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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Belles and Ringers, by Hawley Smart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Belles and Ringers
+
+Author: Hawley Smart
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20529]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELLES AND RINGERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+BELLES AND RINGERS
+
+
+BY
+
+HAWLEY SMART,
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"BOUND TO WIN;" "FALSE CARDS;" "TWO KISSES;" "COURTSHIP," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+NEW EDITION.
+
+
+
+
+LEVER BROTHERS, LTD.,
+
+PORT SUNLIGHT, NEAR BIRKENHEAD.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TODBOROUGH GRANGE
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CONSPIRATORS TRIUMPH
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE COMMONSTONE BALL
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ROCKCLIFFE GAMES
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN EXCURSION TO TROTBURY
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A SHORT CUT HOME
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+"THE PLAY'S THE THING!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MRS. WRIOTHESLEY
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SATURDAY AT HURLINGHAM
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MRS. WRIOTHESLEY'S LITTLE DINNER
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE RINGING OF THE BELLES
+
+
+
+
+BELLES AND RINGERS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TODBOROUGH GRANGE.
+
+Todborough Grange, the seat of Cedric Bloxam, Justice of the Peace, and
+whilom High Sheriff for East Fernshire, lies low.  The original Bloxam,
+like the majority of our ancestors, had apparently a great dislike to
+an exposed situation; and either a supreme contempt for the science of
+sanitation, or a confused idea that water could be induced to run
+uphill, and so, not bothering his head on the subject of drainage, as
+indeed no one did in those days, he built his house in a hole, holding,
+I presume, that the hills were as good to look up at as the valleys to
+look down upon.  It was an irregular pile of gabled red brick, of what
+could be only described as the composite order, having been added to by
+successive Bloxams at their own convenience, and without any regard to
+architectural design.  It was surrounded by thick shrubberies, in which
+the laurels were broken by dense masses of rhododendrons.  Beyond these
+again were several plantations, and up the hill on the east side of the
+house stretched a wood of some eighty acres or so in extent.
+
+As a race, the Bloxams possessed some of the leading Anglo-Saxon
+characteristics; to wit, courage, obstinacy, and density--or perhaps I
+should rather say slowness--of understanding.  The present proprietor
+had been married--I use the term advisedly--to Lady Mary Ditchin, a
+daughter of the Earl of Turfington, a family whose hereditary devotion
+to sport in all its branches had somewhat impoverished their estates.
+The ladies could all ride; and some twenty odd years ago, when Cedric
+Bloxam was hunting in the Vale of White Horse country, Lord Turfington
+and his family chanced to be doing the same.  Lady Mary rode; Cedric
+Bloxam saw; and Lady Mary conquered.  She had made him a very good
+wife, although as she grew older she unfortunately, as some of us do,
+grew considerably heavier; and when no longer able to expend her
+superfluous energies in the hunting-field, she developed into a
+somewhat ambitious and pushing woman.  In this latter _role_ I do not
+think she pleased Cedric Bloxam quite so well.  She insisted upon his
+standing for the county.  Bloxam demurred at first, and, as usual, in
+the end Lady Mary had her own way.  He threw himself into the fight
+with all the pugnacity of his disposition, and, while his blood was up,
+revelled in the fray.  He could speak to the farmers in a blunt homely
+way, which suited them; and they brought him in as one of the
+Conservative Members for East Fernshire.  But on penetrating the
+perfidy of the wife of his bosom, Cedric Bloxam mused sadly over the
+honours that he had won.  When Lady Mary had alternately coaxed and
+goaded him into contesting the eastern division of his county, she was
+seeking only the means to an end.  They had previously contented
+themselves with about six weeks of London in May and June; but his wife
+now pointed out to him that, as a Member of Parliament, it was
+essential that he should have a house for the season.  It was the thin
+end of the wedge, and though Cedric Bloxam lost his seat at the next
+general election, that "house for the season" remained as a memento of
+his entrance into public life.
+
+"You see," said Lady Mary to her intimates, while talking the thing
+over, "it was absolutely necessary that something should be done.
+After he has done the Derby, Ascot, and the University Match, Cedric is
+always bored with London.  The girls are growing up, and how are they
+ever to get properly married if they don't get their season in town,
+poor things!  I began by suggesting masters; but that had no effect on
+Cedric--he only retorted, 'Send them to school;' so it was absolutely
+necessary to approach him in another manner, and I flatter myself I was
+equal to the occasion."
+
+All this took place some six or seven years before the commencement of
+our story; and the result had fully warranted Lady Mary's machinations,
+as she had successfully married off her two elder daughters, and, as
+she had occasionally told her intimates, her chief object in life now
+was to see Blanche, the younger, suitably provided for.  Lady Mary was
+in her way a stanch and devoted mother.  Her duty towards her
+daughters, she considered, terminated when she had once seen them
+properly married.  She had two sons--one in a dragoon regiment, and the
+younger in the Foreign Office--and she never neglected to cajole or
+flatter any one who, she thought, might in any way be capable of
+advancing their interests.
+
+The Bloxams had come down from town to entertain a few friends during
+the Easter holidays at Todborough, and Lady Mary was now sitting in the
+oriel window of the morning-room engaged in an animated _tete-a-tete_
+with one of her most intimate friends, Mr. Pansey Cottrell.  Mr. Pansey
+Cottrell had been a man about town for the last thirty years, mixing
+freely everywhere in the very best society.  It must have been a pure
+matter of whim if Pansey Cottrell ever paid for his own dinner during a
+London season--or, for the matter of that, even out of it--as he had
+only to name the week that suited him to be a welcome guest at scores
+of country houses.  Nothing would have been more difficult than to
+explain why it was that Pansey Cottrell should be as essential to a
+fashionable dinner party as the epergne.  Nothing more puzzling to
+account for than why his volunteering his presence in a country house
+should be always deemed a source of gratulation to the hostess.  He was
+a man of no particular birth and no particular conversational powers;
+and unless due to his being thoroughly _au courant_ with all the very
+latest gossip of the London world, his success can only be put down as
+past understanding.  Neophytes who did not know Pansey Cottrell, when
+they met him in a country house, would gaze with awe-struck curiosity
+at the sheaf of correspondence awaiting him on the side-table, and
+wondered what news he would unfold to them that morning.  But the more
+experienced knew better.  Pansey Cottrell always came down late, and
+never talked at breakfast.  He kept his budget of scandal invariably
+for the dinner-table and smoking-room.  Such was Pansey Cottrell, as he
+appeared to the general public, though he possessed an unsuspected
+attribute, known only to some few of the initiated, and of which as yet
+Lady Mary had only an inkling.
+
+A portly well-preserved gentleman, with iron-grey hair, and nothing
+particularly striking about him but a pair of keen dark eyes, he sits
+in the window, listening with a half-incredulous smile to the voluble
+speech of his buxom hostess.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Lady Mary, in reply to some observation of her
+companion's, "I tell you, Pansey" (she had known him from her
+childhood, and always called him Pansey, as indeed did many other
+middle-aged matrons)--"I tell you, Pansey," she repeated, "it is all a
+mistake; the majority of young men in our world do _not_ marry whom
+they please: they may think so, but in the majority of cases they marry
+whom _we_ please.  The bell responds to the clapper; but who is it that
+makes the clapper to speak?  The ringer.  Do you see the force of my
+illustration?"
+
+"If I fail to see its force," he replied, "I, of course, perfectly
+understand your illustration; and in this case Miss Blanche is of
+course the belle, you the ringer, and Mr. Beauchamp the clapper."
+
+"Just so," replied Lady Mary, laughing.  "Look at Diana, my eldest.
+She thinks she married Mannington; he thinks he married her; and _I
+know I married them_.  People are always talking of Shakespeare's
+'knowledge of human nature,' more especially those who never read him.
+Why don't they take a leaf out of his book?  Do you suppose Beatrice
+nowadays, when she is told Benedick is dying for love of her, don't
+believe it, and that Benedick cannot be fooled in like manner?  Go
+to--as they said in those times."
+
+"And you would fain play Leonato to this Benedick," replied Pansey
+Cottrell.  "Is this Beauchamp of whom you speak one of the Suffolk
+Beauchamps?"
+
+"Yes; his father has a large property in the south of the county; and
+this Lionel Beauchamp is the eldest son, a good-looking young fellow,
+with a healthy taste for country life; just the man to suit dear
+Blanche admirably."
+
+"And when do you expect him?"
+
+"Oh, he ought to be here this evening in time for dinner," replied Lady
+Mary.  "He seemed rather struck with Blanche in London, so I asked him
+down here for the Easter holidays, thinking it a nice opportunity of
+throwing them more together."
+
+"I see," replied Mr. Cottrell, laughing; "you think in these cases it
+is just as well to assist nature by a little judicious forcing."
+
+"Exactly.  You see, a good-looking girl has such a pull in a country
+house, and when she is the only good-looking one, has it all her own
+way; and I need scarcely say I have taken care of that."
+
+"Ahem!  Todborough lies dangerously near to that most popular of
+watering-places, Commonstone," observed Cottrell; "and there is always
+attractive mettle to be found there."
+
+"But I don't intend we shall ever go near it," replied her ladyship
+quickly.  "We'll make up riding parties, plan excursions to Trotbury,
+and so on.  Just the people in the house, you know, and the rector's
+daughters, nice pleasant unaffected girls, who, though not plain----"
+
+"Cannot be counted dangerous," interposed Cottrell.  "I understand.  I
+congratulate you on your diplomacy, Lady Mary.  By the way, who is your
+rector?"
+
+"The Rev. Austin Chipchase.  A good orthodox old-fashioned parson,
+thank goodness, with no High Church fads or Low Church proclivities."
+
+"Chipchase?  Ahem!  I met an uncommon pretty girl of that name down in
+Suffolk last autumn, when I was staying at Hogden's place."
+
+At this juncture the door opened, and the object of all this maternal
+solicitude entered the room.  Her mother did Blanche Bloxam scant
+justice when she called her a good-looking girl.  She was more than
+that; she might most certainly have been called a very good-looking
+girl of the thoroughly Saxon type--tall and well made, with a profusion
+of fair sunny hair, and deep blue eyes.  Blanche was a girl no man
+would ever overlook, wherever he might come across her.
+
+"What state secrets are you two talking," she exclaimed, "that you pay
+no attention to the bell?  Come to lunch, mamma, please; for we have
+been playing lawn tennis all the morning, and are well-nigh distraught
+with hunger."
+
+Lady Mary rose and followed her daughter to the dining-room, where the
+whole of the house party were assembled round the luncheon-table.  It
+consisted, besides the family and Mr. Cottrell, of a Mr. and Mrs.
+Evesham and their two daughters--"such amiable girls, you know," as
+Lady Mary always said of them; a Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris, a young married
+couple; Jim Bloxam, the dragoon; and a Captain Braybrooke, a brother
+officer of his.
+
+"Come along, mother," exclaimed Jim.  "Mrs. Sartoris has given me such
+a dusting at lawn tennis this morning that no amount of brown sherry
+and pigeon-pie will support me under the ignominy of my defeat."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Sartoris," said Lady Mary, laughing.  "I am very glad
+indeed, Jim, that somebody has been good enough to take the conceit out
+of you.  But what do all you good people propose doing with yourselves
+this afternoon?  There are a certain number of riding-horses; and of
+course there's the carriage, Mrs. Evesham."
+
+"Don't you trouble, mother," exclaimed Jim Bloxam; "we are going upon
+an expedition of discovery.  Mrs. Sartoris has got a brother in the
+army.  She don't quite recollect his regiment; and beyond that it is in
+England, she does not know precisely where he is quartered.  But he is
+in the something-somethieth, and we are going to see if we can find him
+in Rockcliffe Camp."
+
+"Don't be so absurd, Captain Bloxam," rejoined Mrs. Sartoris.  "But I
+am told, Lady Mary, it is a pretty walk to the camp, and that there is
+a grand view over the Channel on the south side of it."
+
+"It is the very thing, mamma," observed Blanche.  "It is our duty to
+absorb as much ozone as possible while we are down here, in order to
+fit us for the fatigues of the season which, I trust, are in store for
+us."
+
+"Getting perilously near Commonstone," whispered Pansey Cottrell, who
+happened to be sitting next to his hostess.
+
+Although the arrangement did not exactly meet with her approbation, yet
+Lady Mary could make no objection, any more than she could avoid
+smiling at Cottrell's remark; but it would seem as if some malignant
+genie had devoted his whole attention to thwarting her schemes, the
+malignant genie in this case taking the form of her eldest son.  Upon
+an adjournment, Jim Bloxam strongly urged that those of the party who
+were not for a tramp to Rockcliffe should drive into Commonstone, and
+ascertain if there was anything going on that was likely to be worth
+their attention.  In the middle of this discussion came a ring at the
+front door bell, immediately followed by the announcement of the Misses
+Chipchase; and the rector's two daughters entered the room,
+accompanied, to Lady Mary's horror, by one of the most piquant and
+brilliant brunettes she had ever set eyes on.
+
+"So glad to see you down again, dear Lady Mary," said Miss Chipchase,
+"and with a house full too! that's so nice of you; just in time to
+assist at all our Easter revelries.  Let me introduce you to my cousin,
+Sylla Chipchase, just come down to spend a month with us."  And then
+the rector's daughters proceeded to shake hands with Blanche and
+Captain Bloxam, and be by them presented to the remainder of the party.
+
+Pansey Cottrell could scarce refrain from laughing outright as he
+advanced to shake hands with Sylla Chipchase, the identical young lady
+whom he had met last autumn in Suffolk, and who had now turned up at
+Todborough, looking more provokingly pretty than ever.  He had caught
+one glance of his hostess's face; and, behind the scenes as he was,
+that had been so nearly too much for his risible faculties that he
+dared not hazard another.  As he advanced to shake hands with Miss
+Sylla, he felt that the Fates had been even more unkind to Lady Mary
+than she could as yet be possibly aware of; for he remembered at
+Hogden's that Miss Sylla had not only been voted the belle of a party
+containing two or three very pretty women, but had also enchanted the
+men by her fun, vivacity, and singing.  Poor Lady Mary! it was hard, in
+spite of all her efforts to secure a clear field, to find her daughter
+suddenly confronted by such a formidable rival.
+
+"We meet again, you see, Miss Sylla," said Cottrell, as they shook
+hands.  "I told you in Suffolk, if you remember, that in my ubiquity I
+was a person very difficult to see the last of."
+
+"And who that had ever met Mr. Cottrell would wish to have seen the
+last of him?" replied the young lady gaily.  "We had great fun together
+in Suffolk, and I hope we are going to have great fun together in
+Fernshire.  My cousins tell me there are no end of balls and dances to
+come off in the course of the next ten days."
+
+"Dear me!" replied Mr. Cottrell, his eyes twinkling with the fun of the
+situation.  "This is all very well for you country people, Miss Sylla;
+but we poor Londoners have come down for rest after a spell of hot
+rooms and late hours, preparatory to encountering fresh dissipations.
+Is it not so, Lady Mary?  Did you not promise me quiet and country air,
+with a dash of the salt water in it?"
+
+"Of course," was the reply; "we have come down here to recruit."
+
+"Oh, but, Lady Mary, you will never shut yourself up and turn recluse,"
+returned the elder Miss Chipchase.  "You must come to the Commonstone
+ball on Easter Monday; you will all come, of course.  I quite count
+upon you, Captain Bloxam."
+
+"Perfectly right, Miss Chipchase," replied the dragoon, with a glance
+of unmistakable admiration at the new importation.  "Did you ever know
+me fail you in valsing? and are not the soldiers of to-day every bit as
+much 'all there' as the sailors of yore, whenever England generally, or
+Commonstone in particular, expects that every man this night will do
+his duty?"
+
+"Ah, yes," replied Miss Chipchase, "I recollect our trying to valse to
+'God save the Queen;' but we could make nothing out of it.  And you,
+Mr. Bloxam,--you are bound to be there.  Remember you engaged me for
+'Sir Roger de Coverley,' for the next dance we met at, last Christmas
+Eve."
+
+"I don't forget, Laura," laughed the Squire; "only you really must
+moderate the pace down the middle this time."
+
+"And then," continued the voluble young lady, "they have got a big
+lunch at the camp, with athletic sports afterwards, on Tuesday, for
+which you will, of course, receive cards."
+
+"There is nothing like rural retirement for rest and quietness,"
+observed Pansey Cottrell, dryly.
+
+"My dear Laura," interposed Lady Mary, "your tongue is running away
+with you.  I have told you we have come down here for a little quiet.
+I am very glad, for your sake, that you have so much gaiety going on;
+but I am afraid you will have to excuse us taking part in it."
+
+"Now, really that is too bad of you, Lady Mary," returned Miss
+Chipchase.  "You are always so kind," she continued, dropping her
+voice; "and you know what a difference it makes to us to be able to
+join the Todborough party.  With my cousin Sylla staying with us and
+all, I really did hope----"
+
+"Impossible, my dear," interrupted Lady Mary.  "If we don't get a
+little quiet now, I shall be having dear Blanche thoroughly knocked up
+before the season is over."
+
+Miss Chipchase said nothing, but marvelled much what all this anxiety
+about dear Blanche's health might portend.  The two girls were sworn
+friends, and Laura Chipchase had more than once envied Blanche's
+physique when she had met her, looking as fresh as a rose, at the
+covertside in the morning, after they had been both dancing until four.
+
+"I am so sorry we shall not see you at the Commonstone ball, Captain
+Bloxam," said Miss Sylla, with whom Jim had entered into conversation.
+
+"Why so?  What makes you think I shall not be there?"
+
+"Because your mamma has brought you down here for the repairing of your
+shattered constitutions," replied the young lady, demurely.  "Do you
+all go to bed at half-past ten?"
+
+"Well, yes," returned Jim, with mock gravity.  "I shall have to comply
+with the maternal's programme as far as that goes; but to do honour to
+the _debut_ of so fair a stranger in the land, I think Miss Sylla, I
+can contrive to get out of the window after they are all asleep, and
+make my way over to Commonstone."
+
+"Dear me, how I should envy you!  What fun it would be, the really
+going to a ball in such surreptitious fashion!"
+
+"Yes," said Jim; "but think about all the fears and anxieties of
+getting back again.  It's always so much easier to get out of a window
+than to get into one."
+
+"But what are you all proposing to do this afternoon, Blanche?"
+inquired Laura Chipchase.
+
+"Well, we thought of walking up to the camp and having a look at the
+sea."
+
+"And to search for Mrs. Sartoris's brother," interposed Jim Bloxam.
+
+"You have a brother quartered at Rockcliffe, Mrs. Sartoris?  I wonder
+whether we know him?  What is he in?" exclaimed Laura Chipchase.
+
+"No; it is only some of Captain Bloxam's nonsense.  I have a brother in
+the army, and he pretends that I don't know where he is, or what is his
+regiment."
+
+"A walk to the camp--ah, that would be amusing!" said Miss Sylla.  "I
+never saw one.  Are they under canvas?"
+
+"No; boards," returned Jim.  "But come along; if we are going to walk
+to Rockcliffe, it is time we were off.  The sooner you ladies get your
+hats on, the better.  We'll find Mrs. Sartoris's brother, launch Miss
+Sylla here in military circles, and return with raging appetites to
+dinner."  And so saying, the dragoon, followed by most of the party,
+made his way to the front door.
+
+"Very nice of you, Pansey," said Lady Mary, "to put in that plea for
+peace and quietness.  I can't think what has come to the place.  Who
+ever heard of Commonstone breaking out with an Easter ball before?
+Todborough generally is as dull as ditch-water at this time of year.
+Something, it is true, may be going on at the camp; but as we know
+nobody there just now, it usually does not affect us.  However, I have
+no intention of submitting to such a _bouleversement_ of my schemes as
+this; and go to that ball _I don't_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CONSPIRATORS TRIUMPH.
+
+The dressing-bell was pealing as the gay party returned in high spirits
+from their walk.  It had been a very successful excursion, and the
+newcomer, Miss Sylla, was unanimously voted an acquisition.
+
+"Laura tells me," said Miss Bloxam, "that her cousin sings charmingly,
+and is simply immense at charades, private theatricals, and all that
+sort of thing."
+
+"Ah, we might do something in that way one evening next week," said her
+brother, as they passed through the hall.  "Mr. Beauchamp here, James?"
+
+"Yes, sir; came about a quarter of an hour ago; he has just gone up to
+dress."
+
+Blanche was sitting in front of her dressing-table, with her maid
+putting the finishing-touches to her toilette, when a slight tap at the
+door was followed by the entrance of her mother.
+
+"That will do, Gimp," said Lady Mary.  "I will arrange those flowers in
+Miss Blanche's hair myself;" and, obedient to the intimation, the
+lady's-maid left the room.  "I have just looked in to speak to you,
+Blanche, about this ball.  If the subject is revived at dinner this
+evening, you won't want to go to it: you understand?"
+
+"Of course, mamma, I will say so if you wish it; but I should like to
+go, all the same."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!  An Easter ball at Commonstone would be a shocking,
+vulgar, not to say rowdy, affair.  Besides, surely you have had plenty
+of dancing in London, to say nothing of heaps more in perspective."
+
+"Dancing!" replied the girl, with a shrug of her shoulders.  "I don't
+call a London ball dancing.  One jigs round and round in a place about
+ten feet square, but one never gets a really good spin.  We have been
+at Commonstone balls before.  What makes you think this one would be
+more uproarious than usual?"
+
+"We have never been to an Easter ball, my dear," replied Lady Mary,
+adjusting a piece of fern in her daughter's tresses.  "We came down
+here for quiet, and if you don't require a rest, I do.  You must think
+of your poor chaperon a little, Blanche."
+
+"Don't say another word, mamma.  You are a dear amiable chaperon, and
+have been awfully good about staying a little late at times.  I don't
+want to drag you over to Commonstone, when your wish is to be left
+peacefully at home.  We won't do the Easter ball, though it is sad to
+think what a capital room they have for it.  But come along, there goes
+the bell, and I am sure now I look most bewitching."
+
+It was not Lady's Mary's custom to take her daughters into her
+confidence, in the first instance, with regard to the matrimonial
+designs she had formed for their benefit.  All the preliminary
+manoeuvres she conducted herself.  The idea of young people gravitating
+together naturally was a theory she would have received with profound
+derision.  She looked upon it that all what she would have termed
+successful marriages were as much owing to the clever diplomacy of
+mothers or chaperons as the victory of a horse in a big race is due to
+the skilful handling of his jockey.  During the afternoon she had been
+meditating over the plan of her Easter campaign, and resolved to adhere
+to her original determination.  Most decidedly she would have nothing
+to do with Commonstone and its gaieties, nor would she afford greater
+favour to any revelries at the Rockcliffe camp; and most devoutly did
+she wish that it was in her power to keep the rector's daughters
+altogether at arm's length, now that she had seen this new cousinly
+importation.  At arm's length as much as possible the Misses Chipchase
+should be held, she determined.
+
+"That Miss Sylla," she muttered, "is just the sort of girl men always
+lose their heads about; clever, too, if I mistake not.  Well, I don't
+mean to see more of her at the Grange than I am positively obliged to;
+but keep her out altogether I can't.  The Chipchase girls have grown up
+with my own, and been always accustomed to come and go pretty much as
+they liked.  However," thought her ladyship, "the first thing to settle
+undoubtedly is this ball;" and, as she and her daughter descended to
+dinner, Lady Mary did fancy that, at all events, she had settled that.
+
+"Ah, here you are at last," said the Squire, as they entered the
+drawing-room; "dinner is already announced, my lady.  Come along, Mrs.
+Evesham, it's no use letting the soup get cold."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Beauchamp?" said Lady Mary, as a dark, good-looking
+young fellow came forward to shake hands with her.  "It seems I am
+dreadfully late, and have only time now to say I am delighted that you
+have found your way to Todborough.  Perhaps you will take care of
+Blanche."  And then the hostess turned away to pair off her other
+guests.
+
+"I congratulate you, Lady Mary, on so favourable an augury," said
+Pansey Cottrell, as he leisurely consumed his fish.
+
+"Favourable augury!  What can you mean?"
+
+"Do you not see," returned Cottrell, in mock-tragical tones, "that we
+are thirteen to dinner?  Do you not know that Lionel Beauchamp is the
+thirteenth? and do you not know what Fate has invariably in store for
+the thirteenth at a dinner party?"
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Lady Mary; "why, they say it's hanging, do
+they not?"
+
+"Well, of late years they have rather qualified the sentence.  Popular
+opinion, I think, now inclines to the belief that the thirteenth, when
+a man, will be either hung--or married."
+
+"I suppose we are advancing in the science of augury as in all other
+sciences," replied her ladyship, laughing, "and find that the omens,
+like the readings of the barometer, are capable of two interpretations."
+
+"You must not speak lightly of the science of augury, Lady Mary.  Allow
+me to give you the complete interpretation of the omen.  The Fates have
+not only decreed that Lionel Beauchamp shall either be hung or married
+within the twelvemonth, but reserved the latter lot for him; and they
+indicate further who his future wife shall be.  When there is no lady
+next him, it's a hanging matter, saith the oracle; where there is, that
+lady will be his wife before the year is out.  Now, it can hardly point
+to Mrs. Evesham, who is on the right, and therefore I conclude it must
+indicate Miss Blanche, who is on his left."
+
+"Very ingenious, indeed, Mr. Cottrell; but, dear me! they have begun to
+talk about that horrid ball again at the bottom of the table, have they
+not?"
+
+"I say, mother," exclaimed Jim Bloxam, "of course we are all going to
+this Commonstone ball on Monday?"
+
+"Nonsense!  I am surprised at your thinking of such a thing.  The idea
+of our going to a Commonstone ball on Easter Monday!  Just fancy, my
+dear Jim, what it would be,--townspeople and excursionists from round
+about.  No; I don't go in for being exclusive, goodness knows; but the
+Commonstone Easter ball is a rather more boisterous business than I can
+stand."
+
+"What nonsense!" rejoined the dragoon, a little staggered, all the
+same, by his mother's argument.  "It will be great fun, and I don't
+suppose a bit worse than any other of the Commonstone balls; and we
+have always gone to them, you know."
+
+"Yes, but that's a very different thing from an Easter Monday ball.  Of
+course you and any of the gentlemen of the party can go.  You will have
+great fun, no doubt."
+
+"But," urged Jim, "we are a large party, and can keep to ourselves, you
+know.  It is a good room; and here is Blanche, I know, dying for a
+galop.  Are you not, my sister?"
+
+"No, indeed," said Blanche, responding bravely to her before-dinner
+tutoring; "I assure you I don't care about it in the least.  I have no
+doubt mamma is right, and that the ball will be crowded with all sorts
+of disagreeable people."
+
+"You little traitress," said Jim, with a comical grin upon his
+countenance, "I did think I could count upon you; but you are as
+perfidious as a county elector in these days of the ballot-box."
+
+Poor Blanche coloured and bit her lip.  She was conscious of gross
+tergiversation, of having ratted shamefully; for that merry party in
+the afternoon, as they stood in the camp of Rockcliffe overlooking
+Commonstone, had, one and all, vowed to foot it merrily in the
+town-hall on Easter Monday, and agreed that for real lovers of dancing
+a country ball beat a London one all to pieces.
+
+"Well, mother," rejoined Jim, with one of his queer smiles, "on your
+head be it if any harm comes to us; if you will allow your young braves
+to go out on the war-path without their natural protectors, you must
+not be surprised if some of them lose their scalps.  Beauchamp, you are
+a devotee of the goddess, I know.  You will of course form one of 'the
+lost children' who brave all the horde of excursionists for the honour
+of Todborough."
+
+"Thanks, no," replied Lionel.  "I don't think I care about facing the
+barbarians at play."
+
+He was a good deal smitten with Blanche, and knew better than to run
+counter to his enslaver's pronounced opinion.
+
+"Then," exclaimed Jim, "like Curtius, I must leap into the gulf
+single-handed.  Stop! hang it, I will exercise my military prerogative;
+yes, Braybrooke, I shall order you to accompany me, if it is only to
+witness the sacrifice."
