the street through the closed door of our +sitting-room. Waltz after waltz, a polka, a galop, then waltzes again, +until our brains reeled with the rhythm. As if this were not enough, +when our windows at the back were opened wide we were quite within reach +of Lady Durden's small dance, where another Hungarian band discoursed +more waltzes and galops. + +“Dancing, dancing everywhere, and not a turn for us!” grumbled +Francesca. “I simply cannot sleep, can you?” + +“We must make a determined effort,” I advised; “don't speak again, and +perhaps drowsiness will overtake us.” + +It finally did overtake Francesca, but I had too much to think about--my +own problems as well as Patricia's. After what seemed to be hours of +tossing I was helplessly drawn back into the sitting-room, just to see +if anything had happened, and if the affair was ever likely to come to +an end. + +It was half-past two, and yes, the ball was decidedly 'thinning out.' + +The attendants in the lower hall, when they were not calling carriages, +yawned behind their hands, and stood first on one foot, and then on the +other. + +Women in beautiful wraps, their heads flashing with jewels, descended +the staircase, and drove, or even walked, away into the summer night. + +Lady Brighthelmston began to look tired, although all the world, as it +said good night, was telling her that it was one of the most delightful +balls of the season. + +The English nosegay had lost its white flower, for Patricia was not +in the family group. I looked everywhere for the gleam of her silvery +scarf, everywhere for Terence, while, the waltz music having ceased, the +Spanish students played 'Love's Young Dream.' + +I hummed the words as the sweet old tune, strummed by the tinkling +mandolins, vibrated clearly in the maze of other sounds:-- + + 'Oh! the days have gone when Beauty bright + My heart's chain wove; + When my dream of life from morn till night + Was Love, still Love. + New hope may bloom and days may come, + Of milder, calmer beam, + But there's nothing half so sweet in life + As Love's Young Dream.' + +At last, in a quiet spot under the oak-tree, the lately risen moon found +Patricia's diamond arrow and discovered her to me. The Japanese lanterns +had burned out; she was wrapped like a young nun, in a cloud of white +that made her eyelashes seem darker. + +I looked once, because the moonbeam led me into it before I realised; +then I stole away from the window and into my own room, closing the door +softly behind me. + +We had so far been looking only at conventionalities, preliminaries, +things that all (who had eyes to see) might see; but this was +different--quite, quite different. + +They were as beautiful under the friendly shadow of their urban oak-tree +as were ever Romeo and Juliet on the balcony of the Capulets. I may not +tell you what I saw in my one quickly repented-of glance. That would be +vulgarising something that was already a little profaned by my innocent +participation. + +I do not know whether Terence was heir, even ever so far removed, to any +title or estates, and I am sure Patricia did not care: he may have been +vulgarly rich or aristocratically poor. I only know that they loved each +other in the old yet ever new way, without any ifs or ands or buts; that +he worshipped, she honoured; he asked humbly, she gave gladly. + +How do I know? Ah! that's a 'Penelope secret,' as Francesca says. + +Perhaps you doubt my intuitions altogether. Perhaps you believe in +your heart that it was an ordinary ball, where a lot of stupid people +arrived, danced, supped, and departed. Perhaps you do not think his name +was Terence or hers Patricia, and if you go so far as that in blindness +and incredulity I should not expect you to translate properly what I +saw last night under the oak-tree, the night of the ball on the opposite +side, when Patricia made her debut. + + + +Chapter XIV. Love and lavender. + + + +How well I remember our last evening in Dovermarle Street! + +At one of our open windows behind the potted ferns and blossoming +hydrangeas sat Salemina, Bertie Godolphin, Mrs. Beresford, the +Honourable Arthur, and Francesca; at another, as far off as +possible, sat Willie Beresford and I. Mrs. Beresford had sanctioned a +post-prandial cigar, for we were not going out till ten, to see, for the +second time, an act of John Hare's Pair of Spectacles. + +They were talking and laughing at the other end of the room; Mr. +Beresford and I were rather quiet. (Why is it that the people with whom +one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to +talk?) + +The room was dim with the light of a single lamp; the rain had ceased; +the roar of Piccadilly came to us softened by distance. A belated vendor +of lavender came along the sidewalk, and as he stopped under the windows +the pungent fragrance of the flowers was wafted up to us with his song. + + 'Who'll buy my pretty lavender? + Sweet lavender, + Who'll buy my pretty lavender? + Sweet bloomin' lavender.' + +The tune comes to me laden with odours. Is it not strange that the +fragrances of other days steal in upon the senses together with the +sights and sounds that gave them birth? + +Presently a horse and cart drew up before an hotel, a little further +along, on the opposite side of the way. By the light of the street lamp +under which it stopped we could see that it held a piano and two persons +beside the driver. The man was masked, and wore a soft felt hat and a +velvet coat. He seated himself at the piano and played a Chopin waltz +with decided sentiment and brilliancy; then, touching the keys idly for +a moment or two, he struck a few chords of prelude and turned towards +the woman who sat beside him. She rose, and, laying one hand on the +corner of the instrument, began to sing one of the season's favourites, +'The Song that reached my Heart.' She also was masked, and even her +figure was hidden by a long dark cloak the hood of which was drawn over +her head to meet the mask. She sang so beautifully, with such style and +such feeling, it seemed incredible to hear her under circumstances like +these. She followed the ballad with Handel's 'Lascia ch'io pianga,' +which rang out into the quiet street with almost hopeless pathos. When +she descended from the cart to undertake the more prosaic occupation +of passing the hat beneath the windows, I could see that she limped +slightly, and that the hand with which she pushed back the heavy dark +hair under the hood was beautifully moulded. They were all mystery that +couple; not to be confounded for an instant with the common herd of +London street musicians. With what an air of the drawing-room did he +of the velvet coat help the singer into the cart, and with what elegant +abandon and ultra-dilettantism did he light a cigarette, reseat himself +at the piano, and weave Scots ballads into a charming impromptu! I +confess I wrapped my shilling in a bit of paper and dropped it over the +balcony with the wish that I knew the tragedy behind this little street +drama. + +Willie Beresford was in a royal mood that night. You know the mood, in +which the heart is so full, so full, it overruns the brim. He bought +the entire stock of the lavender seller, and threw a shilling to +the mysterious singer for every song she sung. He even offered to +give--himself--to me! And oh! I would have taken him as gladly as ever +the lavender boy took the half-crown, had I been quite, quite sure of +myself! A woman with a vocation ought to be still surer than other women +that it is the very jewel of love she is setting in her heart, and not +a sparkling imitation. I gave myself wholly, or believed that I gave +myself wholly, to art, or what I believed to be art. And is there +anything more sacred than art?--Yes, one thing! + +It happened something in this wise. + +The singing had put us in a gentle mood, and after a long peroration +from Mr. Beresford, which I do not care to repeat, I said very softly +(blessing the Honourable Arthur's vociferous laughter at one of +Salemina's American jokes), “But I thought perhaps it was Francesca. Are +you quite sure?” + +He intimated that if there were any fact in his repertory of which he +was particularly and absolutely sure it was this special fact. + +“It is too sudden,” I objected. “Plants that blossom on shipboard-” + +“This plant was rooted in American earth, and you know it, Penelope. If +it chanced to blossom on the ship, it was because it had already budded +on the shore; it has borne transplanting to a foreign soil, and it +grows in beauty and strength every day: so no slurs, please, concerning +ocean-steamer hothouses.” + +“I cannot say yes, yet I dare not say no; it is too soon. I must go off +into the country quite by myself and think it over.” + +“But,” urged Mr. Beresford, “you cannot think over a matter of this +kind by yourself. You'll continually be needing to refer to me for data, +don't you know, on which to base your conclusions. How can you tell +whether you're in love with me or not if-- (No, I am not shouting at +all; it's your guilty conscience; I'm whispering.) How can you tell +whether you're in love with me, I repeat, unless you keep me under +constant examination?” + +“That seems sensible, though I dare say it is full of sophistry; but I +have made up my mind to go into the country and paint while Salemina and +Francesca are on the Continent. One cannot