+
+"Stay, Captain Bloxam," said Mrs. Sartoris, laughing.  "Such devoted
+gallantry deserves encouragement; I won't see you fall into the hands
+of the Philistines without an effort at your preservation.  You'll go,
+Tom, won't you?" she continued, appealing to her husband, "if Lady Mary
+can only find us transport."
+
+"Yes, I am good to go, if you wish it," replied Sartoris.
+
+"How I should like to shake the life out of that woman!" thought Lady
+Mary, as she smilingly murmured that "if Mrs. Sartoris had the courage
+to face the horrors of an Easter ball, there was, of course, the
+carriage at her disposal."
+
+"Bravo, Mrs. Sartoris!" cried Jim; "and now that you have given them a
+lead, I have no doubt I shall pick up some more recruits, at all
+events, young ladies," he continued, appealing to the Misses Evesham,
+"it's a consolation to think that we have secured a chaperon, even if
+our mothers remain obdurate on the point."
+
+But Lady Mary was not going to suffer any further discussion concerning
+the Commonstone ball, if she could possibly prevent it.  What she
+mentally termed the pig-headedness of her son already threatened to
+upset the seclusion that she had marked out as most conducive to Lionel
+Beauchamp's subjection.  Taking advantage of the decanters having made
+their appearance on the table, she bent her head to Mrs. Evesham, and
+the rising of the ladies put an end to the subject, at all events for
+the present.  "If," thought Lady Mary, as she followed her guests to
+the drawing-room, "I can only stop their talking any more about this
+wretched ball, there will be no harm done.  Jim, Captain Braybrooke,
+and the Sartorises are welcome to go, so long as the rest stay at home."
+
+Though silent, Pansey Cottrell had been an amused auditor of the
+previous conversation.  Living, as he habitually had done from his
+boyhood, always in society, he derived no little amusement from
+watching the foibles and manoeuvres of those around him, and
+occasionally indulged himself by gently pulling the strings for his own
+diversion.  It was a secret that had been penetrated by only a few of
+his intimates, but there was lurking in Pansey Cottrell a spirit of
+mischief that sometimes urged him to contravene the schemes of his
+associates.  It was never from any feeling of malice, but from a sheer
+sense of fun.  The present state of affairs, for instance, tickled him
+immensely.  He knew that poor Lady Mary had resolutely made up her mind
+that the Grange party should have none of this ball, and equally did he
+foresee that there was every probability of both herself and all her
+guests being present at it.  Secondly, she had brought Lionel Beauchamp
+down here, far away from rival beauties, so that Miss Blanche might
+capture him at her leisure; and such was Lady Mary's malignant star,
+that an exceedingly pretty and fascinating stranger immediately
+appeared upon the scene.  Now this was just one of the little dramas
+that it so amused Pansey Cottrell occasionally to exercise his
+influence in.  I do not mean to say that he would interfere to such an
+extent as to either make or mar the wedding; but to take part with the
+conspirators and coerce Lady Mary into going to this Commonstone ball
+was a bit of mischief quite in his way.  He could not resist the
+temptation of teasing his fellow-creatures, and what gave such
+particular zest to such tormenting was that his victims were always
+perfectly unconscious that he was at the bottom of their annoyance.
+
+In the drawing-room Lady Mary expressed her disapproval of the ball so
+strongly that Mrs. Sartoris felt quite guilty, and rather repented her
+of having volunteered to join Captain Bloxam's party; but when the
+gentlemen made their appearance, Lady Mary was doomed to be made once
+more uncomfortable by the proceedings of her first-born.
+
+She listened in somewhat _distrait_ fashion to a flood of anecdote and
+small-talk that Mr. Cottrell was pouring into her ears; for she felt
+intuitively that Jim was canvassing the whole party on the subject of
+this abominable ball with an ardour worthy of a better cause.  She had
+seen him talking and laughing with Mrs. Sartoris, and knew that he had
+confirmed that lady in her iniquity.  Now he was talking with the
+Misses Evesham, and she felt convinced that those flabby-minded damsels
+had admitted that they should like to be present, although not half an
+hour ago they had assured her that they detested all such "omnium
+gatherums."  If she could but have got hold of Jim and told him that
+there were particular reasons why the Grange party should not attend
+upon this occasion! but no, Pansey Cottrell was entertaining her with a
+scandalous and apparently interminable narrative of the doings of one
+of her friends, and she felt she had been as effectually buttonholed as
+if she were the victim of the Ancient Mariner.
+
+Suddenly a "Confound it, Jim, do hold your tongue!" from the
+whist-table caught her ear.  "You deuced near made me revoke.  What on
+earth makes you so red hot about this ball?"  And the Squire
+mechanically looked round to his wife for telegraphic guidance as to
+what line he was to take.
+
+By a sudden shifting of Mr. Pansey Cottrell's chair that gentleman's
+form intercepted the slight bending of the brows and shake of the head
+that replied to her husband's look of inquiry.
+
+"The proper thing to do, sir," resumed Jim; "residents in the vicinity
+of Commonstone must support Commonstone festivities.  The Todborough
+contingent must show up on such an occasion, and the Todborough
+contingent must show with its chief at its head.  Who knows but you may
+want to contest the county again some of these days? and if you don't,
+why, perhaps I shall.  I assure you I have a very pretty talent for
+public speaking--at least, so our fellows all say.  Isn't it so,
+Braybrooke?"
+
+"Oh, I don't quite know about that," was the reply.  "We give you
+credit for unlimited 'cheek' when on your legs after supper, and that's
+about as far as we can give you a character."
+
+"Well, I don't know; we always do go.  I suppose we ought to go this
+time; but there's no necessity for all this hurry.  The ball is not
+until the day after to-morrow."  And the Squire again looked anxiously
+round for instructions from his wife; but Pansey Cottrell was now
+standing between Lady Mary and the card-table, and such inspiration as
+might be derived from his back was sole response to the inquiry.
+
+"Excuse me," said Jim, "we can't have people making up their mind about
+ball-going on Sundays.  Ball-dresses, however perfect, nearly always
+want a little something doing to them at the last, don't they, Mrs.
+Sartoris?  Besides, vacillation spoils slumber.  I am only anxious that
+you shall lay your head tranquilly on your pillow, like myself, with
+your mind made up to do a good and virtuous action."
+
+"Come, I say," cried the Squire, chuckling, "that's rather tall talk,
+you know.  I never heard going to a ball called a 'good and virtuous
+action' before."
+
+"Well, perhaps not," replied Jim; "but it is, comparatively, you know,
+when you think of the many worse things you might do;--Stay at home
+here, for instance, trump your partner's thirteenth, revoke, lose your
+money and your temper."
+
+"You make out a good case, Jim," said the Squire, laughing.  "I suppose
+we must go, lest, as you say, worse should come to us."
+
+As these two latter speeches reached her ears, Lady Mary felt that she
+could have boxed those of her son with exceeding satisfaction, and so
+wandered in her attention to Pansey Cottrell's narrative as to occasion
+that gentleman, who was perfectly aware of the disturbing influence,
+infinite amusement.  As a _causeur_ of some repute in his own
+estimation, he considered himself in duty bound to take vengeance for
+such negligence, and spun out his story to its extreme attenuation
+before suffering his hostess to escape.  At length released, Lady Mary
+crosses to the whist-table; but the conversation has dropped.  Jim has
+moved to another part of the room; and that the Todborough Grange party
+shall go to the ball is an accepted fact.  To revive the subject now
+Lady Mary felt would be useless, but she made up her mind somewhat
+spitefully that her lord should hear a little more about it before he
+slept.
+
+"Rather a sudden change in the wind," said Lionel Beauchamp, as he lit
+Miss Bloxam's candle in the hall: "instead of being dead against, it
+seems to be blowing quite a gale in the direction of the Commonstone
+ball.  I suppose you will go too, if the rest do?"
+
+"Yes," she replied mendaciously.  "I don't care in the least about it,
+but suppose, like all minorities, I shall have to recant my opinion,
+or, what is the same thing, do as the others do; and I shall expect you
+to do the same, Mr. Beauchamp, and not, after the manner of some
+shameless London men whom we have had here, plead a bad cold, and then
+spend the evening tranquilly in the smoking-room, over much tobacco and
+a French novel."
+
+"Not I, Miss Bloxam," replied Lionel, laughing.  "I can assure you I am
+very fond of a country ball.  My objection is to a country ball with
+all the attraction left out."
+
+"Thank you," said Blanche, making him a little mock curtsey, "that is a
+very pretty speech to send me to sleep upon; and now good night.  O
+Jim, Jim!" she whispered, as she passed her brother, "how could you?
+Had you been yet in your childhood, bread and water and dungeons dark
+would be punishment quite inadequate to your offending."
+
+"Why, good Heavens! what have I done?"
+
+"Couldn't you see that mamma is dead against any of us going to this
+ball, and have you not been canvassing us all as if you had been a
+steward?"
+
+"Go to bed, you arrant little humbug," replied Jim, with a perceptible
+quiver of his right eye.  "What the _madre's_ reasons may be for
+setting her face against this bit of jollity I don't know; but you and
+she needn't go, you know.  Mrs. Sartoris has kindly undertaken the
+charge of all us young people."
+
+Blanche merely smiled, nodded, and then tripped up the staircase.  I
+think there was an unspoken understanding between these two on the
+subject of the Commonstone ball.  Jim Bloxam had before known his
+sisters take part with the authorities against their private likings
+and convictions.
+
+Lady Mary, when she had gained the privacy of her own chamber, felt, to
+speak figuratively, that the horses had got a little out of her hand;
+that her party, or at all events the larger portion of them, would
+attend this ball whether she liked it or not.  Of course she herself
+could stay at home and keep Blanche with her; but it would be a little
+too marked to attempt to retain Mr. Beauchamp when all the rest of the
+party were bound for Commonstone.  She was far too skilful a manoeuvrer
+to give lookers-on such transparent grounds for designating her a
+match-making mother.  But Lady Mary was a woman both clever and fertile
+in resource, one who thoroughly understood the philosophy that, when
+things are not going to your liking, there only remains to make the
+best of things as they are.  Her instinct warned her that it would have
+been better for her designs if she could have carried out her original
+programme, and contrived that the Grange party should keep to
+themselves; but as things were it was obvious that Lionel Beauchamp
+would go to the Commonstone ball, and under those circumstances she
+promptly decided that it would be advisable for Blanche and herself to
+go too.  Her mind misgave her that Sylla Chipchase was a formidable
+rival to Blanche in the matter of beauty and attraction; still, the
+encountering of no opposition could but make Miss Sylla more
+formidable.  Just as she had resolved upon a change of front, the
+Squire entered the room.
+
+"My dear Cedric," she exclaimed, "how could you be so foolish?  What
+made you encourage all these people in the absurdity of wishing to
+attend that Easter ball?--a mob of tag, rag, and bobtail, tradespeople
+and people from Heaven knows where: very good fun, no doubt, for the
+officers from Rockcliffe, Jim, or any other young men, but no place for
+ladies and their daughters to go to."
+
+"What nonsense, Mary!  Why, you know we always did go to the
+Commonstone balls; besides, Mrs. Sartoris expressed----"
+
+"Don't talk to me about what Mrs. Sartoris expressed," interrupted Lady
+Mary sharply; "that woman is evidently one of the fast school, and I am
+very sorry for Blanche's sake that I asked her down here at all."
+
+This was a most unjustified accusation against poor little Mrs.
+Sartoris, who was simply a young married woman fond of dancing and
+gaiety.
+
+"Besides," she continued, "you might have remembered that I wanted
+Blanche to have a quiet fortnight.  Girls at her age are so easily
+knocked up by the dissipations of London, and it is very desirable that
+she should take the opportunity of a rest now she can get it."
+
+"Pooh! that's all nonsense, Mary, and you know it.  Blanche is as
+strong as a horse, and no girl enjoys dancing more.  Why, she has never
+been sick nor sorry since she was a little thing!  I'll go bail that
+she's none the worse for her first season."
+
+"Oh, very well; of course if you know better than I do, well and good.
+A mother is usually supposed to be the best judge of such matters.  If
+she is regularly knocked up by July, don't forget I raised my voice
+against the Commonstone ball."
+
+"No, my dear," replied the Squire, as he composed himself for slumber;
+"there is not the slightest probability of my forgetting it, insomuch
+as, if such a misfortune should befall the girl, I feel confident that
+fact would be pretty constantly recalled to my memory."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE COMMONSTONE BALL.
+
+The same evening that all this discussion--one might almost say
+plotting and counter-plotting--concerning the Commonstone ball was
+going on at the Grange, there was a conversation going on at Todborough
+Rectory, which, could she but have heard it, would have somewhat opened
+Lady Mary's eyes to the conspiracy of which she had been the victim.
+
+"I wonder," exclaimed Laura Chipchase, "whether Jim has carried his
+point?  He vowed to-day the Grange party should go to the ball, and I
+hope they may."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Sylla, "it is always nicer, I think, to be one of a
+large party in an affair of this sort.  You are quite independent
+then,--a ball within a ball, as it were."
+
+"Just so," said the younger sister.  "And though we know plenty of
+people, and are not likely to want for partners, yet it's not the fun
+of going a big party.  As for you, Sylla, I can't imagine your wanting
+partners anywhere."  And the girl gazed with undisguised admiration at
+her pretty cousin.
+
+"The young men are mostly good to me," replied Miss Sylla demurely.
+"But what made Lady Mary set her face so dead against this ball?  You
+told me she was full of fun, and either assisted at or promoted all the
+gaiety in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Ah, I cannot understand that," rejoined Laura.  "The excuse about
+Blanche requiring rest is all nonsense.  Why, she told me to-day, she
+was never better, and, as you yourself heard, said she should like to
+go to this ball immensely."
+
+"Ah, well," said Sylla, with a shrug of her shoulders and a slight
+elevation of her expressive eyebrows, "I don't think I care much about
+your Lady Mary; your word-painting has been a little too flattering."
+
+"You mustn't condemn her just because she has got this whim in her
+head.  We know her well, and like her very much.  We have been brought
+up so much with her own children, you know.  But you never told us you
+knew Mr. Cottrell."
+
+"Why should I?" rejoined Sylla.  "I hadn't the slightest idea he was in
+these parts until I saw him.  He is a dear clever old gentleman" (if
+Pansey could but have heard that!), "and one of my most devoted
+admirers.  I met him at the Hogdens' last autumn.  It amused me so much
+to see how he always got his own way about everything, that I struck up
+a desperate flirtation with him, and then, you see, I got mine.  Oh,
+you needn't look shocked.  It's great fun when they have arrived at
+years of discretion, like Mr. Cottrell; they always get you everything
+you want, and are no more in earnest than you are.  Then they are
+always at hand to save you 'an infliction.'  I always said I was
+engaged to Mr. Cottrell whenever I didn't want to dance with any one
+who claimed me, and if I made him a pretty speech, he would always
+forgive my throwing him over.  My dear Laura," continued the young lady
+gravely, "an admirer of that sort is worth a good half-dozen younger
+ones.  But tell me a little more about the Bloxams."
+
+"There is nothing much to tell," rejoined Laura.  "The Squire is just
+what you saw him--a fresh, genial, and hospitable country gentleman.
+Blanche is a dear unaffected girl, a good horsewoman, and good at lawn
+tennis, billiards, and all that sort of thing.  Jim Bloxam is what you
+see--as gay, light-hearted, and rattlepated a dragoon as any in the
+service; and as for Lady Mary, she is very much better than you give
+her credit for."
+
+"Whether the big house goes or not makes a difference in our staff of
+partners," observed the younger Miss Chipchase sententiously.  "Let's
+see: there's Captain Bloxam, Captain Braybrooke, and Mr. Sartoris--all
+most eligible, don't you think so, Laura?  I wonder what this other man
+is like whom Blanche talked about--Lionel Beauchamp? he comes to-night."
+
+"What, Lionel Beauchamp!" exclaimed Sylla: "do you mean to say Lionel
+Beauchamp is coming to the Grange?"
+
+"So Blanche told me this afternoon; why, do you know him?"
+
+"Know him?  yes, pretty much in the same way you know Jim Bloxam.  By
+the way, do you call him 'Jim'?"  (The two girls nodded assent.)  "Ah,
+I like to ask about these things: proprieties differ in different
+counties; it strikes me Fernshire is of the rigidly decorous order."
+
+"Well," laughed Miss Chipchase, "it is past twelve; and if Todborough
+Rectory is to keep its character, we must be off to bed and listen no
+more to your Suffolk gabbling.  It's well mamma is laid up with a cold,
+or we should have been broomed off long ago."
+
+"Very well, Laura; in revenge for that last aspersion I will tell you
+nothing whatever more about Lionel Beauchamp.  Only promise me one
+thing: don't let out that he and I have known each other from
+childhood, please don't.  I do so want to see Lady Mary's face when she
+hears me call him Lionel.  I suspect she is inclined to think me a very
+fast young woman.  She shall!" and with this ominous menace Miss Sylla
+danced upstairs to bed.  Lady Mary, when she found that she must yield
+in the matter of the ball, was far too clever a diplomatist not to give
+a most gracious assent.  She laughed, and vowed that she really thought
+a set of Londoners like they all were would have looked forward to
+quiet during the Easter holidays; but as they preferred racket, well,
+racket be it to their hearts' content.  Her duty towards her guests as
+hostess was simply to promote the happiness of the greater number.
+They would all go to Commonstone, and it only remained now to settle
+the matter of transport.  The break would hold eight comfortably.  If
+Mr. and Mrs. Evesham with their daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris, Mr.
+Cottrell, and the Squire would go in that, then she, Blanche, and
+either Captain Braybrooke or Mr. Beauchamp could go in the carriage,
+and Jim could drive one gentleman over in the dog-cart.
+
+Jim Bloxam knew that he had carried his point sorely against his
+mother's inclination; but he had got his cue now, and resolved to
+second all her arrangements loyally.
+
+"All right, mother," he said, "that will do very well, you take
+Beauchamp in the carriage, and Braybrooke can come in the cart with me."
+
+Although the party generally cared little about the manner of their
+going to the ball, there was one exception, and this was Mr. Pansey
+Cottrell.  That gentleman was extremely fond of his own ease and
+comfort, and when a hostess presumed to take him out to a country ball,
+he did consider that she was at least bound to find him a front seat in
+a most comfortable carriage.  "Breaks are all very well," quoth Mr.
+Cottrell, "for tough country gentlemen; but I don't expect to be carted
+about as if I was a stag on Easter Monday."  In short, although Pansey
+Cottrell could hardly have been said to be seriously annoyed, yet he
+held Lady Mary guilty of a want of consideration for a man of his
+status in the fashionable world.  To the mischief inherent in his
+disposition, and which so often led him to thwart the schemes of those
+about him, was now added a mild feeling of resentment, not amounting to
+anger, but a feeling that he owed it to himself to mete out some slight
+punishment to his hostess.  "Yes," he muttered, as he arranged his
+white tie in the glass just before dinner, "I think, Lady Mary, the
+chances are that I shall contrive to make you a little uncomfortable
+this evening.  That Sylla Chipchase is as full of devilry as she can
+be, and with a very pretty taste for privateering besides.  If I give
+her a hint of your designs, I should think there is nothing she would
+like better than to do a little bit of cutting-out business, and
+temporarily capture Lionel Beauchamp under the very guns of the fair
+Blanche; however, I shall be guided by events.  But there is one thing,
+my lady, you may be sure--I shall not forget I was relegated to a
+break."
+
+When the ringers are not in accord the result is wont to be
+
+  "Sweet bells jangled, out of tune."
+
+
+Upon arrival at Commonstone it became at once evident that Lady Mary
+had shamefully libelled the Easter ball.  It was a mixed ball,
+certainly; but by no means the tag, rag, and bobtail affair that Lady
+Mary had stigmatized it.  If there was a sprinkling of the tradespeople
+and also of strangers, there was also a large muster of all the best
+people in Commonstone and its neighbourhood.  The Rockcliffe camp, too,
+had sent a strong contingent; and altogether, with a good room and good
+music, there was every prospect, as Jim Bloxam said, of a real good
+dance.  That the Misses Chipchase should meet the Grange party and
+attach themselves to it was but natural.  They had always been
+encouraged to do so, and how were they to know that the _avatar_ of
+such an incarnation of fun, spirits, and beauty as Sylla should have
+made Lady Mary repent of former good-nature?  However, Jim showed the
+way with Mrs. Sartoris, and the whole party were soon whirling away to
+the strains of the "Zingari" valses.
+
+"At last, Mrs. Sartoris," said Jim, "I taste the sweets of successful
+diplomacy, and in the Commonstone terpsichorean temple publicly
+acknowledge the valuable assistance you lent me in the late great
+crisis."
+
+"I am very glad, Captain Bloxam," replied Mrs. Sartoris, laughing,
+"that my poor exertions have been so fully recognized.  I am terribly
+afraid that Lady Mary has registered a black mark against my name as a
+giddy and contumacious guest, not to be lightly entertained for the
+future."
+
+"No," replied Jim, "I must stand up for my mother; she may fume a good
+deal at the time, but she never bears malice.  But here comes one of my
+greatest allies, Dick Conyers; I hope you will allow me to present him
+to you."
+
+Mrs. Sartoris bowed assent; the introduction made, his name duly
+inscribed on the lady's tablets, and Captain Conyers exclaimed,
+
+"Of course you are coming to 'our athletics' to-morrow?  I know cards
+have been duly sent to the Grange--for the matter of that, round the
+country generally.  There will be lunch all over the camp; but mind, I
+expect you to patronize our mess in particular.  Mile races, half-mile
+races, quarter-mile races, sack races, barrow races,--in short,
+humanity contending on its feet in every possible shape."
+
+"The very thing," said Jim, "after a ball; don't you think so, Mrs.
+Sartoris?  Fresh air, amusement, gentle exercise, and a little
+stimulant close at hand if we feel low."
+
+"Ah, Mrs. Sartoris," replied Conyers, "and I really am a little low
+about to-morrow.  The best race of the day is a quarter-mile race for
+the 'All Army Cup.'  There is a horribly conceited young Engineer of
+the name of Montague who already regards it as his own property; and
+saddest of all remains the fact that, notwithstanding his crowing, he
+can run above a bit; we have nobody in the camp with a chance of
+defeating him."
+
+"Why don't you make Captain Bloxam, here, run?" said Mrs. Sartoris.
+"Why, you know," she said, turning to Jim, "that you beat all the men
+at the Orleans Club a fortnight ago across the cricket-ground in that
+impromptu handicap."
+
+"Of course," replied Conyers; "I never thought of that.  I remember now
+you won the quarter mile at Aldershot last year.  Capital! this race is
+open to the whole army, and the entries don't close till to-morrow.
+I'll stick your name down; and if ever you wish to do me a turn, mind
+you cut Montague's comb for him to-morrow."
+
+"Well, I can only say," replied Jim, "I am good to have a shy, and will
+do my best."
+
+Enthroned amongst the chaperons, and keeping a watchful eye upon her
+flock, Lady Mary so far views their proceedings with much complacency.
+After two successive dances with Blanche, Lionel Beauchamp has
+disappeared with that young lady, and though her daughter is no longer
+under her eye, still Lady Mary feels that events are marching in the
+right direction.  However, it seemed as if Miss Bloxam had retired into
+the purlieus of the ball-room for the evening, and though, under the
+circumstances of her disappearance, Lady Mary felt no whit disturbed,
+about it, yet she thought she should like a cup of tea, and asked Mr.
+Sartoris to be her escort.  But upon arrival at the tea-room, her
+equanimity was destined to be somewhat upset, for the first sight that
+met her eyes was Lionel Beauchamp and Sylla Chipchase seated in one of
+the corners, and apparently engaged in a tolerably pronounced
+flirtation.  Now, in the confusion of the greeting between the Grange
+party and the rectory people, it had quite escaped Lady Mary that
+Lionel Beauchamp shook hands like an old acquaintance with Sylla.  She
+had, therefore, no idea that they had met before this evening, and her
+dismay at finding Mr. Beauchamp improving his opportunities with Miss
+Sylla, when she had pictured him similarly engaged with Blanche, may be
+easily imagined.  However, crossing over to the culprit, she observed,
+with a pleasant smile,
+
+"Not half a bad ball, Mr. Beauchamp, I think.  I can only hope you find
+it so.  I really am quite glad I was persuaded into coming.  By the
+way, what have you done with Blanche?  She was dancing with you when I
+last saw her some half-hour ago."
+
+"Oh, the room was so warm,", replied Lionel, "we came down here to get
+cool; and then Mr. Cottrell and Miss Sylla joined us; and then Cottrell
+told Miss Bloxam that it was his dance--or you wanted her--or
+something, and----"
+
+"Left me as a substitute," interrupted Sylla Chipchase.
+
+"Ah, well," said Lady Mary, "if Mr. Cottrell is taking care of her,
+Blanche is in good hands; I need not trouble myself much about her."
+
+"You make a terrible mistake there, Lady Mary," said Sylla, in accents
+of mock anguish.  "Mr. Cottrell is one of the most dangerous and
+inconstant of his sex.  He made most desperate love last year to me in
+Suffolk, whispers pretty speeches into my ear the whole of this
+evening, and then turns me over--consigns me, I believe, is the proper
+term--to Mr. Beauchamp as if I were a bale of calico!"  And the young
+lady assumed the prettiest attitude of most pitiable resignation.
+
+"I was quite right," thought Lady Mary, as she resumed her cavalier's
+arm: "it is as I thought; that girl is as practised and brazen a flirt
+as ever crossed a poor woman's schemes.  It was an ill wind that blew
+her into Fernshire this Easter."
+
+"Come along, Lionel," said Sylla; "remember that here we must not call
+each other by our Christian names.  Fernshire don't understand that we
+have been brought up together.  In Suffolk it's different; but
+Fernshire will be putting it down as my habit to call all gentlemen by
+their Christian names, and I certainly don't want that."
+
+"As you like, Syl--I mean, Miss Chipchase," replied Lionel; and with
+that they made their way to the ball-room, where Jim Bloxam immediately
+claimed the young lady's hand.
+
+In the course of their dance Jim told his partner all about the
+programme for the morrow; how it was arranged that they should all
+drive up to the camp to lunch, look at the games, and either walk or
+drive back as seemed good to then.  Then he confided to her how he was
+going to enter for the "All Army Cup."  "Principally," continued Jim,
+"to oblige Dick Conyers, who is so extremely anxious to see the conceit
+taken out of a fellow in the Engineers called Montague."
+
+"And you," said Sylla, who manifested great interest in the affair,
+"are you really a good runner?"
+
+"Well, no, I can hardly say that--remember that is rather a big thing
+to say; but I am a bit above the average, and have beaten good fields
+upon three or four occasions."
+
+"I understand; and what chance do you think you have with this Mr.
+Montague?  Recollect, I mean plunging in gloves unless you assure me it
+is hopeless."
+
+"Well, if I thought it that," replied Jim, "I shouldn't run, and that's
+about as much as I can say.  I have never seen Montague run, and I
+don't think either of us can possibly draw an estimate of the other's
+form; still, the best man in a camp like Rockcliffe must be a pretty
+good amateur.  I can only take for my comfort that Aldershot is bigger,
+and I proved myself the best man there over a similar distance last
+year."
+
+"That's good enough for me.  You must pardon my getting a little
+slangy," replied Sylla, laughing; "but, dear me! when we come down to
+pedestrianism we can't help it.  I like your friend Captain Conyers.
+He is very anxious, you tell me, to see Mr. Montague's colours lowered."
+
+"Yes, I assure you he was quite pathetic in his adjuration to me to do
+my utmost," rejoined Jim.
+
+"Ah, well, we must hope he will be gratified, and in spite of _Punch's_
+wicked comparison of the dismounted dragoon to the goose on the
+turnpike-road, I shall hope to see the camp champion go down before
+Todborough to-morrow.  But now tell me, how long have you known Lionel
+Beauchamp?"
+
+"I met him this year in London for the first time."
+
+"What do you think of him?"
+
+"He is a very good fellow as far as I can judge," replied Jim; "very
+quiet; but you know I have had no opportunity of seeing much of him."