think in this whirl. A winter +season in Washington followed by a summer season in London,--one wants +a breath of fresh air before beginning another winter season somewhere +else. Be a little patient, please. I long for the calm that steals over +me when I am absorbed in my brushes and my oils.” + +“Work is all very well,” said Mr. Beresford with determination, “but I +know your habits. You have a little way of taking your brush, and with +one savage sweep painting out a figure from your canvas. Now if I am +on the canvas of your heart,--I say 'if' tentatively and modestly, +as becomes me,--I've no intention of allowing you to paint me out; +therefore I wish to remain in the foreground, where I can say 'Strike, +but hear me,' if I discover any hostile tendencies in your eye. But I +am thankful for small favours (the 'no' you do not quite dare say, for +instance), and I'll talk it over with you to-morrow, if the British +gentry will give me an opportunity, and if you'll deign to give me a +moment alone in any other place than the Royal Academy.” + +“I was alone with you to-day for a whole hour at least.” + +“Yes, first at the London and Westminster Bank, second in Trafalgar +Square, and third on the top of a 'bus, none of them congenial spots to +a man in my humour. Penelope, you are not dull, but you don't seem to +understand that I am head over-” + +“What are you two people quarrelling about?” cried Salemina. “Come, +Penelope, get your wrap. Mrs. Beresford, isn't she charming in her new +Liberty gown? If that New York wit had seen her, he couldn't have said, +'If that is Liberty, give me Death!' Yes, Francesca, you must wear +something over your shoulders. Whistle for two four-wheelers, Dawson, +please.” + + + + +Part Second--In the country. + + + + +Chapter XV. Penelope dreams. + + + + West Belvern, Holly House + August 189-. + +I am here alone. Salemina has taken her little cloth bag and her +notebook and gone to inspect the educational and industrial methods of +Germany. If she can discover anything that they are not already doing +better in Boston, she will take it back with her, but her state of +mind regarding the outcome of the trip might be described as one of +incredulity tinged with hope. Francesca has accompanied Salemina. Not +that the inspection of systems is much in her line, but she prefers +it to a solitude a deux with me when I am in a working mood, and she +comforts herself with the anticipation that the German army is very +attractive. Willie Beresford has gone with his mother to Aix-les-Bains, +like the dutiful son that he is. They say that a good son makes a good-- +But that subject is dismissed to the background for the present, for +we are in a state of armed neutrality. He has agreed to wait until the +autumn for a final answer, and I have promised to furnish one by that +time. Meanwhile, we are to continue our acquaintance by post, which is a +concession I would never have allowed if I had had my wits about me. + +After paying my last week's bill in Dovermarle Street, including fees +to several servants whom I knew by sight, and several others whose +acquaintance I made for the first time at the moment of departure, +I glanced at my ebbing letter of credit and felt a season of economy +setting in upon me with unusual severity; accordingly, I made an +experiment of coming third-class to Belvern. I handed the guard a +shilling, and he gave me a seat riding backwards in a carriage with +seven other women, all very frumpish, but highly respectable. As +he could not possibly have done any worse for me, I take it that he +considered the shilling a graceful tribute to his personal charms, +but as having no other bearing whatever. The seven women stared at me +throughout the journey. When one is really of the same blood, and +when one does not open one's lips or wave the stars and stripes in any +possible manner, how do they detect the American? These women looked +at me as if I were a highly interesting anthropoidal ape. It was not +because of my attire, for I was carefully dressed down to a third-class +level; yet when I removed my plain Knox hat and leaned my head +back against my travelling-pillow, an electrical shudder of intense +excitement ran through the entire compartment. When I stooped to tie my +shoe another current was set in motion, and when I took Charles Reade's +White Lies from my portmanteau they glanced at one another as if to say, +'Would that we could see in what language the book is written!' As a +travelling mystery I reached my highest point at Oxford, for there I +purchased a small basket of plums from a boy who handed them in at the +window of the carriage. After eating a few, I offered the rest to a +dowdy elderly woman on my left who was munching dry biscuits from a +paper bag. 'What next?' was the facial expression of the entire company. +My neighbour accepted the plums, but hid them in her bag; plainly +thinking them poisoned, and believing me to be a foreign conspirator, +conspiring against England through the medium of her inoffensive person. +In the course of the four-hours' journey, I could account for the +strange impression I was making only upon the theory that it is unusual +to comport oneself in a first-class manner in a third-class carriage. +All my companions chanced to be third-class by birth as well as by +ticket, and the Englishwoman who is born third-class is sometimes +deficient in imagination. + +Upon arriving at Great Belvern (which must be pronounced 'Bevern') I +took a trap, had my luggage put on in front, and start on my quest for +lodgings in West Belvern, five miles distant. Several addresses had been +given me by Hilda Mellifica, who has spent much time in this region, and +who begged me to use her name. I told the driver that I wished to find +a clean, comfortable lodging, with the view mentioned in the guide-book, +and with a purple clematis over the door, if possible. The last point +astounded him to such a degree that he had, I think, a serious idea of +giving me into custody. (I should not be so eccentrically spontaneous +with these people, if they did not feed my sense of humour by their +amazement.) + +We visited Holly House, Osborne, St. James, Victoria, and Albert houses, +Tank Villa, Poplar Villa, Rose, Brake, and Thorn Villas, as well as +Hawthorn, Gorse, Fern, Shrubbery, and Providence Cottages. All had +apartments, but many were taken, and many more had rooms either dark +and stuffy or without view. Holly House was my first stopping-place. Why +will a woman voluntarily call her place by a name which she can never +pronounce? It is my landlady's misfortune that she is named 'Obbs, and +mine that I am called 'Amilton, but Mrs. 'Obbs must have rushed with +eyes wide open on 'Olly 'Ouse. I found sitting-room and bedroom at Holly +House for two guineas a week; everything, except roof, extra. This +was more than, in my new spirit of economy I desired to pay, but after +exhausting my list I was obliged to go back rather than sleep in the +highroad. Mrs. Hobbs offered to deduct two shillings a week if I stayed +until Christmas, and said she should not charge me a penny for the +linen. Thanking her with tears of gratitude, I requested dinner. There +was no meat in the house, so I supped frugally off two boiled eggs, +a stodgy household loaf, and a mug of ale, after which I climbed the +stairs, and retired to my feather-bed in a rather depressed frame of +mind. + +Visions of Salemina and Francesca driving under the linden-trees in +Berlin flitted across my troubled reveries, with glimpses of Willie +Beresford and his mother at Aix-les-Bains. At this distance, and in the +dead of night, my sacrifice in coming here seemed fruitless. Why did I +not allow myself to drift for ever on that pleasant sea which has been +lapping me in sweet and indolent content these many weeks? Of what use +to labour, to struggle, to deny myself, for an art to which I can never +be more than the humblest handmaiden? I felt like crying out, as did +once a braver woman's soul than mine, 'Let me be weak! I have been +seeming to be strong so many years!' The woman and the artist in me have +always struggled for the mastery. So far the artist has triumphed, and +now all at once the woman is uppermost. I should think the two ought +to be able to live peaceably in the same tenement; they do manage it in +some cases; but it seems a law of my being that I shall either be all +one or all the other. + +The question for me to ask myself now is, “Am I in love with loving and +with being loved, or am I in love with Willie Beresford?” How many women +have confounded the two, I wonder? + +In this mood I fell asleep, and on a sudden I found myself in a dear New +England garden. The pillow slipped away, and my cheek pressed a fragrant +mound of mignonette, the self-same one on which I hid my tear-stained +face and sobbed my heart out in childish grief and longing for the +mother who would never hold me again. The moon came up over the +Belvern Hills and shone on my half-closed lids; but to me it was a very +different moon, the far-away moon of my childhood, with a river rippling +beneath its silver rays. And the wind that rustled among the poplar +branches outside my window was, in my dream, stirring the pink petals of +a blossoming apple-tree that used to grow beside the bank of mignonette, +wafting down sweet odours and