+
+"You never saw him ride, I suppose?"
+
+"No, except in the Row.  Does he hunt?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he hunts in his own county," replied Sylla.  "You never saw
+him shoot, I suppose?"
+
+"No, he doesn't attend Hurlingham; that is to say, I mean he doesn't go
+in for pigeons.  But why all these questions, Miss Sylla?"
+
+"Never mind; that's my secret.  You may be sure it is intended for your
+good," laughed his interrogator.  "In short, you never saw him ride,
+shoot, nor do any of those things."
+
+"No," rejoined Jim, much amused; "I never saw him commit himself to
+rackets, skating, billiards, or any of those things."
+
+"Ah," rejoined Sylla, "I was curious to see how much you knew about
+him.  And now I think I must go and join the rest of them."
+
+Upon arriving at the part of the ball-room in which Lady Mary had taken
+up her abode, they found most of the elders of the party assembled, and
+the expediency of a move homewards prominently under discussion.
+
+"Ah, make room for me, please," exclaimed the vivacious young lady, "in
+that corner next to you, Mr. Cottrell.  You have neglected me
+shamefully the whole of the evening, you know.  The sole admirer I can
+reckon on in all Fernshire, an adorer privileged to say sweet things to
+me, and whose bounden duty it is never to neglect an opportunity of
+administering such sugarplums--how dare you treat me so?  You abandon
+me in the tea-room, leaving me to be picked up like any other derelict
+by the passing stranger.  Now, Mr. Cottrell, I should just like to hear
+what you have got to say in your defence."
+
+"Well, Miss Sylla," rejoined the accused, "I left you under very
+tolerable protection, and Lady Mary had given me a hint to find Miss
+Bloxam for her if I could."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," replied the young lady.  "You got rid
+of me, you know you did, because you felt lazy and unequal to the
+exigencies of the situation."
+
+Of course Pansey Cottrell knew that this was all fooling; but then,
+like many other middle-aged gentlemen, he rather liked such fooling
+with a pretty girl; in fact, was somewhat given to what may be
+designated as fatherly flirtation.
+
+"I don't think I left you quite so desolate as you make out.  I should
+imagine Beauchamp an eligible cavalier.  He comes from your county, so
+no doubt you know him."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Beauchamp and I have foregathered before to-day."
+
+"Ah, it was provoking," continued Cottrell, "after all the pains I took
+on your behalf, that Lady Mary, looking upon you as one of her charges,
+should be so sternly determined to do her duty by you as to penetrate
+the tea-room and nip such a promising flirtation in the bud."
+
+"Yes," said the girl musingly, "I don't think she was altogether
+pleased at finding me there.  Still, I can't see that Lady Mary's duty
+extends to us just because we have joined her party."
+
+"Can't you really, Miss Sylla?" replied Cottrell, with a twinkle in his
+eye and a preternatural solemnity of manner that immediately aroused
+the young lady's attention.  "Don't you know that one of the most
+important duties of the governors of all communities is to see that the
+right men are in the right place?"
+
+"I don't understand you," said Sylla.
+
+"To speak more plainly, then, it is the duty of chaperons to see that
+the right men don't sit out with the wrong ladies."
+
+"Ah," replied Sylla, her eyes dancing with fun, "I think I begin to
+understand you now.  I was the wrong young lady."
+
+"Well," said Cottrell, "I am very much afraid you were.  Do you see now
+why I so basely deserted you and changed partners with Beauchamp?  You
+used to be quick enough in abetting me in such pranks last winter."
+
+"I declare," rejoined Sylla, laughing, "you are the wickedest and most
+amusing man I ever came across.  You dare to tell me that these Bloxam
+people have the audacity to come poaching on our Suffolk preserves?"
+
+"Oh, I don't say that; still, people are so unscrupulous now-a-days.
+But I want your help in another little bit of mischief."
+
+"What is it?" rejoined the young lady, with an animation which promised
+ready assent.
+
+"Do you know Beauchamp well enough to ask him to dance?"
+
+"Yes, certainly; only don't you let them know it at the Grange."
+
+"Not I.  The carriages have just been sent for; make him dance with
+you, and take him out of the way when I signal to you.  He came here
+with Lady Mary and Miss Bloxam in the carriage.  When he is not to be
+found, I shall volunteer to take his place, leaving him to follow and
+take mine in the break; and shall take care that the fact of his being
+left dancing with you does not escape Lady Mary's attention."
+
+"Go across and tell Mr. Beauchamp I want him," said Sylla.  "I'll take
+care he is out of the way when wanted."
+
+This little conspiracy was crowned with success; and when the carriage
+was announced, Lionel Beauchamp was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"It's nonsense waiting for him, Lady Mary," said Mr. Cottrell.  "As
+Miss Bloxam is not dancing, you had better be off at once; I will come
+with you, and Beauchamp can take my place in the break.  What has
+become of him and Sylla Chipchase, goodness only knows!"
+
+There was nothing for it but to submit to circumstances; and, with a
+feeling of no little asperity towards that "flirting Suffolk girl,"
+Lady Mary drove home to Todborough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ROCKCLIFFE GAMES.
+
+When Lady Mary came to think over the events of the night she found
+considerable cause for dissatisfaction, but it was as nothing to the
+further discomfiture awaiting her at the breakfast-table the next
+morning.  Her scheme of seclusion--of a quiet party which, contenting
+themselves with their own society, should seek for no other amusement
+than was comprised within the resources of the Grange--had been already
+rudely broken in upon.  And now she was confronted by an arrangement
+which her son had entered into without consulting her.  On entering the
+breakfast-room she found Jim explaining the programme of the day,--how
+they were all to lunch at the mess of the --th regiment and witness the
+athletic sports of Rockcliffe camp.
+
+"Cold collation all over the camp, five o'clock tea, fresh air, fun and
+flirtation, society and sunshine; if all that does not realize 'a dream
+of fair women,' well, then, I know nothing about them," were the first
+words that greeted Lady Mary's ear.  Lady Mary Bloxam was no weak
+vacillating woman--a woman, on the contrary, wont to carry her point,
+and who contrived to have her own way, perhaps, rather more than most
+people; but she saw at once that it would be hopeless to stem the tide
+upon this occasion.  With all her guests on a lovely spring day anxious
+to attend an entertainment not three miles off, what was there to be
+said?  No possible pretext could be devised for preventing them.  Why,
+oh, why had she persuaded that graceless dragoon to leave Aldershot and
+share the peace and tranquillity of home?  She might have remembered
+how foreign peace and tranquillity were to Jim's mercurial disposition;
+and then, Lady Mary reflected ruefully, that flirting Suffolk girl was
+certain to be present at the sports.  In her dismay, she for a second
+thought of taking counsel with Pansey Cottrell as to what it were best
+to do under the circumstances; but after such festivities as that of
+the previous night Mr. Cottrell was always invisible to every one save
+his valet till past midday.
+
+The hierarchy of Olympus had apparently taken the Rockcliffe games
+under their special protection.  A more glorious April day never dawned
+than the Tuesday appointed for its athletic sports.  Here and there a
+few fleecy clouds flecked the sky, as here and there a snowy patch of
+canvas dotted the sea.  The sun shone forth in all his majesty, and the
+soft south-west wind just rippled the waters of the treacherous Channel
+and fluttered the flags with which the huts were decorated.  Over every
+mess-room flew the regimental burgee as a signal that therein was lunch
+for all comers; while in front of those near the course, flanked on
+either side by rows of chairs and benches, were pitched marquees for
+the convenience of those who might desire lighter refreshment.  As the
+Todborough carriages drove up, Captain Conyers and one or two of his
+brother officers stepped forward to welcome the party, and, as Lady
+Mary had anticipated, almost the next people to greet them were the
+Reverend Austin Chipchase, his daughters, and niece.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Cottrell," said Sylla, with an arch glance at her
+fellow-conspirator of last night.  "May I hope that the sweet sleep
+that waits on virtuous actions was vouchsafed to you?"
+
+"Thanks, yes," replied that gentleman.  "I slept as a good man should.
+I am afraid some of us were a little over-tired.  I regret to say there
+was a little irritability manifest in my carriage on the way home;" and
+the twinkle in Cottrell's eyes told Sylla Chipchase that Lady Mary had
+made due note of her offending.
+
+"You have heard of course that Captain Bloxam means trying for the 'All
+Army Cup.'  Great excitement it will be for us, will it not?  We are
+all bound to bet recklessly upon the Todborough champion.  I should
+like to see this Mr. Montague.  I must get Captain Conyers to point him
+out to me.  But, ah, look! here they come!" and as she spoke the girl
+pointed to some half-score figures who, clad in gaily-coloured jerseys,
+came racing down over six flights of hurdles.  The leading three or
+four were well together till they cleared the last hurdle save one; but
+immediately they were over that, a pink jersey shot to the front, left
+his antagonists apparently without an effort, and, clearing the last
+hurdle in excellent style, ran in an easy winner by some half-score
+yards, amid tumultous cheering.
+
+"Oh, do find out what this is all about; who won that? what was it?
+Ah, Captain Braybrooke, please come here and explain all this to me.
+Why are they cheering?"
+
+"That was the two hundred yard race over hurdles, Miss Chipchase.  They
+are cheering the winner, Mr. Montague, our opponent, you know.  It
+seems ever since Jim's name appeared in the 'All Army Cup' this
+morning, excitement has run high; you see, of course they know that Jim
+won the quarter of a mile race at Aldershot last year.  It becomes a
+case of Rockcliffe _versus_ Aldershot, and of course all the sympathies
+of Rockcliffe are with their own champion.  I don't think, Miss
+Chipchase, they will throw things at us; but you mustn't expect Jim's
+victory to be received with enthusiasm.  It's great fun to see the
+excitement his appearance in the lists has occasioned.  It was looked
+upon as a foregone conclusion for Montague before; and though he is
+still favourite, they know now that he has not got it all his own way."
+
+"Thank you so much," said Sylla, in her most dulcet tones.  "And now,
+Captain Braybrooke, I want you to do me a great favour.  It's of no use
+denying it, but I am an arrant gambler at heart; I must and will have a
+gamble on this.  Will you please put five pounds for me on Captain
+Bloxam?" and as she spoke Sylla saw with infinite satisfaction that she
+had Lady Mary for an auditor.
+
+"Certainly, Miss Chipchase," replied Braybrooke.  "There can be no
+manner of difficulty about that.  I have backed Jim myself, and you can
+stand in that much with my bets."
+
+"Once more, thank you," replied Sylla; "and pray let Captain Bloxam
+know that the fortunes of all Todborough depend upon his exertions."
+
+But Sylla made a great mistake if she thought that her making a bet on
+the result of this race would shock Lady Mary.  The Ladies Ditchin had
+known what it was as girls to lose their quarter's allowance over one
+of their father's unlucky favourites for a big race; and Lady Mary all
+her life had been far too accustomed to regard backing an opinion as
+the strongest proof of sincere belief in it to feel in the least
+shocked at anybody holding similar views.  She had indeed told her
+husband, as soon as the fact of her son being entered for this race
+came to her knowledge, that she must have her usual wager of ten pounds
+on the result.  All the sporting instinct of her nature had been
+aroused, and Jim's entering the lists against the Rockcliffe champion
+had gone far to reconcile her to such an infringement of her programme
+as was involved in their attending the Rockcliffe games.
+
+"Your brother is a good runner, I presume, Miss Bloxam?" inquired
+Lionel Beauchamp, who was sitting with Blanche on the other side of the
+marquee.
+
+"Yes, Jim is fast and has won several 'gentlemen's' races.  I don't
+want to brag, Mr. Beauchamp, but we Bloxams are all pretty good at
+those sort of things, and of course that's all as it should be with my
+brothers; but with us girls I don't know that it works quite so well.
+We can all dance, but we can none of us draw.  We all play lawn tennis
+pretty well, but we can't play the piano; can all ride an awkward
+horse, but can neither sing a note in Italian nor any other language.
+And you--are you fond of any of these things?  It is so difficult to
+tell what a man likes in London."
+
+"Yes," rejoined Beauchamp, "in the London world we are wont to rave
+about matters we really don't care a rush about, to affect aesthetic
+tastes which we have not got, and the pretension to which entraps us
+into much foolish speaking.  We go to all sorts of entertainments we
+don't care about, simply because other people go.  You must not betray
+me, Miss Bloxam, but I declare I think one passes no pleasanter
+afternoon in London than when witnessing a good match at Lord's with a
+pleasant party on a warm day."
+
+"Ah, we are all cricketers down here in Fernshire, boys and girls, men
+and women; we believe we invented the game, and in the old days stood
+pre-eminent in it.  However, we now number so many disciples, and they
+have profited so much by our teaching that we are like the old man who,
+
+  "'To teach his grandson draughts then his leisure did employ,
+  Until at last the old man was beaten by the boy.'"
+
+
+"Well, we must hope the old county is not going to be beaten this
+afternoon; for I take it your brother represents Fernshire, and
+Montague England, and the race by all accounts is reduced pretty well
+to a match between them.  But see, there go the competitors!" and
+Beauchamp pointed to five men who, with overcoats thrown loosely over
+their flannels, were making their way down to the quarter-mile
+starting-post.
+
+In spite of their reputation of being swift-footed, Montague and Bloxam
+found three other competitors bent on testing whether they really were
+as fast over a quarter of a mile as rumour credited them: men of the
+stamp always to be found in the army, who do not believe they are to be
+beaten till they have had actual experience of it, and who are wont to
+be a little incredulous even then about their conqueror's ability to
+repeat his victory.  As one of these philosophers remarked, "Montague
+means running in the hurdle race; there is always a possibility of his
+breaking or straining something in that, and so being _hors de combat_
+for the Cup."  However, Mr. Montague had won that race without damage
+to himself, and was evidently perfectly fit to take part in the fray.
+There is some slight delay at the start, owing to the praiseworthy but
+mistaken attempts of a gentleman in a dark blue jersey to get off
+somewhat in advance of his companions--an undue eagerness which, having
+resulted in his twice jumping off before the word, terminates in his
+getting two or three yards the worst of the start when the word "go" is
+finally given.  A green and white jersey dashes to the front, and
+assuming a longish lead, brings them along at a great pace.  Next come
+the all white of Jim Bloxam and the pink of Montague running side by
+side and eyeing each other closely.  They take but little heed of their
+leader, as they know very well that he can never last the quarter of a
+mile at the pace that he is going.  As they anticipated, the green and
+white champion is in difficulties before they have travelled half-way,
+and the two favourites come on side by side.  They are as nearly level
+as possible, but, if anything, the pink jersey has a slight advantage.
+The conviction is gradually stealing over Jim that his opponent has a
+little the speed of him; his only chance, he thinks, is that his
+adversary may not quite "stay" home.  The marquee of the --th regiment,
+of which the Todborough party are the guests, is close to the
+winning-post, and as the competitors near it the excitement becomes
+intense.  Just opposite it, and not thirty yards from the winning-post,
+Montague makes his effort, and for a second shows a good yard in
+advance; but Jim instantly replies to the challenge and partially
+closes the gap.  But it is all of no use:--though he struggles with
+unflinching pluck he can never quite get up, and the judge's fiat is in
+favour of the pink jersey by half a yard.
+
+"A terrible result that, Mrs. Sartoris," said Conyers, when the judge's
+decision was made known: "not only have we lost our money, but there
+will be no holding Montague at all now he has lowered the colours of
+the Aldershot champion."
+
+"Well," replied the lady, "I don't think Mr. Montague can crow much
+over his victory."
+
+"No, indeed!" chimed in Sylla Chipchase; "Captain Bloxam struggled
+splendidly, and Mr. Montague had nothing in hand if I know anything
+about it."
+
+"Ah, you don't know the man," replied Conyers.  "The closeness of the
+contest will not prevent his talking very big about his victory."
+
+"Now that reminds me of a serious omission on your part, Captain
+Conyers; remember we have not yet been introduced to the hero of the
+hour, and you know what hero-worshippers our sex are."
+
+"That's an omission easily rectified, Miss Chipchase, for here come the
+two antagonists.  And as he spoke Jim and his conqueror came up to the
+marquee.
+
+"Ah, Miss Sylla," exclaimed the dragoon gaily, "I am afraid I have
+disappointed all Todborough; I did my level best, but it was of no use.
+Montague here is just a little too good for me.  Allow me to introduce
+him to you."
+
+"You must not expect very warm congratulations from us Todborough
+people, Mr. Montague.  As you may easily suppose, both our money and
+our sympathies were with Captain Bloxam."
+
+"That would naturally be the case," replied the young officer; "and I
+am myself indebted to Bloxam's putting in an appearance for a victory
+worth winning.  I should have beaten my other opponents without much
+difficulty."
+
+"Yes, indeed," replied Sylla, "we fell into what you military men call
+the weakness of underrating our opponent.  We did not half believe in
+your prowess, Mr. Montague."
+
+"I can only hope that I have convinced you now," he rejoined, smiling;
+"and that another time you will range yourself amongst my supporters."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," replied the young lady, with a slight shrug of her
+shoulders.  "We are obstinate in our convictions at Todborough, are we
+not, Lady Mary?  We still think we can beat Rockcliffe Camp over a
+quarter of a mile."
+
+Those around her were listening with no little interest to Sylla
+Chipchase's _badinage_.  Pansey Cottrell, who knew the girl better than
+the others, felt pretty sure, from the mischief dancing in her eyes,
+that this was not mere idle talk, and awaited the disclosure of her
+design with considerable curiosity; while Lady Mary, although putting
+Sylla down as the most audacious little piece of sauciness she had ever
+come across, showed no little admiration for the stanchness with which
+the girl stood to her guns in thus upholding their defeated champion.
+
+"No doubt, Miss Chipchase," replied Montague, "a race is sometimes
+reversed when run over again, but you must excuse my clinging to the
+conviction that what I have once done I can also do again."
+
+"Ah, well," replied the young lady, with an air of mock resignation; "I
+told you Todborough fell into the error of underrating the enemy, and
+Todborough has paid the penalty of defeat.  Had we deemed you so swift
+of foot, Mr. Montague, we should certainly have entered the best runner
+we had against you."
+
+Sylla's auditors were now thoroughly nonplussed.  What could the girl
+be driving at?  Mr. Cottrell's curiosity was raised to the highest
+pitch, whilst Jim Bloxam stared at the fair speaker with undisguised
+astonishment.  He most certainly deemed that he was fleeter of foot
+than any one in Todborough, and, having lived there all his life, Jim
+was not likely to fall into any mistake on that point.
+
+"With the greatest deference for your opinion," rejoined Montague, "I
+think, perhaps, we men are better judges on that point than you can be,
+Miss Chipchase.  I think, if you ask Bloxam, he will tell you that he
+not only can beat everybody at Todborough, but, with the exception of
+professionals, can dispose of most men that he comes across."
+
+"That is so like you lords of the creation," replied Sylla, with a
+wicked little laugh; "you never will allow that we know anything about
+sporting affairs; and yet I have heard my father say that the best
+judge of racing he ever knew was a woman, and I am sure some of us take
+the best of you to keep with us in the hunting-field.  I have no doubt
+that Captain Bloxam thinks, as you do, that there is nobody that can
+beat him at Todborough."
+
+"I most undoubtedly don't know it if there is," interposed Jim.
+
+"And yet, Mr. Montague," continued Sylla, "if you had not run such a
+severe race to-day, I would challenge you to beat my champion over the
+same course."
+
+"Oh, pray don't let that be any consideration," replied Montague, now
+somewhat nettled.  He had felt no little elated at defeating Bloxam,
+and did not relish any disparagement of his victory.  "Running a
+quarter-mile race," he continued, "does not place one _hors de combat_
+for the afternoon."
+
+"Ah, well," cried Sylla gaily, "I told you Todborough was stubborn to
+believe itself beaten.  If you dare, I'll wager my bracelet"--and she
+touched a very handsome bangle on her wrist--"against the cup you have
+just won that my champion beats you this afternoon."
+
+"It shall be a match if you wish it.  I can merely say I have beaten
+the only man I considered dangerous, and am afraid of none other.
+Don't blame me if I rob you of your bracelet; but remember, Miss
+Chipchase, this match was none of my seeking.  However, your champion
+is on the ground, I presume; perhaps, now, you don't mind naming him."
+
+"Not at all," she replied.  "Will somebody please tell Lionel Beauchamp
+I want him?"
+
+"Lionel Beauchamp!" ejaculated Jim, and then he shook his head; for he
+regarded Sylla's proceedings now as mere temper.
+
+To the bystanders, of course, the name of Lionel Beauchamp told
+nothing.  He was a stranger to all except the Todborough party.  His
+name had never been heard of in connection with athletic sports in any
+way.  Lionel Beauchamp, in fact, was a young man who, what between
+taking a degree at Oxford and foreign travel, had scarcely is yet been
+either seen or heard of in the London world.  He was known only in his
+own country as one of those quiet reserved dispositions little given to
+vaunt their accomplishments.  Both Braybrooke and Jim Bloxam, having
+been appealed to by Captain Conyers, said they could form no idea
+whatever of his capabilities.  They had never heard him say a word
+about running; and if he ever had done anything in that way, it was odd
+that he had never mentioned it in the smoking-room last night, when, in
+consequence of Jim's entry for the "All Army Cup," discussion had run
+high concerning such things.  Lady Mary, on her part, was lost in
+conjecture--not so much as to whether Mr. Beauchamp could run, but as
+to where Sylla Chipchase could have attained such intimate knowledge of
+his accomplishments; while Mr. Cottrell alone showed faith in this
+unknown champion, observing cynically to Mrs. Sartoris, that when women
+went the length of wagering their bracelets, he thought it most
+advisable to be upon their side.
+
+"They really must know they have an immense deal the best of it when
+they do that, depend upon it."  Further speculation on the match was
+here interrupted by the appearance of Lionel Beauchamp, whom Mr.
+Sartoris had duly fetched from the other side of the marquee, where he
+had discovered him--what Lady Mary would have called--profitably
+employing himself by the side of Miss Bloxam.
+
+"Oh, Lionel!" exclaimed Sylla, and to Mr. Cottrell's intense amusement
+she stole a glance at Lady Mary to see how she liked this familiar
+address, "I have sent for you to preserve me from the fruits of my
+rashness.  If you don't beat Mr. Montague for me over a quarter of a
+mile, I shall have to go home without my bracelet."
+
+"But I am sure," interrupted Beauchamp, "that Mr. Montague has no wish
+to hold you to so foolish a wager."
+
+"Certainly not," interposed Montague; "I have no wish whatever to press
+it.  The match, I assure you, is of Miss Chipchase's making, not mine."
+
+"Ah, well, then," exclaimed Sylla, "perhaps it is my obstinacy, not my
+rashness.  I can be obstinate, you know, Lionel; but you will run for
+me all the same, won't you?"
+
+"I think it a very foolish wager," he replied, "and that you will
+probably lose your bracelet; but I cannot say no if you insist upon it,
+and must only do my best."
+
+"You must run," she replied, quickly.  "I could not be so cowardly as
+to 'cry off' now.  You _must_ run, and you _will_ win, I feel.  Nobody
+here believes it but me; but I know it."  Then, leaning towards him,
+she said, with a light laugh, and in tones so low that the others could
+not overhear her words, "Lose if you dare, sir!"
+
+Blanche Bloxam, who had come up with Mr. Sartoris and Beauchamp, was no
+better pleased than her mother at hearing her late cavalier so
+familiarly addressed by such an extremely pretty girl as Sylla
+Chipchase.  As for Lionel, he turned away in a quiet matter-of-fact
+manner, and said,
+
+"I suppose somebody here can lend me a pair of shoes; and as soon as I
+have fitted myself out with those, I am at your disposal, Mr. Montague,
+whenever you like."
+
+Any amount of cricket and racket-shoes were speedily placed at
+Beauchamp's disposal; and Montague having said that he should be
+prepared to try conclusions with the new-comer in half an hour, the
+match at once became the subject of animated discussion.  But if the
+Engineer had been favourite before, he was still more so now.  With all
+the _prestige_ of having beaten the Aldershot champion, it was but
+natural that the camp should proffer liberal odds on their "crack"
+against an unknown man, and the stanchest adherents of Todborough stood
+aloof, with the exception of Mr. Cottrel, and his faith, to speak
+correctly, was the result of his belief in Sylla Chipchase.
+
+"Won't you wish me luck, Miss Bloxam?" said Lionel, quietly, as the
+bugle summoned the competitors in the match to the starting-post.
+
+"Certainly, with all my heart," rejoined Blanche.  "All our sympathies
+are of course with you.  But do you think you can win?"
+
+"I really don't know.  If it was only a mile, Montague would find me
+troublesome to get rid of; but this is hardly far enough for me."
+
+The "novice," as the camp with much promptitude christened him, was
+keenly scanned when, having divested himself of his coat, he appeared
+at the post.  A slight, dark, wiry young fellow, with a terrible
+wear-and-tear look about him that should make an antagonist judge him
+difficult to dispose of in a struggle of any duration.  There was no
+delay this time about the start; for the two jumped off at the first
+attempt, Montague having decidedly somewhat the best of it.  By the
+time they had gone a hundred yards the Engineer felt sure that he had
+the speed of his opponent, and then, sad to say for his supporters, he
+fell into the very error which Sylla Chipchase had so deprecated, viz.,
+holding his antagonist too cheap.  Mr. Montague's vanity had been
+considerably wounded by that young lady's disbelief in his prowess.
+She had contrived, as she had most assuredly intended, to irritate him
+by her persistent scepticism as to his being the swift-footed Achilles
+he so loved to pose as.  He determined to show her and all other
+unbelievers what he could really do.  He would make a veritable
+exhibition of his antagonist.  He would cut him down and run clean away
+from him.  Fired with this idea, he shot well to the front, and came
+along the next hundred yards at a great pace, and a shout went up from
+the marquees near the winning-post of "Montague wins anyhow!"  But we
+all know what comes of the attempt to astonish the gallery.  Although
+the Engineer had undoubtedly established a strong lead, yet his wiry
+foe, running well within himself, hung persistently on his track, and
+was a long way from beaten off.  During the next hundred yards it was
+palpable that Beauchamp was slowly but steadily diminishing the gap
+between them, and thence up to the marquees he closed rapidly on his
+leader.  Thirty yards from the winning-post Lionel made his effort,
+fairly collared his antagonist about ten yards from home, and, leaving
+him without an effort, won a good race by a couple of yards.  Whether
+the result would have been different had Mr. Montague held his opponent
+in higher esteem, as in all such cases, it is impossible to determine;
+but there can be no doubt that the ostentatious victory he aspired to
+made Lionel Beauchamp's task considerably more easy.
+
+Gratulations and condolences welcomed the victor and vanquished as they
+walked slowly back to the marquees; but it was with somewhat of a
+crestfallen air that Montague advanced to present Sylla with the cup
+that she had won.  He feared that she would be merciless in this her
+hour of triumph, and dreaded the banter to which he might be subjected.
+But Sylla knew well the virtue of moderation, and was, besides, far too
+pleased with her success to be hard upon any one.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Montague!" she exclaimed, with the sunniest of smiles; "I
+cannot take it; I cannot, indeed.  I am not entitled to it, for my
+champion is not even a soldier.  I know without Lionel telling me that
+I have been very lucky to save my bracelet.  I am well content to leave
+my cup in your hands, for I feel quite sure that you will keep it for
+me against all comers."
+
+But if Sylla Chipchase was content, Lady Mary Bloxam was very much the
+reverse.  Mr. Beauchamp's victory had gratified her, it was true; but
+then how came this sparkling brunette not only to call him "Lionel,"
+but apparently to know all his habits and capabilities?  She felt, too,
+exceedingly wroth at the manner in which Sylla had unexpectedly usurped
+the position of queen of the revels, and again determined that she
+would see as little as possible of the Chipchase girls as long as their
+cousin was with them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN EXCURSION TO TROTBURY.
+
+That there is nothing succeeds like success, is an axiom most
+profoundly believed in by women.  The sex have a natural tendency to
+hero-worship, and can you but snatch the laurel-leaf, you will ever
+count plenty of admirers among them.  In the drawing-room at Todborough
+that evening the victor of the afternoon was quite the hero of the
+occasion; but we may be sure that in the course of the conversation the
+race provoked, Lady Mary did not neglect to ascertain how it was that
+Lionel had become on such a familiar footing with Sylla Chipchase.
+That young lady having dropped the mask, of course Beauchamp made no
+mystery of the fact that they lived close to each other and had been
+friends from childhood.  Lady Mary was by no means gratified by this
+discovery.  She foresaw that Lionel must necessarily be thrown much
+into the society of one whom, with all her prejudice, she could not but
+admit was a most attractive girl; and she reflected that young men at
+times discover that the little-thought-of playmates of their childhood
+have grown up wondrous fair to look upon.  Blanche's curiosity, too,
+was also much exercised on this subject, and young ladies, in their own
+artless fashion, can cross-examine in such cases as adroitly as a
+Queen's Counsel.  On one point there was much unanimity, namely, that
+it was a great triumph for the Grange, and most satisfactory that Jim
+Bloxam's defeat should have been so speedily avenged.
+
+In the tobacco parliament, held as usual after the ladies had retired,
+the race was again discussed, but from its more professional aspect.
+
+"In these hard times," exclaimed Jim, "we cannot allow such a
+formidable amateur to be idle.  We shall have to christen you the
+'Suffolk Stag,' Beauchamp, enter you at Lillie Bridge, and keep on
+matching you at the Orleans Club, Hurlingham, and in the vicinity of
+the metropolis generally.  There is only one thing puzzles me: while we
+were all talking pedestrianism the other evening, you never gave us a
+hint of your powers.  You and Miss Sylla could not surely have already
+arranged the successful coup of this afternoon?"
+
+Pansey Cottrell listened somewhat curiously for Lionel's reply.  He did
+not think exactly that the pair were confederates, but he most
+assuredly suspected that the little comedy had been most deliberately
+planned by the young lady, though not perhaps intended to have been
+played had Jim Bloxam proved successful; but he called to mind the
+dexterity with which she had led up to the wager, and thought of the
+many rash bets which he had seen the esquires of fair women goaded into
+by their charges at Sandown, Ascot, and the like.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Beauchamp, "I knew nothing about it till I was
+called upon to run.  If I had, I should have protested strongly; but it
+was too late when I was consulted--there was nothing for it but to save
+her bracelet if I could."
+
+"Well, all I can say," returned Jim, "is that the lady is a much better
+judge of your capabilities than you are yourself; though how she got
+her knowledge I own I am at a loss to determine."
+
+"Well," said Lionel, as he ejected a thin cloud of smoke from his lips,
+"I can explain that to you.  I was the quickest in my time at Harrow,
+and Sylla Chipchase knows that, as well as that when I was out in North
+America after the big game I could hold my own with any of the Indian
+hunters of our party; but I never contended against any amateur runners
+at home here.  I should think, Bloxam, your opinion is the same as my
+own about this afternoon.  Montague would, I fancy, have beaten me if
+he hadn't tried to cut me down; over double the distance I have no
+doubt I should always beat him."
+
+"It might have made a difference," returned Jim; "but I should back you
+all the same if it were to be run over again."
+
+"By the way, Bloxam," observed Mr. Sartoris, as he busied himself in
+opening a bottle of seltzer-water, "now I am down here I must see
+Trotbury Cathedral.  I suppose it's easy enough to slip over by rail
+from Commonstone."
+
+"Oh dear, yes," replied Jim; "but hang it, that's an idea!  We'll do
+ever so much better than that, we'll organize a big ride-and-drive
+party there; as many of us as can will ride, and the remainder must
+travel on wheels.  We will have every available horse out of the
+stables to-morrow, go over to Trotbury, lunch at "The Sweet Waters," do
+the cathedral and place generally in the afternoon, and get back in
+time for dinner.  It'll make a capital day,--suit everybody down to the
+ground."
+
+"That would be very charming, and it is extremely good of you to
+suggest it; but, my dear Bloxam, I didn't quite mean that.  Lady Mary
+has very likely made other arrangements, and of course I don't want to
+interfere with those.  I can slip over by myself----"
+
+"Oh, fiddle-de-dee!" interposed Jim.  "My mother will be only too glad
+to hear that we have hit off our day's diversion."
+
+"Yes," observed Mr. Cottrell, in a meditative manner; "I have known
+Lady Mary for many years, and that is her great charm as a hostess.
+She is always anxious that her guests should amuse themselves after
+their own fashion.  Too many of our entertainers, alas! will insist
+upon it we shall amuse ourselves in theirs."
+
+Jim Bloxam looked sharply at the speaker as he lit his bed-room candle.
+Jim had a shrewd idea that Mr. Cottrell at times laughed a little at
+his friends as well as with them.
+
+"Cottrell is right, however," he said.  "It's time to go to bed.  After
+dancing all last night and running races this afternoon, Beauchamp,
+like myself, feels no doubt fit for it."
+
+When Mr. Cottrell reached his bed-room, he took two or three turns up
+and down the floor in a somewhat preoccupied manner.  At length a faint
+smile played about his mouth, and muttering to himself, "I will!" he
+seated himself at the writing-table, rapidly penned a short note,
+addressed it, and then sought his pillow in the tranquil frame of mind
+that befits a man who has planned a pleasant surprise for his
+fellow-creatures.  When his valet brought him his cup of tea the next
+morning at nine, Mr. Cottrell briefly informed him that there was a
+note on the table for the rectory.
+
+"If you don't know where it is, Smithson," he continued, "inquire
+quietly.  Take it at once; there is no answer; and no tattling about
+where you have been, mind."
+
+Smithson vanished silently, though aggrieved.  He did feel that the
+latter injunction to such a model of discretion as himself amounted
+almost to an insult.  A very paragon of valets was Smithson--could be
+relied on to be mute as a fish concerning his master's doings, unless
+paid to be otherwise, when he of course held to the accepted traditions
+of his class.
+
+After a previous conference with the stable authorities, Jim Bloxam at
+breakfast proposed the Trotbury expedition.  Lady Mary listened to the
+proposed excursion at first with some misgivings.  She expected to hear
+it announced that the Chipchase girls had been already asked to join
+the party.  They had been thus invited so often before, that they would
+have been quite justified in themselves proposing to do so on hearing
+such an expedition was in contemplation; but no, neither from Blanche
+nor Jim came a hint of such being the case; and then Lady Mary
+expressed most unqualified approval of the idea.  It was settled that
+they should start punctually at twelve; and as Mr. Cottrell had not as
+yet made his appearance, Lady Mary very thoughtfully sent a message up
+to his room to inform him of what was in contemplation.  The breakfast
+party had nearly all dispersed, even the late comers had thrown their
+napkins on the table, and yet the hostess, usually one of the first to
+bustle off upon her own private affairs, still lingered over the
+_Morning Post_.
+
+"Come, mother," said Jim, suddenly putting his head into the room, "if
+you have finished.  I want you to help me to tell people off.  The
+governor is not coming; so that leaves his hack at our disposal.  I
+thought if we gave that to Sartoris, Beauchamp and myself can take the
+hunters, Blanche has her own horse, and the rest of you can go quite
+comfortably in the break.  I told them to take the hood off.  And as
+for Braybrooke, he is going over to Rockcliffe to see some chum of his
+who is quartered there."
+
+"I have no doubt, my dear Jim, that will all do very well," replied
+Lady Mary.  "I don't think I shall go myself; and Mrs. Evesham is also,
+I fancy, of my way of thinking."
+
+"All right, then; I shall consider that as settled;" and with that
+observation Jim left his mother once more in the undisturbed enjoyment
+of her paper.
+
+But whether the proceedings of her Majesty's Government, or whether the
+denunciation of her Majesty's Opposition, were not to her liking; or
+whether the perusal of the Court news had disturbed her serenity;
+whether it was that the latest discovery in tenors was reported
+stricken with sore throat that grieved her; or whether it was the last
+atrocity in crime that made her flesh creep and so disquieted her, it
+was impossible to say; but that Lady Mary fidgeted considerably over
+her journal was a fact past dispute.  A looker-on, had there been one,
+would have noticed that her eye frequently wandered from the page to
+the door; and as the clock on the mantelpiece chimed eleven, she rose
+from her chair with a petulant gesture and walked towards the window.
+A few minutes more, and her patience was rewarded: Pansey Cottrell
+strolled into the room, and rang lazily for some fresh tea.
+
+"You're shamefully late, Pansey; you always are, I know," she said, as
+she advanced with outstretched hand to greet him.  "But it was too bad
+of you to be so when I am so particularly anxious to talk to you."
+
+"My dear Lady Mary, why did you not send me word upstairs?  You know my
+usual habits; but you know also that I break them without hesitation
+whenever I can be of service to a lady, or even gratify her caprice."
+
+Lady Mary laughed, as she said, "I know better than to exact such a
+tremendous sacrifice."  She was perfectly well aware that Cottrell,
+blandly as he might talk, never submitted to the faintest interference
+with what he termed his natural hours.  "You are in my confidence," she
+continued, "and have seen how circumstances combined against me.  Who
+could have dreamt those Chipchase girls had such a provokingly pretty
+cousin?  They had never even mentioned her very existence."
+
+"Yes, it is awkward," replied Cottrell slowly, "a Miss Chipchase
+turning up who is dangerous--decidedly dangerous."
+
+"Yes; and the rector's daughters have always been so intimate with us
+all that it is difficult to keep them at a distance--in fact, since
+they amalgamated with our party at that dreadful ball, impossible.
+Tell me, what do you think of this Sylla Chipchase?  You met her down
+in Suffolk.  She is just the saucy chit men go wild about, I suppose?"
+
+"Well," replied Cottrell, with a malicious twinkle in his eyes, "there
+is no real harm in the girl; but she'd flirt with a bishop if she sat
+next to him at dinner.  And as for men going wild about her, we had two
+or three very pretty women at Hogden's last year; and the manner in
+which some of those fellows wavered in their allegiance was positively
+shameful."
+
+"Men always _do_ make such fools of themselves about girls of that
+sort," said Lady Mary, with no little asperity.  "Tell me, did you
+notice anything between them?"
+
+"Between whom?" replied Cottrell languidly, and with an expression of
+such utter ignorance of her meaning in his face as did infinite credit
+to his histrionic powers.
+
+"Between her and Mr. Beauchamp, of course," said Lady Mary sharply.
+
+"Beauchamp wasn't there," replied Cottrell.  "I never saw him till I
+met him in this house."
+
+"And what do you think about it now?"
+
+"Two things," replied Cottrell, smiling, "both of which are calculated
+to give you comfort.  First, people brought up together don't often
+fall in love; seeing too much of each other is probably an excellent
+antidote to that complaint.  Secondly, that he seems very much devoted
+to Miss Bloxam at present."
+
+"Well, I hope you are right," said Lady Mary.  "It would really be a
+very nice thing for Blanche.  At all events, we are out of the
+Chipchase girls for to-day."  And, so saying, she rose somewhat
+comforted, little aware, poor woman, that another ringer was meddling
+with the ropes.
+
+But now the party began to muster in the front hall.  Lady Mary
+observed with maternal complacency that Blanche was looking her best
+and brightest in one of Creed's masterpieces.  Jim was fidgeting about,
+all impatience, and, throwing open the dining-room door, called out,
+
+"You really have time for no more breakfast, Cottrell, if you are
+coming with us.  You must put off further satisfying of your hunger
+until we arrive at 'The Sweet Waters' at Trotbury.  The horses will be
+round directly.  Ah, here they are!"
+
+And as he spoke, the sound of hoofs was heard on the gravel outside,
+speedily followed by a peal on the bell; and Mr. Cottrell emerged from
+the dining-room just in time to see Jim open the hall door to Laura
+Chipchase, attired in hat and habit, with Miss Sylla mounted and
+holding her cousin's horse in the background.
+
+Mr. Cottrell contemplated the tableau with all the exultation of a
+successful artist; and as for Lady Mary, her heart sank within her as
+the conviction crossed her mind she was destined never to be quit of
+that "Suffolk girl."
+
+"Admirable, Laura!" exclaimed Jim, as he shook hands.  "What happy
+chance inspired you to turn up all ready for riding?  We are just off
+to lunch at Trotbury, and of course you and Miss Sylla will join us."
+
+"That will be charming," replied Miss Chipchase.  "Sylla was wild for a
+ride this morning; so she and I came over to see if any of you are in
+the same mood;" and then the young lady passed on to greet the rest of
+the party.
+
+Lady Mary, sad to say, received this statement with the utmost
+incredulity, and mentally arraigned her own offspring of duplicity; but
+whether Jim or Blanche was the traitor she could not determine.  Could
+she but have peeped over Sylla Chipchase's shoulder as that
+laughter-loving damsel read Pansey Cottrell's note, she would have been
+both enlightened and astonished.
+
+
+"DEAR MISS SYLLA," it ran, "I cannot recollect the name of the French
+song that you told me would just suit Mrs. Wriothesley.  Please send it
+me.  We are all going over to-morrow to lunch at Trotbury; some on
+horseback, and some upon wheels.  You should join the riding party if
+you can, as it will be doubtless pleasant; and though I am not
+empowered to say so, Lady Mary will of course be delighted to see you."
+
+
+"Song!" muttered Miss Sylla, as she read this note, "I never said
+anything to him about a French song; but, ah--stop--I think I see it
+now!" and she ran through the note again, and as she finished it, broke
+into a merry laugh.  "What a dear, clever, mischievous old man he is!"
+she muttered.  "Of course he means that I am to join that riding party
+and make Lady Mary a little uncomfortable.  Well, she really does
+deserve it.  How dare she pretend that I am setting my cap at Lionel?
+Such a designing matron deserves some slight punishment, and she little
+knows what Mr. Cottrell and I can do when we combine together to avenge
+ourselves."
+
+When she descended to the breakfast-room, Sylla found no difficulty in
+persuading her cousin Laura to go for a ride.  It was of course easy to
+suggest Trotbury.  Then it was agreed they might as well look in at the
+Grange on the way, to see if they could persuade any of the party there
+to join them in such an expedition; and thus Sylla Chipchase
+successfully carried out Mr. Cottrell's design, without making mention
+to any one of the note that she had received from him.
+
+The merry party were soon started.  The Misses Evesham, Mrs. Sartoris,
+and Pansey Cottrell in the carriage--the reduced number of those
+electing to travel on wheels sparing the latter the indignity of the
+"break"--the remainder were of course upon horseback; and as Lady Mary
+looked after them, admiring the firm seat of her daughter sitting
+squarely and well back in her saddle, she wondered whether the "Suffolk
+chit," as she persistently termed her, could ride.
+
+"That's a very good-looking one you are riding, Miss Bloxam, and up to
+a stone or two more than your weight, as a lady's horse always should
+be."
+
+"I don't know about that," replied Blanche, laughing.  "I am tall, and
+by no means of the thread-paper order.  King Cole," she continued.
+leaning forward to pat the glossy neck of her black favourite, "would
+probably tell you he found me quite enough on his back, could he be
+consulted.  He is as good, too, as he is handsome, as I shall perhaps
+have an opportunity of showing you to-day."
+
+"How so?" inquired Beauchamp.
+
+"Well, we very often on these excursions to Trotbury ride there
+quietly, and then lark home.  There is a lovely piece of galloping
+ground over Tapton Downs, and a charming cut across country this side
+of it, by which we can save nearly a mile."
+
+"That'll be great fun," replied Beauchamp, "and I advocate strongly
+such a saving of distance on our homeward journey.  This is one of your
+father's hunters I am riding, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, and a grand jumper he is too: accustomed to papa's weight,
+carrying you will be quite play to him."
+
+Arrived at Trotbury, the first thing, as Jim remarked, was obviously to
+order lunch at "The Sweet Waters;" fortified with which they could then
+proceed to do the cathedral, and spend as much time as seemed good to
+them over that noble pile.
+
+"There are all sorts of tombs and chapels to see," continued Jim, "with
+more than an average crop of historical legends concerning them; and
+the vergers have all the characteristics of that class: once upset them
+in their parrot-like description, and they flounder about in most
+comical manner.  The last time I was here they showed me the tomb of
+St. Gengulphus, with an effigy of that eminent clergyman--considerably
+damaged about the nose--in stone, on the top.  I appealed to the verger
+gravely to know if it was considered a good likeness.  He was staggered
+for a moment, and then replied hurriedly that it was.  But, thank
+goodness, here comes the lunch.  I feel as hungry as an unsuccessful
+hawk."
+
+"Too bad of you, too bad, Mr. Cottrell," exclaimed Sylla Chipchase;
+"you were not one of the riding party, and so I have had no opportunity
+as yet of rebuking you for your forgetfulness: you had no business to
+forget the name of that French song I told you to recommend to my aunt."
+
+"Allow me to observe, Miss Sylla, that I don't consider I deserve much
+rebuke on the subject.  I quite remembered your message to Mrs.
+Wriothesley; it was only the name of the song that escaped my memory."
+
+"Is Mrs. Wriothesley an aunt of yours?" inquired Blanche, with no
+little curiosity; "we know her, and often meet her in town."
+
+"Yes; isn't she charming?  I am going up to stay with her as soon as
+the Easter holidays are over; we shall no doubt meet often."
+
+Blanche said no more, but pondered for a minute or two over this little
+bit of intelligence.  She did not understand why, but she was quite
+certain that her mother disliked Sylla Chipchase, and was conscious of
+being not quite in accord with that young lady herself.  She knew,
+moreover, that if there was one person that Lady Mary detested in all
+her London circle, it was this very Mrs. Wriothesley.
+
+But luncheon is finished, and the whole party proceed to view the
+cathedral.  Pansey Cottrell, however, was not to be got beyond the
+threshold: he protested that he had too small a mind for so great a
+subject, and declared his intention of solacing himself with a cigar
+outside for the temporary absence of the ladies, which was, as Miss
+Sylla informed him, a mere pandering to the coarser instincts of his
+nature, whatever he might choose to call it.  With the exception of Mr.
+Sartoris, it may be doubted whether any of the party paid much
+attention to what they were shown.  The principal effect on Blanche's
+mind was a hazy conviction that Sylla Chipchase was a somewhat
+disagreeable girl.  She considered that the familiar way in which that
+young lady addressed Lionel Beauchamp, to say the least of it, was in
+very bad taste.
+
+But these irreverent pilgrims at last brought their inspection of the
+famous shrine to a conclusion, having displayed on the whole, perhaps,
+no more want of veneration than is usually shown by such sightseers,
+and, picking up the philosophic Cottrell in the close, wended their way
+once more back to "The Sweet Waters."
+
+"Don't you think Lady Mary was enraptured to see me this morning, Mr.
+Cottrell?" inquired Sylla Chipchase, as they lingered for a minute or
+two behind the rest.
+
+"Quite sure of it," was the reply, and the speaker's keen dark eyes
+twinkled with fun as he spoke; "and what is more, if my ears do not
+deceive me, we shall carry back to the Grange a little bit of
+intelligence that I am quite sure will gladden the heart of our
+hostess."
+
+"What is that?" inquired Sylla.
+
+"Don't you know?  No; how could you possibly, considering that you are
+only now about to make your _debut_ in the London world?  You must
+know, then, that your aunt Mrs. Wriothesley is the object of Lady
+Mary's particular detestation."
+
+"But how came that about?  What was the cause of their quarrel?  I am
+sure my aunt is a very charming woman."
+
+"An assertion that I most cordially endorse, and so would all the men
+of her acquaintance, and most of the women; but when you come to ladies
+in society, there are wheels within wheels, you see.  Your aunt and
+Lady Mary have been rivals."
+
+"Nonsense, Mr. Cottrell!" exclaimed Sylla; "why, my aunt is at least
+fifteen years younger than Lady Mary.  She was not only married, but
+all her children born, before my aunt Mrs. Wriothesley came out."
+
+"True, Miss Sylla; but there are rivalries of many kinds, as you will
+find as you grow older.  I can only repeat what I have said
+before--Mrs. Wriothesley and Lady Mary have been rivals."
+
+"Please explain," said Sylla in her most coaxing tones.
+
+"No, no," rejoined Cottrell, laughing; "you are quick enough, and can
+afford to trust to your own ears and your own observation when you
+reach town."
+
+On again arriving at "The Sweet Waters" Jim ordered tea at once, and
+the horses in half an hour.  The conversation became general around the
+tea-table, and Jim Bloxam was suddenly moved by one of those strokes of
+inspiration of which his mother had such wholesome dread.
+
+"Miss Sylla," he explained, "I hear you are a theatrical 'star' of
+magnitude in your own country; there is Mrs. Sartoris too, well known
+on the amateur London boards; and there are others amongst us who have
+figured with more or less success.  It would be sinful to waste so much
+dramatic talent; don't you think so, Blanche?  We have not time to get
+up regular theatricals, but there is no reason we should not do some
+charades to-morrow evening; don't you all think it would be great fun?"
+
+There was a general chorus of assent from all but Blanche, though Miss
+Bloxam did not venture upon any protest.
+
+"Then I consider that settled," exclaimed Jim.  "You will do the proper
+thing, Laura; my mother's compliments to your father, and she hopes you
+will all come up in the evening for charades and an impromptu valse or
+two in the hall.  And now, ladies and gentlemen, to horse, to horse! or
+else we shall never save the dressing-bell."
+
+"And, Jim," exclaimed Miss Bloxam, as she gathered up her habit, "let's
+go the cross-country way home."
+
+"Certainly; well thought of, sister mine.  It's a lovely evening for a
+gallop."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A SHORT CUT HOME.
+
+Through the streets of Todborough and on through the environs of the
+city the gay cavalcade rode decorously and discreetly; but nearing
+Tapton Downs, the spirits of the party seemed to rise as they
+encountered the fresh sea-breeze.
+
+"I am sure you must be dying for a good gallop," said Blanche, turning
+to Sylla Chipchase.  "We turn off the main road a little farther on,
+and then, if you remember, we have lovely turf upon each side of the
+way.  We generally have what Jim calls a 'real scurry' over that."
+
+"I understand--an impromptu race; that will be great fun.  But tell me,
+Miss Bloxam--you know all these horses--have I any chance of beating
+Lionel?"
+
+"I can hardly say," returned Blanche, laughing.  "We have really never
+tried them in that way I should think old Selim, the horse he is
+riding, is rather faster than yours."
+
+"Ah; but then, you see, I am much lighter than he is.  Lionel, I
+challenge you to a race as soon as we turn off across the downs.  You
+shall bet me two dozen pair of gloves to one.  I always make him do
+that, you know," she remarked confidentially to Blanche, "in all our
+battles, whatever they may be at."
+
+"Very well," replied Beauchamp.  "Only remember, I shall expect those
+gloves if I win them; and as I did my best for you yesterday at
+Rockcliffe, so I intend to do the best for myself now."
+
+"A very sporting match," exclaimed Bloxam.  "There's about a mile of
+capital going over the downs without trespassing.  I'll ride forward,
+and be judge and winning-post, while Sartoris will start you."  And so
+saying, Jim trotted forward.
+
+"Now," exclaimed Blanche, as, quitting the main highway, they turned
+into the cross-country road that led over the downs towards the sea,
+"this is where you ought to start from.  If one of you will take the
+turf on the right-hand side, and the other that on the left, and do
+your best till you come to Jim, we shall all have a splendid gallop,
+whichever of you wins.  You start them, Mr. Sartoris.  Let them get a
+hundred yards in front of us, and then we'll follow as fast as we can."
+
+The antagonists took their places as directed; Mr. Sartoris gave the
+word "Go!" and away they dashed.  Miss Bloxam, sailing away on King
+Cole in the wake of Sylla Chipchase, scans that young lady's
+performance with a critical eye.  A first-rate horsewoman herself, she
+was by no means favourably impressed with it.  Sylla rides well enough,
+but her seat is not such as would have been held in high repute in the
+shires.  She also displays a most ladylike tendency on the present
+occasion to what is technically called ride her horse's head off.
+
+"Two to one!" murmured Blanche; "why, it should be ten to one upon old
+Selim!" and with that she turned her eyes to ascertain after what
+fashion old Selim's jockey is conducting himself.  But a single glance
+at Lionel bending slightly forward in his stirrups, with hands low and
+his horse held firmly by the head, pretty well convinces her that he is
+a first-flight man to hounds, and probably has appeared in silk on a
+racecourse.  The match terminates as might be anticipated: Sylla, under
+the laudable impression that she is making her advantage in the weights
+tell, gallops her luckless mare pretty nearly to a standstill, and
+Lionel, though winning as he likes, good-naturedly reduces it to a half
+length, whereby his defeated antagonist lays the flattering unction to
+her soul that, had he carried a few more pounds, the result would have
+been the other way.
+
+They jogged soberly along some couple of miles, when Blanche exclaimed
+gaily, "Who is for the short cut home?  'Let all who love me follow
+me.'"  And, putting King Cole at the small fence that bordered the
+road, she jumped into the big grass-field on the other side.  Lionel
+Beauchamp and Laura Chipchase followed promptly; but Jim, who was a
+little in advance, said quietly,
+
+"We had better, I think, keep the road, Sartoris.  The governor's hack,
+though admirable in his place, is not quite calculated for the
+inspection of the agriculture of the neighbourhood."
+
+He said this good-naturedly, solely upon Sylla's account.  He had
+marked the finish of her race with Lionel, and had come to the
+conclusion that the young lady was not much of a horsewoman.  Now this
+short cut, although over an easy country, did involve the negotiation
+of two or three good-sized fences, and he thought it just possible that
+the girl would prefer not being called upon to ride over anything of
+that sort.  Sylla was possessed of a good many accomplishments, but
+riding across country was not one of them.  She had, however, that
+curious but common desire to excel in that for which she had no
+aptitude; still, if she possessed no other attribute of a horsewoman,
+she was undoubtedly gifted with nerve amounting almost to recklessness.
+
+"Oh, no, Captain Bloxam," she exclaimed; "I am sure we can go anywhere
+that the rest of them do.  Don't you think so, Mr. Sartoris?"
+
+Without waiting for a reply, the young lady jumped her horse into the
+field, and cantered smartly after Blanche and her cousin.
+
+"Well, wilful woman must have her way," Jim said drily.  "Come along,
+Sartoris; the governor's hack can jump well enough if you don't hurry
+him."  And the two men promptly followed their fair leader across the
+grass.
+
+King Cole enjoyed the scurry across country to the full as much as his
+mistress, and expressed his pleasure by shaking his head and reaching
+hard at his bit.  Laura Chipchase's horse was also roused by the smart
+canter at which they were going, and began to pull unpleasantly.
+
+"Let him go, Laura," cried Miss Bloxam; "the King, too, is fidgeting
+most uncomfortably.  A good gallop will take the nonsense out of them."
+
+And with that the two girls quickened their pace, and, going on side by
+side, led the way at a fair hunting gallop.  The first few fences were
+small, and as she sailed triumphantly over them, Sylla's pulses
+tingled, and she was fired with the spirit of emulation.  Although she
+was some little distance behind, she resolved to catch and pass the
+leaders, and with that intent commenced bucketing her mare along in
+rather merciless fashion.  In vain did Jim shout words of warning.  She
+turned a deaf ear to them.  Had he not recommended that she should keep
+the road?  Did he think the art of crossing a country was known only to
+the maidens of Fernshire?  She was determined to catch Blanche and her
+cousin, whatever her escort might urge to the contrary, and saw with
+infinite satisfaction that she was rapidly closing the gap between
+them.  Jim Bloxam, galloping a little to her left, and watching her
+closely, has already come to the conclusion that wilful woman will have
+her fall, and only trusts it may not be serious.