drinking in sweeter ones. And presently +there stole in upon this harmony of enchanting sounds and delicate +fragrances, in which childhood and womanhood, pleasure and pain, memory +and anticipation, seemed strangely intermingled, the faint music of a +voice, growing clearer and clearer as my ear became familiar with its +cadences. And what the dream voice said to me was something like this:-- + +'If thou wouldst have happiness, choose neither fame, which doth not +long abide, nor power, which stings the hand that wields it, nor gold, +which glitters but never glorifies; but choose thou Love, and hold +it for ever in thy heart of hearts; for Love is the purest and the +mightiest force in the universe, and once it is thine all other gifts +shall be added unto thee. Love that is passionate yet reverent, tender +yet strong, selfish in desiring all yet generous in giving all; love +of man for woman and woman for man, of parent for child and friend for +friend--when this is born in the soul, the desert blossoms as the rose. +Straightway new hopes and wishes, sweet longings and pure ambitions, +spring into being, like green shoots that lift their tender heads in +sunny places; and if the soil be kind, they grow stronger and more +beautiful as each glad day laughs in the rosy skies. And by and by +singing-birds come and build their nests in the branches; and these +are the pleasures of life. And the birds sing not often, because of +a serpent that lurketh in the garden. And the name of the serpent is +Satiety. He maketh the heart to grow weary of what it once danced and +leaped to think upon, and the ear to wax dull to the melody of sounds +that once were sweet, and the eye blind to the beauty that once led +enchantment captive. And sometimes--we know not why, but we shall know +hereafter, for life is not completely happy since it is not heaven, nor +completely unhappy since it is the road thither--sometimes the light of +the sun is withdrawn for a moment, and that which is fairest vanishes +from the place that was enriched by its presence. Yet the garden is +never quite deserted. Modest flowers, whose charms we had not noted +when youth was bright and the world seemed ours, now lift their heads +in sheltered places and whisper peace. The morning song of the birds +is hushed, for the dawn breaks less rosily in the eastern skies, but at +twilight they still come and nestle in the branches that were sunned in +the smile of love and watered with its happy tears. And over the grave +of each buried hope or joy stands an angel with strong comforting hands +and patient smile; and the name of the garden is Life, and the angel is +Memory.' + + + +Chapter XVI. The decay of Romance. + + + +I have changed my Belvern, and there are so many others left to choose +from that I might live in a different Belvern each week. North, South, +East, and West Belvern, New Belvern, Old Belvern, Great Belvern, Little +Belvern, Belvern Link, Belvern Common, and Belvern Wells. They are all +nestled together in the velvet hollows or on the wooded crowns of the +matchless Belvern Hills, from which they look down upon the fairest +plains that ever blessed the eye. One can see from their heights a +score of market towns and villages, three splendid cathedrals, each in a +different county, the queenly Severn winding like a silver thread among +the trees, with soft-flowing Avon and gentle Teme watering the verdant +meadows through which they pass. All these hills and dales were once +the Royal Forest, and afterwards the Royal Chase, of Belvern, covering +nearly seven thousand acres in three counties; and from the lonely +height of the Beacon no less than + + 'Twelve fair counties saw the blaze' + +of signals, when the country was threatened by a Spanish invasion. As +for me, I mourn the decay of Romance with a great R; we have it still +among us, but we spell it with a smaller letter. It must be so much +more interesting to be threatened with an invasion, especially a Spanish +invasion, than with a strike, for instance. The clashing of swords and +the flashing of spears in the sunshine are so much more dazzling and +inspiring than a line of policemen with clubs! Yes, I wish it were the +age of chivalry again, and that I were looking down from these hills +into the Royal Chase. Of course I know that there were wicked and +selfish tyrants in those days, before the free press, the jury system, +and the folding-bed had wrought their beneficent influences upon the +common mind and heart. Of course they would have sneered at Browning +Societies and improved tenements, and of course they did not care +a penny whether woman had the ballot or not, so long as man had the +bottle; but I would that the other moderns were enjoying the modern +improvements, and that I were gazing into the cool depths of those deep +forests where there were once good lairs for the wolf and wild boar. I +should like to hear the baying of the hounds and the mellow horns of the +huntsman. I should like to see the royal cavalcade emerging from one of +those wooded glades: monarch and baron bold, proud prelate, abbot and +prior, belted knight and ladye fair, sweeping in gorgeous array under +the arcades of the overshadowing trees, silver spurs and jewelled +trappings glittering in the sunlight, princely forms bending low over +the saddles of the court beauties. Why, oh why, is it not possible to +be picturesque and pious in the same epoch? Why may not chivalry and +charity go hand in hand? It amuses me to imagine the amazement of +the barons, bold and belted knights, could they be resuscitated for a +sufficient length of time to gaze upon the hydropathic establishments +which dot their ancient hunting-grounds. It would have been very +difficult to interest the age of chivalry in hydropathy. + +Such is the fascination of historic association that I am sure, if +I could drag my beloved but conscientious Salemina from some foreign +soup-kitchen which she is doubtless inspecting, I could make even her +mourn the vanished past with me this morning, on the Beacon's towering +head. For Salemina wearies of the age of charity sometimes, as every one +does who is trying to make it a beautiful possibility. + + + +Chapter XVII. Short stops and long bills. + + + +The manner of my changing from West to North Belvern was this. When I +had been two days at Holly House, I reflected that my sitting-room faced +the wrong way for the view, and that my bedroom was dark and not large +enough to swing a cat in. Not that there was the remotest necessity +of my swinging cats in it, but the figure of speech is always useful. +Neither did I care to occupy myself with the perennial inspection and +purchase of raw edibles, when I wished to live in an ideal world and +paint a great picture. Mrs. Hobbs would come to my bedside in the +morning and ask me if I would like to buy a fowl. When I looked upon the +fowl, limp in death, with its headless neck hanging dejectedly over the +edge of the plate, its giblets and kidneys lying in immodest confusion +on the outside of itself, and its liver 'tucked under its wing, poor +thing,' I never wanted to buy it. But one morning, in taking my walk, +I chanced upon an idyllic spot: the front of the whitewashed cottage +embowered in flowers, bird-cages built into these bowers, a little +notice saying 'Canaries for Sale,' and an English rose of a baby sitting +in the path stringing hollyhock buds. There was no apartment sign, but +I walked in, ostensibly to buy some flowers. I met Mrs. Bobby, loved +her at first sight, the passion was reciprocal, and I wheedled her +into giving me her own sitting-room and the bedroom above it. It only +remained now for me to break my projected change of residence to my +present landlady, and this I distinctly dreaded. Of course Mrs. Hobbs +said, when I timidly mentioned the subject, that she wished she had +known I was leaving an hour before, for she had just refused a lady +and her husband, most desirable persons, who looked as if they would be +permanent. Can it be that lodgers radiate the permanent or transitory +quality, quite unknown to themselves? + +I was very much embarrassed, as she threatened to become tearful; and +as I was determined never to give up Mrs. Bobby, I said desperately, “I +must leave you, Mrs. Hobbs, I must indeed; but as you seem to feel so +badly about it, I'll go out and find you another lodger in my place.” + +The fact is, I had seen, not long before, a lady going in and out of +houses, as I had done on the night of my arrival, and it occurred to +me that I might pursue her, and persuade her to take my place in Holly +House and buy the headless fowl. I walked for nearly an hour before I +was rewarded with a glimpse of my victim's grey dress whisking round the +corner of Pump Street. I approached, and, with a smile that was intended +to be a justification in itself, I explained my somewhat unusual +mission. She was rather unreceptive at first; she thought evidently that +I was to have a percentage on her, if I succeeded in capturing her +alive and delivering her to Mrs. Hobbs; but she was very weary and +discouraged, and finally fell in with my plans. She accompanied me home, +was introduced to Mrs. Hobbs, and engaged my rooms from the following +day. As she had a sister, she promised to be a more lucrative incumbent +than I; she enjoyed ordering food in a raw state, did not