+
+The mare Sylla was riding was a fairly good hunter, and if she would
+but have left her alone would have carried the girl safely over such
+obstacles as they had to encounter.  But Jim noticed with dismay that
+Sylla had some indistinct idea of assisting her at her fences, the
+result of which could only be inevitable grief.  The exhilaration of
+the trio in front, as attested by the wild shout sent back by Lionel
+Beauchamp as they cleared the first of those bigger fences previously
+mentioned, put Sylla's blood thoroughly up.  Heedless of Jim's "For
+God's sake, take a pull!" she struck her mare sharply with the whip,
+and sent her at it as fast as she could lay legs to the ground.  The
+consequence was the mare took off too soon, and the pair landed in the
+next field somewhat in a heap.  Jim was over and off his horse in a
+minute, and at once came to the discomfited fair's assistance.  It is
+seldom that a lady shows to advantage after a regular "crumpler," the
+story of Arabella Churchill notwithstanding; nor, for the matter of
+that, do men either look the better for the process.  No real harm
+having been done, the ludicrous side of the situation generally
+presents itself; but Sylla was certainly an exception.  Although her
+hat was broken, her habit woefully torn and mud-stained, nobody could
+have looked at her somewhat flushed face and flashing dark eyes without
+admitting that she was a very pretty girl even "in ruins."
+
+"No, thanks; I am not in the least hurt, Captain Bloxam," she replied,
+as Jim helped her to her feet; "but I could cry with vexation.  I had
+set my heart upon catching those two; but now," she continued, with a
+comical little grimace, "I have got to first catch my mare."
+
+With the assistance of Mr. Sartoris, who, taking Jim's advice, had
+followed at a more sedate pace, this was soon done; and Sylla, having
+rectified her toilette as far as circumstances permitted, was once more
+in the saddle.  That she presented a rather dilapidated and woebegone
+appearance, nobody could be more conscious than herself; but, as a
+woman always does under such affliction, she put the best face she
+could upon it.
+
+"I am looking a dreadful guy," she said; "and it is very good of you
+two not to laugh at me.  I dare not even think of my hat, for nobody
+ever did, nor ever will, succeed in straightening that article into any
+semblance of its former shape when it has been once stove in.  I have
+only one thing to be thankful for.  Do you know what that is?"
+
+"That you are not hurt in any way," replied Jim.
+
+"Hurt!" she rejoined, with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders; "I
+never thought of that.  Can you guess, Mr. Sartoris?"
+
+"I think so," he returned, laughing.  "You are well pleased that your
+cousin and Miss Bloxam were well in front."
+
+"Just so," said Sylla.  "It is easy to see that you are married, Mr.
+Sartoris, and can to some extent follow the windings of our feminine
+minds.  _They_ would have laughed, and, under pretence of assistance,
+called attention," and here the girl looked ruefully down at her rent
+habit, "to all the weak joints in my armour; and, lastly, they would
+have done what you won't,--tease me to death about it for the next
+week."
+
+"Matrimony has inculcated that blindness is wisdom as far as I am
+concerned," said Sartoris.
+
+"You see, Captain Bloxam, how that ceremony quickens the understanding.
+But you are very good.  I know you think that my fall was my own fault;
+that if I had listened to your warning it wouldn't have happened; and
+you remain mute.  Laura is a dear good girl; but, in your place, she
+couldn't have resisted saying, 'Didn't I tell you so?' to save her
+life."
+
+Jim muttered a courteous and most mendacious disclaimer of Miss Sylla's
+"grief" being due to disregard of his warning.
+
+The leading trio, in the meanwhile, lost in all the exultation of a
+good gallop, and in utter ignorance of Sylla Chipchase's fall, kept on
+without slacking rein till they once more found themselves near the
+high-road, sweeping round from the point they had left it to this, in
+an arc, by traversing the chord of which they had saved about a mile;
+and now, looking round for the remainder of the party, discovered, to
+their surprise, that they were nowhere in sight.
+
+"They must have gone round by the road!" exclaimed Blanche.  "Perhaps
+your cousin, Laura, is not used to crossing a country."
+
+"That I can't say," replied Miss Chipchase.  "Till this Easter I
+haven't seen her since she was quite a small child; but I must say,
+from what I know of her, that I am rather surprised she didn't try."
+
+"I think it most probable she has tried," observed Lionel quietly.
+"Shall I ride back and see what has become of them?"
+
+"No," said Miss Chipchase, "I don't think that is necessary.  Jim and
+Mr. Sartoris will no doubt take every care of her.  We had better jump
+into the road, Blanche, and see if they are coming that way."
+
+But of course there were no signs of the rearguard along the highway;
+and after a delay of a few minutes the party agreed that Sylla was well
+taken care of, and they might as well proceed leisurely homewards.  The
+victim of her ambition to "witch the world with noble horsemanship" saw
+the leaders vanish from her view with much satisfaction.  Under Jim
+Bloxam's guidance, and proceeding quietly over more moderate fences,
+which, though not the straightest, was perhaps the safest, path to the
+high-road, they regained it without further accident.  It must not be
+supposed that Sylla's nerves were shaken by her fall.  She rode as
+boldly as at first at everything her Mentor allowed; but she was in a
+strange country, and compelled, whether she liked it or not, to trust
+herself to Jim Bloxam's guidance.
+
+"Now," she exclaimed, "you have come very nearly to the end of your
+responsibilities, Captain Bloxam.  You have only, if possible, to
+smuggle me into the rectory; and remember--I swear you both to secresy."
+
+"I can take you," replied Jim, "by a bridle-path through the wood,
+which will in all probability insure your reaching the rectory grounds
+unnoticed; but your getting into the house I must leave to your own
+ingenuity."
+
+When, in the course of the evening, Jim, in his own impetuous fashion,
+told that he had asked the Chipchase girls to come up to the Grange the
+next evening, with a view to charades and an impromptu valse or two,
+Lady Mary received the intelligence with the calm resignation of a
+follower of Mahomet.  She saw it was hopeless attempting any further to
+control the march of events.
+
+"No," she murmured confidentially to Mr. Cottrell in the drawing-room,
+"the Fates are against me.  I have done all that woman could, but I
+cannot contend with destiny.  It is sad; but whatever with due
+forethought I propose, destiny, embodied in the shape of that wretch
+Jim, persistently thwarts.  There is no such thing as instilling the
+slightest tact into him."
+
+"But, my dear Lady Mary," rejoined Cottrell, whose sense of the
+humorous was again highly gratified by the outcome of the trip to
+Trotbury, "I really cannot see that you have any cause for complaint.
+Things look to me progressing very favourably in the direction you
+wish."
+
+"My dear Pansey," replied her ladyship, solemnly, "you do not
+understand these things _quite so well_ as I thought you did.  A
+variety of belles disturbs concentration, and prevents that earnestness
+of purpose which is so highly desirable."
+
+"I see," rejoined Pansey, laughing.  "To revert to the metaphor you
+used in our conversation some days since, you object to a peal of
+belles.  Your doctrine may be embodied in the formula, I presume, of
+one belle and one ringer."
+
+"Yes," rejoined her ladyship, smiling, "that about describes it.  And
+now I think it is about bed-time.  Jim, my dear," she continued, as she
+took her bed-room candle, "as you have thought fit to improvise a ball,
+you had better take care that the young ladies have partners by asking
+three or four of the officers from Rockcliffe, if they will waive
+ceremony and come."
+
+"All right," he replied, "I will send over the first thing to-morrow
+morning;" and from the inflexion of his mother's voice, Jim gathered
+that his programme for the morrow had, at all events, not met
+altogether with her approval.
+
+But there were still a few more bitter drops to be squeezed into the
+cup of Lady Mary's discontent before she laid her head upon her pillow.
+She had not been ten minutes in her room when there was a tap at the
+door, and Blanche entered.
+
+"I just looked in, mamma dear, to ask you if you knew that the
+Chipchases were related to Mrs. Wriothesley?"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lady Mary; "what can you be dreaming of?  Why, I
+have known Laura and her sister all their lives; and had they been
+related to that detestable woman, I must have heard of it."
+
+"Well, I can only say that Sylla Chipchase told me to-day at Trotbury
+that Mrs. Wriothesley was her aunt, and that she was going up to stay
+with her as soon as the holidays were over."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Lady Mary, "I might have guessed it; I might
+have known there was some reason for my instinctive dislike to that
+girl.  That a niece of that horrid woman should turn out as
+objectionable as herself is only what one might expect."
+
+"But really, mamma dear," expostulated Blanche, "although I don't quite
+like Sylla Chipchase myself, you cannot say that of her.  I know you
+don't like Mrs. Wriothesley; but she is a very pretty woman, and Jim
+declares a very pleasant one."
+
+"Don't talk to me of Jim!" cried Lady Mary petulantly.  "He is too
+provoking, and thinks every woman not positively ugly that smiles upon
+him delightful; but I lose all patience when I speak of Mrs.
+Wriothesley.  Of course it's quite possible for Mrs. Wriothesley to be
+Sylla's aunt, although no relation to her cousins; and you say this
+girl is going to stay with her?"
+
+"Yes, for the remainder of the season," rejoined Blanche.
+
+"Upon my word," exclaimed Lady Mary, "I really cannot think what sins I
+have committed, that such a trial should be laid upon me.  Mrs.
+Wriothesley is bad enough as it is, and hard enough to keep at arms'
+length; but Mrs. Wriothesley with a pretty girl to chaperon--and I am
+sorry to own that Sylla is that--a girl, moreover, who has forced her
+way upon us in the country, will be simply unendurable."
+
+Pansey Cottrell, had he been present at this scene, would most
+thoroughly have enjoyed it, and even Blanche could not help laughing at
+her mother's dismay.  Lady Mary's was no simulation of despair.  She
+pictured, as Cottrell would have divined, herself and her former foe
+once more pitted against each other as rivals, and recalled rather
+bitterly that campaign of four or five years back, when another niece
+of that lady's successfully carried off an eligible _parti_ that she,
+Lady Mary, had at that time selected as suitable for her eldest
+daughter.  She had congratulated her antagonist in most orthodox
+fashion when the engagement was announced; and, though nothing but the
+most honied words were exchanged between them, Mrs. Wriothesley had
+contrived to let her see, as a woman always can, that she was quite
+aware of her disappointment, and thoroughly cognizant that her soft
+speeches were as dust and ashes in her mouth.
+
+"Well, good night, mamma," said Blanche, breaking in upon her mother's
+reverie.  "Although you don't like Mrs. Wriothesley, I really don't
+think that need interfere with your slumbers."
+
+"My dear, you don't know her," rejoined Lady Mary, with a vindictive
+emphasis that sent Blanche laughing out of the room.
+
+Jim Bloxam might have his faults, but no one could charge him with lack
+of energy.  Whatever he busied himself about, Jim did it with all his
+might.  He had--as in these days who has not?--dabbled a little in
+amateur theatricals; and, whatever his audience might think of his
+performance, the stage-manager would emphatically testify that he threw
+himself into the business heart and soul.  That he should take counsel
+with Mrs. Sartoris next morning concerning the proposed charades was
+only what might have been expected; and then, an unusual thing in a
+country-house party, a dearth of talent was discovered.  Neither
+Blanche nor the Misses Evesham had ever taken part in anything of the
+kind, and declared in favour of being lookers-on.  Mr. Sartoris
+promised to assist to the extent of his ability; but neither he nor his
+wife would accept the responsibility of deciding what they should do,
+or in fact undertaking the management.  The trio seemed rather
+nonplussed, when Pansey Cottrell, who had taken no part in the
+discussion, said quietly,
+
+"Why don't you go down to the rectory, and talk things over with the
+young ladies there?  Miss Sylla is very clever in that way, I can
+vouch, having seen her."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed Jim.  "How stupid of me not to think of it
+before!  Get your hat, Mrs. Sartoris.  We have just nice time to slip
+across before lunch."
+
+Upon arriving at the rectory, Jim plunged at once _in medias res_.
+
+"We are come across to consult you about what we are to do to-night.
+Rumour, in the shape of Pansey Cottrell, declares, Miss Sylla, that you
+are 'immense' in all this sort of thing."
+
+"Mr. Cottrell, as you will soon discover, has been imposing upon you to
+a great extent," replied Sylla; "but still I shall be glad to be of any
+use I can."
+
+"Our difficulty is this," interposed Mrs. Sartoris: "when I have acted,
+it has always been in a regular play.  My words have been set down for
+me, so that of course I knew exactly what I had to say and when to say
+it; but in charades, Captain Bloxam tells me, I shall have to improvise
+my words.  I have never seen one acted; but that strikes me as
+dreadfully difficult."
+
+"You are perfectly right, Mrs. Sartoris; it is.  And yet people who
+have serious misgivings about their ability to act a play have no
+hesitation about taking part in charades.  It is wont to result in all
+the characters wanting to talk together, or else in nobody apparently
+having anything to say, or in one character being so enamoured with the
+ease he or she improvises, that the affair resolves itself into a mere
+monologue.  I would venture to suggest that our charades should be
+merely pantomimic."
+
+"Glorious!" exclaimed Jim.  "I vote we place ourselves in Miss Sylla's
+hands, and elect her manageress.  Will you agree, Mrs. Sartoris?"
+
+"Most certainly.  The idea sounds excellent, and to leave the
+originator to carry it out is undoubtedly the best thing we can do."
+
+"Very well, then; if you will give me an hour or two to think out my
+words, I will explain how they ought to be done."
+
+"If you wouldn't mind coming up to the Grange, we might have a
+rehearsal this afternoon, rummage up the properties, and all the rest
+of it," exclaimed Jim, energetically.
+
+"That will do admirably," said Laura Chipchase.  "And now, Sylla, the
+sooner you set that great mind of yours to work, the better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+"THE PLAY'S THE THING."
+
+Todborough Grange rejoiced in what should be the adjunct of every country
+house--a large unfurnished room.  It had been thrown out expressly as a
+playroom for the children by Cedric Bloxam's father, and as they grew up
+proved even more useful.  Should the house be full and the weather prove
+wet, what games of battledore and shuttlecock, "bean-bags," &c., were
+played in it in the daytime, and what a ball-room it made at night!
+There was no trouble moving out the furniture or taking up the carpet,
+there being nothing but a few benches and a piano in the room.  At one
+end was a slightly-raised stage, and off that was a tiny chamber,
+originally known as the toy-room, and pretty well dedicated to the same
+use now, being stored with properties for cotillons, the aforesaid games,
+theatrical representations, &c.  There was a regular drop-curtain to the
+stage, but that was all.  Scenery there was none.  That was fitted in
+when required, but would have been considered in the way as a permanency,
+the stage being used at times as an orchestra, at others as a tea-room.
+It was raised not quite a foot above the floor, and could therefore be
+easily stepped on to; in fact, upon the few occasions that the Theatre
+Royal Todborough opened, the entertainment had been confined invariably
+to one-act farces.  At such times it was spoken of with considerable
+ostentation as a theatre; but as a rule the old appellation was adhered
+to, and it was generally known as the play-room.  It was in this room
+that the Misses Chipchase found Blanche, Jim, Mr. Cottrell, Lionel
+Beauchamp, and the Sartorises awaiting their arrival in the afternoon.
+
+"Now, Miss Sylla," exclaimed Jim, "we are all ready for you.  We have
+installed you in command, and hereby promise attention and obedience."
+
+"Honour and obey, Jim," interrupted Blanche, laughing; "but it is the
+lady who should say it."
+
+"It does sound a little as if he had strayed into the marriage service,"
+observed Cottrell.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen not intending to assist in this representation are
+requested to withdraw," retorted Jim, "by order of the stage-manager,
+James Bloxam."
+
+"Come along, Mr. Cottrell: he has right on his side; the audience have
+certainly no business at the rehearsals."
+
+And, followed by the younger Miss Chipchase, Cottrell, and Beauchamp,
+Blanche crossed towards the door.  At the threshold they were arrested by
+Sylla, who exclaimed,
+
+"You cannot all go; I must have another gentleman.  If Mr. Cottrell won't
+act, you must, Lionel."
+
+"I had no idea you acted," said Blanche Bloxam, with some little
+surprise; "you said nothing about it this morning when we were talking
+this over."
+
+It may have been some slight inflexion of the voice that prompted the
+deduction; but certain it was that as Pansey Cottrell heard that
+commonplace little speech, he muttered to himself, "The lady is beginning
+to take things in earnest, whatever Beauchamp may be."
+
+"I have no idea that I can act," rejoined Lionel, laughing; "but I can
+stand still in whatever attitude I am placed, and that, I fancy, is all
+Sylla requires of me.  You do not feel any disposition to volunteer, I
+suppose, Mr. Cottrell?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" rejoined Mr. Cottrell fervently, "Miss Sylla might want
+me to stand upon one leg.  She will put some of you in most uncomfortable
+attitudes, just for the fun of the thing, I know."
+
+"Now," said the manageress-elect, as Mr. Cottrell closed the door behind
+him, "what we have got to do is very simple.  I have thought of two words
+which will each represent in three tableaux.  Now, I propose that we
+arrange these tableaux--six in all--and then, if we run through them a
+second time, just to be sure we have not forgotten our places, we shall
+have nothing to do but to talk over any details that may occur to us.
+First, Mrs. Sartoris, which will you represent, the Lady or the
+Chambermaid of my charades?"
+
+"Well, if you will allow me, I think I will do the Lady," said Mrs.
+Sartoris, laughing.  "I ought, at all events, to be best in that; but
+there are three of us.  What is Miss Chipchase going to do?"
+
+"Oh, she is the Band," rejoined Sylla.  "You see, we must have soft music
+all the way through these charades; and we want somebody to play for us
+who knows what we are about, and so can follow us."
+
+"And so," interposed Miss Chipchase, "we have settled that I shall play
+the piano."
+
+"Very well, Mrs. Sartoris," said Sylla; "then we will consider that
+settled; you do the Ladies and I do the Chambermaids.  Now, gentlemen,
+you must select your own lines.  What will you be, Mr. Sartoris--Walking
+Gentleman, Low Comedian, or Melodramatic Villain?"
+
+"Oh, Melodramatic Villain," cried Mrs. Sartoris,--"he will be delighted.
+Tom's theatrical proclivities, shocking to relate, are murderous in the
+extreme.  He is always complaining that he is never entrusted with a real
+good assassination."
+
+"Then that's settled," exclaimed Sylla.  "Captain Bloxam will take the
+Walking Gentleman, and Lionel can do the Low Comedy part."
+
+Under the young manageress's energetic directions the tableaux were
+rapidly run through.  The little troupe worked with a will, and in
+something under two hours they pronounced themselves perfect, and
+predicted, as people always do under these circumstances, that the
+performance would be a great success.
+
+"Now comes a question," said Jim, "as to scenery, properties, and
+dresses.  There is some little scenery in the granary that has been used
+before at different times, and of course we have a certain amount of
+properties.  What shall you want, Miss Sylla?" and Jim, taking a sheet of
+paper and pencil in a very business-like manner, prepared to make notes
+on the top of the piano.
+
+"For the first charade," said Sylla, "the scenery should be a wood scene,
+and then we want a lady's bed-chamber.  The second charade is simply a
+drawing-room scene all through.  For properties a brace of pistols, a
+pair of handcuffs, a jewel-box with plenty of bracelets, rings, &c.--we
+ladies can easily find those amongst us.  In the second, nothing but a
+letter in bold handwriting.  As for dresses, Mrs. Sartoris and I can
+easily manage; and as for you gentlemen, you want nothing but a
+policeman's dress, a livery, and a low comedy wig."
+
+"No trouble about any of those things, Miss Sylla, unless it's the low
+comedy wig, and about that I have my doubts.  However, Beauchamp must
+manage the best he can with his own hair if I can't find one.  There is
+only one thing more you forgot to tell us,--what the second word is."
+
+"No forgetfulness at all, Captain Bloxam," replied the young lady,
+laughing.  "I am very curious to see if any of you, or any of the
+audience, make that word out."
+
+"It's high time we were on our way home," observed Miss Chipchase; "as
+soon as you have given us a cup of tea, Jim, Sylla, and I will be off."
+
+When the evening came there was really a good sprinkling of visitors to
+look on or join in whatever entertainment might be provided for them.
+Jim the energetic, in pursuance of his mother's hints overnight, had not
+only sent over to the Rockcliffe Camp, but had dispatched missives in all
+directions by a groom on horseback, with the pithy intimation, "Charades
+and an impromptu dance this evening at nine.  If you have nothing better
+to do, please come."  Jim Bloxam was a popular man in his neighbourhood,
+and the Grange had a reputation for improvising pleasant entertainments
+in such fashion.  Lady Mary contemplated the forthcoming proceedings with
+resignation, if not with satisfaction.  She had a presentiment that the
+evening would end unpleasantly for her.  She felt certain that Sylla
+would contrive to pose as its heroine; and that the niece of the woman
+she most detested in the world should have the opportunity of for once
+assuming such a position in the house of which she, Lady Mary, was
+mistress, was exasperating.  Pansey Cottrell, too, had contributed not a
+little to her irritation by dwelling somewhat persistently at dinner on
+Miss Sylla's dramatic talent.  He had done this, dear pleasant creature!
+simply for his own diversion.  He was acting as prompter to a little
+comedy of real life; and it is ideas, not words, that the prompters on
+such occasions instil into our minds.  As a rule, Pansey Cottrell would
+have judiciously shirked such an entertainment as the one which he was
+now with genuine curiosity taking his seat to witness.  Neither host nor
+hostess ever succeeded in persuading him to do what he did not fancy.  He
+would be ill, retire to his own bed-room at the shortest possible notice,
+would no more make up a fourth at whist, or conduce to the entertainment
+of his fellows, than volunteer for a turn on the treadmill.  If his
+entertainers troubled him much, he did not come their way again.  Of
+course, they need not ask him unless they liked.  But Mr. Cottrell knew
+society well.  Once assure such recognition as he had done, and how
+obtained matters not an iota: the more unmeasured your insolence to
+society, the more does society bow down and worship.
+
+  "Where's Brummell dished?"
+
+Yes, but it was a mere matter of _L.s.d._ that dished him.  That he ever
+did tell the Prince to ring the bell is unlikely; but society thought him
+capable of doing so, and reverenced him accordingly.
+
+The bell rings, and the fingers of Laura Chipchase, who has already
+seated herself at the piano, begin to move dreamily over the keys.  She
+plays well, and a soft weird-like melody attunes the minds of the
+spectators to what is to follow.  Again the bell rings, and as the
+curtain slowly rises comes the sharp report of a pistol.  "Good Heavens!
+there is some accident," escapes from three or four lips.  But the wild
+ghostly music still falls, without ceasing, from the piano.  Slowly the
+curtain continues to rise, and discovers two men confronting each other
+after the approved custom of duelling.  On the proper stage right stands
+Mr. Sartoris, with brows bent and sullen scowl upon his lip; the
+nerveless hand by his side grasps the still-smoking pistol.  Opposite,
+and as far from him as the space will admit, is Bloxam, his right arm
+upraised, and his hand holding a pistol pointed upwards.  In the
+background stands Beauchamp, in an attitude expressive of intense
+anxiety.  Having reached the ceiling, the curtain slowly commences to
+descend.  As it does so, Bloxam's pistol is discharged in the air, and
+the performers remain unmovable till once more masked from the view of
+the spectators.
+
+"A duel!" exclaims Miss Evesham; "what are we to make of that?"
+
+"No, no, that won't do," ejaculates the Squire: "he has missed--missed,
+don't you see?  Can't be quite right; but that's the idea."
+
+"I have it," rejoins Miss Evesham; "you are right, Mr. Bloxam, that is
+it.  It's not missed, but a miss.  There are lots of words, you know,
+begin with 'miss.'"
+
+Some slight delay, during which the soft dreamy music still falters
+unceasingly from Laura Chipchase's fingers, and then the curtain once
+more begins to ascend.  There is no such sensational effect as a
+pistol-report to startle the audience this time.  The scene represents a
+lady's dressing-room.  In an arm-chair, placed on the stage right
+opposite the toilette-table on the stage left, attired as a smart
+lady's-maid, reclines Sylla sound asleep; on the table are scattered
+bracelets, &c., and also stands an open jewel-case.  Mr. Sartoris, got up
+to represent a dog-stealer, a burglar, or other member of the predatory
+classes, is in the act of getting in a practicable window at the back of
+the stage.  A dark lantern is in his hand, and his feet are artistically
+enshrined in india-rubbers.  Stealthily, with many melodramatic starts
+and gestures, and anxious glances at the sleeping girl, he makes his way
+to the toilette-table, fills his pockets with the glittering gewgaws,
+then turns to depart, with his plunder, silently as he had come.  As he
+passes the sleeping soubrette, she moves uneasily in her chair.  With a
+ferocious gesture the robber draws from his breast an ominous-looking
+knife, pauses for a moment, and then, reassured by her tranquillity,
+makes his way to the window.  As he disappears, Mrs. Sartoris, an
+opera-cloak thrown over her ball-room dress, and carrying a bed-room
+candle in her hand, enters and crosses to the toilette-table.  Placing
+her candle on the table, she seizes the jewel-box, and, it is evident,
+becomes cognizant that robbery has been committed.  As she turns, Sylla
+starts from the chair in great confusion; Mrs. Sartoris points to the
+table, and then with a start notices the open window.  The curtain
+descends upon Mrs. Sartoris pointing in an accusing manner to the window,
+and Sylla with clasped hands mutely protesting her innocence and
+ignorance of the robbery.
+
+With the clue afforded by the solution of the first syllable, the
+audience very soon make out the second; and that the word was either
+"mistake" or "mistaken" they entertained little doubt.  Curiosity now
+centred on what version they would give of the whole, for that each word
+was to be rendered in three tableaux had been stated before the
+performance commenced.
+
+The curtain rises again upon the last scene; and upon this occasion the
+representation is motionless.  In the centre of the stage, Lionel
+Beauchamp, in the guise of a policeman, is snapping-to the hand-cuffs on
+the weeping Sylla.  On the left, with averted head, stands Mrs. Sartoris,
+indicating sorrow for the offender, but entire belief in her guilt.  On
+the opposite side, Jim Bloxam, attired in evening costume, is
+unmistakably directing the officer to remove his prisoner.  Slowly the
+curtain descends amid much acclamation and cries of "Mistake!"  In his
+capacity of stage-manager, Jim Bloxam glides for a moment in front, and,
+in a few off-hand words to the audience, acknowledges the correctness of
+their apprehension.
+
+"I give Jim credit for his exertions.  That really was most successful,"
+said Lady Mary, as her son disappeared.
+
+"I fancy the success is due more to Miss Sylla than him," rejoined Pansey
+Cottrell, suavely.  "Jim, as we all know, though one of the best of
+fellows, is the most execrable of actors; and I don't think those
+tableaux look like his inspiration."
+
+"I am sure he is quite as good as the generality of amateurs," retorted
+Lady Mary, with no little asperity.
+
+She was no more exempt from the true womanly instinct that prompts the
+regarding of her own chicks as swans than any of her sex.  Mr. Cottrell
+was much too quick-witted not to see that his criticism was distasteful,
+but he never could resist the temptation of teasing his fellow-creatures.
+
+"Admitting, for the sake of argument, Lady Mary," he replied, "that Jim
+is an average actor, when one knows that there is rather exceptional
+talent in the troupe, one is apt to regard that as the guiding spirit.
+Sylla Chipchase is very clever at all this sort of thing, I know, because
+I have seen her on previous occasions."
+
+"You seem to be losing your head about that girl, Pansey, like the rest
+of them.  You all seem to think that she is wonderfully clever because
+she happened to know that Mr. Beauchamp could run."
+
+"I fancy she knows a good deal more about him than that," replied Mr.
+Cottrell demurely.
+
+"What do you mean?  What have you heard about her?" inquired Lady Mary,
+somewhat eagerly.
+
+"Nothing, further than she seemed to be equally well aware that he could
+act.  But stop, they are commencing again."
+
+Slowly, as before, the curtain ascends to a dreamy melody of the piano,
+and discovers Sylla, attired as the smartest of soubrettes, in close
+juxtaposition to Lionel Beauchamp in a groom's livery.  Taking a letter
+from him, she places it in her bosom, and then looks up at him with all
+the devilry of coquetry in her eyes.  She toys with the corner of her
+apron, twiddling it backwards and forwards between her fingers.  She
+glances demurely down at her feet, then looks shyly up at him again; then
+once more studying her apron, she, as if unconsciously, proffers her
+cheek in a manner too provocative for any man to resist, and as the
+curtain descends Lionel Beauchamp is apparently about to make the most of
+his opportunity.
+
+"By Jove!" laughed the Squire, "in Beauchamp's place I think I would have
+been thoroughly realistic--the proper thing in these days!"
+
+"Well," whispered Lady Mary to Pansey Cottrell, "of all the audacious
+minxes!  Mr. Beauchamp deserves great credit for his discretion in
+waiting until the curtain fell before he kissed her."
+
+That Lady Mary assumed the ceremony was concluded may be easily imagined,
+while the audience generally differed considerably about the scene, some
+of the ladies contending that there was no necessity for carrying
+dramatic representation quite so far; while the men, on the other hand,
+thought that Beauchamp did not carry it far enough.
+
+The second scene discovers Mrs. Sartoris in the centre of the stage, with
+Jim Bloxam on one knee, kissing the hand she extends towards him.  On her
+other side, Mr. Sartoris, made up as an elderly gentleman, with coat
+thrown very much back, thumbs stuck in the armholes of his waistcoat,
+contemplates the pair with a look of bland satisfaction.  Again the
+curtain descends, leaving the audience more at sea than ever as to what
+the word can be.  Nor is the third scene calculated to throw much
+enlightenment on the subject.  In it Lionel Beauchamp, in his groom's
+dress, appears to be pantomimically explaining something to the remainder
+of the company, who are artistically grouped in the centre of the stage,
+and which shrugs of the shoulders, upraised eyebrows, and other gestures,
+indicate they either fail to understand, or, it may be, to agree with.
+But the whole word, like more ambitious dramatic representations, is
+somehow involved in fog.  You cannot help thinking that it must be a good
+charade if you could only make out what it was about; but when the
+curtain descends, the audience, instead of at once proclaiming the word,
+can hardly even make a guess at it.  There are cries for the
+stage-manager; and when Jim Bloxam appears in reply to a laughing call,
+"The word? the word?" he bows low to the audience, and regrets his
+inability to comply with their request.
+
+"The distinguished authoress," continued Jim, "has taken none of us into
+her confidence.  She has, I presume, strong opinions on the subject of
+copyright, and is determined to give no opportunity of its infringement."
+
+Jim's speech created both merriment and curiosity, and was followed by a
+prompt call of "Author, author!"  A few seconds, and then the
+stage-manager responds by leading Sylla forward in her soubrette dress.
+Dropping the sauciest of curtsies in acknowledgment of the applause with
+which she is greeted, she replies in clear distinct tones,
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, you find our word unintelligible.  Paradoxical as
+it may seem, that is precisely the result we have aimed at; and now that
+I have told you the word, I am sure you will admit our efforts have been
+successful;" and once more bowing to her audience, Sylla disappeared
+behind the curtain Jim held back for her.
+
+What can she mean?  What do they mean?  What is it?  What was the word?
+were questions responded to by the jolly laugh of Cedric Bloxam.
+
+"Can't you see?" he said, "it's all a sell: we found it unintelligible,
+and that is precisely what we were meant to do--that's the word."
+
+And once more the Squire indulged in a hearty guffaw.
+
+But now the company flock into the drawing-room for tea or other
+refreshment, while the servants rapidly clear the play-room for dancing.
+The curtain is pulled up, the stage occupied by a select section of the
+Commonstone band, and, in something like a quarter of an hour Jim's
+impromptu dance is in full swing.
+
+"My dear Sylla," exclaimed Lady Mary, as that young lady, leaning upon
+Bloxam's arm, stopped near her in one of the pauses of the valse, "I have
+not had an opportunity of congratulating you upon your very spirited
+pantomime--carried, my dear, a _little_ too far in that last charade."
+
+"Oh, I hope you don't really think so, Lady Mary," cried Sylla; "but you
+cannot half act a thing.  When the exigencies of the stage require one to
+be embraced, one must admit of that ceremony.  Surely if a girl has
+scruples about going through such a mere form, she had much better
+decline to act at once."
+
+"That's a question that we will not argue," said Lady Mary.  "I hear you
+are going to stay with Mrs. Wriothesley for the remainder of the London
+season."
+
+"Yes, she is an aunt of mine; you know her, I believe."
+
+"Very well; we are old friends, although I don't see so much of her as I
+once did.  The London world has got so very big, you see, and Mrs.
+Wriothesley and I have drifted into different sets."
+
+"Yes," chimed in Pansey Cottrell, who was standing by, "it has got
+perfectly unendurable.  One could calculate at one time upon seeing a
+good deal of one's friends during the season; now half of them we only
+come across some once or twice.  But surely you and Mrs. Wriothesley see
+a good deal of each other."
+
+"No, not in these days," rejoined Lady Mary, tartly, much to Mr.
+Cottrell's amusement.
+
+He knew perfectly well that the two ladies met continually, although
+there was little cordiality between them.  But Lady Mary's last speech
+showed him she intended to keep Mrs. Wriothesley at arms' length, if
+possible, for the future; and Pansey Cottrell smiled as he thought that
+his hostess's schemes would, in all likelihood, be as persistently
+thwarted in town as they had been in the country.
+
+"Well, I trust that Blanche and I will contrive to see a good bit of each
+other all the same," replied Sylla courteously.  "You know my aunt,
+Captain Bloxam," she continued, as she moved away.  "I should have
+thought her an easy person to get on with; but I am afraid Lady Mary does
+not like her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MRS. WRIOTHESLEY.
+
+When Ralph Wriothesley of the Household Cavalry, better known among his
+intimates as the "Rip," married pretty Miss Lewson, niece of that
+worldly and bitter-tongued old Lady Fanshawe, everybody said what a
+fool he had made of himself.  What did he, a man who had already
+developed a capacity for expenditure much in excess of his income, want
+with a wife who brought little or no grist to the mill?  The world was
+wrong--as the world very frequently is on such points.  It was about
+the first sensible thing that the "Rip," in the course of his
+good-humoured, blundering, plunging career, had done.  It saved him.
+Without the check that his clever little wife almost imperceptibly
+imposed upon him, "Rip" Wriothesley would probably, ere this, have
+joined the "broken brigade," and vanished from society's ken.  As it
+was, the pretty little house in Hans Place throve merrily; and though
+people constantly wondered how the Wriothesleys got on, yet the
+unmistakable fact remained, that season after season they were to be
+seen everywhere and ruffling it with the best.
+
+The Wriothesleys had advantages for which those who marvelled as to how
+they managed failed to make due allowance.  They were both of good
+family--in fact, their escutcheons were better to investigate than
+their banker's account.  Both popular in their own way, they were
+always in request to make up a party for Hurlingham dinners, the Ascot
+week, or other similar diversion.  They did not affect to entertain;
+but the half-dozen little dinners--strictly limited to eight
+persons--that they gave in that tiny dining-room in the course of the
+season were spoken of with enthusiasm by the privileged few who had
+been bidden.  An invitation to Mrs. Wriothesley's occasional little
+suppers after the play was by no means to be neglected; the two or
+three _plats_ were always of the best, and the "Rip" took care that
+Giessler's "Brut" should be unimpeachable.  They had both a weakness
+for race-meetings; but Wriothesley's plunging days were over, and his
+modest ventures were staked with considerably more discretion than in
+the times when he bet heavily.  The lady was a little bit of a
+coquette, no doubt; but the most unscrupulous of scandalmongers had
+never ventured to breathe a word of reproach against Mrs. Wriothesley.
+A flirting, husband-hunting little minx, she had fallen honestly in
+love with this big, _blond_, good-humoured Life Guardsman; and,
+incredible as it might seem to the world she lived in, remained so
+still.  They understood each other marvellously well, those two.  The
+"Rip" regarded his wife as the cleverest woman alive; and, though she
+most undoubtedly looked upon him in a very different light, nobody more
+thoroughly appreciated the honest worth of his character than she did.
+As she once said, to one of her female intimates, of her husband, "He
+has one great virtue: he is always 'straight,' my dear.  The 'Rip'
+couldn't tell me a lie if he tried."
+
+Mrs. Wriothesley is sitting in her pretty little drawing-room listening
+to Sylla Chipchase's spirited account of her visit to Todborough
+Rectory.
+
+"It was great fun," continued the girl.  "Lady Mary Bloxam was
+thoroughly convinced, and no doubt is still, that I was setting my cap
+at Lionel Beauchamp.  She had no idea that we had known each other from
+childhood; and her face, when I first called him Lionel, would have
+sent you into fits of laughter."
+
+"But Lady Mary was right about one thing, Sylla.  Lionel Beauchamp
+would be a very nice match for you."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, mine aunt, or speculate upon the impossible.  I
+couldn't care for Lionel in that way any more than he would care for
+me.  I am only eighteen, and I am sure I need not think about marriage
+as a speculation for some years yet."
+
+"Well," rejoined Mrs. Wriothesley, laughing, "I am certainly not
+entitled to preach worldly wisdom.  I was as mercenary, speculative a
+little animal at your age as you could wish to see; and what came of
+it?  I forgot all my prudent resolutions, fell over head and ears in
+love, married the 'Rip,' and have been the genteel pauper you see me
+ever since."
+
+"Consigned to such a poor-house as this," exclaimed Sylla
+melodramatically, and glancing round at the china and other knicknacks
+scattered about the room, "methinks that the stings of poverty are not
+so hard to bear."
+
+"Ah, yes," replied Mrs. Wriothesley; "but then, you see, I meant to
+have had my country seat, my box at the opera, my two or three
+carriages, and that _my_ balls should be _the_ balls of the season."
+
+"Now, aunt, I want to ask you one question.  Mr. Cottrell told me that
+you and Lady Mary were once rivals.  What did he mean by that?"
+
+"No!  Did Pansey tell you that?" laughed Mrs. Wriothesley.  "He has a
+good memory.  It's now some six or seven years ago that your cousin,
+Lady Rosington, then unmarried, was staying with me for the season,
+Mary Bloxam at that time was trailing that grenadier eldest girl of
+hers about" (a little bit of feminine exaggeration this, the lady
+referred to being only half an inch taller than Blanche), "and thought
+Sir Charles would suit very well for her husband.  Unluckily for Mary
+Bloxam, I thought Sir Charles equally suitable for Jessie, and--well,
+in short, we won."
+
+"Ah, now I understand; and I suppose you have never been friends since.
+Lady Mary told me that she saw very little of you in London now."
+
+"That is not quite the case.  I think we meet as often as formerly.
+Friends we never were, but acquaintances we have been for some years.
+Jim Bloxam, though, is one of my intimates.  He is a great friend of
+both mine and the 'Rip's,' and we see a good deal of him when he is in
+London; and, indeed," she continued, laughing, "for the matter of that,
+when he is not; for he has a way of turning up at all places generally
+when there is anything going on.  Indeed, we have half promised to
+lunch at their regimental tent at Ascot.  And you, what do you think of
+Captain Bloxam?"
+
+"I like him very much indeed," replied Sylla.  And she looked her
+inquisitor so steadily in the face, that Mrs. Wriothesley came promptly
+to the conclusion that no love passages had taken place between the
+pair as yet.  But it had suddenly shot through the energetic little
+woman's mind that her favourite, Jim Bloxam, would make a most suitable
+husband for her niece.  Jim was an eldest son, and Todborough, from all
+accounts, a very respectable property.  Yes, it would do very well if
+it could be brought about, to say nothing of the satisfaction there
+would be in stealing from her old enemy's flock the only lamb that was
+worth the taking.  All this ran through Mrs. Wriothesley's mind as
+quick as lightning; and though she said nothing to Sylla on the
+subject, she had pretty well resolved to do her best to marry those two.
+
+When Mrs. Wriothesley took charge of nieces for the season, she
+conceived it her clear and bounden duty to provide for them
+satisfactorily if possible.  If Sylla could not be brought to think of
+Lionel Beauchamp, it might be possible for her to take a more
+favourable view of Captain Bloxam.  True, he was not quite so good a
+_parti_ as the other; but it was comforting to think that there was
+every probability that it would occasion her old antagonist equal
+annoyance.  It further struck her that, engrossed in her plans for her
+daughter, Lady Mary would probably totally overlook any flirtation of
+her son's.  There is a species of fascination in countermining
+difficult to resist; and, though of course she would have in some
+measure to be guided by events, Mrs. Wriothesley had pretty well
+determined upon the course she would pursue.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" inquired Sylla, breaking in upon her
+aunt's reverie.  "They should be pleasant thoughts, judging from the
+smile on your lips."
+
+"Thinking, my dear, that if we don't get our bonnets on, the world will
+all have gone home to luncheon before we get to the Row, and it is good
+for us to get the fresh air of the morning."
+
+A little later, and the two ladies passed into the Park by the Albert
+Gate, and made their way to the High Change of gossip of fashionable
+London.  A bright fresh spring morning filled the Row to overflowing.
+It was thronged, as it always is on a fine day after Easter.
+Fashionable London comes to see who of its acquaintances may be in
+town; and numberless parties and plans for the future are sketched out
+on these occasions.  As for Mrs. Wriothesley's acquaintance, their name
+was legion.  Everybody seemed to know her; and that she was popular was
+evident from the numbers who stopped to speak to her.  They had not
+been long installed in their chairs before Sylla perceived Mr. Cottrell
+lounging towards them, and pointed him out to her aunt.
+
+"Ah," exclaimed Mrs. Wriothesley, "I must signal him as soon as he gets
+within range.  I want to speak to him.  I should like to hear his
+account of your Todborough party."
+
+"Do," replied Sylla, laughing.  "He is my fellow-conspirator, remember,
+though I don't suppose he will confess anything.  It's delicious to see
+the utterly unconscious way in which he will upset people's schemes.  I
+used really at first to think he did it innocently, but I soon
+discovered it was _malice prepense_."
+
+"Yes, I know Pansey Cottrell very well.  He is very mischievous; though
+not malicious, unless you interfere with his personal comfort; rather
+given to playing tricks upon his fellow-creatures; but he is more of a
+Puck than a Mephistopheles.--Good morning, Mr. Cottrell.  Pray come and
+give an account of yourself.  Sylla tells me you have been passing
+Easter with the Bloxams."
+
+"Quite so," replied that gentleman, as he raised his hat.  "Miss Sylla
+and I have been dedicating our poor talents to the amusement of Lady
+Mary's guests, and to the furtherance of Lady Mary's plans.  I am sure
+she was much delighted at all the dancing and theatricals we inveigled
+her into.  I presume," he continued, turning to Sylla, "that you have
+seen her since your arrival in town."
+
+"Not yet," returned the girl.  "She told me, you know, at Todborough,
+that she and my aunt moved in somewhat different sets."
+
+"Which is hardly the case, as you know," interrupted Mrs. Wriothesley.
+"What do you suppose she meant by that?"
+
+"I?" replied Cottrell.  "My dear Mrs. Wriothesley, I never pretend to
+understand what a woman means by doubtful speech of any kind.  Our
+masculine understandings are a great deal too dense to penetrate the
+subtleties of feminine language.  She might mean that she intends your
+grooves to lie far apart for the future; and then again she might mean
+something--something--else," continued Mr. Cottrell, rather vaguely.
+
+"So you think Mary Bloxam intends to see as little of me in future as
+possible?" rejoined Mrs. Wriothesley, taking no manner of notice of her
+companion's last words.
+
+"No; don't say I think so," interrupted Mr. Cottrell.  "I told you
+particularly I could form no conclusion as to what she meant.  However,
+this place is neutral ground, and all the world meets here, or rather
+would, if it was not so crowded that it is almost impossible to find
+anybody.  But--ah, here comes Lady Mary and _la belle_ Blanche!  Shall
+I stop her, and ask her what she does mean?"  And Mr. Cottrell looked
+so utterly unconscious, that any one who did not know him might have
+deemed him actually about to put this awkward interrogatory.  But the
+two ladies to whom he was speaking knew him better than that, and only
+laughed.
+
+Whether Lady Mary intended to pass Mrs. Wriothesley with merely a bow
+it would be difficult to say, but certain it is that Mr. Cottrell
+supposed that to be her intention.  Prompted by his insatiable passion
+for teasing his fellow-creatures, he took advantage of his situation,
+and, turning from Mrs. Wriothesley and Sylla, placed himself in Lady
+Mary's way, and stopped her to shake hands.  It was only natural that
+Sylla should jump up to say "How do you do?" to Blanche; and then
+suddenly occurred to Mrs. Wriothesley the audacious idea of capturing
+her enemy and bearing her off in triumph to luncheon.  She rose,
+greeted Lady Mary and Blanche warmly, and then strongly urged that they
+should come home with her to Hans Place when the Park should begin to
+thin.
+
+"You know, I am close to Prince's, and the Canadians are going to play
+a match at La Crosse, which is well worth looking on at; such a pretty
+game.  We can go across and have our afternoon tea at the little tables
+overlooking the cricket-ground.  Everybody will be there."
+
+"Mrs. Wriothesley is quite right," interposed Cottrell gravely.  "Not
+to have seen La Crosse played is as grave an omission this season as
+not to have done the Opera, the Royal Academy, or other of the
+stereotyped exhibitions.  If you can't rave about the 'dexterity of the
+dear Indians,' you are really not doing your duty to society.  They are
+the last new craze; and admitting that you have not seen them being out
+of the question, as a lover of veracity I counsel you to do so at once."
+
+We lunch and dine at a good many places that we would rather not;
+entertain, and are entertained by, a good many people for whom we feel
+a by no means dormant aversion.  It is only the Pansey Cottrells of
+this world who successfully evade all such obligations, and
+persistently decline to do aught that does not pleasure them.
+
+Lady Mary was too much a woman of the world to be entrapped by a _tour
+de force_ such as this.  She hesitated; thought it was impossible.  It
+was very kind of Mrs. Wriothesley; but they had so many visits to pay,
+so much to do, &c.  But here, somewhat to her mother's astonishment,
+Blanche interposed, and suggested that their other engagements could be
+postponed.  The young lady was great at lawn tennis, having a natural
+aptitude for all games of that description.  She had heard a great deal
+about this La Crosse, and was extremely curious to see it; therefore it
+was not surprising that she should advocate the acceptance of Mrs.
+Wriothesley's invitation.
+
+"It's a thing you will have to do some time or other, Lady Mary,"
+observed Mr. Cottrell, "unless you are setting up as an 'eccentric.'
+By-the-bye, Miss Sylla, of course you will see Beauchamp at Prince's.
+Tell him I have heard of a park hack worth his looking at.  He was
+wanting one the other day."
+
+That settled the question.  Lady Mary felt now it was essential that
+she should be at Prince's and see how Sylla progressed in her insidious
+designs.  For that Miss Chipchase, under her aunt's guidance, was not
+doing her best to entangle Lionel Beauchamp in her toils, no power
+could have persuaded Lady Mary.  Mrs. Wriothesley was one of the few
+people who thoroughly understood the whimsical perversity of Mr.
+Cottrell's character, and she shrewdly suspected, as was indeed the
+case, that he had no more heard of that hack than that he had that
+Beauchamp wanted one.
+
+It was seldom that Ralph Wriothesley honoured his wife's
+luncheon-table, so the four ladies had that meal all to themselves.
+Mrs. Wriothesley exerted herself to be agreeable; and if Lady Mary had
+still doubts about her hostess's sincerity, she was not insensible to
+the charm of her manner; so that in spite of her mother's misgivings
+and Blanche's own nascent jealousy of Sylla, the afternoon glided
+pleasantly by, until it was time to stroll across to Prince's.  They
+found quite a fashionable mob already there assembled, for, as Mr.
+Cottrell had told them, to see the Canadians play La Crosse was one of
+the novelties of the season.  That gentleman's idle words proved true
+also in more senses than one, for they had not long taken chairs
+overlooking the cricket-field, before Lionel Beauchamp joined them,
+and, as he greeted Sylla, thanked her for her very pretty present.
+
+"I am very glad you like it," replied Sylla, smiling; "but I can't take
+much credit for my generosity.  I am afraid, strictly speaking, it only
+amounts to the payment of a debt.  You deserved a testimony of your
+prowess, and I to pay a penalty for my rashness."
+
+"What is this testimony?" inquired Blanche.  "What has Sylla given you?
+and what have you done to deserve it?"
+
+"A mere trifle," interposed Miss Chipchase; "I daresay he will show it
+you some day.  He got me out of my scrape that day at Rockcliffe, you
+know, as indeed he has been called upon to do before, though not quite
+in that fashion.  He saved my bracelet, you remember; it's rather a pet
+bangle, and I should have been very sorry to have lost it.  Have you
+done my other commission for me?"
+
+"Not as yet," replied Lionel.  "I haven't had time; but I will see
+about it in a day or two."
+
+All this fell very unpleasantly upon Blanche's cars.  She was utterly
+unconscious of her mother's schemes and hopes.  She had not as yet
+recognized that she was drifting into love with Lionel Beauchamp, but
+she did know that his confidential intimacy with Sylla Chipchase was
+very distasteful to her.  What was this present she had made him? and
+what was this commission she had given him?  She did not like to ask
+further questions just then, but she made up her mind that she would
+know all about these things the first time she got Lionel to herself.
+People who make mysteries of trifles at times exercise their friends a
+good deal,--the imagination so often converts molehills into mountains;
+and then there is always a power in the unknown.
+
+"Have you seen this game of La Crosse before, Miss Bloxam?" inquired
+Lionel.  "It looks incomprehensible and never-ending, to start with;
+but when you have seen a goal or two taken you will understand it, and
+admire the dexterity of the players."
+
+"Mrs. Wriothesley explained it to me at luncheon.  As I told you at
+Todborough, I am good at games, and can follow it very fairly.  But,
+Sylla, you have a message for Mr. Beauchamp, which you have forgotten
+to give him."
+
+Sylla had not forgotten Mr. Cottrell's message at all, but she thought
+it more than doubtful whether that message was intended to be
+delivered.  She had her own opinion as to the motive of that message,
+but, thus challenged, immediately replied, "Oh, yes, something about a
+hack from Mr. Cottrell; he told me to tell you he had heard of one to
+suit you."
+
+"There he is wrong," rejoined Beauchamp: "a thing can't suit you when
+you don't want it; and that's my case with regard to a hack."
+
+"Curious that he should be so misinformed," said Lady Mary.  "He
+certainly said you had asked him if he knew of one."
+
+"Mixed up with somebody else," interposed Mrs. Wriothesley.  "Mr.
+Cottrell is a very idle man with a very numerous acquaintance.
+Somebody wanted a hack, and he has forgotten who."
+
+If Lady Mary's suspicions had been lulled to sleep during luncheon,
+they had been now most thoroughly reawakened.  She, like her daughter,
+had overheard the conversation between Sylla and Lionel upon the
+latter's first arrival.  She had always had misgivings that the
+relations between the two would change into something much warmer, to
+the downfall of her own hopes.  She was annoyed with herself for having
+accepted the hand of amity extended by her ancient antagonist.  She
+felt sure that the battle that she pictured to herself on that night at
+the Grange, when she had first heard of the relationship between Sylla
+and Mrs. Wriothesley, was already begun.  She had a horrible conviction
+that she was once more destined to undergo the bitterness of offering
+her congratulations to her successful opponent.  What cruel fatality
+had ordained that whenever she had a daughter to settle, Mrs.
+Wriothesley should invariably appear upon the scene with a niece?  And
+in the anguish of her spirit she gave way to very harsh thoughts
+concerning poor Sylla's conduct.  If she could but have divested
+herself of all prejudice, and looked on matters with dispassionate
+eyes, she would have seen, as Pansey Cottrell had told her at
+Todborough, that things were travelling much in the way she wished
+them.  At this very moment, when she is inwardly raging against Mrs.
+Wriothesley, Lionel Beauchamp is undoubtedly paying at least as much,
+if not more, attention to Blanche than he is to Miss Chipchase; but the
+spectacles of prejudice are never neutral-tinted.
+
+However, it is time to leave; and Lady Mary, rising, signals her
+daughter, and makes her adieu.
+
+"I really have no patience with that girl," said Lady Mary, when she
+found herself outside.  "I think her making a present to a young man
+like Mr. Beauchamp is going a great deal more than half-way."
+
+"Oh, I don't know, mamma," replied Blanche; "she has known him all her
+life; and you know he did save her bracelet."
+
+"Very indelicate of her ever to have made such a wager," retorted Lady
+Mary, quite trumpeting in her wrath.
+
+"I have known you bet yourself, mamma," rejoined Blanche; "and I think
+she was perhaps carried away by the excitement of the occasion.  I
+wonder what it is that she has given him?"
+
+It was curious, that although Miss Bloxam was as uncomfortable
+concerning that gift as her mother, she still took Sylla's part
+regarding it.  She was a proud girl, and it was probable that she
+shrank from owning even to her mother that it could possibly matter to
+her what presents any lady might choose to bestow on Mr. Beauchamp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SATURDAY AT HURLINGHAM.
+
+Hurlingham in the merry month of June, just when the east winds have
+ceased to trouble; when the roses and strawberries are at their best;
+when the lamb is verging towards muttony, and the whitebait are growing
+up; when the leaves are yet young, and Epsom and Ascot either pleasant
+or grim memories of the past.  Can anything be more delightful than
+Hurlingham on a fine Saturday afternoon? that one week-day when the
+daughters of Venus throng the pleasant grounds, and the birds sacred to
+the goddess are held sacred for fear that the shooters should scatter
+the coaches--it would be too grievous that the destruction of pigeons,
+through frightening the horses, should result in the upsetting of a
+drag bearing a bevy of London's fairest daughters.  What matches have
+been made here both for life and for centuries--as, in the "shibboleth"
+of our day, a hundred pounds is sometimes termed!  Much damage at times
+has no doubt accrued both to the hearts of humanity and the legs of the
+polo ponies.  The coaches gather thick about their allotted end of the
+grassy paddock; drag after drag drops quietly into its position; the
+teams are unharnessed and led slowly away; and their passengers either
+elect to view the forthcoming match from their seats of vantage, or,
+alighting, stroll up and mix with the fashionable crowd that throngs
+the far side of the lawn-like paddock.  All London has flocked to
+Hurlingham to-day to enjoy the bright afternoon, indulge in tea,
+gossip, or claret-cup, and look lazily on at the polo match between the
+--th Hussars and Monmouthshire.  Both teams are reported very strong,
+and opinion is pretty equally divided as to which way the match will go.
+
+Mrs. Wriothesley is, of course, there.  That lady is a pretty constant
+_habituee_, and with Sylla to chaperon is not likely to miss it on this
+occasion.  She has joined forces already with Lady Mary: as she said,
+they have all a common interest in the event of the day, for was not
+Captain Bloxam the life and soul of the Hussar side, and were they not
+all there ready to sympathize or applaud?  Applause at Hurlingham, by
+the way, being in as little accord with the traditions of the place as
+it is in the stalls of a fashionable theatre.  The match has not yet
+begun.  Two or three wiry ponies, with carefully-bandaged forelegs, are
+being led up and down on the opposite side of the paddock.  The centre
+is still unoccupied, save for a few late-comers walking quietly across,
+none of the competitors having so far put in an appearance.
+
+"Just the sort of thing to interest you, this, Miss Sylla," exclaimed
+Pansey Cottrell, after lifting his hat in a comprehensive manner to the
+whole party.  "I know you are passionately fond of horses and have a
+taste for riding."
+
+"Now, what does he mean by that?" thought Sylla.  There was nothing
+much in the remark, but she was getting a little afraid of this
+mischievous elderly gentleman.  She was beginning to look for a hidden
+meaning in his speeches.  Could this be a covert allusion to her mishap
+at Todborough?  Had the story of her fall come to his ears, and was he
+about to indulge his love of teasing people at her expense?  "I don't
+know," she replied, guardedly, "that I am so very passionately fond of
+horses; but I have no doubt I shall enjoy this very much.  Knowing one
+of the players will of course make it interesting."
+
+"Quite so," replied Cottrell.  "It is a pity Mr. Beauchamp is not
+playing.  If he were, I should consult you as to which side to back.
+You judge his capabilities in all ways so accurately."