care for +views, and thought purple clematis vines only a shelter for insects: +so every one was satisfied, and I most of all when I wrestled with Mrs. +Hobb's itemised bill for two nights and one day. Her weekly account must +be rolled on a cylinder, I should think, like the list of Don Juan's +amours, for the bill of my brief residence beneath her roof was quite +three feet in length, each of the following items being set down every +twenty-four hours:-- + + Apartments. + Ale. + Bath. + Kidney beans. + Candles. + Vegetable marrow. + Tea. + Eggs. + Butter. + Bread. + Cut off joint. + Plums. + Potatoes. + Chops. + Kipper. + Rasher. + Salt. + Pepper. + Vinegar. + Sugar. + Washing towels. + Lights. + Kitchen fire. + Sitting-room fire. + Attendance. + Boots. + +The total was seventeen shillings and sixpence, and as Mrs. Hobbs wrote +upon it, in her neat English hand, 'Received payment, with respectful +thanks,' she carefully blotted the wet ink, and remarked casually that +service was not included in 'attendance,' but that she would leave the +amount to me. + + + +Chapter XVIII. I meet Mrs. Bobby. + + + +Mrs. Bobby and I were born for each other, though we have been a long +time in coming together. She is the pink of neatness and cheeriness, and +she has a broad, comfortable bosom on which one might lay a motherless +head, if one felt lonely in a stranger land. I never look at her without +remembering what the poet Samuel Rogers said of Lady Parke: 'She is so +good that when she goes to heaven she will find no difference save that +her ankles will be thinner and her head better dressed.' + +No raw fowls visit my bedside here; food comes as I wish it to come when +I am painting, like manna from heaven. Mrs. Bobby brings me three times +a day something to eat, and though it is always whatever she likes, I +always agree in her choice, and send the blue dishes away empty. She +asked me this morning if I enjoyed my 'h'egg,' and remarked that she had +only one fowl, but it laid an egg for me every morning, so I might know +it was 'fresh as fresh.' It is certainly convenient: the fowl lays the +egg from seven to seven-thirty, I eat it from eight to eight-thirty; no +haste, no waste. Never before have I seen such heavenly harmony between +supply and demand. Never before have I been in such visible and unbroken +connection with the source of my food. If I should ever desire two eggs, +or if the fowl should turn sulky or indolent, I suppose Mrs. Bobby would +have to go half a mile to the nearest shop, but as yet everything has +worked to a charm. The cow is milked into my pitcher in the morning, and +the fowl lays her egg almost literally in my egg-cup. One of the little +Bobbies pulls a kidney bean or a tomato or digs a potato for my dinner, +about half an hour before it is served. There is a sheep in the garden, +but I hardly think it supplies the chops; those, at least, are not +raised on the premises. + +One grievance I did have at first, but Mrs. Bobby removed the thorn +from the princess' pillow as soon as it was mentioned. Our next-door +neighbour had a kennel of homesick, discontented, and sleepless puppies +of various breeds, that were in the habit of howling all night until +Mrs. Bobby expostulated with Mrs. Gooch in my behalf. She told me that +she found Mrs. Gooch very snorty, very snorty indeed, because the pups +were an 'obby of her 'usbants; whereupon Mrs. Bobby responded that if +Mrs. Gooch's 'usbant 'ad to 'ave an 'obby, it was a shame it 'ad to be +'owling pups to keep h'innocent people awake o' nights. The puppies were +removed, but I almost felt guilty at finding fault with a dog in this +country. It is a matter of constant surprise to me, and it always give +me a warm glow in the region of the heart, to see the supremacy of the +dog in England. He is respected, admired, loved, and considered, as he +deserves to be everywhere, but as he frequently is not. He is admitted +on all excursions; he is taken into the country for his health; he is a +factor in all the master' plans; in short, the English dog is a member +of the family, in good and regular standing. + +My interior surroundings are all charming. My little sitting-room, out +of which I turned Mrs. Bobby, is bright with potted ferns and flowering +plants, and on its walls, besides the photographs of a large and +unusually plain family, I have two works of art which inspire me anew +every time I gaze at them: the first a scriptural subject, treated by an +enthusiastic but inexperienced hand, 'Susanne dans le Bain, surprise par +les Deux Vieillards'; the second, 'The White Witch of Worcester on her +Way to the Stake at High Cross.' The unfortunate lady in the latter +picture is attired in a white lawn wrapper with angel sleeves, and is +followed by an abbess with prayer-book, and eight surpliced choir-boys +with candles. I have been long enough in England to understand the +significance of the candles. Doubtless the White Witch had paid four +shillings a week for each of them in her prison lodging, and she +naturally wished to burn them to the end. + +One has no need, though, of pictures on the walls here, for the universe +seems unrolled at one's very feet. As I look out of my window the last +thing before I go to sleep, I see the lights of Great Belvern, the +dim shadows of the distant cathedral towers, the quaint priory seven +centuries old, and just the outline of Holly Bush Hill, a sacred seat of +magic science when the Druids investigated the secrets of the stars, +and sought, by auspices and sacrifices, to forecast the future and to +penetrate the designs of the gods. + +It makes me feel very new, very undeveloped, to look out of that window. +If I were an Englishwoman, say the fifty-fifth duchess of something, I +could easily glow with pride to think that I was part and parcel of such +antiquity; the fortunate heiress not only of land and titles, but +of historic associations. But as I am an American with a very recent +background, I blow out my candle with the feeling that it is rather +grand to be making history for somebody else to inherit. + + + +Chapter XIX. The heart of the artist. + + + +I am almost too comfortable with Mrs. Bobby. In fact I wished to be +just a little miserable in Belvern, so that I could paint with a frenzy. +Sometimes, when I have been in a state of almost despairing loneliness +and gloom, the colours have glowed on my canvas and the lines have +shaped themselves under my hand independent of my own volition. Now, +tucked away in a corner of my consciousness is the knowledge that I need +never be lonely again unless I choose. When I yield myself fully to the +sweet enchantment of this thought, I feel myself in the mood to paint +sunshine, flowers, and happy children's faces; yet I am sadly lacking +in concentration, all the same. The fact is, I am no artist in the true +sense of the word. My hope flies ever in front of my best success, and +that momentary success does not deceive me in the very least. I know +exactly how much, or rather how little, I am worth; that I lack the +imagination, the industry, the training, the ambition, to achieve any +lasting results. I have the artistic temperament in so far that it is +impossible for me to work merely for money or popularity, or indeed for +anything less than the desire to express the best that is in me without +fear or favour. It would never occur to me to trade on present approval +and dash off unworthy stuff while I have command of the market. I am +quite above all that, but I am distinctly below that other mental and +spiritual level where art is enough; where pleasure does not signify; +where one shuts oneself up and produces from sheer necessity; where one +is compelled by relentless law; where sacrifice does not count; where +ideas throng the brain and plead for release in expression; where effort +is joy, and the prospect of doing something enduring lures the soul on +to new and ever new endeavour: so I shall never be rich or famous. + +What shall I paint to-day? Shall it be the bit of garden underneath my +window, with the tangle of pinks and roses, and the cabbages growing +appetisingly beside the sweet-williams, the woodbine climbing over the +brown stone wall, the wicket-gate, and the cherry-tree with its fruit +hanging red against the whitewashed cottage? Ah, if I could only paint +it so truly that you could hear the drowsy hum of the bees among the +thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows in the distance, and feel that +it is midsummer in England! That would indeed be truth, and that would +be art. Shall I paint the Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips +and the flax, his head as yellow and his eyes as blue as the flowers +themselves; or that bank opposite the gate, with its gorse bushes in +golden bloom, its mountain-ash hung with scarlet berries, its tufts +of harebells blossoming in the crevices of rock, and the quaint low +clock-tower at the foot? Can I not paint all these in the full glow of +summer-time in my secret heart whenever I open the door a bit and admit +its life-giving warmth and beauty? I think I can, if I can only quit +dreaming. + +I wonder how the great artists worked, and under what circumstances +they threw aside the implements of their craft, impatient of all but +the throb of life itself? Could Raphael paint Madonnas the week of his +betrothal? Did