+
+Neither Lady Mary nor Mrs. Wriothesley could help noticing this speech.
+It was just one of those wicked little remarks to which Pansey Cottrell
+treated his friends when they were wanting in deference to his comments
+on things generally.
+
+"Sylla has known him all her life," interposed Mrs. Wriothesley; "but
+because she happened to know that Lionel could run, it does not follow
+that she knows whether he can play polo.  However, as he is not
+playing, it is a matter of very little account whether he can or no."
+
+"Quite right.  Nothing is much in this world, except the weather and
+the cooks.  The sun shines to-day; and whatever the rest of us are
+called upon to endure, Mrs. Wriothesley, I know, can always rely upon
+her soup and _entrees_.  I always look upon it as rather good of you to
+dine out."
+
+It was probable that such judicious remarks had done Mr. Cottrell good
+service in the early part of his career; but now he was the fashion,
+and realised his position most thoroughly.
+
+"Very pretty of you to recognize the fact that my poor little
+kitchenmaid is not a barbarian," rejoined Mrs. Wriothesley.
+
+She also had her foible, and always spoke in disparaging tones of her
+establishment.  She would ask her friends to take a cutlet with her, or
+to come and eat cold chicken with her after the play, but took good
+care that the menu should be of very different calibre.  She, like
+Pansey Cottrell, was the fashion, and he knew it.  Besides, not only
+was the lady a favourite of his, but he never would have permitted
+himself to commit the folly of quarrelling with any one who so
+thoroughly understood the mysteries of gastronomy.
+
+But now, clad in white flannels, butcher-boots, and scarlet caps, a
+couple of players make their appearance, and walk their sturdy little
+steeds up the ground; another and another quickly follow, and soon the
+contending sides group themselves together at opposite ends of the
+enclosure.  The Monmouthshire quintet in their all white and scarlet
+caps are faced by the Hussars in their blue and scarlet hoops.  The
+umpire walks to the centre, glances round to the captains of either
+side to see that they are all in readiness, and then drops the ball.
+Quick as thought the contending teams are in motion, the "players up"
+of each party scudding as fast as their wiry little ponies can carry
+them for the first stroke.  It is a close thing; but the white and
+scarlet obtains the first chance, and by some fatality misses the ball.
+Another second, and Jim Bloxam has sent it flying towards the
+Monmouthshire goal, and is pelting along in hot pursuit, only to see
+the ball come whizzing back past him from a steady drive by one of the
+adversary's back-players.  Backwards and forwards flies the ball, and
+the clever little ponies, at the guidance of their riders, bustle now
+this way, now that, in chase of it.  Over and over again it is driven
+close to the fatal posts at either end--the being driven between which
+scores the first goal of the game--only to be sent again in the reverse
+direction by the back-player.  Then comes a regular scrimmage in the
+centre of the ground, and the ball is dribbled amongst the ponies'
+legs, first a little this way, and then that, but never more than a few
+yards in any direction.  Suddenly it flies far away from the _melee_,
+and Jim Bloxam races after it, hotly pursued by one of the white and
+scarlet men.  Jim fails to hit the ball fair, and it spins off at a
+tangent.  His antagonist swerves, quick as thought, to the ball, and by
+a clever back-stroke sends it once more into the centre of the field;
+another short _melee_, and then the Monmouthshire men carry the ball
+rapidly down on the Hussar goal.  The back-player of the Hussars rides
+forward to meet it; but a dexterous touch from the leader of the white
+and scarlet men sends it a little to the right, and before any of the
+Hussars can intervene, a good stroke from one of the Monmouthshire men
+galloping on that side sends it between the posts, and the first goal
+is credited to the white and scarlet.
+
+Dr. Johnson, when asked by Boswell what a shining light of those days
+meant by a somewhat vague remark, surmised that the speaker must have
+"meant to annoy somebody."  The Doctor was probably right, being a
+pretty good judge of that sort of thing.  There are many unmeaning
+remarks made, the why of which it is difficult to explain, unless we
+put that interpretation upon them.  It must have been some such
+malicious feeling that prompted Mr. Cottrell to observe,
+
+"Poor Jim!  He seems destined always to play second fiddle.  As at
+Rockcliffe, he is just beaten again."
+
+"Defeats such as Captain Bloxam's," exclaimed Sylla, "are as much to
+one's credit as easily-obtained victories.  He was just defeated at
+Rockcliffe after a gallant struggle.  I have seen some polo-playing
+before at Brighton, and don't think I ever saw a harder-fought goal
+played."
+
+It was with somewhat amused surprise that Mr. Cottrell found his dictum
+disputed by a young lady in her first season, and he shot a sharp
+glance at Mrs. Wriothesley, to see what that lady thought of the
+spirited manner in which her niece stood up for the vanquished Hussar;
+but she and Lady Mary were just then engaged in welcoming Lionel
+Beauchamp, and the observation consequently escaped their ears.
+
+"I beg your pardon," rejoined Cottrell; "I did not know your sympathies
+were so strong.  I am, of course," he continued, in mocking tones,
+"prepared to condole with his family over Jim's defeat; but I must
+comfort you in your affliction by reminding you that the loss of one
+point does not mean the loss of the rubber."
+
+"Thank you," replied Sylla.  "I have ranged myself to-day on the side
+of the Hussars; and my champions are not always defeated, as you may
+remember."
+
+"I trust," replied Mr. Cottrell, laughing, "you will have a good
+afternoon.  I reverence you as a young lady who wagers with infinite
+discretion."  And so saying, he moved off to talk to other acquaintance.
+
+Lionel Beauchamp had seated himself next Blanche, and, assisted by a
+slight movement of the young lady's chair in his favour, found that he
+had successfully obtained the _tete-a-tete_ for which he had manoeuvred.
+
+"I want you to do me a favour, Miss Bloxam," he observed.
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Beauchamp, if I can; what is it?"
+
+"I want you to promise to join a water party that four of us are
+organizing for this day fortnight; but we mean to go down the river
+instead of up.  We intend chartering a steamer, and so be quite
+independent, as we shall carry our own commissariat with us."
+
+"I have no doubt mamma will say yes if we have no other engagement.
+But favour for favour--I have one to ask of you; will you grant it?"
+
+"I answer as you did--most certainly if I can."
+
+"Ah, but you must answer differently; you must say 'certainly' without
+any conditions."
+
+"That is impossible; one cannot quite pledge oneself to that.  It is
+not very likely that I shall refuse you."
+
+"But you are refusing me now.  I want you to say 'certainly' without
+any reservation whatever."
+
+"And I can only reply as I did before, Miss Bloxam, that it is
+impossible.  No sensible person could ever do that.  It is very
+improbable that you should ask me, but it is possible that you might
+wish me, to do something that I was bound to say 'no' to.  I repeat,
+improbable but possible.  Won't you tell me what it is?  You may be
+quite sure it is already granted if within my power."
+
+"But it is quite within your power," replied Blanche; "you can do it if
+you choose.  Why won't you say 'yes'?"
+
+"Tell me what it is," he answered, more determined than ever not to
+yield to her unreasonable demand.  He was not obstinate, but Lionel
+Beauchamp had a will of his own, and could make up his mind quickly and
+decidedly, a virtue sadly wanting in many of us.  His reservation had
+been put in mechanically in the first instance, but Blanche's
+persistence made him now resolute not to commit himself to an unlimited
+promise.  Except unthinkingly, people do not make promises of this
+nature, any more than they give blank cheques, the filling-in of which
+in unwarrantable fashion might occasion much grief and tribulation to
+the reckless donor.
+
+Miss Bloxam felt a little indignant at not being able to carry her
+point, but she knew just as well as Lionel did that she was insisting
+on the exorbitant.  "Still," she argued, "if he were really in love
+with me he would not mind promising to grant me whatever I asked.
+
+"I want to know," she said at length, "what was the present Miss
+Chipchase made you?"
+
+"Good Heavens!" replied Lionel, laughing, "is that all you require?
+She sent me these solitaires for saving her bracelet at Rockcliffe; are
+they not pretty ones?"  And, pulling back his coat-sleeve, Beauchamp
+exhibited the studs at his wrists.
+
+"Very," returned Blanche.  "But that is not quite all: what is the
+commission she has given you?"
+
+Beauchamp looked a little grave at this question.  This commission was
+in reality the mildest of mysteries; but he saw that Blanche believed
+it to be of far greater importance.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he replied.
+
+"May I ask why?"
+
+"Certainly.  I cannot tell you because I have promised not to mention
+it.  You, of course, would not wish me to break my word?"
+
+"Decidedly not," rejoined Miss Bloxam.  "My curiosity has led me into a
+great indiscretion.  But the game is getting interesting.  Surely Jim's
+side are having the best of it now?"  And Miss Bloxam, turning
+half-round in her seat, devoted her attention to the polo-players with
+laudable persistency.  If Blanche Bloxam was showing herself somewhat
+childish and unreasonable--for there could be no doubt that the young
+lady had turned away from Lionel more or less in a huff--it must be
+remembered that she was very much in earnest in her love affair, that
+she was jealous of Sylla Chipchase, and that though she believed Lionel
+Beauchamp loved her, he had not as yet declared himself.  She had
+foolishly, and perhaps whimsically, regarded this as a test question,
+and she had been answered in the negative.  I do not know that she was
+out-of-the-way foolish.  Maidens like Marguerite have played "He loves
+me, he loves me not," many a time with a flower; and Blanche's appeal
+was as wise as theirs, except in the one thing--you cannot quarrel with
+a flower, but it is very possible to do so with a lover.  It is all
+very well for the gods to laugh at such quarrels, but those interested
+seldom see the humour of the situation, and in nineteen cases out of
+twenty the cause of their occurrence is trifling.
+
+The band of the Guards is ringing out the most seductive of valses.
+Silken robes sweep the grass, and soft laughter floats upon the summer
+air.  The polo-players are once more in the full tide of battle.  The
+gaily-coloured jerseys are now here, now there, in pursuit of the
+ever-flying sphere, for the temporary possession of which each player
+seems as covetous as Atalanta was of the golden apple.  Ever and anon
+comes a short, sharp, furious _melee_, and then from its midst flies
+the ball, with three or four horsemen riding their hardest in pursuit;
+while the back-player of the threatened goal warily prepares for the
+attack that is impending unless some one of his comrades should succeed
+in arresting it.  One of the fiercest of these _melees_ is now taking
+place in front of the promenade.  From the confused surging knot
+suddenly shoots the ball, and skims along at an ominous pace in the
+direction of the goal of the scarlet and white.  Jim Bloxam, slipping
+all the other players by a couple of lengths, leads the pursuit, with
+two of his antagonists riding their hardest to catch him.  Jim makes
+the most of his opportunity, and it looks like a goal for the Hussars.
+He is riding a smartish pony, and feels that his followers will never
+catch him.  He is bound to get first to the ball, and, if only he does
+not miss his stroke, should drive it clean through the goal-posts.  But
+though he is so far right that he keeps his lead of his antagonists,
+there is another player to be taken into calculation, whom so far Jim
+has quite overlooked, and this is the crafty back-player of the scarlet
+and white men who is in charge of the goal.  He is quite as alive as
+Jim to the gravity of the occasion.  He knows that Bloxam's stroke must
+be prevented, if possible; and coming from the opposite direction,
+although lying somewhat to Jim's left, is striving his utmost to
+interfere.  The ball has all but stopped, and it is palpable that the
+new-comer will cut Jim's course obliquely at the ball.  It is a fine
+point.  Each man's wiry little steed is doing its very best.  But, ah,
+Jim has it!  The Hussar's polo-mallet whirls high in the air, and, as
+he passes the ball, a well-aimed stroke sends it flying through the
+enemy's goal-posts; another second, and, unable to rein up their
+ponies, Jim and the back-player of the scarlet and white meet in full
+career and roll over in a heap on the ground, while Jim's two attendant
+antagonists are both brought to similar grief from tumbling over their
+leader.
+
+"Good Heavens! there are four of them down!" exclaimed Lionel
+Beauchamp.  "Don't be alarmed, Miss Bloxam: falls are not often serious
+at polo; see, there are two of them getting up already."
+
+The last _melee_ had taken place so close to the spectators that it had
+been quite easy to identify the players, and Miss Bloxam was therefore
+quite aware that her brother was one of the four men down; but she and
+Lady Mary were too habituated to the accidents of the hunting-field to
+feel that nervous terror at witnessing a fall that people not so
+accustomed are apt to experience.  But there were other lookers-on with
+whom it was very different.  It was a bad accident to look upon; and
+Mrs. Wriothesley suddenly felt her wrist gripped with a force that
+could hardly be supposed existent in the delicately-gloved fingers.
+She glanced round at her niece's face.  The girl was white to her very
+lips.  She had been educated abroad, and though, as we know, she had
+displayed plenty of courage when she had fallen into similar
+difficulties herself, accidents both in flood and field were a novel
+sight to her.
+
+"He does not get up," she faltered at last, in low tones.
+
+"For goodness' sake don't make a fool of yourself," replied Mrs.
+Wriothesley sharply.  She honestly thought the girl was about to faint,
+and was filled with dismay at the prospect of finding her niece the
+centre of a scene.  "Men don't get hurt at polo any more than they do
+at cricket.  They will all be galloping past here again before five
+minutes are over."
+
+But in this conjecture Mrs. Wriothesley was wrong; for although two of
+the fallen horsemen struggled promptly to their feet, Jim and the
+antagonist with whom he had come in collision had neither of them as
+yet done so.  By this time all the players were collected round the
+spot where the accident had taken place, and an impression that some
+one was seriously hurt was rapidly gaining ground.
+
+"Lionel," exclaimed Mrs. Wriothesley, the moment she dared take her
+eyes off her niece, "I am sure Lady Mary would be extremely obliged to
+you if you would run down and see what is the matter.  For Heaven's
+sake, Sylla," she whispered into her niece's ear, "don't make an
+exhibition of yourself by fainting or any nonsense of that sort.
+Ridiculous! as if any one was ever hurt by falling off a pony!"
+
+Lady Mary reiterated Mrs. Wriothesley's request, and Beauchamp at once
+slipped through the rails and ran down to the group.  He found Jim
+resting his head upon his hand, lying on the grass and looking ghastly
+pale, but his brother-sufferer was still insensible.
+
+"I don't think I can go on," gasped Jim, in answer to inquiries as to
+how he was--"that is, not to be of any use, you know; that confounded
+cannon has not only knocked all the wind out of me, but knocked me half
+foolish besides.  I feel so faint and sick, you must get on as you best
+can without me for half an hour."
+
+The other sufferer now gave signs of returning animation; and as, after
+looking at him, the doctor pronounced him only stunned by the fall and
+a good deal shaken, it was decided to draw a man from each side and so
+continue the game.  Lionel Beauchamp made the best of his way back with
+his report.
+
+"No sort of cause, Lady Mary, for being in the least alarmed.  Bloxam
+is sensible; says there is nothing the matter, further than that they
+have knocked all the wind out of his body, and that he is too shaken to
+go on with the game at present; he will be all right again in a couple
+of hours.  See, there he is, walking away to the dressing-rooms at the
+other side, along with his antagonist, who is in a similar case.  It
+was an awkward collision, and it is well the results were no worse."
+And, as he finished his speech, Beauchamp rather ruefully contrasted
+the cool reception that Blanche gave to his intelligence with the
+bright smile with which Sylla rewarded him.
+
+Under no circumstances, perhaps, would it have been otherwise.  Blanche
+was of a calmer disposition, very different from the vivacious
+emotional temperament of Sylla Chipchase; and then she had never felt
+the nervous apprehension as to its results that had so terrified Sylla.
+Miss Bloxam loved her brother very dearly, but it would never occur to
+her to feel any great anxiety at seeing Jim fall.  She would have told
+you quietly that "Jim knew how to fall."  But she was filled with
+exceeding bitterness about one thing,--that her secret love-test had
+resulted in failure, and that her heart was, to a considerable extent,
+out of her possession before it had been asked for.  No, her difference
+with Lionel Beauchamp was not to be passed over so lightly as all that.
+If he could refuse the slight request that she had made him, he could
+care very little about her.  "As if any man, honestly in love, would
+hesitate to break a mere promise made to another woman!"  And to the
+best of my belief, the majority of her sex would be quite of Blanche's
+opinion.
+
+"He does not get up," thought Mrs. Wriothesley, as she drove home from
+Hurlingham.  "Yes, Sylla, my dear, you have told me something to-day
+that I honestly don't believe you knew yourself before.  When accidents
+happen in the plural, and young ladies remark upon them only in the
+singular number, it is a sign of absorbing interest in somebody
+concerned.  People generally, I think, would have observed, 'They don't
+get up.'"  But Mrs. Wriothesley wisely kept all these reflections to
+herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MRS. WRIOTHESLEY'S LITTLE DINNER.
+
+The accident at Hurlingham had opened Sylla's eyes.  She became
+conscious of what her feeling for Jim Bloxam was fast ripening into.
+It made her thoughtful.  She was suddenly aware that she cared
+considerably more about him than it was wise that a maiden should for
+any man not her avowed lover.  She was a good deal startled by the
+discovery; for had she asked herself the question previous to seeing
+him stretched, as she thought, badly hurt, or perhaps even killed, on
+the grass at that polo match, she would have answered, as she believed
+truthfully, that she liked Captain Bloxam very much: he was a very
+pleasant acquaintance; but as to his being anything more to her, she
+would have scouted the idea.  She knew now that he was more to her than
+that, and Sylla pondered gravely upon what was her best course to
+pursue.  One thing was quite clear, and that was, a previous intention
+of hers must be abandoned.  She accordingly dispatched a note to Lionel
+Beauchamp, telling him that he need take no further trouble about her
+commission, which elicited a speedy reply to the effect that it was
+already executed.
+
+One result of Sylla's discovery of the state of her feelings towards
+Captain Bloxam was a strong desire to cultivate her acquaintance with
+his mother and sister.  She got on fairly with Blanche down at
+Todborough, but was quite aware that she was no favourite with Lady
+Mary.  It most certainly was not because she fancied this would give
+her greater opportunities of meeting Jim.  Far from it.  She knew very
+well that she was more likely to meet Captain Bloxam in Hans Place than
+at his mother's house; for when he came up from Aldershot, as he did
+pretty constantly, it was rarely that Jim failed to appear in Mrs.
+Wriothesley's drawing-room; but the truth is the girl was rather shy of
+meeting Captain Bloxam just now.  That Sylla's overtures should be
+coldly received was only what might be expected.  Both Blanche and her
+mother regarded her as a dangerous rival.  Indeed, Lady Mary's dislike
+to her from the first had proceeded from no other cause, so that
+Sylla's attempts to improve the acquaintance met with little success.
+Had Mrs. Wriothesley not obtained the keynote at Hurlingham, she would
+have been puzzled to understand what had come to her niece.  The wand
+of the enchanter had transformed the girl.  Her vivacity was
+wonderfully toned down; her whole manner softened; and Sylla, most
+self-possessed of young ladies, was unmistakably shy in the presence of
+Jim Bloxam.  Diffidence is rarely an attribute of Hussars, and Jim was
+not without experience of women.  The more retiring Miss Chipchase
+became, the more ardent became the attentions of her admirer.
+
+Mrs. Wriothesley of course comprehended how matters were, and viewed
+the progress of events with entire satisfaction.  She saw that
+projected scheme of hers rapidly approaching completion, and requiring
+but little help from her fostering hand; still it would be just as
+well, to use her own expression, "to assist nature;" and, with that
+view, she wrote a note to Jim Bloxam, suggesting that an early dinner
+and a night at the play were the proper restoratives for an invalid's
+nerves.  She has seen Jim several times since his fall at Hurlingham,
+and knows very well that he got over the effects of that shaking in two
+or three days; but she has affected to regard him as a convalescent
+ever since, and insists upon it that quiet society is what he requires,
+meaning that, whenever he comes to town, the little house in Hans Place
+is the haven of rest best suited to him.
+
+"I wish, Rip," said Mrs. Wriothesley, putting her head into her
+husband's _sanctum_ one morning, "you would look in at Bubb's this
+afternoon, and tell them to send me a box for the Prince of Wales's
+next Wednesday.  You will of course do as you like, but I am going to
+ask Jim Bloxam to dine and go with us to the play."
+
+"What a clever designing little woman it is!" replied her husband
+lazily.  "I'll order the box; but you must pick up somebody else to do
+'gooseberry' with you, as I can't come that night.  It's hardly fair
+upon Jim; but as I have found matrimony pleasant myself, I don't for
+once mind being in the conspiracy.  Besides, Sylla is a good sort if
+she will only take a fancy to him: she seems rather inclined to avoid
+him, it strikes me."
+
+"Oh, you goose!" replied his wife.  "Get me the box, and pray that you
+may have decent luck at whist for the next few weeks; we shall want all
+the sovereigns you can scrape together to buy wedding presents before
+the season is out."
+
+Lady Mary Bloxam was really very much to be pitied.  Here was the
+season slipping by, and the design with which she had opened the
+campaign seemed further from accomplishment than ever.  Worse than all,
+her own daughter was playing into the hands of the enemy.  There was no
+disguising the fact.  It was too palpably evident.  There was something
+wrong between Blanche and Lionel Beauchamp.  The young lady treated him
+with marked coldness, which he on his side resented.  In vain did Lady
+Mary cross-examine her daughter in the most insidious manner.  Blanche
+would own to no quarrel, nor assign any reason for their gradual
+estrangement; but Lady Mary saw with dismay that the two were drifting
+wider apart as the weeks wore on.  That she should attribute all this
+to Sylla and her designing aunt may be easily supposed.  It was true
+that in society Lionel Beauchamp could most certainly not be accused of
+paying pronounced devotion to Miss Chipchase.  But Lady Mary had ever a
+picture before her mind of Beauchamp in a low chair, in the
+drawing-room at Hans Place, making passionate love to Sylla; and her
+dislike of that young lady was intensified accordingly.  She was at
+variance with her daughter just now on the subject of the invitation
+they had received from Lionel Beauchamp for a water party down the
+river, and about which she and Blanche were by no means of one mind.
+Lady Mary was all for its acceptance, while Miss Bloxam persistently
+advocated its refusal.
+
+"You are too provoking, Blanche," exclaimed Lady Mary; "sometimes you
+are dissatisfied because we have not cards for this, that, and the
+other; and now we have an invitation for what promises to be a very
+pleasant party, you not only declare you won't go, but won't give any
+reason for declining."
+
+"I say 'no' because I don't wish to go," replied Miss Bloxam.
+
+"Fiddle-de-dee!" replied her mother, sharply.  "All girls like to go to
+what promises to be a pleasant party.  It is only right and proper they
+should, unless they are unwell.  Is there anything the matter with you?"
+
+"No, unless it be that I am getting rather tired of London gaiety.  I
+shall be very glad, indeed, to get back to Todborough."
+
+"That's a most unnatural remark for a girl to make in her second
+season.  None of your sisters, thank goodness, ever required it; but I
+am afraid I shall have to see what a doctor thinks of you.  I must get
+hold of Pansey Cottrell and hear what he says about this picnic.  I
+declare, if he reports favourably, I shall insist upon your going,
+Blanche."
+
+"I cannot see, mamma, what Mr. Cottrell has got to do with it.  There
+can be no possible use in consulting him."
+
+"Every use," rejoined Lady Mary quickly.  "Pansey knows everything that
+is going on in society.  I declare I think sometimes that he must
+employ a staff of detectives to collect all such knowledge and gossip
+for him.  He will know who are going to this party."
+
+"If he knows everything," said Blanche, "he should be able to tell me
+what I want to know."
+
+"And what is that?" inquired Lady Mary, with no little curiosity.
+
+"He will know that also if omniscient, as you suppose, mamma."
+
+"You are talking downright nonsense!  How can any one answer a question
+which you won't ask them?  But Pansey's knowledge of what goes on in
+his own world is marvellous.  He sees more than the most lynx-eyed
+matron amongst us.  I have been to a good many places this year for
+your amusement, and unless you are really ill, Blanche, it is only fair
+you should go this once for mine."
+
+Miss Bloxam made no reply, but inwardly determined to be extremely
+unwell upon the day of that picnic.  She was by no means a selfish
+girl, and would sacrifice herself to give her mother pleasure at any
+time; but she felt that she had valid reasons for declining any
+invitation from Lionel Beauchamp as things stood between them.  No
+accusation of husband-hunting should ever be brought against her.  Her
+mother was, of course, ignorant of how matters stood, and could
+therefore be no guide for her in this affair.
+
+Captain Bloxam, arriving at his quarters to dress for mess after a hard
+afternoon's racquets, finds Mrs. Wriothesley's note lying on his table.
+
+"Will I dine on Wednesday, go to the play, and come back to supper
+afterwards?  Will I not?" ejaculates Jim.  "I am on duty on Wednesday,
+but somebody else will have to do that; and there is a big field-day on
+the Thursday.  Never mind: get back by the early train in time for it,
+and I can do as much sleep as one wants coming down: so that is
+satisfactorily settled."
+
+Jim, by this, was very hard hit indeed; and had he been asked to stay a
+month in the little house in Hans Place, would have sold out rather
+than have foregone the invitation; and the night in question saw him
+duly seated in Mrs. Wriothesley's dining-room in the highest possible
+spirits.
+
+"By the way," said Pansey Cottrell, who completed the quartet,
+addressing his hostess, "what is our destined place of amusement this
+evening?  Are we bound for the French plays?"
+
+"No, we are going to the Prince of Wales's Theatre," rejoined Mrs.
+Wriothesley.  "Are you very much given to the French plays, Mr.
+Cottrell?"
+
+"I am not very much given to any theatrical entertainment; but whenever
+I feel low about the scarcity of money in the country, I like to go the
+French plays.  To see so many people who can afford to pay a guinea for
+an arm-chair to read in for three hours is a refreshing proof that
+there is still money in the country.  People go there a great deal more
+because it is the fashion than because they enjoy it.  It is like the
+opera, which, though exquisite enjoyment to many, always commands a
+strong contingent who attend solely because it is the fashion.  You are
+going of course to this water party of Beauchamp & Co.?"
+
+"Yes," replied Mrs. Wriothesley, "I rather like the idea.  It is quite
+a novelty.  They have chartered a large steamer, and I hear the
+arrangements are very perfect.  You are going, Captain Bloxam?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Jim.  "I look forward to having pretty well the
+pleasantest day of the season.  We are to lunch on board, dine on
+board, and, I believe, dance on board.  As I told Beauchamp, the only
+improvement I could suggest was a stage for charades.  We might have as
+great a success, Miss Chipchase, as we had that night at Todborough."
+
+"Yes," replied Sylla, slightly colouring at the recollection, and
+wondering, in her mischievous resolve to a little shock Lady Mary,
+whether she might not really have gone too far.
+
+"I declare, if well done, if they have got a big enough steamer, the
+right people, and it is a fine day, it ought to be a great success,"
+observed Cottrell.
+
+"Well," rejoined Mrs. Wriothesley, "from what Lionel told me, they have
+secured everything but the last; and I do think their arrangements to
+meet that are as perfect as possible."
+
+Mr. Cottrell shook his head dubiously.
+
+"In the event of a very unpromising day," continued Mrs. Wriothesley,
+"people will find a most excellent lunch spread in the cabins; and they
+have made up their minds not to leave their moorings at Westminster
+Bridge, so that people can have just as much as they please of the
+entertainment."
+
+"That idea positively trenches on genius," exclaimed Mr. Cottrell
+approvingly, "and reduces it merely to lunching at any house in London.
+Cabs innumerable round there; one, as you say, can get away at any
+time."
+
+"And now, Captain Bloxam," said Mrs. Wriothesley, "if you will ring the
+bell for coffee, Sylla and I will get our cloaks on while it cools; and
+then I think we must be going.  Oh, about transport?" she adds, pausing
+at the door.  "I think, Mr. Cottrell, if you will take me in your
+brougham, we will send the young couple in mine.  Thanks," she
+continued, in reply to Mr. Cottrell's bow of assent.  "Come, Sylla."