Thackeray write a chapter the day his daughter was +born? Did Plato philosophise freely when he was in love? Were there +interruptions in the world's great revolutions, histories, dramas, +reforms, poems, and marbles when their creators fell for a brief moment +under the spell of the little blind tyrant who makes slaves of us all? +It must have been so. Your chronometer heart, on whose pulsations you +can reckon as on the procession of the equinoxes, never gave anything to +the world unless it were a system of diet, or something quite uncoloured +and unglorified by the imagination. + + + +Chapter XX. A canticle to Jane. + + + +There are many donkeys owned in these nooks among the hills, and some +of the thriftier families keep donkey-chairs (or 'cheers,' as they call +them) to let to the casual summer visitor. This vehicle is a regular +Bath chair, into which the donkey is harnessed. Some of them have a tiny +driver's seat, where a small lad sits beating and berating the donkey +for the incumbent, generally a decrepit dowager from London. Other +chairs are minus this absurd coachman's perch, and in this sort I take +my daily drives. I hire the miniature chariot from an old woman who +dwells at the top of Gorse Hill, and who charges one and fourpence the +hour, It is a little more when she fetches the donkey to the door, or +when the weather is wet or the day is very warm, or there is an unusual +breeze blowing, or I wish to go round the hills; but under ordinary +circumstances, which may at any time occur, but which never do, one and +four the hour. It is only a shilling, if you have the boy to drive +you; but, of course, if you drive yourself, you throw the boy out of +employment, and have to pay extra. + +It was in this fashion and on these elastic terms that I first met you, +Jane, and this chapter shall be sacred to you! Jane the long-eared, Jane +the iron-jawed, Jane the stubborn, Jane donkeyer than other donkeys,--in +a word, MULIER! It may be that Jane has made her bow to the public +before this. If she has ever come into close relation with man or woman +possessed of the instinct of self-expression, then this is certainly not +her first appearance in print, for no human being could know Jane and +fail to mention her. + +Pause, Jane,--this you will do gladly, I am sure, since pausing is +the one accomplishment to which you lend yourself with special +energy,--pause, Jane, while I sing a canticle to your character. Jane +is a tiny--person, I was about to say, for she has so strong an +individuality that I can scarcely think of her as less than human--Jane +is a tiny, solemn creature, looking all docility and decorum, with long +hair of a subdued tan colour, very much worn off in patches, I fear, by +the offending toe of man. + +I am a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, +and I hope that I am as tender-hearted as most women; nevertheless, I +can understand how a man of weak principle and violent temper, or a man +possessed of a desire to get to a particular spot not favoured by Jane, +or by a wish to reach any spot by a certain hour,--I can understand how +such a man, carried away by helpless wrath, might possibly ruffle Jane's +sad-coloured hair with the toe of his boot. + +Jane is small, yet mighty. She is multum in parvo; she is the rock of +Gibraltar in animate form; she is cosmic obstinacy on four legs. When +following out the devices and desires of her own heart, or resisting +the devices and desires of yours, she can put a pressure of five hundred +tons on the bit. She is further fortified by the possession of legs +which have iron rods concealed in them, these iron rods terminating +in stout grip-hooks, with which she takes hold on mother earth with an +expression that seems to say,-- + + 'This rock shall fly + From its firm base as soon as I.' + +When I start out in the afternoon, Mrs. Bobby frequently asks me where I +am going. I always answer that I have not made up my mind, though what +I really mean to say is that Jane has not made up her mind. She never +makes up her mind until after I have made up mine, lest by some unhappy +accident she might choose the very excursion that I desire myself. + + + +Chapter XXI. I remember, I remember. + + + +For example, I wish to visit St. Bridget's Well, concerning which there +are some quaint old verses in a village history:-- + + 'Out of thy famous hille, + There daylie springyeth, + A water passynge stille, + That alwayes bringyeth + Grete comfort to all them + That are diseased men, + And makes them well again + To prayse the Lord. + + 'Hast thou a wound to heale, + The wyche doth greve thee; + Come thenn unto this welle; + It will relieve thee; + Nolie me tangeries, + And other maladies, + Have there theyr remedies, + Prays'd be the Lord.' + +St. Bridget's Well is a beautiful spot, and my desire to see it is a +perfectly laudable one. In strict justice, it is really no concern of +Jane whether my wishes are laudable or not; but it only makes the +case more flagrant when she interferes with the reasonable plans of a +reasonable being. Never since the day we first met have I harboured a +thought that I wished to conceal from Jane (would that she could say as +much!); nevertheless she treats me as if I were a monster of caprice. As +I said before, I wish to visit St. Bridget's Well, but Jane absolutely +refuses to take me there. After we pass Belvern churchyard we approach +two roads: the one to the right leads to the Holy Well; the one to the +left leads to Shady Dell Farm, where Jane lived when she was a girl. At +the critical moment I pull the right rein with all my force. In vain: +Jane is always overcome by sentiment when she sees that left-hand road. +She bears to the left like a whirlwind, and nothing can stop her mad +career until she is again amid the scenes so dear to her recollection, +the beloved pastures where the mother still lives at whose feet she +brayed in early youth! + +Now this is all very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth, its +springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the last to +underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once, if one can +swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there against one's will; +and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's early surroundings must +be worth a single visit, if they could produce a donkey of such unusual +capacity. Still, she must know, if she knows anything, that a person +does not come from America and pay one and fourpence the hour (or +thereabouts) merely in order to visit the home of her girlhood, which is +neither mentioned in Baedeker nor set down in the local guide-books as a +feature of interest. + +Whether, in addition to her affection for Shady Dell Farm, she has an +objection to St. Bridget's Well, and thus is strengthened by a +double motive, I do not know. She may consider it a relic of +popish superstition; she may be a Protestant donkey; she is a +Dissenter,--there's no doubt about that. + +But, you ask, have you tried various methods of bringing her to terms +and gaining your own desires? Certainly. I have coaxed, beaten, prodded, +prayed. I have tried leading her past the Shady Dell turn; she walks +all over my feet, and then starts for home, I running behind until I +can catch up with her. I have offered her one and tenpence the hour; she +remained firm. One morning I had a happy inspiration; I determined on +conquering Jane by a subterfuge. I said to myself: “I am going to start +for St. Bridget's Well, as usual; several yards before we reach the two +roads, I shall begin pulling, not the right, but the left rein. Jane +will lift her ears suddenly, and say to herself: 'What! has this girl +fallen in love with my birthplace at last, and does she now prefer it +to St. Bridget's Well? Then she shall not have it!' Whereupon Jane +will race madly down the right-hand road for the first time, I pulling +steadily at the left rein to keep up appearances, and I shall at last +realise my wishes.” + +This was my inspiration. Would you believe that it failed utterly? It +should have succeeded, and would with an ordinary donkey, but Jane saw +through it. She obeyed my pull on the left rein, and went to Shady Dell +Farm as usual. + +Another of Jane's eccentricities is a violent aversion to perambulators. +As Belvern is a fine, healthy, growing country, with steadily increasing +population, the roads are naturally alive with perambulators; or at +least alive with the babies inside the perambulators. These are the more +alarming to the timid eye in that many of them are double-barrelled, +so to speak, and are loaded to the muzzle with babies; for not only +do Belvern babies frequently appear as twins, but there are often two +youngsters of a perambulator age in the same family at the same time. +To weave that donkey and that Bath 'cheer' through the narrow streets +of the various Belverns without putting to death any babies, and without +engendering the outspoken condemnation of the screaming mothers and +nurserymaids, is a task for a Jehu. Of course Jane makes it more +difficult by lunging into one perambulator in avoiding another, but she +prefers even that risk to the degradation of treading the path I wish +her to tread. + +I often wish that for one brief moment I might remove the lid of Jane's +brain and examine her mental processes. She would not exasperate me so +deeply if I could be certain of her springs of action. Is she old, is +she rheumatic, is she lazy, is she hungry? Sometimes I think she means +well, and is only ignorant and dull; but this hypothesis grows less and +less tenable as I know her better. Sometimes I conclude that she does +not understand me; that the difference in nationality may trouble her. +If an Englishman cannot understand an American woman all at once, +why should an English donkey? Perhaps it takes an American donkey to +comprehend an American woman. Yet I cannot bring myself to drive any +other donkey; I am always hoping to impress myself on her imagination, +and conquer her will through her fancy. Meanwhile, I like to feel myself +in the grasp of a nature stronger than my own, and so I hold to Jane, +and buy a photograph of St. Bridget's Well! + + + +Chapter XXII. Comfort Cottage. + + + +It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and I suddenly heard +a strange sound, that of our fowl cackling. Yesterday I heard her +tell-tale note about noon, and the day before just as I was eating my +breakfast. I knew that it would be so! The serpent has entered Eden. +That fowl has laid before eight in the morning for three weeks without +interruption, and she has now entered upon a career of wild and reckless +uncertainty which compels me to eat eggs from twelve to twenty-four +hours old, just as if I were in London. + + Alas for the rarity + Of regularity + Under the sun! + +A hen, being of the feminine gender, underestimates the majesty of order +and system; she resents any approach to the unimaginative monotony of +the machine. Probably the Confederated Fowl Union has been meddling +with our little paradise where Labour and Capital have dwelt in heavenly +unity until now. Nothing can be done about it, of course; even if it +were possible to communicate with the fowl, she would say, I suppose, +that she would lay when she was ready, and not before; at least, that is +what an American hen would say. + +Just as I was brooding over these mysteries and trying to hatch out some +conclusions, Mrs. Bobby knocked at the door, and, coming in, curtsied +very low before saying, “It's about namin' the 'ouse, miss.” + +“Oh yes. Pray don't stand, Mrs. Bobby; take a chair. I am not very +busy; I am only painting prickles on my gorse bushes, so we will talk it +over.” + +I shall not attempt to give you Mrs. Bobby's dialect in reporting my +various interviews with her, for the spelling of it is quite beyond my +powers. Pray remove all the h's wherever they occur, and insert +them where they do not; but there will be, over and beyond this, an +intonation quite impossible to render. + +Mrs. Bobby bought her place only a few months ago, for she lived in +Cheltenham before Mr. Bobby died. The last incumbent had probably been +of Welsh extraction, for the cottage had been named 'Dan-y-cefn.' Mrs. +Bobby declared, however, that she wouldn't have a heathenish name posted +on her house, and expect her friends to pronounce it when she couldn't +pronounce it herself. She seemed grieved when at first I could not see +the absolute necessity of naming the cottage at all, telling her that in +America we named only grand places. She was struck dumb with amazement +at this piece of information, and failed to conceive of the confusion +that must ensue in villages where streets were scarcely named or houses +numbered. I confess it had never occurred to me that our manner of doing +was highly inconvenient, if not impossible, and I approached the subject +of the name with more interest and more modesty. + +“Well, Mrs. Bobby,” I began, “it is to be Cottage; we've decided that, +have we not? It is to be Cottage, not House, Lodge, Mansion, or Villa. +We cannot name it after any flower that blows, because they are all +taken. Have all the trees been used?” + +“Thank you, miss, yes, miss, all but h'ash-tree, and we 'ave no h'ash.” + +“Very good, we must follow another plan. Family names seem to be chosen, +such as Gower House, Marston Villa, and the like. 'Bobby Cottage' is not +pretty. What was your maiden name, Mrs. Bobby?” + +“Buggins, thank you, miss. 'Elizabeth Buggins, Licensed to sell +Poultry,' was my name and title when I met Mr. Bobby.” + +“I'm sorry, but 'Buggins Cottage' is still more impossible than 'Bobby +Cottage.' Now here's another idea: where were you born, Mrs. Bobby?” + +“In Snitterfield, thank you, miss.” + +“Dear, dear! how unserviceable!” + +“Thank you, miss.” + +“Where was Mr. Bobby born?” + +“He never mentioned, miss.” + +(Mr. Bobby must have been expansive, for they were married twenty +years.) + +“There is always Victoria or Albert,” I said tentatively, as I wiped my +brushes. + +“Yes, miss, but with all respect to her Majesty, them names give me a +turn when I see them on the gates, I am that sick of them.” + +“True. Can we call it anything that will suggest its situation? Is there +a Hill Crest?” + +“Yes, miss, there is 'Ill Crest, 'Ill Top, 'Ill View, 'Ill Side, 'Ill +End, H'under 'Ill, 'Ill Bank, and 'Ill Terrace.” + +“I should think that would do for Hill.” + +“Thank you, miss. 'Ow would 'The 'Edge' do, miss?” + +“But we have no hedge.” (She shall not have anything with an h in it, if +I can help it.) + +“No, miss, but I thought I might set out a bit, if worst come to worst.” + +“And wait three or four years before people would know why the cottage +was named? Oh no, Mrs. Bobby.” + +“Thank you, miss.” + +“We might have something quite out of the common, like 'Providence +Cottage,' down the bank. I don't know why Mrs. Jones calls it Providence +Cottage, unless she thinks it's a providence that she has one at all; +or because, as it's just on the edge of the hill, she thinks it's a +providence that it hasn't blown off. How would you like 'Peace' or +'Rest' Cottage?” + +“Begging your pardon, miss, it's neither peace nor rest I gets in it +these days, with a twenty-five pound debt 'anging over me, and three +children to feed and clothe.” + +“I fear we are not very clever, Mrs. Bobby, or we should hit upon the +right thing with less trouble. I know what I will do: I will go down in +the road and look at the place for a long time from the outside, and try +to think what it suggests to me.” + +“Thank you, miss; and I'm sure I'm grateful for all the trouble you are +taking with my small affairs.” + +Down I went, and leaned over the wicket-gate, gazing at the unnamed +cottage. The brick pathway was scrubbed as clean as a penny, and the +stone step and the floor of the little kitchen as well. The garden was +a maze of fragrant bloom, with never a weed in sight. The fowl cackled +cheerily still, adding insult to injury, the pet sheep munched grass +contentedly, and the canaries sang in their cages under the vines. +Mrs. Bobby settled herself on the porch with a pan of peas in her neat +gingham lap, and all at once I cried:-- + +“'Comfort Cottage'! It is the very essence of comfort, Mrs. Bobby, even +if there is not absolute peace or rest. Let me paint the signboard for +you this very day.” + +Mrs. Bobby was most complacent over the name. She had the greatest +confidence in my judgment, and the characterisation pleased her +housewifely pride, so much so that she flushed with pleasure as she said +that if she 'ad 'er 'ealth she thought she could keep the place looking +so that the passers-by would easily h'understand the name. + + + +Chapter XXIII. Tea served here. + + + +It was some days after the naming of the cottage that Mrs. Bobby +admitted me into her financial secrets, and explained the difficulties +that threatened her peace of mind. She still has twenty-five pounds +to pay before Comfort Cottage is really her own. With her cow and +her vegetable garden, to say nothing of her procrastinating fowl, she +manages to eke out a frugal existence, now that her eldest son is in a +blacksmith's shop at Worcester, and is sending her part of his weekly +savings. But it has been a poor season for canaries, and a still poorer +one for lodgers; for people in these degenerate days prefer to be nearer +the hotels and the mild gaieties of the larger settlements. It is all +very well so long as I remain with her, and she wishes fervently that +that may be for ever; for never, she says, eloquently, never in all her +Cheltenham and Belvern experience, has she encountered such a jewel of a +lodger as her dear Miss 'Amilton, so little trouble, and always a bit of +praise for her plain cooking, and a pleasant word for the children, to +whom most lodgers object, and such an interest in the cow and the fowl +and the garden and the canaries, and such kindness in painting the +name of the cottage, so that it is the finest thing in the village, and +nobody can get past the 'ouse without stopping to gape at it! But when +her American lodger leaves her, she asks,--and who is she that can +expect to keep a beautiful young lady who will be naming her own cottage +and painting signboards for herself before long, likely?