+
+Mr. Cottrell's thoughts were naturally unspoken, but he could not
+refrain from mentally ejaculating, "Poor Lady Mary! what chance can she
+have against such an artist as this?"
+
+A few weeks ago, and no girl would, perhaps, have laughed more at the
+idea of being nervous about driving alone to the theatre with Captain
+Bloxam than Sylla Chipchase; but she unmistakably was this evening,
+and, only that she was afraid of being ridiculed by her aunt, would
+have asked to change escorts.  She could not help showing it in her
+manner a little when they were fairly started; and the Hussar was far
+from discouraged thereby.
+
+His mind was fully made up, and he pleaded his best, not one bit
+abashed by her faint responses to his passionate protestations.
+
+"I cannot tell you when I began to love you," he continued; "it was
+from the first time I saw you, I believe; and, Sylla, I do hope you
+care a little about me.  I can hardly expect an answer tonight" (he
+did, and meant having it, all the same).  It would be hardly fair; but
+if you can promise to be my wife before we part, I shall be the
+lightest-hearted Hussar that rides up the Long Valley tomorrow."
+
+"I don't know.  I didn't think you cared about me.  I must have time,"
+she murmured.
+
+Oh, these lovers!  She did know; she did think he cared about her, and
+she wanted no time.
+
+"Sylla, dearest," continued Jim, "you must have known that I loved you;
+no woman is ever blind to that.  That you should reflect before you
+give me an answer, I can understand; but please let me know my fate as
+soon as possible.  It is cruel to keep me in suspense."  And here the
+flood of Jim's eloquence was arrested by the brougham pulling up at the
+door of the theatre.
+
+Mrs. Wriothesley and her cavalier glanced keenly at the pair as they
+entered the box.  Mr. Cottrell, indeed, had complimented his hostess on
+her little bit of _finesse_ on the road, and she had made no scruple of
+admitting that she hoped to bring about a marriage between the two.  As
+to the Hussar, he was quite equal to the occasion, and from all that
+could be gathered from his imperturbable manner, might have been
+entertaining his companion with his meteorological views for the last
+half-hour.  But with poor Sylla it was different.  However good an
+actress the girl might be theatrically, she was a lamentable failure in
+the affairs of real life now that she found herself the leading lady;
+and both her quick-eyed aunt and the lynx-eyed Mr. Cottrell felt just
+as certain that an _eclaircissement_ had taken place as if they had
+assisted at it.  More discreet chaperons were impossible, and after the
+first glance they took no further notice of the lovers, confining their
+conversation to each other, and their attention to the stage.  After a
+little Mr. Cottrell discovered a friend in the stalls, with whom it was
+an absolute necessity he should exchange a few words; and then the
+interest Mrs. Wriothesley took in the play proved what an enthusiast
+she was about dramatic art.
+
+But the green curtain fell at last--though, with the exception of Mrs.
+Wriothesley, it would be almost open to question whether any of them
+knew even the name of the piece they had witnessed--and the party
+proceeded homewards.  Jim made good use of his opportunities on the
+drive back to Hans Place; and upon arrival, took advantage of Sylla's
+temporary escape upstairs to whisper to Mrs. Wriothesley that he had
+told his tale, and been favourably listened to.  He felt assured of her
+congratulations.  He knew he was a favourite of hers, and that she was
+much too clever a woman to have allowed him to see so much of Sylla
+unless she had approved of his suit.  They were a very pleasant but
+rather quiet party at supper.  Lovers in the spring-tide of their
+delirium have rarely conversation except for each other; but then that
+suffices amply for their enjoyment.  Mrs. Wriothesley, triumphant in
+her schemes, chatted gaily with Mr. Cottrell, who was Sybarite enough
+to know that the discussion of the fish salad that he was then engaged
+upon, accompanied by the prattle of a pretty woman and irreproachable
+champagne, was about as near Elysium as a man of his years and prosaic
+temperament could expect to arrive at.  He had had some conversation
+with his hostess on the way home.  They had both arrived at the
+conclusion, from what they had seen in the theatre, that, even if
+everything was not yet settled, it would be before the evening was out.
+When she bade him good night, Mrs. Wriothesley added in low tones,
+
+"Of course it is as we guessed; but don't say anything about it for the
+next few days."
+
+It was with feelings of great complacency that Mr. Cottrell, having lit
+his cigar, stepped into his brougham.  He had dined and supped
+satisfactorily.  He had passed a pleasant evening, and he was in the
+early possession of a little piece of intelligence connected with that
+comedy which he had seen commenced at Todborough which made its finish
+perfectly plain to him.  He could not help laughing as he thought of
+the complication of feeling that this would produce in the mind of Lady
+Mary Bloxam when it reached her, which of course it speedily would.
+Would indignation at having to welcome as a daughter-in-law a girl she
+disliked so much as she did Sylla Chipchase overcome the gratification
+she would feel at finding that she need no longer dread her as an
+obstacle to her plans for the settlement of Blanche?  Upon the whole,
+Mr. Cottrell thought not.
+
+"They don't know it," he argued; "but Sylla Chipchase's father is a
+wealthy man, and the young lady, in consequence of her mother's
+settlement, a very long way off a penniless maiden.  I don't think Lady
+Mary has ever yet thought about Jim's marrying at all; but if Beauchamp
+and Blanche only make a match of it, I fancy it would reconcile her
+ladyship to a good deal.  She wouldn't then, at all events, be beaten
+at all points of the game by her pet aversion--Mrs. Wriothesley."  And
+once more Mr. Cottrell chuckled over the situation.  "Piccadilly, eh?"
+he muttered, looking out of the window.  "I don't feel a bit like bed.
+Egad, I'll turn in here and have another cigar;" and so saying Mr.
+Cottrell stopped his brougham at the door of a well-known club, got
+out, and leisurely ascended the steps.
+
+Several men were seated smoking in the hall, and a little knot, of
+which Lionel Beauchamp was the principal figure, attracted Mr.
+Cottrell's attention.
+
+"Ah, my lords of Greenwich and Gravesend!" he exclaimed gaily, "all the
+world is much exercised about you and your doings.  Wondrous are the
+stories afloat as to the fitting out of your ship, and all the fun that
+you have prepared for us.  People don't know what to expect.  Some say
+you are about to revive the old Folly and Ranelagh.  Others that you
+have rolled the Italian Opera and Willis's Rooms all into one, and put
+it on board ship."
+
+"I can't say what they expect in the way of entertainment," exclaimed
+Beauchamp, "but they seem to think that we have at all events chartered
+the Great Eastern.  We are perfectly inundated with applications for
+tickets."
+
+"No doubt," replied Cottrell, as he took a chair beside them; "and from
+people of whose existence you were in happy ignorance.  To extend your
+acquaintance, only give a big show of some sort, and let it be known
+that a card of invitation is well-nigh an impossibility.  But what a
+very dandy cigar-case!" and as he spoke Cottrell lifted from the table
+by Beauchamp's side a very smart specimen of the article in question,
+made of maroon velvet, with a monogram embroidered on one side, and the
+motto, "_Loquaces si sapiat vitet_," on the other.  "Very pretty
+indeed," he continued, looking at the monogram; "but surely you don't
+spell Lionel with a T?"
+
+"No," replied Beauchamp, laughing; "I spell it with an 'L,' like other
+people; but that cigar-case was neither embroidered nor made for me."
+
+"I see," rejoined Cottrell: "you have been annexing a friend's
+property.  I regret to see the notorious laxity of principle on the
+subject of umbrellas is extending to cigar-cases."
+
+"Wrong again," replied Beauchamp.  "I am in perfectly legitimate
+possession of the case, although it was not made for me."
+
+Insatiable thirst for gossip is naturally allied with insatiable
+curiosity, and Mr. Cottrell was no exception.
+
+"J. B., J. B.?" he said, still fingering the case.
+
+"I have it!  I am right, for a dollar!  You borrowed it from Jim Bloxam
+when we were down at Todborough."
+
+"No," returned Lionel, much amused; "you are wrong again.  I had a
+commission to get that case made----"
+
+"For Jim Bloxam," interposed Cottrell quickly.
+
+"I didn't say that," returned Lionel; "anyhow, it was not wanted; and
+at the risk of being accused of not being able to spell my own name, I
+kept it for myself.  I was further commanded to adhere strictly to the
+motto."
+
+"And 'avoid talkative people.'  Curious, very," observed Mr. Cottrell,
+as he put down the cigar-case, wondering not a little who gave the
+commission, and for whom the case was originally intended; but he of
+course refrained from further inquiry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE RINGING OF THE BELLES.
+
+The more Lady Mary heard of this water party, the more determined she
+was to attend it.  True, her pet design, the establishment of her
+daughter, seemed to be running awry, but there was no occasion as yet
+for abandoning it.  There was evidently something wrong between Blanche
+and Lionel Beauchamp, but that could never be put right by persistently
+avoiding him.  Whatever the cloud between them, it was little likely to
+be dispelled if they never met.  Then again, why should she facilitate
+matters for that odious Mrs. Wriothesley and her saucy chit of a niece?
+No; all the sporting blood of the Ditchins boiled in Lady Mary's veins
+as she muttered,
+
+"Margaret Wriothesley may stand in my way again, as indeed she has all
+her life; but she sha'n't, at all events, be treated to the luxury of a
+'walk over.'"
+
+Not encountering Mr. Cottrell in the course of the next two or three
+days, she dropped him a line of inquiry as to the composition of this
+coming water party, and concluded her note with--
+
+
+"Blanche is most provoking.  She has evidently had some tiff with
+Lionel Beauchamp.  She is very resolute about not going to this
+affair--hints mysteriously she wants to know something, and declines to
+say what.  I have no patience with such nonsense; and if I hear from
+you that the right people will be there, shall insist upon her going.
+Her thirst for knowledge applies, I suspect, to some proceedings of Mr.
+Beauchamp's.  If she would only confide what it is to me, I have little
+doubt I could put her mind at rest in eight and forty hours.
+
+"Yours sincerely,
+  "MARY BLOXAM."
+
+
+Mr. Cottrell received this note the morning after he had dined and
+supped in Hans Place.  Putting one thing and the other together, he
+began to have a tolerable inkling of how matters stood.  He was looking
+forward to spending rather a pleasant day at this party of Beauchamp's,
+and he now saw the possibility of adding still greater zest to his
+enjoyment by pulling the strings of one of those small social dramas so
+constantly occurring in our midst, which was a thing Pansey Cottrell
+dearly loved.  He felt that he should be the good fairy on board that
+steamer,--that two or three of the human puppets thereon would dance in
+accordance with his fingering of the wires; and mischievously as he
+would interfere at times in such matters, felt upon this occasion that
+the puppets would jig as much to their own gratification as to his.
+
+
+"Dear Lady Mary," he replied, "it is to be quite one of the pleasantest
+things of the season.  All your own set will be there--pre-eminently
+the right people all round.  I saw Beauchamp and his _confreres_ last
+night.  They say they are overwhelmed with applications for tickets,
+but have adhered rigidly to the number originally determined on.  They
+may naturally expect to find themselves quite out of society next
+season.  Those that were asked will have forgotten all about it, while
+those that were not won't.  Kind regards to Miss Blanche.  Tell her
+that there is a great deal of information to be picked up at water
+parties, and that I will guarantee her making one or two discoveries
+which I think will surprise and please her.
+
+"Yours sincerely,
+  "PANSEY COTTRELL."
+
+
+On receipt of that note Miss Bloxam's determination not to attend the
+Beauchamp party vanished.  It would be hard to say now whether mother
+or daughter were more impatient for that afternoon, or more curious as
+to what it might bring forth.  Lady Mary's speculations were vague in
+the extreme.  Mr. Cottrell's shadowy announcement she regarded as
+liable to mean as much or as little as "hear of something to one's
+advantage" might in an advertisement in the second column of the
+_Times_.  But with Blanche the case was different.  Miss Bloxam's ideas
+took definite shape, and, with very slight grounds to go upon, she
+jumped instinctively to the conclusion--as women will in such
+cases--that whether Lionel Beauchamp was to be all to her or nothing
+would be effectually settled that afternoon.  The promoters of the
+picnic themselves could not have prayed more fervently for fine weather
+than did Lady Mary and her daughter.
+
+"Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," saith the proverb; but if
+it is vouchsafed one to command a fine day at will in the course of
+existence, it would be better to reserve that privilege not for one's
+wedding, but for our first important picnic.  Lionel Beauchamp and his
+_confreres_ were especially favoured.  The day for their picnic was
+like unto that described by De Quincey, when "midsummer with all its
+banners was marching through the sky."  A more gorgeous afternoon to
+loiter away upon the water it was hard to imagine.  Moored along the
+side of the Westminster Pier was, if not the _Great Eastern_, at all
+events as large a steamer as it was practicable to bring there.
+Awnings were stretched both fore and aft above decks, the snowy
+whiteness of which would have done no discredit to a man-of-war.  In
+the bows of the boat a band was pouring forth all sorts of popular
+melody, inciting the fashionable crowd to "Haste to the Wedding," "Down
+among the Coals," "When Johnny comes marching Home," &c.  At the head
+of the gangway the hosts received their guests, and the numbers in
+which they trooped on board gave some warrant to Lionel Beauchamp's
+laughing assertion that giving a party in London is something like the
+making of a snowball: it increases with undreamt-of rapidity.
+
+"Twenty-five guests apiece, Mrs. Wriothesley, was, I give you my word,
+the first faint-hearted conception of myself and three companions,"
+said Beauchamp, laughing, as he welcomed that lady and Miss Chipchase;
+"but you see people have been kind to us, and that we are more popular
+in society than we dared venture to hope."
+
+"Ah, Lionel, yes," rejoined Mrs. Wriothesley, as she shook hands, "and
+with so nice a ship, such glorious weather, and so many pleasant
+_compagnons de voyage_ as I see around me, you will find us all willing
+to dance to your pipe, even if it led us all the way to New York."
+
+"We are too discreet to attempt the impossible," replied Lionel.  "If
+we can only please and amuse our guests to Gravesend and back, we shall
+sleep contented."  And then he turned away to welcome fresh arrivals,
+leaving Sylla and Mrs. Wriothesley to greet their friends and inspect
+the arrangements made for their entertainment.
+
+And that these had been the result of much thought and preparation was
+transparent even to the unreflecting.  Like an elaborate piece of
+clockwork, the whole affair was not as yet in motion.  But a glance on
+the foredeck of the steamer showed, mingling amongst the fashionable
+crowd, Spanish singers with their guitars, Tyrolese joedelers, and some
+two or three popular comedians, who at times consent to dispel the
+dreariness of an evening party.  Mr. Cottrell even whispered to Mrs.
+Wriothesley that he should not be at all surprised if the thing was a
+real success.
+
+"They are young, very young," he continued, "to undertake the
+responsibilities of the commissariat; but let us be charitable, and
+trust that they have had the wisdom to seek sound advice relative to
+the cookery and champagne."
+
+Fair though the day might be, yet its opening to the eyes of Lady Mary
+Bloxam seemed unpropitious in the extreme.  Lionel Beauchamp received
+her and Blanche with grave courtesy, but no more; indeed, his manner to
+Miss Bloxam touched upon the ceremonious.  It was true that as a host
+he could hardly be expected to devote much time to any individual
+guest; but still it is very possible to convey a good deal, even in the
+few words of welcome; and under the circumstances Lady Mary decided
+that Lionel Beauchamp had greeted them more as acquaintance, whose
+hospitality it was incumbent on him to return, than as intimate friends
+whom he was only too delighted to see.  He had not lingered to exchange
+a few words with them as he had with Mrs. Wriothesley and Sylla, and
+Lady Mary felt filled with dread that her rival had already triumphed,
+and was receiving, conjointly with Miss Chipchase, the homage of the
+conquered.  Blanche, too, who had already made up her mind that this
+day was either to set things straight with her and Lionel, or to
+estrange them for good, felt that there was little likelihood of its
+ending in the manner she desired.  She would scarcely see anything of
+him in a large party such as this, unless he specially sought her, and
+she thought now it was improbable he would do that.  She bitterly
+regretted that she had not adhered to her original determination.
+Nothing can be more dreary than a gay party from which there is no
+escape when one's mind is out of tune for society of any description.
+The idea that for so many hours the conventional smile must be upon our
+brow, and the conventional nothings upon our lips, is depressing in the
+extreme.  It may be injudicious, but it is certainly allowable, to look
+sad when the bank that holds our all suddenly falls; but for a woman to
+acknowledge in her face that the bank of her affections is broke is
+most indecorous, and shows a want of proper spirit and proper pride
+pitiful to witness.  She may scream if she is pinched; but neither sign
+nor cry must show that her heart-strings are wrung.
+
+It is well to set your guests eating and drinking betimes on these
+occasions.  The fasting man takes an acrid view of your arrangements
+compared with that taken by the man who has well fed; and the deferred
+opening of the supper-room has sealed the fate of many a dance which
+but for that had been voted pleasant enough.  Lionel Beauchamp and his
+_confreres_ determined to fall into no such mistake.  No sooner are
+their friends on board and the steamer cast off from her moorings than
+the signal is given for lunch.  The day is so fine that it has been
+decided to go down nearly to the Nore.  With scarce a ripple on the
+water, even those who have no confidence whatever in their sea-going
+capabilities can feel no terror of _mal de mer_.  The whole affair is
+an undoubted success.  Mr. Cottrell himself pronounces the luncheon not
+only satisfactory, but indicative of much promise as regards dinner
+later on.  The gay crowd breaks into knots and parties all over the
+decks.  Now listening to the ballad some swarth Spaniard trills forth
+to his guitar, anon laughing at some buffo song humorously rendered by
+a well-known comedian, while ever and again Beauchamp and his brethren
+clear a space on the deck, and a valse or two becomes the order of the
+day.
+
+"A very charming party, Miss Blanche, don't you think so?" remarked Mr.
+Cottrell, as he sauntered up to that young lady's side.  "Have you been
+forward to look at what they call the 'Fair'?  You can shoot for nuts,
+look at peep-shows, play _roulette_ for gingerbread; in fact, indulge
+in all the amusements of childhood."
+
+"No; the whole thing is no doubt very well done, but I don't feel
+myself to-day.  I am not quite up to the sort of thing.  Stupid of me
+to come.  People should keep themselves to themselves when not in the
+vein for society."
+
+"Ah," rejoined Mr. Cottrell, laughing, "not in the vein for society is
+a charming phrase.  It embraces so much, and defines it so vaguely.
+Not in the vein for society may mean that we want our lunch; that some
+one we wanted to meet has not come; that we have fallen to the charge
+of the wrong person.  I always feel that my being in the vein for
+society depends a good deal upon what the society consists of.  Every
+now and then I get somebody to take down to dinner that makes me sigh
+for the Desert of Sahara.  Now, I wonder what's wrong with you to-day?"
+
+"Had too much of London, I fancy," replied Blanche, smiling.  "I want
+to get back to Todborough.  These headaches never trouble me there."
+
+"Who was the shocking old infidel who declared young ladies' headaches
+were simply heartaches?  What mistakes we make by seeing things as we
+imagine them, instead of as they actually are!  I would lay a small
+wager, for instance, that your low spirits are the result simply of
+looking through the wrong end of the telescope."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Mr. Cottrell!  I feel a little hipped to-day, but
+every one does at times.  I cannot plead any excuse for it."
+
+"I am very glad to hear you say that," replied Cottrell gravely.  "I
+thought perhaps you might be put out by this affair of your brother's."
+
+"Affair of my brother's!" exclaimed Blanche quickly.  "Jim surely is in
+no trouble!  Why, he is here!"
+
+"Exactly.  No need to assure you he is a very long way off from being
+in trouble; having, on the contrary, a particularly good time, I should
+say judging from what I last saw of him.  But surely, Miss Blanche, you
+must have observed that a man's relations are often moved to tears at
+the mode in which he takes his pleasure, and, as a rule, always
+consider they are far more capable of choosing a wife for him than he
+is."
+
+"Choosing a wife!  Do you mean to tell me Jim is going to be married?"
+
+"I presume so.  I can only say he and Miss Chipchase are engaged in a
+very high-pressure flirtation, if it only means that."
+
+"Jim going to marry Sylla!  Why, I thought----"  And here Blanche
+paused abruptly, and a rather compromising blush suffused her face.
+
+"Ah, you thought," observed Cottrell, "that it was a mere flirtation.
+Well, there is no doubt that sisters don't often make a mistake about a
+brother's love affair when it comes within their knowledge; but in this
+instance I venture to think I am right."
+
+Miss Bloxam's unnatural blindness to her brother's growing passion for
+Sylla Chipchase can be easily accounted for.  Neither she nor her
+mother knew anything about his visits to Hans Place.  Jim by no manner
+of means thought it necessary to call upon his own people every time he
+came up from Aldershot, and they were consequently unaware even of his
+being in town five times out of six.
+
+"You must pardon my indiscretion," resumed Mr. Cottrell; "but I really
+supposed that Jim must have formally announced it.  Ah, Beauchamp, the
+very man!  Spare one moment from your hospitable cares, and receive the
+congratulations of Miss Bloxam and myself upon the perfection of your
+arrangements.  Everything is admirable; and if ever people deserved the
+favour of a gorgeous day, you and your companions have done so."
+
+"To have won the approbation of such an expert as Mr. Cottrell is ample
+recompense," replied Lionel, laughing, and making a mock salaam of
+great humility.
+
+"We thoroughly mean what we say; and in the meantime extend your
+amiability so far as to give me a cigarette.  Miss Blanche, I am sure,
+will permit it?"
+
+Miss Bloxam bent her head in assent as Lionel Beauchamp produced the
+identical cigar-case that had so attracted Mr. Cottrell's attention
+some two or three nights ago.
+
+"A very pretty case this, is it not?" said Cottrell, as he leisurely
+selected a cigarette.  "In excellent taste; it does the greatest
+possible credit to the designer.  But it is a very curious whim of
+Beauchamp's to spell Lionel with a 'J.'  'J.B.,' you see, would stand
+for John Bradshaw, Joshua Burton, or even Jim Bloxam; but you can't
+possibly make 'Lionel Beauchamp' out of it."
+
+"That will do," replied Lionel, laughing; "you chaffed me enough about
+this the other night.  Take heed, and remember the motto."
+
+"A motto, Miss Bloxam," said Cottrell, "the meaning of which he doth
+not comprehend."
+
+"Well, I flatter myself I do," replied Beauchamp; "but no matter;" and
+he extended his hand for the case.
+
+"One minute.  For fear you should give some spurious version, I will
+translate it first for Miss Bloxam's benefit; a lady cannot be supposed
+to know the meaning of '_Loquaces si sapiat vitet_.'  Listen,"
+continued Cottrell: "the Latin is a comprehensive language,
+remember,--'_Si_,' if; '_sapiat_,' you are not a fool; '_vitet_,' have
+nothing to say to; '_loquaces_,' ladies' commissions.  A wickedly
+cynical saying to have broidered on one's case, even if you _have_
+found ladies' commissions troublesome and productive of much
+inconvenience.  But, dear me!  Lady Mary is signalling me.  I must go
+and see what it is she wants.  Try if you can make him disclose the
+story of that case, and who it was that commanded him to spell Lionel
+with a 'J,' and not chatter about it afterwards.  I plead guilty to a
+most horrible curiosity on that point."  And so saying, Mr. Cottrell
+dropped the cigar-case into Blanche's lap, and crossed the deck in
+obedience to Lady Mary's apocryphal signal.
+
+Blanche knew now that her presentiment was fulfilled--that the crisis
+had arrived; and that the next two or three minutes would decide
+whether she and Lionel Beauchamp were to be all in all to each other,
+or go their respective ways.  Be that as it might, on one point she
+must absolve herself in his eyes.  With somewhat tremulous tones, she
+hurriedly exclaimed, as she handed the cigar-case back to Lionel,
+
+"I have unwittingly discovered, Mr. Beauchamp, what you refused to tell
+me some little time ago at Hurlingham; and I hope you believe me when I
+say that I have never taken any steps to do so; nor, indeed, has any
+allusion to it passed my lips since."
+
+"How Mr. Cottrell comes by his knowledge, I cannot say.  I think he
+must possess a 'familiar' of some sort; but one thing, Miss Bloxam, I
+own, puzzles me.  Why should you make such a point of my telling you
+what Sylla's commission was?  I cannot understand it."
+
+"And I cannot tell you.  Surely the caprice of my sex is quite enough
+to account for it."
+
+Apparently Lionel Beauchamp did not think so; and seating himself by
+Miss Bloxam's side, he proceeded to inquire into this instance of a
+woman's whimsies with great earnestness of purpose.
+
+It was, of course, quite evident to Mr. Cottrell that Jim Bloxam had
+not as yet disclosed to his own people his engagement to Sylla
+Chipchase; and so delighted was Mr. Cottrell with the theatrical effect
+that he had just produced, that he felt the sooner he diverted himself
+by the production of another "situation" the better.  He had crossed
+over to Lady Mary with no other object than the benevolent design of
+giving Blanche and Lionel an opportunity of clearing up their
+difference.  He accordingly suggested to Lady Mary that they should
+take a turn forward and see what was going on in that part of the boat.
+
+"It is not only that I wanted you to see what is going on in the fore
+part of the ship, but I want you not to see what is going on aft.  I
+want to open your eyes to Mrs. Wriothesley's machinations, and to steel
+your heart against Lionel Beauchamp's perfidy."
+
+"Lionel Beauchamp's perfidy!  Good gracious, Pansey, what do you mean?"
+
+"That I will lay you a small wager Lionel Beauchamp has stolen your
+daughter from you before we get back--no, don't interrupt me.  Those
+foolish young people, finding their courtship was running too smooth,
+indulged themselves in the luxury of a mock quarrel--about what, shall
+we say?--well, a packet of lemon-drops would about represent the state
+of the case.  However, as you know, quarrels about nothing sometimes
+assume portentous proportions; but I am happy to think that I have just
+put things right between those two."
+
+"I only hope what you tell me is true.  You know how much I have
+Blanche's settlement at heart."
+
+"Yes, there is something about water parties that predisposes to
+flirtation.  Atlantic voyages and trips to India are notorious for
+fostering such sweet frivolity.  I really feel quite afraid of walking
+about to-day for dread of unknowingly interfering.  It wouldn't be
+discreet, for instance, to intrude upon that couple so snugly ensconced
+under the shelter of the paddle-box.  I don't know, but he is telling
+her secrets, I presume."
+
+"Why, it is Sylla Chipchase!" exclaimed Lady Mary.  "I cannot see who
+is her victim; but of course she would never neglect such a golden
+opportunity as to-day's."
+
+"Hush!" replied Cottrell, drily; "the companion of her delinquency,
+remember, is Jim."
+
+"Why, you surely don't mean to tell me----" exclaimed Lady Mary.
+
+"Very much so," rejoined Cottrell; "and the sooner you make up your
+mind to take it _au serieux_ the better."
+
+Poor Lady Mary!  Mr. Cottrell's dramatic disclosures were getting a
+little too much for her.
+
+Before they had reached Westminster Bridge Blanche and Sylla knew that
+they were to be sisters, and there had been much quiet laughter amongst
+the four whom it chiefly concerned about the story of the cigar-case.
+
+"I still don't understand," said Beauchamp, "why you should have so
+resented my keeping Sylla's commission secret?"
+
+"And never will, Lionel, until you comprehend of what a jealous woman's
+imagination is capable."
+
+"I can't see," whispered Jim, "why I was kept so long out of my
+cigar-case?"
+
+It was in his possession at last.
+
+"O you stupid Jim!" said Sylla softly, "don't you see it was so easy to
+give it you before I knew I loved you, and----"
+
+"Well, and what?" inquired Bloxam.
+
+"It was so difficult afterwards, until I knew you loved me."
+
+
+The bells of Todborough rang bravely out one morning early in the
+autumn for a double marriage, and, as Mr. Cottrell wickedly whispered
+to one of his intimates, for the Millennium besides.  The lion was
+lying down with the lamb.  Mrs. Wriothesley was an honoured guest at
+the Grange.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Belles and Ringers, by Hawley Smart
+
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