--but when +her American lodger is gone, how is she, Mrs. Bobby, to put by a few +shillings a month towards the debt on the cottage? These are some of the +problems she presents to me. I have turned them over and over in my mind +as I have worked, and even asked Willie Beresford in my weekly letter +what he could suggest. Of course he could not suggest anything: men +never can; although he offered to come there and lodge for a month at +twenty-five pounds a week. All at once, one morning, a happy idea struck +me, and I ran down to Mrs. Bobby, who was weeding the onion-bed in the +back garden. + +“Mrs. Bobby,” I said, sitting down comfortably on the edge of the +lettuce-frame, “I am sure I know how you can earn many a shilling during +the summer and autumn months, and you must begin the experiment while +I am here to advise you. I want you to serve five-o'clock tea in your +garden.” + +“But, miss, thanking you kindly, nobody would think of stoppin' 'ere for +a cup of tea once in a twelvemonth.” + +“You never know what people will do until you try them. People will do +almost anything, Mrs. Bobby, if you only put it into their heads, and +this is the way we shall make our suggestion to the public. I will paint +a second signboard to hang below 'Comfort Cottage.' It will be much more +beautiful than the other, for it shall have a steaming kettle on it, +and a cup and saucer, and the words 'Tea Served Here' underneath, the +letters all intertwined with tea-plants. I don't know how tea-plants +look, but then neither does the public. You will set one round table on +the porch, so that if it threatens rain, as it sometimes does, you know, +in England, people will not be afraid to sit down; and the other +you will put under the yew-tree near the gate. The tables must be +immaculate; no spotted, rumpled cloths and chipped cups at Comfort +Cottage, which is to be a strictly first-class tea station. You will +put vases of flowers on the tables, and you will not mix red, yellow, +purple, and blue ones in the same vase-” + +“It's the way the good Lord mixes 'em in the fields,” interjected Mrs. +Bobby piously. + +“Very likely; but you will permit me to remark that the good Lord can +manage things successfully which we poor humans cannot. You will set out +your cream-jug that was presented to Mrs. Martha Buggins by her friends +and neighbours as a token of respect in 1823, and the bowl that was +presented to Mr. Bobby as a sword and shooting prize in 1860, and all +your pretty little odds and ends. You will get everything ready in the +kitchen, so that customers won't have to wait long; but you will not +prepare much in advance, so that there'll be nothing wasted.” + +“It sounds beautiful in your mouth, miss, and it surely wouldn't be any +'arm to make a trial of it.” + +“Of course it won't. There is no inn here where nice people will stop +(who would ever think of asking for tea at the Retired Soldier?), and +the moment they see our sign, in walking or driving past, that moment +they will be consumed with thirst. You do not begin to appreciate +our advantages as a tea station. In the first place, there is a +watering-trough not far from the gate, and drivers very often stop +to water their horses; then we have the lovely garden which everybody +admires; and if everything else fails, there is the baby. Put that faded +pink flannel slip on Jem, showing his tanned arms and legs as usual, +tie up his sleeves with blue bows as you did last Sunday, put my white +tennis-cap on the back of his yellow curls, turn him loose in the +hollyhocks, and await results. Did I not open the gate the moment I saw +him, though there was no apartment sign in the window?” + +Mrs. Bobby was overcome by the magic of my arguments, and as there were +positively no attendant risks, we decided on an early opening. The +very next day after the hanging of the second sign, I superintended the +arrangements myself. It was a nice thirsty afternoon, and as I filled +the flower-vases I felt such a desire for custom and such a love of +trade animating me that I was positively ashamed. At three o'clock I +went upstairs and threw myself on the bed for a nap, for I had been +sketching on the hills since early morning. It may have been an hour +later when I heard the sound of voices and the stopping of a heavy +vehicle before the house. I stole to the front window, and, peeping +under the shelter of the vines, saw a char-a-bancs, on the way from +Great Belvern to the Beacon. It held three gentlemen, two ladies, and +four children, and everything had worked precisely as I intended. +The driver had seen the watering-trough, the gentlemen had seen the +tea-sign, the children had seen the flowers and the canaries, and +the ladies had seen the baby. I went to the back window to call an +encouraging word to Mrs. Bobby, but to my horror I saw that worthy woman +disappearing at the extreme end of the lane in full chase of our cow, +that had broken down the fence, and was now at large with some of our +neighbour's turnip-tops hanging from her mouth. + + + +Chapter XXIV. An unlicensed victualler. + + + +Ruin stared us in the face. Were our cherished plans to be frustrated +by a marauding cow, who little realised that she was imperilling her +own means of existence? Were we to turn away three, five, nine thirsty +customers at one fell swoop? Never! None of these people ever saw me +before, nor would ever see me again. What was to prevent my serving them +with tea? I had on a pink cotton gown,--that was well enough; I hastily +buttoned on a clean painting apron, and seizing a freshly laundered +cushion cover lying on the bureau, a square of lace and embroidery, I +pinned it on my hair for a cap while descending the stairs. Everything +was right in the kitchen, for Mrs. Bobby had flown in the midst of her +preparations. The loaf, the bread-knife, the butter, the marmalade, all +stood on the table, and the kettle was boiling. I set the tea to draw, +and then dashed to the door, bowed appetisingly to the visitors, showed +them to the tables with a winning smile (which was to be extra), seated +the children maternally on the steps and laid napkins before them, +dashed back to the kitchen, cut the thin bread-and-butter, and brought +it with the marmalade, asked my customers if they desired cream, and +told them it was extra, went back and brought a tray with tea, boiling +water, milk, and cream. Lowering my voice to an English sweetness, and +dropping a few h's ostentatiously as I answered questions, I poured +five cups of tea, and four mugs for the children, and cut more +bread-and-butter, for they were all eating like wolves. They praised +the butter. I told them it was a specialty of the house. They requested +muffins. With a smile of heavenly sweetness tinged with regret, I +replied that Saturday was our muffin day; Saturday, muffins; Tuesday, +crumpets; Thursday, scones; and Friday, tea-cakes. This inspiration +sprang into being full grown, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus. While +they were regretting that they had come on a plain bread-and-butter day, +I retired to the kitchen and made out a bill for presentation to the +oldest man of the party. + + s. d. + Nine teas. . . . 3 6 + Cream . . . . 3 + Bread-and-butter . . 1 0 + Marmalade. . . . 6 + ----- + 5 3 + +Feeling five and threepence to be an absurdly small charge for five +adult and four infant teas, I destroyed this immediately, and made out +another, putting each item fourpence more, and the bread-and-butter +at one-and-six. I also introduced ninepence for extra teas for the +children, who had had two mugs apiece, very weak. This brought the total +to six shillings and tenpence, and I was beset by a horrible temptation +to add a shilling or two for candles; there was one young man among the +three who looked as if he would have understood the joke. + +The father of the family looked at the bill, and remarked quizzically, +“Bond Street prices, eh?” + +“Bond Street service,” said I, curtsying demurely. + +He paid it without flinching, and gave me sixpence for myself. I was +very much afraid he would chuck me under the chin; they are always +chucking barmaids under the chin in old English novels, but I have never +seen it done in real life. As they strolled down to the gate, the second +gentleman gave me another sixpence, and the nice young fellow gave me +a shilling; he certainly had read the old English novels and remembered +them, so I kept with the children. One of the ladies then asked if we +sold flowers. + +“Certainly,” I replied. + +“What do you ask for roses?” + +“Fourpence apiece for the fine ones,” I answered glibly, hoping it was +enough, “thrippence for the small ones; sixpence for a bunch of sweet +peas, tuppence apiece for buttonhole carnations.” + +Each of the ladies took some roses and mignonette, and the gentlemen, +who did not care for carnations in the least, weakened when I approached +modestly to pin them in their coats, a la barmaid. + +At this moment one of the children began to tease for a canary. + +“Have you one for sale?” inquired the fond mother. + +“Certainly, madam.” (I was prepared to sell the cottage by this time.) + +“What do you ask for them?” + +Rapid calculation on my part, excessively difficult without pencil and +paper. A canary is three to five dollars in America,--that is, from +twelve shilling to a pound; then at a venture, “From ten shillings to a +guinea, madam, according to the quality of the bird.” + +“Would you like one for your birthday, Margaret, and do you think you +can feed it and take quite good care of it?” + +“Oh yes, mamma!” + +“Have you a cage?” to me inquiringly. + +“Certainly, madam; it is not a new one, but I shall only charge you a +shilling for it.” (Impromptu plan: not knowing whether Mrs. Bobby had +any cages, or if so where she kept them, to remove the canary in Mrs. +Bobby's chamber from the small wooden cage it inhabited, close the +windows, and leave it at large in the room; then bring out the cage and +sell it to the lady.) + +“Very well, then, please select me a good singer for about twelve +shillings; a very yellow one, please.” + +I did so. I had no difficulty about the colour; but as the birds all +stopped singing when I put my hand into the cages, I was somewhat at a +loss to choose a really fine performer. I did my best, with the result +that it turned out to be the mother of several fine families, but no +vocalist, and the generous young man brought it back for an exchange +some days afterwards; not only that, but he came three times during the +next week and nearly ruined his nervous system with tea. + +The party finally mounted the char-a-bancs, just as I was about to offer +the baby for twenty-five pounds, and dirt cheap at that. Meanwhile I +gave the driver a cup of lukewarm tea, for which I refused absolutely to +accept any remuneration. + +I had cleared the tables before Mrs. Bobby returned, flushed and +panting, with the guilty cow. Never shall I forget that good dame's +astonishment, her mild deprecations, her smiles--nay, her tears--as she +inspected my truly English account and received the silver. + + s. d. + Nine teas. . . . 3 6 + Cream . . . . 7 + Bread-and-butter . . 1 6 + Extra teas. . . . 9 + Marmalade. . . . 6 + Three tips. . . . 2 0 + Four roses and mignonette. 1 8 + Three carnations . . 6 + Canary . . . . 12 0 + Cage . . . . 1 0 + ------ + 24 0 + +I told her I regretted deeply putting down the marmalade so low as +sixpence; but as they had not touched it, it did not matter so much, as +the entire outlay for the entertainment had been only about a shilling. +On that modest investment, I considered one pound three shillings a very +fair sum to be earned by an inexperienced 'licensed victualler' like +myself, particularly as I am English only by adoption, and not by birth. + + + +Chapter XXV. Et ego in Arcadia vixit. + + + +I essayed another nap after this exciting episode. I heard the gate open +once or twice, but a single stray customer, after my hungry and generous +horde, did not stir my curiosity, and I sank into a refreshing slumber, +dreaming that Willie Beresford and I kept an English inn, and that I +was the barmaid. This blissful vision had been of all too short duration +when I was awakened by Mrs. Bobby's apologetic voice. + +“It is too bad to disturb you, miss, but I've got to go and patch up the +fence, and smooth over the matter of the turnips with Mrs. Gooch, who is +that snorty I don't know 'ow ever I can pacify her. There is nothing for +you to do, miss, only if you'll kindly keep an eye on the customer at +the yew-tree table. He's been here for 'alf an hour, miss, and I think +more than likely he's a foreigner, by his actions, or may be he's not +quite right in his 'ead, though 'armless. He has taken four cups of tea, +miss, and Billy saw him turn two of them into the 'olly'ocks. He has +been feeding bread-and-butter to the dog, and now the baby is on his +knee, playing with his fine gold watch. He gave me a 'alf-a-crown and +refused to take a penny change; but why does he stop so long, miss? I +can't help worriting over the silver cream-jug that was my mother's.” + +Mrs. Bobby disappeared. I rose lazily, and approached the window to keep +my promised eye on the mysterious customer. I lifted back the purple +clematis to get a better view. + +It was Willie Beresford! He looked up at my ejaculation of surprise, +and, dropping the baby as if it had been a parcel, strode under the +window. + +I (gasping). “How did you come here?” + +He. “By the usual methods, dear.” + +I. “You shouldn't have come without asking. Where are all your fine +promises? What shall I do with you? Do you know there isn't an hotel +within four miles?” + +He. “That is nothing; it was four hundred miles that I couldn't endure. +But give me a less grudging welcome than this, though I am like a +starving dog that will snatch any morsel thrown to him! It is really +autumn, Penelope, or it will be in a few days. Say you are a little glad +to see me.” + +(The sight of him so near, after my weeks of loneliness, gave me a +feeling so sudden, so sweet, and so vivid that it seemed to smite me +first on the eyes, and then in the heart; and at the first note of his +convincing voice Doubt picked up her trailing skirts and fled for ever.) + +I. “Yes, if you must know it, I am glad to see you; so glad, indeed, +that nothing in the world seems to matter so long as you are here.” + +He (striding a little nearer, and looking about involuntarily for a +ladder). “Penelope, do you know the penalty of saying such sweet things +to me?” + +I. “Perhaps it is because I know the penalty that I'm committing the +offence. Besides, I feel safe in saying anything in this second-story +window.” + +He. “Don't pride yourself on your safety unless you wish to see me +transformed into a nineteenth-century Romeo, to the detriment of Mrs. +Bobby's creepers. I can look at you for ever, dear, in your pink gown +and your purple frame, unless I can do better. Won't you come down?” + +I. “I like it very much up here.” + +He. “You would like it very much down here, after a little. So you +didn't 'paint me out,' after all?” + +I. “No; on the contrary, I painted you in, to every twig and flower, +every hill and meadow, every sunrise and every sunset.” + +He. “You MUST come down! The distance between Belvern and Aix when I +was not sure that you loved me was nothing compared to having you in a +second story when I know that you do. Come down, Pen! Pretty Pen!” + +I. “Suppose we compromise. My sitting-room is just below; will you walk +in and look at my sketches until I come? You needn't ring; the bell is +overgrown with honeysuckle and there is no one to answer it; it might +almost be an American hotel, but it is Arcadia!” + +He. “It is Paradise; and alas! here comes the serpent!” + +I. “It isn't a serpent; it is the kindest landlady in England.--Mrs. +Bobby, this gentleman is a dear friend of mine from America. Mr. +Beresford, this is Mrs. Bobby, the most comfortable hostess in the +world, and the owner of the cottage, the canaries, the tea-tables, and +the baby.--The reason Mr. Beresford was so thirsty, Mrs. Bobby, was that +he has walked here from Great Belvern, so we must give him some supper +before he returns.” + +Mrs. B. “Certainly, miss, he shall have the best in the 'ouse, you can +depend upon that.” + +He. “Don't let me interfere with your usual arrangements. I am not +hungry--for food; I shall do very well until I get back to the hotel.” + +I. “Indeed you will not, sir! Billy shall pull some tomatoes and +lettuce, Tommy shall milk the cow, and Mrs. Bobby shall make you +a savory omelet that Delmonico might envy. Hark! Is that our fowl +cackling? It is,--at half-past six! She heard me mention omelet and she +must be calling, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'” + + . . . . + +But all that is many days ago, and there are no more experiences to +relate at present. We are making history very fast, Willie Beresford and +I, but much of it is sacred history, and so I cannot chronicle it for +any one's amusement. + +Mrs. Beresford is here, or at least she is in Great Belvern, a few miles +distant. I am not painting, these latter days. I have turned the artist +side of my nature to the wall just for a bit, and the woman side is +having full play. I do not know what the world will think about it, if +it stops to think at all, but I feel as if I were 'right side out' for +the first time in my life; and when I take up my brushes again, I shall +have a new world within from which to paint,--yes, and a new world +without. + +Good-bye, dear Belvern! Autumn and winter may come into my life, but +whenever I think of you it will be summer-time in my heart. I shall hear +the tinkle of the belled sheep on the hillsides; inhale the fragrance +of the flowering vine that climbed in at my cottage window; relive in +memory the days when Love and I first walked together, hand in hand. +Dear days of happy idleness; of dreaming dreams and seeing visions; of +morning walks over the hills; of 'bread-and-cheese and kisses' at noon, +with kind Mrs. Bobby hovering like a plump guardian angel over the +simple feast; afternoon tea under the friendly shades of the yew-tree, +and parting at the wicket-gate. I can see him pass the clock-tower, the +little greengrocer shop, the old stocks, the green pump; then he is at +the turn of the road where the stone wall and the hawthorn hedge will +presently hide him from my view. I fly up to my window, push back the +vines, catch his last wave of the hand. I would call him back, if I +dared; but it would be no easier to let him go the second time, and +there is always to-morrow. Thank God for to-morrow! And if there should +be no to-morrow? Then thank God for to-day! And so good-bye again, dear +Belvern! It was in the lap of your lovely hills that Penelope first knew +das irdische Gluck; that she first loved, first lived; forgot how to be +artist, in remembering how to be woman. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penelope's English Experiences, by +Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1278 *** |